Melissa shivered and wrapped her arms tighter around her breasts. She and Beck had come together slowly, held separate by force fields of caution. Even after they were lovers, they had kept a safe wedge of mystery between them. He was guarded about his past. She hated talking about hers too. They had been capable of long silences. Minimal conversation, Melissa now realized, meant she didn’t know as much about him as she should. Maybe there were clues in his childhood, hints of what kind of person he truly was. In the privacy of the dark porch, she searched her head and heart for what she knew for sure about Beck.
It must have been a strange upbringing, the only child of eccentric parents who lived in Cuba for part of the year, returning to Toronto, and later their Lanark County cottage,
