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brisk spring-cleaner full of bustle and blow.
    It still took thirty minutes to get cold enough to go inside.
    The whole living space was about the size of his kitchen in L.A. Open-plan lounge/dining took up most of it, with a pocket-size kitchen barely large enough for a couple to stand at an L-shaped counter, holding the stove and sink. Off the kitchen a curtain partition led to a bedroom so small there was barely room to walk between two single beds. Another curtain off the living room led to a bunk room and master bedroom. When he and the guys stayed, they’d pitched a tent on the lawn, invariably commandeered by Lewis and the neighborhood’s kids through the day for use as a fort.
    The covered rear deck had a railing that doubled as a clothesline for towels. In summer all the living was outdoors on the decks, all cooking done on the barbecue, and space was never an issue. As a winter residence it seemed way too small for a woman and her teenage son.
    Don’t get involved.
    He gravitated to a large corkboard in the living room. It held a tide calendar and decades of faded snapshots of sunburned laughing holidaymakers, himself among them. His gaze shied away.
    He’d bought a bottle of scotch duty free, but he couldn’t open it. It seemed irreverent somehow, though God knows they’d had some parties here in their time. But this was a happy place, morbid drinking had no place here.
    Nate dumped his bag in the small bedroom, changed into running gear and headed for the ocean beach where he pounded up and down the soft white sand of its three-kilometer length until his legs were jelly and he could barely put one foot in front of the other. Then he returned to the bach and took a shower, making a mental note to improve the water pressure. Donning a pair of boxers, he fell exhausted into one of the single beds.
    Already the walls were closing in.

CHAPTER FIVE
    C LAIRE VISITED HER mother-in-law first because she hated lying. Unfortunately, her deal with Nate meant she had to, and not just to Ellie.
    Dan and Ross couldn’t know her mission to fetch Nate was successful, either. So in typical fashion she seized the bull by the horns and got the hard part over first. She found Ellie sorting through a pile of crotchless panties.
    “Claire, I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow!” Dropping the lacy scraps on the shop’s counter, she came round and embraced her in a rattle of silver bangles and Red Door perfume. Up until a year and a half ago, Ellie Langford would have won a red ribbon for best preserved against any jam or jelly at the county fair.
    She still looked younger than her sixty years, but Steve’s death had aged her. When her face was in repose, there was an extra droop of her eyes and mouth. “So how was your break? Who were you staying with again?”
    “An old friend… You wouldn’t know him.” At least not anymore. She hadn’t told Ellie where she was going for the same reason she hadn’t told Lewis.
    “Him?” Smiling, Ellie pulled away. “Honey, are you dating again?”
    Claire suffered a moment’s panic that Steve’s mother might consider it time. Then she saw the dread behind the smile and breathed again. “Don’t scare me like that,” she chided. “It’s bad enough fending off inquiries from acquaintances.”
    “I’m trying to be impartial about this.… Steve would want you to be happy.”
    Then he shouldn’t have gone and died on me. “Let’s settle for cheerful,” Claire suggested. “We can manage cheerful…right?”
    “Absolutely.” Ellie returned to sorting crotchless panties into sizes. “What people don’t understand is how impossible it is to replace a perfect husband.”
    Claire hid a smile. Steve used to say he barely recognized his father on his mom’s lips. Since his death, seven years earlier, Robert had been sainted, knighted and given a million-dollar makeover.
    The reality had been very different.
    Ellie had been a homemaker, perfectly content to let her