“Not getting into the gym as much as I’d like.” She shrugged, shifting the oiled curves of her breasts in the tiny turquoise triangles trying to contain them.

While he didn’t ogle, Dan let his gaze sweep over the feminine flesh laid out on the other lounge. He thought it was expected of him. Even appreciated. “Whatever you’re doing looks fine from here.”

Brenda gave him another of her smiles. It did seem grateful. “You always know the right thing to say.”

Not to Tracy. One September afternoon it had hit him hard. She didn’t see him. She didn’t hear him. Though they worked together every day and went to bed in the same room every night, he’d become a piece of furniture. No different from a chair. The computer. Not a man. Not her lover.

Panic had sent him to the mirror. It had shocked the hell out of him. In his mind’s eye he’d seen himself as young and fit as his eighteen-year-old son, Harry, but in the impersonal reflection of the mirror there was a middle-aged guy with too much gray, going soft around the middle.

No wonder Tracy looked past him, he’d thought.

But all that he’d done-his personal Extreme Makeover episode-hadn’t changed a thing. She hadn’t even noticed.

Crushed by her disinterest, he’d moved out.

“You’re going sad on me, Dan.”

He wrenched his attention back to the younger woman. “I’m not.” Sad was how he’d felt each time Tracy looked through him. He lowered his voice and sent Brenda his new, six-hundred-dollar, blinding-white smile. “But I’m hoping you were happy to see me for a reason.”

She nodded. “I need you, Dan. You’re the only man I know who’s been able to make it…I don’t know what you’d call it exactly. Hum?”

He pushed down his sunglasses to look at her over them in disbelief. “I’m the only one?”

She nodded. “No kidding. It’s been four years that I’ve struggled. Then one hour with you and…”

“Hum.”

“Yeah.”

They smiled at each other. While his time with Brenda-and Lynn, and Cherry-didn’t completely obliterate the pain of his messed-up marriage, it soothed some rough edges, filled some empty hours. They thought he was good for something. Almost fifty years old and maybe he did know a thing or two that other men did not.

“Well, whenever you’re ready I’m prepared to make my magic,” he said. A few more tricks and maybe he’d have Tracy out of his mind forever.

Brenda swung her legs off the lounger. “I don’t want to wait a minute longer.”

They stopped off at his place for protection. A few minutes later they were in Brenda’s cream-and-apricot condo and ready for action.

“The real trick is in how you put it in,” he instructed. “Careful. Gentle. Then you move it gently too.”

“Gentle,” she repeated, her breath warm against his neck.

“If you get another man here, tell him not to shove it in or push too hard. Tease it.”

He put his hands over hers to show her exactly what he meant. They worked it together for a few minutes, playing with the pressure. “Easy,” he murmured. “Not too hard. Take it easy.”

Then, suddenly, the tension broke.

“There,” Brenda breathed. She was still for a moment, then she smiled up at him. “Thank you, God. Thank you, Dan.”

Withdrawing his pole, Dan grinned down at her. “You’re more than welcome.” He reached over to flip the switch.

The garbage disposal-instead of being frozen-hummed.

They both drew off their protective safety goggles and listened to the happy sound.

Satisfied it was in good working order again, he turned it off. “Do you want my special tool?”

She laughed at him. “Someone could take that wrong, you know.”

“I meant my special sawed-off broomstick.” The complex’s garbage disposals were notoriously finicky. One too many lemon peels or celery tops and they went from happy hum to high-pitched whine. That’s when you knew the blades weren’t turning.

Once he’d shared his solution with one woman, word had gotten around. This morning he’d fixed Lynn’s, the blue-eyed blond. Now Brenda’s. Cherry’s wouldn’t be far behind, he supposed, and he was always glad for the chance to do something.

“Cold drink?” Brenda asked.

“Sure.”

They settled into matching wicker chairs on her small patio. Over a tall hedge of jasmine was the sweeping curve of the Coronado Bridge that linked the island to San Diego. After a few minutes of comfortable silence, the younger woman tossed him a little glance. “You’d make someone a fine husband, Dan.”

And just like that Tracy was in his mind again. He wished he could see himself as someone else’s anything. But so far, it seemed he was a one-woman dog.

He’d caught sight of Tracy a couple of days before when he couldn’t stop himself from driving past the house like a teenager with a crush. But he didn’t need that glimpse to remind him of what she looked like. He had a dozen images of her stored in his memory. A hundred.

