Chapter 2

“Have you ever tried Ghirardelli’s?”

For the second time today, that warm baritone made Sarah jump. She whirled to face Steve, whose eyes were glittering with mischief. She covered her alarm with a glare and crossed her arms.

“You have a habit of sneaking up behind people, don’t you?”

Steve grinned.

“Just today. It’s an all-day special.”

Sarah’s glare faltered and she felt the corners of her mouth lift slightly. Her arms remained crossed, though. She frowned.

“What’s ‘Gearah Deli’s’?”

“I’ll give you a hint. There’s chocolate involved.” He leaned close and whispered conspiratorially. “And ice cream.”

She arched a brow. “Keep talking.”

Steve stood up. “Tell you what, neighbour. I won’t sneak up on you anymore if you visit Ghirardelli’s with me. Eating a decadent hot fudge sundae alone seems a little pathetic, even to me. But if you eat chocolate with a friend, it instantly becomes a health food, you know. Even the whipped cream doesn’t count.”

“So we’re friends now, are we?”

“We could be. I’m game if you are.”

Sarah gave him a measuring stare.

“How far will it be to walk there?”

Steve unfolded the tour bus map and made a show of studying it.

“According to this, only . . . thirty blocks. We’ll have earned the right to eat chocolate when we get there, for sure.”

“Wow, you don’t ask for much, do you?” She pressed her lips together to suppress a smile. She should not want to go have ice cream with this man. He could be a rapist or a kidnapper or—

Get a grip, Sarah. You know he’s just a nice Alberta boy being friendly.

A swipe on her phone brought the map of San Francisco back into view. Ghirardelli Square, the most likely home of said establishment, was clearly labelled only a short distance across the park from where the GPS marked her location in blue.

“Thirty blocks, eh? Will we have to swim out to Alcatraz on the way there?” She glanced up at his twinkling blue eyes.

“If you insist. But it’s shorter to go that way.” He pointed across the intersection toward a green space bordered with tall trees that marched along the street until they met the water of San Francisco Bay. Barely visible through the lush foliage were some mismatched blocky brick buildings.

Sarah tilted her head and studied his face, then offered him a small smile.

“Okay. Friends.” She grinned wider when he raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. “Actually, you had me at ‘chocolate’.” Confident.

She fell into place beside him as he took off toward the park.

“Well, who doesn’t like chocolate, right?”

“My husband, oddly enough.” There. She had mentioned Craig again, in case he had missed the fact that she was married and might be getting any romantic ideas. She glanced up to gauge his reaction.

Steve only cocked an eyebrow. “Huh. Go figure. More for you, right?”

“I guess.” She eyed him curiously. Apparently, she had been worrying about her fidelity for nothing. He didn’t look the least bit disappointed or uncomfortable that she was married. His intentions must truly be completely innocent. Or completely evil.

Sarah felt a shiver of excitement mingled with fear.

A pretty bohemian busker standing on the street corner caught her attention. The woman strummed a guitar and crooned a lonely tune Sarah didn’t recognize. A sign asking for change sat propped in the open guitar case by the woman’s feet.

Sarah paused, fished a few small bills out of her purse and tossed them into the case. They landed beside a ten that came from Steve’s hand. The young woman beamed at them from a metal-studded face. She kept singing the soul-stirring tune.

Steve glanced at Sarah. “Onward?”

She nodded, wondering what this guy’s deal was. Did he throw in the money to impress her?

They passed a shabby-looking man standing on the corner holding a sign that said “Travelling and hungry.” Steve tossed a few more bills into the man’s upside-down hat and was rewarded with another grateful smile.

Sarah rolled her eyes. If Steve gave money to every homeless person they passed in this city, it might feel like they had walked thirty blocks before they got ice cream.

Steve led the way across the street and into the park, sidestepping a little boy absorbed in licking a strawberry ice cream cone. Sarah’s eyes followed the boy, who was completely adorable in a ball cap and shorts, with creamy pink liquid dripping down his cheeks and off his pudgy elbows. Sarah smiled at him and glanced at his mother, who smiled back with reflexive pride. The little boy caught her watching, stopped licking for a moment and grinned at her, sticky sweetness covering his face. Sarah melted and felt tears pricking the backs of her eyes.

