There was a major storm brewing. The once cloudless sky was now filled with dark, threatening clouds carried in from the west on strong winds that quickly chilled the air and churned the previously placid ocean into a roller coaster of successively larger and faster waves. The weather channel had called this days before, predicting that the incoming low pressure and attendant cold front would be massive, bringing with it a storm that could be intense. But all anyone in Southern California seemed to care about was that it would finally bring some relief from the extremely hot and dry conditions that had plagued the area for the past several weeks.

It had still been hot and dry when she’d left for a walk earlier in the day and the addition of a windbreaker to her khaki shorts and white tank top had seemed unnecessary, but, having heard the weatherman’s forecast, Brenda Cates had tied it around her waist anyway, just as a precaution. She was glad now that she had, she thought, shivering slightly as she shifted on her rocky perch just enough to pull the lightweight jacket out from beneath her and put it on. It wasn’t really cold yet - most likely just in the low 70’s now - but compared to the mid-90’s that it had been just a short while ago, it felt like Siberia in mid-winter to her.

As she zipped the jacket, an unexpected gust of wind knocked her Yankees baseball cap off her head and sent her long, dark hair cascading down around her face and shoulders. She scrambled to grab the cap - a cherished momento of a happier time - before it was blown into the sea and lost forever. Holding the cap firmly in hand, she pulled her hair back from her face, once again piling it loosely on top of her head, then planting the cap firmly over the mass of curls. Satisfied that even a hurricane couldn’t shake the cap loose now, she once again settled herself amongst the rocks of the little cove that lay just beyond the swimming area of the beach.

Another wind gust brought sand swirling around her, and she covered her face and closed her eyes against the sting of the pelting grains. But at this point she wasn’t sure which stung her eyes worse: the sand or her own bitter tears that she’d been fighting all afternoon. It really didn’t matter, she supposed, as they both hurt just the same. After a few seconds, she cautiously reopened her eyes and glanced about the area, shielding her face from any further sand assaults. The beach, which lay just to her right, had been bustling earlier, but it was now completely deserted. Evidently while she had been lost in her misery, everyone else had wisely heeded Mother Nature’s storm warnings and sought shelter.

She looked back toward the ocean, startled to see a lone surfer appear suddenly out of nowhere, almost as if the ocean itself had delivered him out of its murky depths. His bright yellow wetsuit against the backdrop of the ever-darkening sky and the deep blue-green of the ocean gave him a surreal glow, as he masterfully caught wave after burgeoning wave that heralded the approaching storm. She’d seen him out there earlier in the week on days when the ocean was not quite this rough, but she hadn’t seen him at all today until now. He was a remarkable athlete, she’d give him that, and definitely at home on the sea, but she decided that he also had to be a little crazy to venture out into the Pacific on the brink of a major storm. Of course, she supposed that she had no room to talk, as she was a good two miles from her vacation house, yet she made no move to seek shelter from the inevitable; instead, she continued to watch a flock of gulls as they played hopscotch with the whitecaps, relentlessly trawling for their dinner despite the growing swells that knocked them repeatedly to and fro.

She’d actually been observing them for the last ten minutes or so, mesmerized by their unwavering commitment to their mission, even in the face of the ever-increasing odds against their success. She envied them their single-mindedness; they knew what they wanted and nothing - not even the certainty of Mother Nature’s impending fury - could deter them from their goal of fresh fish for dinner. Watching them, she wished that she had a little of that same perseverance to help her weather her own personal storm, but at the moment she doubted herself and her own resolve.

She’d been coming to this cove for the past few days, drawn here by its quiet seclusion. It had become her safe haven from her topsy-turvy world. She’d actually been sitting on this very spot for the past several hours, trying to make sense of her life. This was not how this scenario was supposed to have played out, with her here alone and her husband hundreds of miles away - and even more distance than that separating them emotionally. This two-week getaway at her friend’s beach house in Malibu had been planned as a vacation for her and Jagger together - a time for them both to focus on one another and their marriage. But it had begun to evolve into something else entirely when he’d been unexpectedly detained back home in San Francisco on business.

