Free Sunshine and Shadows by Pamela Browning

fidget, Lisa stood up and wandered into the living room, the dog padding companionably along behind. On the marble-topped coffee table, a bedraggled copy of The Florida Bar Journal peeked out from a slightly more respectable-looking Time magazine, and the room, with its leather couch, entertainment wall with large-screen TV and dhurrie rugs over a cool tile floor, was inviting.
    She sat down on the couch and picked up the Time. The dog collapsed softly at her feet and watched her with its tongue lolling out.
    In a minute or two, Jay appeared in the doorway. "I should have warned you about Hildy," he said. "She's part Old English sheepdog and I don't know what else. She's thirteen years old, has a heart ailment, and is hard of hearing, but she's my best girl—has been ever since she was a pup."
    "She's beautiful," Lisa said. The dog stretched blissfully, exposing her stomach again. Lisa good-naturedly took the hint and bent over to scratch it.
    "I got Hildy when I was fifteen," Jay explained. "She more or less runs things around here."
    "Let's take her along on our walk," Lisa suggested.
    "She might like it, but this time she's staying home. She hasn't been eating normally for the past day or so, and I'm worried about her." Jay ordered Hildy back into the kitchen and paused for a few moments to murmur reassurance.
    The kitchen telephone rang, and he answered it. Lisa was curious about the conversation, which proceeded in fits and starts and ended abruptly.
    When Jay came out of the kitchen, he looked agitated.
    "Let's go," he said, and she wondered if the phone call had been bad news.
    "Is anything wrong?" she asked as they strolled through the courtyard and out the gate.
    "Not for me," he said ruefully.
    "For someone else?"
    "A client of mine. My partner just called with new information about a divorce case I'm handling," he said.
    "I'm sorry. Maybe I shouldn't have asked," she said.
    "My work can be nerve-racking sometimes. People expect me to solve their problems, and I can't always provide a Band-Aid solution," he said.
    They were walking along the dark street, passing in and out of the circles of light cast by streetlights on the corners. Around the corner, Lisa glimpsed the aquamarine glimmer of a swimming pool.
    "Tell me about your work," she said. "What kind of practice do you have?"
    "A little of this, a little of that," he said, looking more comfortable now. "I handle a few traffic cases, some divorces, real-estate closings—whatever comes my way."
    It was a warm January night in South Florida, and at that moment the sky seemed alive with stars and possibilities. To their left the ocean curled upon the sand, the waves foaming milky white in the pale light. To their right an occasional car whizzed past, stirring up eddies of sand. They passed two teenagers on skateboards and one elderly couple strolling hand in hand.
    "Thank goodness for the ocean," Jay said. "I like to take a walk almost every night. It helps get the kinks out of my system after a tiresome day in court or maybe a long day at the mission."
    The breeze was soft beneath her hair, and the ocean rolled in lazy billows toward the shore, the surf spending itself upon the sand. At the bottom of the stair to the sand, Lisa slipped her shoes off. She nudged them with her toe until they were hidden beneath the bottom step. Jay did the same.
    "Which way—north or south?" she asked when they reached the line of dry matted seaweed above the high tide line.
    "You call it," he said.
    "North, then," she said.
    Their feet punched deep holes in the sand as they walked. Jay stayed a slight distance away, and she would have liked to shorten the distance between them. The best way seemed to be to involve him in conversation, so she smiled up at him and used a tried-and-true gambit that usually worked.
    "Tell me something about yourself that no one knows," she said.
    Was she imagining it, or did he draw away slightly? Her conversation-starter usually elicited a