Both lawyers had been married for a long time. Both had children who were grown and out of the house, or still in college. Both were obviously content, although Ashley knew that their wives were frequent visitors to the Channel. And very few women who visited the Channel did so for sightseeing purposes only. Most women visiting the Channel did so to satisfy their sexual fantasies. Ashley certainly did. Without it she would have gone crazy after all the Sturm und Drang in her life.

Her parents had been drowned in a boating accident when she was fourteen. She and her brother made their home after that with Grandfather Kimbrough at Kimbrough Hall. Their maternal grandparents were deceased, and there were no other relatives. Her brother had graduated from West Point, and as a second lieutenant been killed in Desert Storm at the age of twenty-three. Ashley was in her freshman year of college that year. She hadn't wanted to go to college because she had an idea to open a specialty shop in Egret Pointe. But Edward Kimbrough had insisted, promising to back her venture when she graduated.

With that incentive dangling before her like a golden carrot, Ashley managed to graduate in three years' time with a degree in business. It had meant no dating, no vacations, no life. But she had done it, and true to his word her grandfather had financed the elegant lingerie shop that Ashley named Lacy Nothings. He hadn't thought much of the idea, he told her candidly, but Ashley knew her market. Egret Pointe was no longer a dull small town. When grandfather had built Ansley at Egret Pointe, his first upscale development, everything had changed. The village, while maintaining its smalltown charm, had become more sophisticated.

Lacy Nothings had been a big hit, and a welcome addition to local shopping. And as its reputation spread, women from nearby towns came to the Egret Pointe store to purchase the alluring undergarments and night garments that the shop sold. Many were original designs. Many were handmade. And everything was of the absolute best quality. And then she had done her first catalog, and the orders began pouring in from all over the United States and Canada.