Don’t. Don’t do this to yourself.

She shifted her gaze back to the paved walkway, lips pressed together hard.

As they hiked up the hill and across the park, the red arches of the Golden Gate Bridge came into view on their right. Their foundations on this side of the bay were hidden by tall trees on the far side of the park. The bridge stretched above the choppy water to land on rolling hills, barely visible through the afternoon haze that sat heavy on the waves. Sarah paused and pulled out her little point-and-shoot camera to snap a photo, then quick-stepped to catch up to Steve.

“So I thought your name was Sarah Daniels,” Steve said as she fell into step beside him. “Who is this ‘Devon Sinclair’ person?” He grabbed Sarah’s arm and pulled her aside just in time for a cyclist to whiz by. “Wait, ‘Sinclair’ was your maiden name, right? But why the ‘Devon’?”

Sarah stared at him. “How long were you standing behind me, anyway?”

“Well, I happened to be right inside the store where your groupies ambushed you.” His puzzled expression was exaggerated. “At least, I think they were yours.”

Sarah frowned, pulled her arm from his grip and kept walking. He caught up to her in one stride. He’d dropped the goofy look, but she could tell he was waiting for an answer.

She sighed. “It’s my pen name. I wanted a layer of anonymity and a gender-neutral name. ‘Devon Sinclair’ seemed appropriate for the genre.” It was the story she told to those few who knew both of her identities, anyway. Erica, her sister-in-law Jill, her ex-roommate Abby, Craig—the list was pretty short. They had all asked why she took her father’s name for her pen name, but even she wasn’t sure she could answer that, or wanted to try—digging for that answer touched raw parts of her soul and she flinched away.

“What genre was that again? Romance, right?”

Sarah nodded. Steve’s legs were much longer than hers, and she was struggling to keep up with his long strides. It occurred to her that if she was looking at his back, he probably hadn’t seen her nonverbal response.

“Yes, romance.”

“Why do you use a pen name?”

Sarah quick-stepped, trying to catch up, but the hill made it difficult. She was beginning to pant a little. “Some of the stuff in my novels I wouldn’t want my mother to read, if you know what I mean.”

Steve glanced back at her in silence and altered his stride so she could keep pace more easily. She bit her lip to suppress a smile. Was he . . . blushing?

“I just realized why your maiden name was familiar. I’m pretty sure my ex liked to read your stuff. Kinda racy, isn’t it?”

Sarah shrugged.

“‘Racy’ sells. It’s a living.”

Steve held up his hands. “Hey, I’m not judging. Trust me, I’m the last person in the world to be judging.”

Sarah glanced at him in curiosity, wondering what he was hinting at. She was about to ask, but he was distracted by two men that stood off the path to their right. The men had their backs to the bay and arms around each other, trying to take a selfie that included the bridge in the background, and obviously struggling to get one they liked.

“Excuse me,” said Steve to Sarah, and stepped toward the men. “Would you like me to take your picture?” He held out his hand to the man holding the phone at arm’s length.

The man smiled in gratitude. “Would you? Thank you so much!”

He handed Steve his device and gave him a brief explanation of how to snap the photo.

Sarah shifted her weight and watched while Steve gave them a few instructions about how to stand, then moved around until he had them framed how he wanted. He engaged them in cheerful chatter as he clicked a few photos. They soon volunteered that they were on their honeymoon.

Steve nodded and smiled and offered congratulations as he handed back the phone so they could check the results.

“We actually got hitched back home in Texas right after the ruling in June, but we wanted to wait until the weather warmed up in San Fran before we took our honeymoon,” explained the thinner of the two while his husband reviewed the photo. “We’d heard that summers here tend to be chilly.”

“Gotta love Indian summers, right?”

Steve stood at ease, hands on hips, while he waited for the verdict. The mild breeze ruffled his hair slightly, and the image of a surfer popped back into Sarah’s head.

Sarah realized the other man must be referring to the Supreme Court ruling that had legalized gay marriage in the USA only a few months before. She frowned as she heard her father’s voice echo through her memory, ranting against queers and perverts as he quoted Scripture and verse.