Actually, his being detained wasn’t all that unexpected, she supposed. After all, that had become his pattern over the past few years: she planned these little trips for the two of them, then something business-related would inevitably interfere in one way or another, either forcing him to cut the trip short or canceling it altogether. In the past she had always understood that potential problems needed to be handled as soon as they arose, and that even tomorrow might be too late in this business. After all, even though she hadn’t handled any clients in nearly six months and was on an indefinite leave of absence at the moment, she was still one of the Cates in Cates & Cates Advertising, a founding partner and a once major contributor to the company’s coffers. She knew how competitive the world of advertising could be and just how much courtship and ultimate hand-holding some of those high-powered, skittish clients needed when it came to choosing the right ad agency to handle their very lucrative business needs. So, for the good of their growing company, she had always put her personal needs on hold and focused solely on the needs of the company.

But the circumstances surrounding this trip were different. This trip together was important for them, and Jagger knew that. It was their first trip together in nearly a year - their first trip since… She closed her eyes, once again fighting back her tears as she tried to push back the guilt and the grief that still accompanied those painful memories… Jagger knew that this trip was important for their relationship so she hadn’t simply accepted that this interruption was unavoidable, as she had done countless times in the past; instead, she had told him that she was going on alone and that if he valued her and their marriage as much as he did the company, then he’d join her before the two weeks were up. That had been five days ago and she was still alone - and, based on subsequent developments, she would remain alone.

When she’d first arrived, she’d found flowers from him waiting for her, and she’d read that as a hopeful sign that he wanted to save their marriage and he would be joining her soon. But that fantasy exploded the next night when Jagger had called to tell her that he would not be flying down to join her after all. He told her that he thought that they needed time apart to re-evaluate their marriage and their business partnership. He’d then said that he had already found another place to live and that he would be completely moved out by the time that she returned home. He finished by saying that he would contact a lawyer and have a separation agreement drawn up that would spell out the specifics concerning the day-to-day operations of the business for the duration, and that she should find legal representation as soon as possible.

She’d been stunned by his declaration and even more stunned that it seemed to have been so well thought out, like he’d been planning this for some time. She’d spent the rest of that sleepless night crying and the days since then trying to sort through the events of their life together in an attempt to make sense of it all, wondering why she hadn’t seen this coming? After all, things had been rocky for them for a while now, and it had been months since they had been intimate, and to Jagger physical intimacy was everything… Or had she really sensed for some time that the marriage was over but simply didn’t want to face the truth - or be the one to finally put an end to it all? Had that been why she’d given him that ultimatum? Because she knew that deep down she could never expect him to choose her over the business.

To be fair, she understood Jagger’s zealousness for their business. In fact, at one time she had been just as intensely involved as Jagger in hustling for the company. They had poured their life’s blood into their company - not to mention nearly every penny they’d earned - since its inception five years before, building it into one of the most successful and fastest-growing ad agencies on the West Coast, helped along by the fact that all of the prominent businesses that they’d handled together at their previous employer had followed them when they’d left to form their own agency.

Like Jagger, her life had once been the company and its success. But so much had changed for her in the past year - she had changed in that time. Previously, she had allowed the business and clients and Jagger’s needs to consume the lion’s share of her time and energy, giving the other areas of her life - including her own health - whatever attention she could spare and forgetting completely who she really was and what she truly wanted or needed. But that had cost her dearly in the end. In fact, it had cost them both dearly, and she wondered now if it had also cost them their marriage? But had that really been where things had begun to go wrong for them, she wondered? Or had things never truly been “right” for them?

She’d met Jagger just days into her first job after college. The ink was barely dry on her degree when she’d signed on with Beecham of San Francisco, a prominent advertising agency, as a copywriter and staff assistant. English had been her major at USC/ Berkley, and her ultimate goal was to one day write serious novels, but she knew that wouldn’t pay the bills then - if ever. That meant that she needed to find a real job and preferably one that would let her use her skills as a writer without taking too many hours away from her own literary pursuits. So, when she’d spotted the Beecham’s ad for the copy writing position, she’d immediately called for an interview.

The pay at Beecham wasn’t the best, but the work was simple and relatively straightforward and the hours fair, with very little overtime expected in her entry-level position. That gave her plenty of time to work on her own writing. Besides, her living expenses were actually minimal when compared to her college tuition days, since she lived with her only living relative, her great-aunt Ruby, as she had since she was 3. She and Ruby shared the expenses of her aunt’s small, two-bedroom, rent-controlled apartment near Fisherman’s Wharf. In addition, she had built a small nest egg from her job as a waitress at a nearby restaurant/bar during her high school and college years that provided a cushion for those times when her paycheck didn’t quite stretch to cover expenses.

