felt at peace with herself. This little church was easing the pain in unexpected ways. Perhaps it was the realization that she wasn’t alone in grief as she read the wording of some of the plaques, which had been erected by grieving family members and friends so many years ago. Grief was like an heirloom passed down from one generation to the next, and there was no escaping it. One simply had to accept death as a fact of existence, and accept equally the certainty of something better past that invisible barrier that separated life from death. A wisp of verse from Nikki’s Presbyterian upbringing lightly touched her mind as she stared toward the altar. “...God cause His countenance to shine upon you, and grant you peace.”
Tears welled in her eyes and overflowed, and the tight knot of pain inside her seemed to melt away with the action. Now she could heal. Now at last she could live with it.
She turned, dabbing at her eyes with her hand. She never seemed to have a handkerchief or a tissue when she needed it most. She was almost even with the entrance when a shadowy form took shape just inside the door as she blinked her eyes to force the mist out of them.
“Cal!” she whispered in disbelief.
He shifted restlessly from one huge leg to the other. “I was halfway through a bid when I remembered those,” he said quietly, nodding toward the plaques on the walls. “I had a feeling they’d bother you.”
She remembered his own losses, his wife, his young daughter, and the tears burned down her cheeks.
He moved forward, pulling out a handkerchief to give her. She pressed it to her tear-filled eyes, catching the scent of expensive cologne in its white softness.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, looking up at him with wide crystal clear eyes. “You hurt, too, don’t you?” she whispered, almost afraid to say it.
His face hardened, darkened. He looked away from her, down the long aisle. “Yes,” he said harshly. “I hurt.”
And he’d thought about her. He’d cared enough to come and see about her, despite his business. She wanted to bawl over that concern, but she forced her scattered emotions back together, sniffed, dabbed at the last of the tears and handed him back the handkerchief.
“I’m glad I came here,” she told him, moving past him toward the outside again. “I needed to.”
“What denomination are you?” he asked as they moved into the light, and Nikki blinked at the sudden brightness against her sensitive eyes.
“Presbyterian,” she murmured.
“Now that,” he said with a sideways glance, “is a true coincidence.”
She stopped and looked up at him. “You aren’t Presbyterian?”
He pulled a cigarette out of his blue-patterned shirt pocket and lit it. “My mother was Roman Catholic. My father was a staunch Calvinist. By some miracle they managed to live together long enough to be convinced that neither was going to convert the other. They became Presbyterians in an attempt to find a common ground.”
“That’s incredible.” She laughed.
“So were they,” he returned, his dark eyes soft with memory. “A happy couple.”
“Are they dead now?” she asked gently.
“My father is,” he replied. “My mother is still very much alive. She’s in a nursing home, a good one, and she plays a mean game of chess.”
“Do you look like her?”
“My father was blond and blue-eyed,” he remarked with a wry grin. “I get my size from him. But the rest is Mother.”
“Not quite all of it, surely,” she remarked dryly, and then flushed wildly when she realized what she’d said.
Laughter tumbled out of him like wine out of a carafe. “Sheltered little country girl...?” he murmured with a wicked glance.
“Why don’t you go back to your bids and your business?” she muttered.
“Hell, I tried. You got in the way.” He took a long draw from his cigarette as they walked. “Let’s go enjoy the sun for a while. All I’ve managed to do is give myself a headache.”
She smiled. Suddenly the day began to take on a new radiance.
They went to a casino over on Paradise Island that night, where Cal taught Nikki the art of gambling. She’d never even played poker before, and she didn’t have a high opinion of gambling in any form, but there was an aura of glamour that clung to this exclusive place.
While the roulette wheel spun and spun, her eyes darted restlessly around the room, finding every sort of apparel imaginable, from evening jackets to sport shirts and everything in between. It was the