She had long ago come to the conclusion that there is no god—she had never seen any evidence of one, especially not the one her father had preached about. He’d talked about his “God of love,” but the love she had known from Devon Sinclair had been nothing like the fairy tales about Jesus her mother had read to her as a child.

If God loved her, or anyone, he’d had plenty of opportunities to prove it. But he’d never shown up, no matter how many secret, desperate prayers she’d whispered in the dead of night. If there was a God, then he must be a cruel, sadistic tyrant that delighted in the misery of humans. And Sarah wanted nothing to do with him.

“Thanks, man. This is great.” The shorter of the two men shielded the LED screen from the sun so he could examine the photos, then smiled and nodded.

Sarah watched her companion shake hands with both men, say his goodbyes and congratulate them.

“They seemed nice.” She fell back into step beside Steve and they hiked up the last few steps through the park.

“Yeah. I knew they would get a better photo from farther back. You know, with the bridge and all.”

“Are you a photographer?”

Steve shook his head. “Not really. I dabble. My partner takes amazing photos, though, and I’ve picked up a few tips from him.”

Partner? Him?

Relief flooded her, and she allowed it to smother a small spark of disappointment.

She could stop wondering if Steve was hitting on her. Of course he wasn’t.

Steve was gay.

“Of course.” She nodded and smiled a little too broadly.

Across the street squatted a large, oddly-shaped complex of brick, glass, and concrete. Large letters labelling the square were erected above on metal framework.

Steve made a beeline for the ice cream parlour which fronted the sidewalk. They joined the queue that trailed out the open door and skirted the crowded cafe tables.

“A lineup. That’s promising, if slightly irritating.” Sarah stood on tiptoe, trying to see over the heads of those in front of them to get a glimpse of the menu. “What’s good here?”

“I don’t know. Haven’t been here before.”

“What? How did you know to come here, then?” She eyed an ice cream sundae that one of the exiting patrons was carrying. It looked sinfully rich. Her mouth started watering.

“My sister gave me very strict instructions when she found out I was coming to San Francisco.” He put on an intense look in imitation of his sister. “‘Go to Ghirardelli’s. Buy chocolate. Bring it to me.’” Steve grinned. “Saying ‘no’ wasn’t really an option. I kind of extrapolated the rest.”

“Does she live in Mumbai, too?” Sarah asked the question to be polite, but she was trying to decide how much she wanted to know about this man. Gay or not, he was still a stranger. Why become invested when she most likely wouldn’t ever see him again after today?

On the other hand, new people were often interesting fodder for future fictional characters. This guy was definitely walking onto the set of her next book, with a few changes—he’d have to be straight, because those biceps deserved to be on the leading man. Her romances were dark and steamy, but strictly heterosexual. She didn’t think she could do justice to a queer romance, since she was wasn’t—which, now that she knew he was gay, made her wonder why his ex was so into her books.

“No, she and her husband still live in Miller. I’m heading up there after I leave here. Won’t be heading back to Mumbai for a few weeks.”

“I see.”

They were through the door now and could survey the interior of the shop. Chocolate bars and squares of various sizes and shapes in different-coloured wrappers lined the shelves around the walls and were stuffed into cellophane bags on a central display table, beribboned and ready to gift.

“How much are you supposed to take?” she asked.

“I got the impression that if I had to choose between packing my clothes and the chocolate, I should choose chocolate.”

“Your sister sounds like my kind of woman.”

Steve laughed and loaded up his arms with several of the cellophane gift bags.

Sarah chuckled. “You’re a good brother.”

“The best.” Steve winked. “Of course, it might not all be for her. There’s no Ghirardelli’s in Mumbai, either.”

Sarah laughed, too, watching her companion discreetly. He couldn’t be as content as he seemed. Even now—when he was just standing and waiting—a hint of a smile played at his lips, like he knew a joke he was itching to share. She had never met anyone that smiled that much before. At least, not with a smile that seemed so sincere.

Was he truly that happy?

After they got their sundaes—a giant one for him, the smallest size possible for her—they found a table on the sidewalk with hardly any blobs of drying ice cream and took a seat.

Boats sprinkled the bay, pedestrians peppered the park, a steady stream of tourists walked by, and classic jazz music in a woman’s contralto voice was being piped over their heads. Sarah guessed that most people would be relaxed here in this lovely setting. But Sarah couldn’t relax. She kept glancing at Steve and trying to decide if she should start a new topic of conversation. Her companion was apparently content to eat his sundae and watch the world.

