Most evenings she would drive out to his house after work, where he would have dinner waiting for her. Occasionally he invited friends over and introduced her to his circle of acquaintances. A couple of times he took her out to dinner and dancing with long strolls on the surf-tossed beach in the early-morning hours. Lacey counted the hours spent apart from Rafe. Nights were spent in his arms, watching patterns' develop in the half-light filtering through his bedroom windows, knowing that when Angela came home to live with him again at the end of summer, all of this concentrated time together would end. She'd have to go back to sleeping in her bed alone again. The longer Lacey spent with Rafe, the more perfect he seemed to her. As different as they were, she found a lot of things they shared in common. They stocked the same brands of groceries on their shelves (this she discovered when they took their checkbooks and shopping carts into the supermarket one afternoon together to save time before a party they were going to attend later that evening); they both worked in an organized fashion in their business and at home.
