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minutes later, as she was about to leave, the door opened. She swallowed hard. Instead of creased pants and pressed shirt, Jac was wearing a light-blue sweat suit, the top unzipped enough to reveal significant cleavage. She looked softer, younger, less intimidating. She tucked hair behind her ear with a slow, graceful movement.
    “I’m working, Peg. I’ll be up later.”
    “It’s Liz.” Jac’s eyebrow went up and Liz smiled at the predictability of it. “Roger said you should come before he drinks the old cabs.”
    “He wouldn’t dare.” Jac closed the door and then opened it again. Max trotted out with a tennis ball in his mouth. “He thinks you’ll play fetch with him.” The door closed and Max dropped the ball at her feet.
    She tossed the ball for him as she walked back to the patio. He was definitely friendlier than Jac. She joined Peggy at the teak patio table with chairs for eight. A sweep of orange from the setting sun streaked the darkening blue-and-white curls of the Pacific. A hummingbird chased another across the garden. “I feel like I’ve stepped into one of your paintings.” The quiet and beauty wrapped around her, and worries seemed far away. “Do you ever get tired of the view?”
    “I didn’t appreciate it as a child. Now wild horses couldn’t get me away.”
    “I haven’t been here in almost a year. I forgot how beautiful and relaxing Carmel is.”
    Peggy got up and turned on patio lights and a propane heater near the table. “The scenery would be enough, and the long history of emphasis on the arts would be enough, but the two together make Carmel special in a way that’s hard to describe.”
    Liz nodded. That was exactly it. It was hard to describe, but easy to feel. She’d felt better the last few days than she had in a long time. “Grandma said she couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. She’d scold us if we didn’t call it Carmel-By-The-Sea. She had a scrapbook of articles about Carmel. Some of them date back to when her parents settled here in the early nineteen hundreds. Both were teachers and artists who wanted to live in an artists’ community.”
    “That’s some family history.” Peggy tucked hair behind her ear in a gesture reminiscent of Jac. The same blond, shoulder-length waves of hair. The same blue eyes. Both tall and slender. Very different personalities.
    “Where are they?”
    Liz startled and looked over her shoulder. She hadn’t heard Jac approach. She’d changed into heavy gray slacks and the fisherman-knit turtleneck sweater she’d worn yesterday that accentuated her long neck.
    “Kitchen,” Roger said, carrying platters to the party-sized barbecue, one piled high with raw steaks and another with sliced vegetables. He’d changed into jeans and a pink Polo shirt. “If you get it right, the next wine-tasting trip’s on me.”
    “You two are incorrigible,” Peggy said.
    Jac returned with a bottle of wine, corkscrew, and three glasses.
    “So you’re on their team,” Peggy said.
    “Their team?” Liz asked as Jac sliced the foil off and screwed in the corkscrew.
    “Wine drinkers. It’s practically a religion with them.”
    “And with my brother. I try to tell him it’s just fancy grape juice.”
    “Nectar of the gods,” Jac said, pouring a half glass. “Or goddesses.”
    Liz was surprised when Jac offered her the glass, stopping when it was a few inches from her. How does she do that? She eyed the diamond ring on Jac’s left ring finger, the only jewelry she’d seen her wear. Tasteful. Expensive. She had the odd sensation she was in the presence of someone unlike anyone she’d met before. She sipped the wine as Jac faced her, head tilted as if evaluating her.
    “Do you like it?”
    “That’s the best wine I’ve ever tasted.”
    “What do you taste?”
    She hated when Kevin asked her that, like a pop quiz she usually failed, but Jac’s voice was inviting and her posture casual with her hip against the table. She sipped again.