She wished she could say the same for herself. Silence only allowed too much time to think. And wasn’t she spending time with a stranger to distract her from all the things she didn’t want to think about?

“So, what brings you to San Francisco?” she asked.

Steve swallowed a large mouthful of sundae with a loud gulp.

“My kids.” He grabbed his phone and started swiping.

He’s got kids? Sarah kept her face blank, but her stomach clenched. Had she been wrong about him being gay? Or maybe he’d adopted? “I thought you were . . . um, are you married?” It was a lame cover for her awkward assumption, but she hadn’t been able to think of a better one, and didn’t want to ask him straight out about his sexual orientation.

Steve only looked up and laughed.

“Oh, no. No time. Here’s one of them.” He handed over his phone to show her a beautiful coffee-skinned young woman in a brightly-coloured sari, a red bindi dot painted between her eyes. She was smiling stiffly at the camera. “That’s Ratna.” He rolled the R slightly as he said it.

Sarah studied the girl. Her long black hair was pulled back in ornate gold clips and trailed in a braid decorated with flowers behind her. She looked like she was in her late teens. Sarah still couldn’t figure out what relationship this girl was to Steve.

“Is this your . . . daughter?” That seemed to be the safest question, despite the complete lack of resemblance between the two.

“In a manner of speaking.” He reached over and swiped to the next photo which showed a group of young Indian women with serious faces sitting around a white man in the centre—Steve. “Nobody there smiles in photos. They actually like me, honest.”

“So who are they?”

“Prostitutes.”

Sarah was not expecting that at all. She choked and stared at him. His eyes were dead serious for the first time since they had met.

“I work with these girls—women, really—and their children to help them get out of slavery and prostitution. Mumbai has the largest red light district in the world, you know. Over fifty thousand prostitutes live there, and most of them started before the age of nine.”

Sarah was in shock. She searched desperately for something intelligent to say.

“Slavery? They still have slavery there?”

Steve nodded. “Many of them come from Nepal or north India, where the women are considered very beautiful. It’s all a big cycle. Recruiters go and buy these girls from their families, who usually can’t make ends meet and welcome the extra cash and one less mouth to feed. The recruiters promise the girls a job and a better life in the city, so their families agree. But what actually happens is that they are sold for a huge profit to pimps and madams who then tell them that they must earn their debt back by working for them.”

Steve paused and clenched his jaw. He took a breath and continued.

“The ‘debt’ only keeps growing, no matter how much they make. They are in slavery until they outlive their usefulness and get released or become madams themselves. But most of them don’t live that long.” A storm brewed behind his blue eyes.

Sarah swiped to the next photo. The woman in the photo had one good almond-shaped eye the colour of melted caramel that was crinkled in a deep smile. She had a round face, thick, black hair, and an olive complexion. If it weren’t for the ugly scar that puckered from under a decorated eye patch to her top lip, she would have been lovely.

“What happened to her?”

Steve glanced at the photo and a fond smile touched with sadness appeared on his lips. “That’s Sita. When she was fourteen, a drunk, dissatisfied customer took his anger out on her face with a knife. She couldn’t afford good medical care—there was no way to save her eye. She was lucky to live through it. This is her daughter, Aashi.”

Steve swiped to the next photo, which showed Sita holding a young girl of about five or six. The child’s beatific smile matched her mother’s. Judging from the photos, Sita must have been very young when she became a mother.

Sarah stared at Sita’s ruined face. She knew she should be appalled and disgusted by what had happened to her. She could see how upset the condition of these girls made Steve. And she was surprised, but inside, she felt—

Nothing.

Almost nothing.

Why couldn’t she feel anything? What was wrong with her? But numbness had been her constant companion for so long that she was well-versed in pretending it wasn’t.

Sarah handed Steve’s phone back to him.

“Why doesn’t anyone know about this?” she asked in low voice. “Why aren’t we being told?”

