CHAPTER 1

The elevator doors slid open, exposing the dimly lit hallway leading to his apartment. She took two steps, then a third, paused, and the elevator doors shut behind her. In a panic she whirled and tried to pry them open again, but it was too late. She had never been a coward, but she had never treated him so badly before, and the elevator was supposed to be her safety net.

She laid her forehead against the cool metal and took a deep breath, nervous to see him, to hear him, to touch him; not knowing what embarrassed her most: the months spent pushing the best man she had ever known away from her, or the hurtful words flung at him to protect the undefinable emotion that had consumed her for the past several months.

He deserved better. And now he was home, and she would tell him that.

So she turned and walked purposefully toward his door, the door she had passed through for so many years to be with the love of her life, the one man who challenged her, championed her, made her laugh, made her cry...the man she knew without a doubt loved her and only her. The man she loved without a doubt and with all her heart.

The doorbell sounded jarringly loud in her ears as she pressed the button. They both had keys to the other's apartments, but still rang the doorbell as a nod to decorum. She smiled. It was something they laughed about sometimes, wrapped in sheets tumbled and tangled by incredible lovemaking, fully aware that every tenant in their respective buildings knew very well what they were up to and coyly turned blind eyes to it.

After nearly thirty seconds her smile turned to a frown and she rang the doorbell again, toe involuntarily beginning to tap in frustration. He had to know it was her. Who else would be ringing his doorbell at 10:15 on a Wednesday night?

Finally, she heard footsteps and the deadbolt being shot back. A thousand butterflies took flight in her stomach as the door opened, and there he stood in the blue bathrobe she had given him for Christmas, and obviously nothing else.

"Della." He stepped quickly into the hallway, pulled the door closed, glancing guiltily behind him as he did so.

And her world ended.

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"You don't have to attend the ceremony."

She jerked her head away from the window she was staring out of dreamily. "What?"

"I said; you don't have to attend the ceremony if you don't want to. You can stay at the hotel and I'll pick you up for the reception." He drove with his left hand while his right hand rested on her thigh, fingers stroking a lazy pattern, an old habit resurrected after a long separation and eventual reconciliation. She sat close to him, nearly in the middle of the seat, as she had from the beginning of their exhilarating life adventure.

"Of course I'll attend the ceremony with you. I don't want any single women guests to get the impression that you're available." His profile was as strong and imposing as ever and still drew looks from women of all ages. She had dealt both successfully and unsuccessfully with his attractiveness from the moment she met him, and nothing had changed much after more years than she could ever believe.

"Okay," he said happily. "Maybe you could wear the emerald."

When had he become so easily pleased? That was her particular talent. He had said so thousands of times. And that was not an exaggeration. "I planned my entire outfit around the emerald." His dimpled grin pleased her, proving his assessment of her talent. "Do you think we'll have time for a nap before the ceremony?

Long fingers tightened their grasp on her thigh. "My dear, I planned our arrival at the hotel specifically to allow for a nap."

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She felt his presence before she heard him, as it had always been. As it would always be. "I hope your socks are full of sand."

He dropped to the cool pile of stones beside her, pulling his legs up to his chest like hers. "They are."

"Good." He hated it when foreign objects found their way into his socks. No matter how many times she lectured him that hate should be reserved for child molesters and the New York Yankees, he maintained that sandy socks should hold a place somewhere between the two. "How did you figure out where I was?"

"I thought of the most unlikely place you would run to and told Pinky to meet me at the airport."

"That was a gamble." She had flown commercial, but of course he had taken advantage of his friendship with renowned aviatrix Pinky Brier.

"Not really."

"Smug, aren't we?"

"No. The most unlikely place you would run to was here." 'Here' being the town where she grew up and had only visited twice since leaving for California at the age of nineteen.

Damn. She should have fled to someplace more obvious so he would still be flying around the country in search of her. "Congratulations. You outsmarted me."

He didn't reply, which she appreciated greatly.

Two noisily honking geese flew along the shoreline and they both watched the fowl disappear into the impending sunset.

He nodded his head toward the receding pair of geese. "When geese migrate they form a 'V' in flight. It's called a skein. Have you ever seen that?"

She snorted. "Of course I have."

"Then you know that one side of the 'V' is always longer than the other. Do you know why?"

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Her eyes followed his, squinting a bit in the setting sun. She shrugged. "Something instinctual in regard to aerodynamics and wind shear?"

His face dimpled with glee as he shook his head. "There are more geese in it."

She wanted to laugh freely into the wind but instead laid her head sideways atop her pulled-up knees and regarded him with a knowingly blasé expression in her eyes. "Exactly how long have you been waiting to pull that on me?"

His dimples deepened, if that were even possible. "My dad pulled it on me when I was six."

The sound of white-capped waves curling over the wave ahead of it accompanied a long silence between them.

"I suppose you have a speech all worked out," she spoke suddenly.

He shook his head. "No."

"Then why are you here?"

"You promised you would never run away from me."

"And you promised you would never cheat on me."

He held his breath for several seconds. "Did I?"

She stared at him unblinkingly. "Was there a woman in your apartment yesterday?"

"Yes."

"Did you sleep with her?"

"Yes."

Tears pooled in her eyes and Della finally blinked. "Oh," she said unsteadily, not quite prepared for his honesty.

His heart nearly stopped at that moment. "Did you want me to lie?" he managed to choke out.

"No. I wanted you to say no and for it to be the truth."

"I wish I could, baby. I wish that more than anything."

She turned away from him to once again stare out over the deep blue expanse of water, unspoken recriminations and excuses swirling in the breeze between them. "Do you love her?"

"No."

"How long have you been sleeping with her?"

"Just that one time."

"Do you want to sleep with her again?"

"No."

His habit was to either answer questions with questions or simply and with no explanations – as if he were on the witness stand. She appreciated that choice on his part as well, because she had no desire whatsoever for protracted explanations. "Can you forgive me for what I've done and said?"

"Absolutely."

"Do you want to?"

"Yes." He picked up a stone from the pile and turned it over and over with his fingers. "Can you ever trust me again?"

She hesitated. "Yes."

He sighed heavily. "Della, I promise one day when I ask you that question you won't hesitate."

She unclasped her arms and stretched her legs out in front of her, feet bare and covered with cool, white sand. The stone he had picked up was a fine example of an indigenous fossil. She had searched and searched for such a stone as a child and never found one, and he sits down literally on top of one. "Do you know how to get down from an elephant?"

He looked at her puzzled, perplexed by her question. "No. How do you get down from an elephant?"

"You don't get down from an elephant, silly. You get down from a duck." She struggled to smile. "My aunt told me that when I was six."