Anthony “Jagger” Cates had been with the Beecham agency for three years when Brenda started, and he was one of their brightest stars, having already built a list of high-powered clients who asked specifically for him to handle their accounts. He was fast becoming the agency’s creative genius, and he seemed to have a knack for knowing what both the client and the public wanted and how to maximize the appeal of the client’s product, while simultaneously making the public think it was their privilege to buy whatever the client was selling.

Jagger was also extremely handsome - what some people called “movie star handsome”: black, wavy hair; dark, come-hither eyes; an infectious smile, framed on either side by deep, twin dimples; and a perpetually tanned, perfect body - and he knew exactly how to use his heart-stopping good looks to his greatest advantage, whether in dealing with hesitant clients or the awestruck females at the agency. His outgoing personality and unabashed flirting had earned him the reputation of being a philanderer, as he hit on nearly every attractive female that crossed his path - some only jokingly, others in earnest.

The gossip mill was rife with stories about Jagger and his conquests, and everyone at the agency seemed to have their own particular spin to put on those stories. But there was one thing that was consistent throughout each telling: Jagger Cates invariably scored with every woman he took out, then dropped her before the sheets were even cold, rarely giving her more than a smile or a nod after that. Yet, each woman seemed to go willingly into his bed, despite knowing the inevitable end result, and none viewed his actions as sexual harassment. Like moths to the proverbial flame, woman after woman succumbed to him, apparently unable to resist his sensual charm - or his incredible body. It was almost as if they considered an affair with him as a rite of passage, and many of the women measured their own desirability on whether or not Jagger Cates gave them a second look.

Brenda had overheard many of those stories her first day there, so when Jagger made his move on her a few days later, she was prepared and completely blew him off. Rather than deter him, however, her rebuff seemed to intrigue him, and over the ensuing weeks he put on a full-court press to date her and her alone, suddenly ignoring all the other very attractive - and very available - women around. Her female co-workers told her that she was smart to play hard-to-get, but what they didn’t know was that she wasn’t playing anything. She truly did not want to deal with either Jagger Cates or his near pathological need to add her to his already long list of notches on his bedpost.

To tell the truth, Jagger Cates and his womanizing reputation terrified her, which is why she had treated him so coolly from the beginning. Despite being 22 and attractive, she was woefully inexperienced when it came to men. She had had only one sexual experience in her life and that had been at age 19, after a drunken bash at a frat party on campus. That night had left her less than thrilled with sex, and, after a frantic trip to the free clinic to make sure that she wasn’t pregnant and hadn’t contracted any STDs, she had quickly sworn off both drinking and dating for the next several years.

Being both sober and celibate was difficult at times, but it did have its up side: it gave her more time to devote to her studies, to her writing, and to her full-time job, which she needed to help pay that part of her tuition that wasn’t covered by scholarships and grants. But her self-imposed abstinence from both alcohol and men also earned her the nickname of “Ice Angel” around campus, and that name quickly followed her to the restaurant where she worked.

At first she resented the name and the implications that came with it, but she eventually embraced the nickname, finding that letting her “reputation” precede her saved her a lot of time and energy in turning down unwanted propositions. Of course, it also warned off men that she did find attractive and interesting and might have given the time of day - as well as her phone number - had they bothered to ask, but she learned to live with that and filled whatever lonely nights she had by experiencing love vicariously through the pages of her favorite novels as well as through the love lives of the fictional characters in her own novel-in-progress.

From the moment that Brenda had thrown down the gauntlet by rejecting his attention, Jagger Cates had made it his personal mission to thaw the “Ice Angel” (The name had, unfortunately, followed her to the agency when the public relations director of a firm that had hired Beecham Agency recognized her from her days as a waitress.), and that determination would forever change both Brenda’s life and the Beecham Agency forever…

At first his pursuit of her was frontal and obvious: flowers, both at work and at home; catered meals at her desk, which she refused to share with him; and expensive gifts, which she always returned. Then, after a few weeks of outright chasing, his attack plan became more sophisticated and he became more subtle in his approach - he dropped the hard sell in favor of the subliminal approach, paying attention to her work rather than her appearance, and in the end that approach clenched the “sale” for him.

