Page 45 of Return to McCall

The bat in Alex’s hands stretched her wings slowly and tilted her head before she flew off, hovering for just a second as if to say good-bye. It was a while before she felt Alex let go of the breath she was holding.

“How in the world,” Alex whispered as she wrapped her arms around Lily and held her tight to her chest, “did you do that?”

“Magic, maybe.” Lily turned in Alex’s arms and kissed her cheek. “But it’s their magic, not mine.” She looked at Alex, who still looked a little shocked. “It’s hard to explain.”

“Just…thank you for that,” Alex said, looking up into the sky where the three bats were still circling. “It was all I wanted when I was little—I was obsessed with it—but they never even came close. I think I just needed a little magic in my life back then.” Alex kissed her, cradling her face, and pulling her as close as possible. “I don’t have anything nearly that magical to offer you, but did you happen to notice that the floor was warm under your feet when you walked out here?”

“I did!” Lily said, leaning down to touch it with her fingers. “How is that possible, by the way?”

Alex stepped back and pulled up a wooden handle that fit flush against the floor. She folded back a wooden panel twice, then did the same on the other side.

“No way!” Lily clapped her hands together when she saw the steamy blue swirling water of a hideaway hot tub emerge. “That’s amazing. I walked right over it and had no idea.”

“The best part,” Alex said, tugging her shirt and sports bra over her shoulders and dropping them to the floor, “is that because it’s sunken into the floor, no one can see us once we’re in it.”

“So…” Lily slowly unbuttoned her shirt, letting it fall from her shoulders. “When I get completely naked and get into that water with you, no one will be able to see what we get up to?”

“Exactly,” Alex said, her eyes drinking in every inch of Lily’s skin. “If you don’t give me a heart attack before you actually get in the water.”

Lily threw her head back and laughed, slipping off her shorts and underwear and lowering herself into the steamy, bubbling water beside Alex. She brought her fingers to her lips. “Is this salt water?”

“It is. It reduces the amount of chemicals you need to use in it, apparently.”

Lily leaned her head back and looked at the stars, her entire body relaxing into the motion of the water. “How did you find this?”

“The same way I found McCall, actually. I knew I needed to get away for a few weeks, and my cousin Alejandro, who has a house on the other side of the lake, said it was finally time I saw McCall. He’s had his place for a few years, but I was always too busy to come.” Alex ran a wet hand through her hair and pulled Lily closer. “So I was searching for lesbian friendly places to stay because Alejandro’s flashy lake house is just too damn big for me, and the posting for a Latin dance instructor at Lake Haven popped up.”

???“Oh, wow. And that was way too perfect to pass up?”

“Exactly,” Alex said. “We have family in Idaho, which is why Alejandro found McCall years ago, but he mainly comes for the ski season. He says it offsets the blazing Miami sun he has to live in for the rest of the year.”

“So Alejandro is your cousin,” Lily said, taking a sip of her wine and setting it back down on the edge of the hot tub. “Do you have brothers and sisters?”

“I think I would’ve had several, but my father was killed when I was three, so they never really got the chance to have more, and my mom never remarried. My mom and my aunt are super close, so I grew up with my cousins all around me. It was great at the time, but as an adult, I can see how tough it was just to survive as a single mom.”

“And that’s why you were walking home from a job just before nightfall as a kid? And why you maybe needed to see a little magic sometimes?”

Alex scraped her hair back with wet hands and moved closer to Lily, both of them leaning their heads back to look at the stars through the rising steam. “I think it made me want to help kids in tough situations, you know?” Alex’s voice seemed as far away as the stars. “The more tools you have, the more chances you have of improving your life and getting where you want to go, no matter what’s happening around you.”

Lily nodded, running her fingertips lightly over Alex’s hand. “Have you ever wanted your own kids?”

“You know what?” Alex said thoughtfully. “I knew a long time ago that I needed to be able to focus on my career, and I guess I’ve just never seen myself as a parent. As much as I love and relate well to kids, it never felt like my path.” She ran her hand up Lily’s thigh slowly. “What about you? I mean, I’m almost forty, but you’re just twenty-eight, right? That’s totally a possibility for you if you wanted it.”

Lily nodded, tucking a damp lock of hair behind her ear. “I don’t know why, but I’ve never wanted children. I like them much more than most adults but just never wanted any of my own.”

“Do you get tired of people asking you that question?”

“Truthfully, yes,” Lily said. “You and I are involved, so you have every reason to ask me that. But I feel like for most people, whether a woman has children or when she’s getting married is the constant default question. Even for someone they barely know.”

“Every damn time.” Alex waved off a bug threatening to dive-bomb the water. “But when they’re talking to men, people tend to ask about their career or their goals for the future.”

“That’s exactly it.” Lily stretched her toes out to the opposite edge of the tub. “I decided a long time ago I wasn’t going to feel obligated to explain when people asked me that question. I’m a woman, so they’re going to judge me no matter how I answer. Why hand them ammunition?”

She looked over through the hazy, rising steam. Alex’s shoulders looked even more sculpted wet, and the blue glow coming up from the underwater lights highlighted the strong angles of her jaw. Lily had tried not to think about it, but the truth was, Alex reminded her a lot of Sam. Especially how she looked in the water.

Lily pulled her hair back with an elastic. “Remember the night we met at the bar in McCall, and I told you that you could ask me one question—”

“But to make it good because I was lucky to get even that?”

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