Windblown hair, her nose sunburned, one hand holding a little girl’s, the other gripping a plastic pail of sand. Their first date.

Smooth ponytail, little white suit, roses trembling in her grasp as they told the judge, “I do.”

Happy tears, sweaty bangs, the perfect curve of her arms as she held their newborn son.

Tracy with a pencil behind her ear. With a fire in her stride as she went toward the neighborhood bully who’d pushed Bailey off her bike. With her fingers trembling as she brushed imaginary lint off Harry’s comforter after making his college bed.

He saw again the flinch of her body, then the distant, almost vacant look in her eyes when he’d told her he was leaving.

“I couldn’t believe she married me in the first place,” he heard himself say. “She’d been hurt by her ex.”

Brenda gave an understanding nod. “Been there. Done that. Have worn the hair shirt.”

“I was persistent.” It had taken time, but he’d won Tracy over. Not Bailey, though. As much as he’d tried, as much as he regretted the failure, he knew he’d never quite cracked that hard shell she’d built after her father left. And it was as if Tracy had retreated behind that very same barrier now too.

He shook his head. “The garbage disposals aren’t going to do it, are they? And not the sticky doors or broken cabinet hinges?”

Brenda looked into his eyes, then away. “I don’t think I’m going to do it for you either, Dan. Not me, or Lynn, or Cherry. At least not now.”

Not ever, Dan corrected.

He let the truth of that sink deep. It pierced his heart and fell like an anchor into his churning gut.

Moving away couldn’t move his wife out of his mind, his thoughts, his emotions.

His soul.

But no! He couldn’t let that be a certainty. They’d had happy, but not ever after, and he couldn’t, wouldn’t let himself be miserable without Tracy for the rest of his life.

Finn went on a long walk that afternoon to relieve his fidgety legs and restless memory. Head down, hands in his pockets, he didn’t realize the path his feet had taken him until he heard a familiar voice hail his name.

He looked up, then down, into the amused eyes of tiny Trin Tran, pushing a stroller so laden with shopping bags and drooling toddler that it had to weigh more than she did.

“Come by to check on your old flame?” she asked, a saucy smile on her lips.

Uh oh. Finn was standing in front of The Perfect Christmas.

He resisted the urge to duck down in case Bailey was looking out the windows. U O Me. He still didn’t know what the hell she wanted from him. He still didn’t want to know.

“How are you, Trin?” Finn said, warding off a Bailey discussion. “And how is your, uh…” The child was dressed in a one-piece thing of nubby brown fabric, complete with an antler-topped hood.

“Raindid,” the kid said, a trail of drool running over its bottom lip. A little plump hand waved overhead. “Raindid.”

“That’s right, baby. You’re so smart.” Trin, whom he’d always considered a logical, reasonable human being, gazed at the drooler with fanatical pride. Christ, his sister and parents were going to go nuts when his nephew was born. “He’s telling you he’s a reindeer.”

“Yeah? Uh, impressive.” That river of drool was pretty amazing too.

The kid was staring up at Finn now. A finger pointed at his face. “Pie-did.”

“Pie-deer?” Finn guessed. “Is that some new species?” They were just miles from the world-famous San Diego Zoo. Maybe the kid was a zoologist in the making.

Trin’s gaze cut toward him, a frown between her brows. “Something wrong with your hearing? That’s pirate.”

“Sorry.” Touching his eye patch, he grimaced. “I’m not real familiar with little kids.”

“Oh, really?” Trin fiddled with the collar of her white shirt. There was a piece of “jewelry” pinned to it, a one-by-two-inch LED screen that flashed naughty? nice? at three-second intervals. “We-I was wondering if you had any little Finns wandering around the world. We-I didn’t know if there was a woman in your life in the recent past, or the now, or the near future.”

“We pie-dids like to keep a little mystery going,” he replied, unwilling to play criminal to her cop.

At the narrowing of Trin’s eyes, he hastened to divert the topic again. “So,” he said, pointing to the bags hanging off the stroller. “Getting started on your Christmas shopping already?”

She made a weird little sound. Something between a hoot and a screech. Frankly, it was frightening. Even the raindid looked up at his mom, with wide eyes and the Schweitzer Falls roaring over his bottom lip.

“‘Started’?” she repeated slowly. “‘Already’? Have you seen any Go-Go Toaster trains in the stores? Any Flash It-Paste It-Post It software programs? What about the Demons Behind the Wheel video game?”