Despite the fact that writing copy at an ad agency was not something that Brenda had ever dreamed of doing, she quickly discovered that she had a gift for it, and before long she felt comfortable enough to offer some of her own ideas on ad proposals. The agency’s account executives took immediate notice of her, impressed by the sales impact her simple suggestions brought. Jagger was one of those who recognized her raw talent, quickly bringing it to the attention of the founding partner of Beecham of San Francisco, Simon Beecham himself. So, within months of starting at a job that she considered both menial and temporary, Brenda found herself on the fast track to becoming one of the hottest ad executives that San Francisco had ever seen, under the direct tutelage of none other than Beecham’s other hot property, one Anthony “Jagger” Cates.

Brenda was hesitant at first to take the promotion. After all, she had taken the job at Beecham’s simply as a way to earn money while she wrote and waited to be published; she had had no intention of making advertising a full-time career. But the salary was phenomenal - quadruple what she was making writing copy. And the other perks - including pension, full health and dental, merit bonuses, travel allowance, as well as a company car - made it an opportunity that she couldn’t afford to pass up. The one drawback was that she would be working directly with Jagger Cates, which meant long days together and some even longer nights alone with him, as well as accompanying him to all ad shoots, including a few out-of-town trips. But by then it appeared that Jagger had finally given up his pursuit of her, so she had accepted the position, telling herself that she would give it a try and if she found that he was inappropriate at any time, she’d simply threaten to file a sexual harassment charge against him and the agency. Then he’d either have to back off or she’d carry through and sue him for everything he was worth.

But Jagger had not given up his pursuit of her; he’d merely moved into the less obvious phase of his seduction of her. But, as they began working together, his perception of her changed, and he gradually thought of her less as his next sexual conquest and more as someone to be admired for her brains as well as her beauty. That was when he made the conscious decision to allow things to develop naturally between them.

He admitted to her later that he’d been impressed with her suggestions before her promotion, but that he had basically talked Sebastian Beecham into making her his assistant so that he could get closer to her, with the goal of eventually getting her into bed. And that did happen - eventually - but he told her that as they worked together he began to truly trust her intuitive advertising sense and he began to see her as his true equal in the business - his business soulmate, he’d called her. That was the same night that he’d asked her to marry him. Funny, as she thought back to that time now, she realized that she’d really only heard the word “soulmate” that night. Perhaps if she had been listening more closely then she would have answered him differently and she wouldn’t be in this situation now…

No, she knew that wasn’t true… At the time she did what she’d wanted to do, and nothing and no one could have convinced her otherwise - and her Aunt Ruby had certainly tried hard enough to do just that. But her aunt’s protests had fallen on deaf ears, as Brenda had been a woman deeply in love - or at least she’d thought it was love. Her Aunt Ruby had seen it differently, however. She had called it being “deeply in lust,” and she’d told Brenda that was a perfectly natural reaction to Jagger. After all, he was gorgeous and charming, and it was only natural to feel that desire for the man. But she challenged that Brenda wasn’t really in love with him and shouldn’t be marrying him unless she was.

When she’d asked her aunt how she could be so sure of what Brenda did or did not feel, her aunt had simply told her it was because of what she saw in Brenda’s eyes - or, rather, what she didn’t see in her eyes. Ruby had explained that the sparkle that appears when someone sees or simply talks about their true love was missing from Brenda’s eyes with Jagger, and no amount of argument to the contrary on Brenda’s part would ever convince her that she was wrong there; in her opinion, Brenda simply was not in love with Jagger Cates, and if she married him it would be for all the wrong reasons and that could come back to haunt her in the end.

She’d also warned Brenda that a leopard cannot change his spots and that if, indeed, Jagger had truly earned his reputation as a womanizer, then he would most likely remain a womanizer the rest of his life - and not even marriage to the woman he professed to love would change that. He might be able to stay faithful for a matter of weeks or months - maybe even years - but eventually he’d revert to form, and she’d be left with a broken marriage and a broken heart. Since Ruby was the only family she had ever had and Ruby had loved and treated her like a daughter, Brenda had always relied heavily on Ruby’s counsel. But not that time. For the first time in her life, Brenda had ignored her aunt’s heartfelt advice, and she’d accepted Jagger’s marriage proposal.

