Roller Coaster - Softcover

            Cass arrived back with two steaming mugs. "All's well at home, I take it?"
            Helen inhaled the bracing aroma. "It is. You were right--I fell in the gravy. I feel guilty that I've not made any real progress finding a permanent house manager because Laura is so great."
            "She's a  nice person to be around, though I wish she didn't feel that she had to try so hard. Like she's always making up for some lack."
            "Do you think so?" She sipped her coffee and grimaced. "I am getting spoiled. I thought this tasted good a month ago."
            "At first I thought Laura was one of the few genuine what-you-see-is-what-you-get people I've ever met. Most of her is right on the surface. But after a couple of days I started to realize that there's a whole piece of herself she's got locked down and I bet only a really special woman will ever get to see it."
            Helen cocked her head speculatively. "She has a girlfriend, you know."
            "She does? I didn't think so." Cass wrinkled her brow. "But why tell me? I'm not interested in a three thousand mile thing. I'm pretty sure she wouldn't put up with my spoiled ways one little bit. I'd be on the receiving end of calm, cool, collected explanations as to why I was not going to get my way all the time. I just can't have that." She grinned. "She's way too grown-up for me."
            "Sorry, you sounded besotted."
            "I'm in love with her coffee. And truly, I could watch her rub butter on a chicken for hours. Those wonderful hands..."
            Helen laughed. "I kind of know what you mean. She's got great hands, and now as opposed to two months ago that has taken on a completely different perspective for me."
            Cass gave a knowing laugh. "You are a total lesbian, just so you know."
            Helen stuck out her tongue.
            "Put that where it counts." Cass gave her a sunny smile over the top of her coffee cup.
            "Why do you think she doesn't have a girlfriend? I saw them together in Woodside."
            "Long blonde hair, probably wears a size zero?"
            Helen nodded.
            "Laura said that was an ex."
            "They didn't look like exes when I saw them."
            "I gathered it had ended recently and not well."
            "Oh." Laura didn't have a girlfriend? She'd taken the lack of mention as just how private a person Laura was. She didn't have a girlfriend? Were lesbians stupid or something? She was an amazing catch. Creative and gifted, solid and dependable--not to make her sound like a blender, because she was also attractive. Sexy, actually, with the right curves, smooth skin and a smile that said everything would be okay, and such lively intelligence in her dark eyes. And Cass was right about her hands.

Karin Kallmaker's two dozen and counting lesbian fiction novels include the Goldie and Lammy award-winning The Kiss that Counted, Above Temptation, Just Like That and Sugar and span lesbian romance, erotica and lesbian fantasy/speculative fiction. Translations include Spanish, French, German and Czech. More than five dozen short stories have appeared in anthologies and collections from numerous publishers. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her partner and their two children.