Lucio had strolled across the lawn to the spot under the live oaks where, just hours ago, his friend Rick Rousseau had taken his wedding vows with a sweet and funny newspaper obituary writer named Josie Sheehan. It was a turn of events Lucio would never have predicted for his old running buddy, but, as he well knew, few things in life go the way we envision. His current situation was proof of that.

Lucio took a seat on the thick stone wall dividing the lawn from the gardens, then situated himself so that he faced west. The light here reminded him of home, the magical hills between Spain's highest mountains and the Mediterranean, with its fig trees and flowers, lemons and pomegranates, all that decadent bounty. He'd been gone nearly twenty years and had long ago acquired U.S. citizenship, but that sunny valley by the sea was the only true home he'd ever known, and would likely remain so. He'd used San Francisco as his base of operations for many years, but he was here so rarely it no longer even made sense to keep an apartment.