Ruby never said another word against Brenda and Jagger’s relationship and was even in attendance when they were married six weeks later in a civil ceremony at the courthouse. But a few months later, while Brenda was packing up her aunt’s apartment after Ruby’s sudden death from a heart attack, she found a beautiful cross-stitch sampler that her aunt had made. It read: “To be truly happy, chase neither beauty nor wealth. For love alone brings the true blessings in life." Ruby had evidently made it as a gift for her and Jagger, as the date of their wedding was in the lower right-hand corner of the piece, just above Ruby’s own initials. Ruby had never again spoken to Brenda about her misgivings about her marriage to Jagger, but she evidently hadn’t been able to remain completely silent either...

Brenda had broken down at that. All the grief that she’d be trying to contain following Ruby’s death, along with all the stress she was feeling as a new bride, not to mention the added responsibility of her heady promotion, had finally all come to an overwhelming head and the dam of her pent-up emotions had finally burst. She’d spent the next several hours crying as she’d finished packing her aunt’s belongings, examining Ruby’s life and her wisdom, while questioning her own. The sampler she’d found was proof that her aunt had died still doubting Brenda’s choice, and despite her outright denial of Ruby’s concerns, deep down Brenda had always had her own doubts about Jagger and his true feelings for her. To the outside world - and even to Jagger himself - she appeared to be blissfully happy, but in reality she was just going through the motions, trying to adapt as best she could. But most of the time she felt woefully in over her head.

Her parents had been killed in a car accident when she was just a toddler, and she had come to live with Ruby, her mother’s aunt, immediately thereafter. Ruby’s husband had died long before Brenda came into her life, and Ruby chose to remain alone thereafter, so Brenda never saw firsthand what a loving relationship between a man and a woman should be. Of course, she had glimpses into her friends’ homes and she had the fictionalized depiction of marriage in books and movies and on TV, but it wasn’t the same as having access to a real marriage day-in and day-out and seeing the ups and downs in those relationships. So, in those early days of their marriage, she often wondered if what she and Jagger had was real or not? And those fears quickly manifested themselves in sexual anxiety, magnified by the difference between Jagger’s vast sexual history and her complete lack of one.

Despite the fact that she had tried to ignore the nickname of Ice Angel, it had secretly hurt her deeply, making her question her own sensuality and whether or not she could ever completely satisfy any man, let alone one as sexually savvy as Jagger. How could someone as inexperienced as she possibly be enough for a man with such a legendary appetite? But with intimacy, just as with advertising, Brenda proved to be a quick study, and Jagger seemed none the wiser that she was a novice, even wondering aloud how anyone as passionate and adventurous as Brenda had ever been given the nickname Ice Angel?

Although Brenda quickly became skilled at lovemaking, she never felt truly satisfied by it. Not that she didn’t achieve physical climax regularly - for Jagger was nothing if not adept at knowing her erogenous zones - but their love-making always left her feeling hollow and empty. To her it always seemed like nothing more than an invigorating round of gymnastics for their bodies. Where was the gratifying spiritual melding of their hearts and souls that she’d read about and always longed for? Jagger seemed satisfied, however, and so she assumed that the problem must be hers and hers alone, and a part of her wondered if she was simply incapable of true sexual fulfillment, as those who’d dubbed her the Ice Angel had inferred?

Or was her problem far less complex than that? Was it simply that there had never been any real love between her and Jagger in all of these years? Had her Aunt Ruby been right, after all? Although she loved him in so many ways, was she simply not “in love” with him? She and Jagger had meshed physically, meshed socially, and meshed professionally; all of that had come easily and naturally for them. But looking back now, she realized that they had never truly meshed spiritually, which is why their relationship had been unable to sustain either of them - let alone both of them - through the emotional pain and struggle following their devastating loss this past year.

Their loss… She closed her eyes once again, as all that pain came back to her as fresh and as acrid as it had been six months before…

The pregnancy had been unplanned and had come as a total surprise, since she had been on the Pill for years. But, as Dr. Greenlee, her OB/GYN, had explained: “Nothing but abstinence is 100% fool-proof.” And since, at that time, regular lovemaking was one of the two staples in their marriage (the other being their devotion to their joint business venture), it had somehow just happened. To her surprise, Jagger had been thrilled at the prospect of becoming a father, and he’d immediately begun plans to convert the guest bedroom into a nursery, replete with blue paint and a race car theme from top to bottom for his son. When Brenda had told him that there was a 50/50 chance that the baby was a girl, he’d just shrugged and said that he’d be happy either way but that he knew it was a boy.

