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little life for herself here—so she was going to keep right on telling herself that it was enough, all she needed to be happy.
    C AMI had arranged for an empty lot along Coral Street, which ran down the strip of land that stretched between the beach and the bay, to be paved and made into a municipal parking lot. It would serve the “Coral Street Business District,” as she’d recently dubbed thearea she was busy bringing back to life. Three days after Tamra had “gotten dressed” to “go out” with the girls, she was joining up with Cami, Reece, Fletcher, Christy, Jack, and anyone else who was willing to pitch in, for the task of planting shrubbery and perennials around the small lot’s perimeter to make it visually appealing.
    With Fletcher’s help, Tamra unloaded the signs she’d hand-painted for the lot from the back of her small SUV.
    â€œReady for a day of work in the sun?” Fletcher asked cheerfully.
    Her friend was an unusual man. His small brown beard and ponytail made him look like a time traveler from 1969, he made his living by walking on a tightrope every night at the Sunset Celebration, and he stayed unusually positive no matter what. Case in point: His wife had left him nearly four years ago, turning his world upside down, and he had no idea where she was—and yet for some insane reason he remained happily convinced she’d come back any day now.
    Tamra worried about Fletcher because he was a good friend and she cared about him. She feared his pie-in-the-sky attitude about his marriage would leave him with a seriously broken heart one day and that his denial was only delaying the inevitable.
    â€œDefinitely,” she answered him. In fact, she hoped some hard physical labor might be just the thing to take the edge off her sexual frustration. It was like a monster inside her, clawing at her constantly.
    â€œYou know,” he said, “if you don’t mind my saying, you don’t seem yourself lately.”
    Oh crap. Her sexual deprivation showed? “Of course I’m myself,” she assured him, trying for a light laugh. “Who else would I be?”
    He shook his head, not buying it. “I don’t know—you just seem . . . on edge.”
    Yep, her sexual deprivation showed. Great. And it occurred to her that she could explain it to Fletcher—he was an evolved enough man that he wouldn’t be creepy or perverse about it. In fact, the idea made her wonder for the first time if he didn’t suffer similar issues himself given how long his wife, Kim, had been MIA.
    But she thought better of it. Especially here, now, with people all around. Bad enough she’d spilled something that personal to Cami and Christy—but at least they were women.
    So finally she just said, “Nope, fine,” and hoped it didn’t come out sounding too stiff. Besides, the one thing about Fletcher that bugged her was his tendency to push her toward finding someone to date. Of course, everyone seemed to do that lately, but Fletcher had been at it longer than most. And she knew they all meant well, but why couldn’t they understand that it just wasn’t that easy?
    If she ever met someone, she wanted it to happen naturally. And she didn’t want to settle. So many women settled, just because they were desperate to be validated by having a man in their lives. She wasn’t that desperate and never would be, her recently activated sex drive be damned.
    Within a few minutes, work had begun—an ample crowd of Coral Cove residents had shown up to help with the project, so Tamra suspected it would be a short day. Cami commandeered the whole operation—clipboard in hand, she went from person to person, giving out instructions. And soon enough, wheelbarrows were being pushed this way and that, shrubs and decorative grasses were being unloaded from truck beds, and dirt was being shoveled.
    Normally, Tamra would be among