“People do know. It’s a huge destination for sex tourism. It’s bigger than Bangkok.” He pocketed his phone and scraped out the bottom of his sundae cup. “There is nothing that isn’t complicated in India, especially when it comes to human trafficking and the sex trade. It’s such a huge problem that there is no quick fix, and the Indian government doesn’t make it easy.”

Sarah sat in silence, swirling the partially-melted ice cream in her cup with her plastic spoon. Steve had said that the girls often started at nine years old. She thought of Craig’s niece, Tabitha, who would be nine next month according to the note her mother had written on the copy of Tabitha’s school photo Sarah had on her fridge at home. She had only met Tabitha a few times, but imagining her sweet face in a brothel, doomed to prostitute herself for life, she felt a small stirring of emotion. It grew and grew, until her stomach churned with rage.

How was it possible that little girls were being sold into sexual slavery and governments were doing nothing to stop it? How could they hide in their bedrooms—uh, boardrooms, and pretend it wasn’t even happening?

Why doesn’t anyone ever do anything?

Her mother’s face flashed through her mind, wrapped in her own little world.

Why didn’t she do anything?

She felt blood rushing in her ears and heat rising up her neck. She glared at her companion. With a start, she realized that she was angry. At Steve. Why? It didn’t make sense.

Anger—feeling emotions—was dangerous. In an instant, all the heat froze over in terror. She couldn’t be angry. That’s how people got hurt. Ice was safer than fire.

Sarah took a bite and held the cold lump against the roof of her mouth until her eyes hurt. She focused her emotion through her spoon, letting the anger drain out of her hand and drift away. Fear of what might have happened still clung like a sheen of frost to her thoughts, but when she could speak calmly again, she continued.

“So, what do you do?”

His tone was somber. “I help run a shelter for women who want to get out, teaching them viable skills so they have options. Them and their kids, who otherwise run a high risk of being trafficked, also. It’s not easy—the whole system is set up to keep these women there, forever. Most of them are too scared to leave, or they have nowhere else to go.”

He paused, and when he continued, his eyes saw something far beyond the ocean.

“I have seen such unspeakable things in the slums of Mumbai. I had to do something.” His eyes focused on Sarah. “That’s why I’m here—I’m giving a presentation about my work tonight, raising funds to purchase a building for our child care centre.”

Sarah studied Steve, brow furrowed. She had never met anyone like him. He obviously had a lot going for him. And he wasn’t even from India. Why on earth would he be working with prostitutes in Mumbai? Was this guy really all that he seemed?

“Why do you care about them so much?”

Steve’s eyes twinkled mischievously. “Tell you what, neighbour. Why don’t you come to my presentation tonight, and you’ll find out?”

Sarah gulped, then shrugged. “I’ll think about it.”

“I guess that will have to do.” Steve gave her a broad smile and then licked off his spoon with relish.

Sarah cleaned out the last of her ice cream from the cup. She thought about the haunting faces in Steve’s photos, the women—girls!—he fought to free from sexual bondage. Then she thought about the housewives who read the sordid tales that flowed from her word processor, whose favourite escape was a fictional affair. Finally, she thought about the long hours she spent cranking those stories out, inserting names and faces and events around steamy scenes that left her cold as a stone.

“I wish I had even a fraction of your passion for my own work.”

She was slightly embarrassed that she had blurted that out loud, but she knew it was the truth. She had a successful career, a handsome husband, and a comfortable lifestyle, yet she felt dead inside. And this man—who never had Starbucks and worked with prostitutes in a developing country—seemed to find joy in even the smallest things and spread it to everyone he met.

She felt a desperate craving to experience that kind of joy. She had hoped that having a baby would let her do that, but now, the chances seemed slim. The diagnosis she had yet to share with Craig loomed in her mind, overshadowing any hope she’d held onto. She thought sadly of the baby that she would likely never hold—the one chance she would have had to break out of her icy existence.

That’s not what I deserve. Why bother wanting it? The yearning shrivelled before it had even taken root. My life is what it is.

Steve gave her a hard stare.

“It’s never too late to make a change. You know that, right?”

Locked in the grip of those blue eyes, Sarah felt like he could see everything she was thinking at that moment. She wasn’t sure if the thought was terrifying or comforting.

She also knew he was wrong. Sometimes it was too late. Even still, she surprised herself and nodded back.

“Okay. I’ll come.”