And he’d been right; it had been a boy - a boy that she’d delivered stillborn just 26 weeks after his conception. Dr. Greenlee had said something about improper attachment of the placenta on the uterine wall being the problem, but Brenda blamed herself, knowing that she had pushed herself relentlessly to finish a campaign for a skittish client in that week prior to the miscarriage, ignoring both her fatigue and the vague backache and occasional cramp that should have been her signal to slow down and call her doctor immediately. And although he’d never come right out and accused her, she always felt that Jagger blamed her as well.

And, as she looked back at that time now, knowing what she knew now, she could clearly see that that terrible night had been the beginning of the end of their marriage. Jagger hadn’t been there during the delivery when she’d needed him the most and then neither of them had been there for one another in the aftermath. When they should have been clinging to one another for emotional support, mourning their mutual loss, helping to heal one another’s broken hearts, they had gone to their separate corners to lick their wounds in their own ways and they’d never really come out of those corners since.

Dr. Greenlee kept Brenda in the hospital for 48 hours for observation, and when she returned home, she found that Jagger already had all of the baby’s things packed up and stored away and the nursery had once again been transformed back into the guest room. He never again spoke to her about the son that they had both lost, nor his grief or his anger at the situation or her. Instead, he became cool and distant to her and buried himself more deeply in work, staying at the office later and later, and often never coming home for days at a time; then, only to grab a change of clothes and pick up the mail, which Brenda left in unopened piles on the table in the foyer by the front door.

Unable to deal with her guilt over their baby’s death, Brenda had taken an indefinite leave of absence from the business. Feeling Jagger’s silent anger and resentment toward her as well, Brenda found herself spiraling deeper and deeper into depression, refusing to take calls or visits from caring associates and friends, content to spend hours on end staring out their apartment window at their expansive view of the bay or writing volumes to her lost son in her journals. And she’d probably still be there now, lost in the darkness, if it hadn’t been for the firm intervention of her best friend, Lois Cerrullo.

Brenda and Lois’s friendship actually sprang from a casual conversation while standing in line to use the less-than-stellar facilities at the packed club. Lois had made a funny comment about the situation, and Brenda, who was next in front of Lois, had laughed and responded in kind, and things went from there. Brenda immediately liked the vivacious brunette, with her electric blue eyes, quick smile, and thick Brooklyn accent, and she invited Lois to join her and Jagger at their table. They spent the rest of the evening laughing and talking and enjoying both the bands and each other’s company. After that, Lois and Brenda met weekly for lunch, until Lois and Capricorn Records moved their operation to LA four years later. But even after the move, Lois and Brenda remained the best of friends, calling one another weekly and then seeing each other whenever they could fit it into their ever-tightening work schedules.

Lois often remarked that Brenda felt closer to her than any of her family back in Brooklyn, and Lois was like the big sister Brenda had always wanted. In a lot of ways Lois reminded Brenda of a much younger version of her Aunt Ruby: funny, dependable, straight-forward, and honest - you never had a doubt as to where either of them stood on a particular matter; yet, once they had voiced their objections on any matter, neither would bring it up again after that. Brenda and Lois quickly grew to depend on one another, trusting each other implicitly, and Brenda felt comfortable sharing her innermost thoughts and fears with Lois - something she’d never been able to do with Jagger. Lois was the only one who knew that Brenda had doubts about both her marriage and her impending motherhood. To the outside world, Jagger and Brenda appeared deliriously happy and Brenda appeared to glow with excitement over the new baby, but Lois knew both were far from the truth.

