Josh choked on smoke, pulled his cigar out of his mouth. "Thanks, Mick. I'm really going to enjoy this now."
Howling with laughter, Thomas slapped his hand on the table. "Deal the cards—and prepare to lose your shirt."
During hour three, Michael took a pass and walked outside. He peed companionably with the dogs and watched the night-drenched sea.
"Hell of a spot, isn't it?"
Michael looked back over his shoulder as Byron approached. "You sure picked one."
"I was thinking I could put up a small stable there, at the edge of the cypress grove. Simple. Two stalls."
"Two?"
"I figure solo's lonely, even for a horse. I liked the look of that pinto mare."
"She's a sweetheart." He tucked his tongue in his cheek. "You clear it with your wife?"
Byron's eyes were mild and amused. "I know all kinds of ways around my wife. More, I assume than you do even after picking her up on Fisherman's Wharf."
"I was just rattling her cage. And yours." He lifted his hands, palms out. "Never laid my hands on her. Hardly."
Byron chuckled, shook his head. "I think we'll just leave that particular door closed, but if you want to ride Josh about Margo, I'd find it entertaining."
"I don't want to have to fight him. He's tougher than he looks. Loosened three of my teeth when we were twelve." Michael checked them with his tongue. "And his old man's liable to take bets on the outcome."
"That's the Templetons. They'll bet on anything. Look at the way Kate, Margo, and Laura bet on the shop."
"I keep meaning to go by there again. I'm not much on fancy-lady shops, but I'm wondering how Laura handles clerking."
"I think you'll be surprised, and impressed. I have been. It's given them something solid and special."
"Gives them a living."
"It gives them more than that. It gives them unity, and a goal and love." Either the beer or the women were making him sentimental, but Byron went with it. "I wasn't around when they conceived it, put it together, took the chance. Margo selling off almost everything she owned, my conservative accountant pooling her investments to make her share. And Laura selling her wedding ring."
"She sold her wedding ring to build that shop?"
"Yeah. It was right after they found out Ridgeway had pretty much cleaned out their joint accounts. She wouldn't take Templeton money for the shop, so she hocked her wedding and engagement rings to make the down payment on the building. What women they are!"
"Yeah." Michael frowned out to sea. "The socialite, the model, and the accountant."
"They sweated over it. They cleaned and sanded and painted. And figured out how to make it work. It knocks me out to walk in there and see how they are together, how they are together anywhere. You see them out on the cliffs, rooting around in the rocks and dirt for Seraphina's dowry. All these years they're still together, still looking. Kate was wild tonight when she told me Laura had found another coin."
He was trying to see it all, to settle all these facets into an image in his head. He blinked. "Laura? She found a coin? When?"
"Last night. Took a walk down on the cliffs. Kate says she does that from time to time when she needs to clear her head or just be alone. She found one, a gold doubloon just like Margo did, and Kate did. Oddest fucking thing. Each one of them finding a coin, months apart, by accident rather than design. Their treasure hunts turn up nothing, then boom, one of them just picks up a gold piece off the ground as if it had been there all along. Makes you wonder."
The back door slammed open and Thomas's voice boomed out. "Is this a poker game or a damn church social? Cards are getting cold."
"Then deal 'em," Byron called back. "Coming?" he asked Michael.
"Yeah. Laura walks on the cliffs at night?"
"Now and again." Byron waded through the dogs, who ran circles around him.
"And last night she just reached down and picked up a gold coin?"
"Spanish, 1844."