Besides the big cookout we had with the family...and playing with my granddaughter...and sunbathing in the backyard with my daughter-in-law Yesica...and going to church...and working on the edited version of Fascination, here's what I did on my long 4th of July weekend: I went shopping for one of THESE babies with my husband!

We walked out of our local Harley Davidson store without actually buying one, much to my dismay. But like Arnold said in Terminator, I'll be back! :D Well, we're just researching it right now. Bill isn't as excited about it as I am. He says if he can hold me off for a couple months, summer will be over and I'll (hopefully) forget all about it.

That's a switch for us. HE'S the more daredevil-y one between us, the one who always rode every roller coaster in Jersey's Six Flags Great Adventure with our boys while I, the scaredy-cat, was the one who chilled out on a bench nearby and waited for them.

Maybe it's getting closer to the big 5-0? Maybe it's middle-aged bravado? Who knows? I do know that ever since we moved here to North Carolina I've been slowly falling in love with those machines that are thunder on wheels.

This is coming from a woman who's been on a motorcycle ONCE in her whole life. That was when I was 18 and on vacation with my best friend Linda in Hawaii. We happened to meet a couple of young guys from Vegas on the plane who later met us for dinner. My date was a sweet guy named Henry, who, with his friend, escorted us there on their rented motorcycles. That's a lot more memorable than being driven in a stretch limo--riding on the back of a blue Honda 650 that's flying down a main in Oahu, with the wind whipping up your hair and Waikiki Beach on your right.

That same thrill came to me when my husband and I hopped onto one of the softail models in the showroom. Even though it wasn't moving, we weren't going anywhere, but his hands were on the handlebars and my arms were around his waist. I wasn't thinking about things grownups typically think of, i.e. DANGER. Listen, that bike wasn't scary, it was sexy. And it was romantic being on it, how it whispered adventure and fun, with room just enough for two.

The heroine in Fascination, Candy Norwood, rides a motorcycle. She eventually brings out the biker in the hero, Alex Reinhard. I'd forgotten that aspect of the book (yes, we writers forget stuff sometimes!) because Fascination was written shortly before The Cop and the Mermaid, and that's going back a couple of years. So maybe I've had this itch for a lot longer than I realize.

So we WILL be back to that shop. Because maybe getting to this age makes your desire for adventure, as well as your acceptance of who you really are, stronger than your fears. And life really does go by in a heartbeat, doesn't it?