Not that Brenda didn’t love and want the baby; she did - with all of her heart. It was just that her anxieties were once again getting the best of her, as she added mothering to her list of skills she questioned about herself. She had no doubt that she had become a good businesswoman. Cates & Cates was having another banner year and it was her guidance, just as much as it had been Jagger’s, that was responsible for that. And she thought that she had become a good wife and lover, although there were times over the past couple of years that she’d wondered about Jagger’s fidelity. Still, she had nothing concrete upon which to base her suspicions, so she had tried to ignore her apprehension, telling herself it was simply from overwork and fatigue, and nothing more, especially given how thrilled Jagger had been to learn that she was pregnant. Certainly a man who was feeling unfulfilled at home would not welcome impending fatherhood as happily as Jagger had, she reassured herself. But as the curves of her body began to change with the pregnancy, she found that his once insatiable need for her began to cool, and her doubts about being enough for him once again resurfaced. But when she’d confided her concerns to Lois, Lois had simply told her to relax and concentrate on being the good person that she was and the rest would come naturally. She tried her best to follow Lois’s simple advice, but she could never quite allay the niggling fears that she had about both her marriage and her baby.

Lois had been in Europe, scouting new talent for Capricorn Records, when Brenda lost the baby, and she didn’t learn of the tragedy until three weeks later when she’d returned to LA and called to catch up on gossip with Brenda. When there was no answer at the apartment or on Brenda’s cell phone, Lois called her office at the agency, hoping to catch her there. Brenda’s executive assistant gave Lois the sad news about the baby, along with the equally troubling news that Brenda had taken an indefinite leave of absence from the agency and was staying at home and refusing both phone calls and visitors, while Jagger was spending all of his time at the office. Lois immediately hopped on a plane and headed to San Francisco, intent on offering her support in any way that she could, whether Brenda wanted it or not.

Despite the fact that at the time she’d viewed Lois’s unannounced visit as an intrusion - especially when Lois bribed the super into using his passkey to unlock the apartment door - she now was grateful that her friend had showed up when she did and was as steadfast as she was in refusing to leave - which Brenda had asked her to do almost as soon as she’d arrived. Instead, she’d put her arms around Brenda and told her how sorry she was for what had happened and then they had both crumbled to the floor by the open front door and cried together. They ended up talking and crying for hours, with Lois listening and Brenda opening up to her about her guilt over the miscarriage and her growing fears about her marriage, given Jagger’s refusal to even be near her anymore, let alone discuss their loss so they could grieve together and then move on from there.

It was a cathartic time for Brenda and a turning point for her as well, as Lois convinced Brenda that she needed to concentrate on healing herself first, then worry about Jagger after that. It took Brenda several more weeks to actually go to a grief counselor, but she did make finally it there and continued going faithfully for weeks, until she felt she no longer needed outside help. But she never could convince Jagger to go with her, and she wondered now if he had gone if they could have somehow saved their marriage? She sighed, realizing it was a moot point now, as her marriage was over - and it had been for some time now - and she could either accept that and move on or continue to play the “what if” and the “blame” games. And since she had never been good at playing games, she knew she had but one avenue open to her: get her head together and concentrate on her present and her future because the past was lost forever.

The shock of the cold of the first raindrops brought her out of her inner focus, and she realized that the weather had become infinitely more threatening in the past several minutes while she had been taking her melancholy stroll down memory lane. The wind had picked up considerably and there was faint rumbling of thunder off in the distance. How had she been so oblivious to this? she wondered, pulling her cap down more securely on her head and wrapping her arms tightly around herself as she stood to climb down off the rocks to head for shelter.

But above the insistent howl of the wind, she thought she heard someone calling to her, and she stopped, turning to look back toward the ocean to see if it was the lone surfer she’d spotted, in trouble and calling for help. As she quickly scanned the horizon for any glimpse of the surfer’s bright yellow wetsuit, she wondered if he really would have been so foolish and arrogant as to try to remain out there in surf as dangerous as this? Common sense told her that if the surfer was still out there, he was most likely already lost, but she knew that she couldn’t in good conscience go back to the safety of her beach house without knowing for sure that he wasn’t still out there, struggling against the storm. She climbed to the next higher rock and stood on tiptoe, straining against the wind as she scoured the ocean’s horizon for anything or anyone caught out in the storm, but she could see nothing beyond the angry, churning waves of the ocean.

The first full sheets of rain came in off the ocean, cold and penetrating, and she scrambled to move down off the rocks and back to the relative safety of the beach before she was knocked into the water below by the sheer force of the wind and rain. But, as she stooped to climb down, a powerful gust of wind caught her, throwing her off-balance and she lost her footing on the wet surface and fell, hitting her head hard against the rocks below. The last thing she thought she heard was that voice again, calling to her above the wind, but she couldn’t be sure. And then there was nothing…