A/N: I do not own anything you recognize. All characters and familiar scenes and dialogue belong to the wonderfully talented Martha Williamson. I am just along for the ride. This story follows the thoughts and off-screen actions of the POstables during the second episode, "Time to Start Livin'". Please, read and review, thanks!

Sunday, June 28th, 2014

10:48 AM

Shane stood in line at the Convention Center, waiting for the doors to open to the Digital Sports Expo that was being held there this weekend. She, Oliver, Norman, and Rita had had to work the previous day so she had not been able to view the exhibits for Saturday, but she was excited to see what they had in store for Sunday.

As she waited, she sipped her coffee absentmindedly, musing on the events of the previous ten days. Tonight she was supposed to have had dinner with Steve. He had been gone for the last two months and would be leaving again on Wednesday for an indeterminate time.

Becky was right, Shane admitted to herself. He is definitely more dedicated to his job than he is to me. She had an epiphany then. In fact, he only ever says "I love you" when I am distancing myself from him. He uses it as a hook to get me to stay with him!

Unbidden, her thoughts turned to Oliver. Oliver, from whom his own wife had distanced herself yet he had given her the space to decide things for herself. He believed in the sanctity of marriage but would not employ the use of emotional blackmail to bend her to his will. Shane admired the respect for his wife he exhibited despite the fact that she personally believed a year and a half was too long to simply wait for a prodigal spouse to return home.

The doors finally opened, pulling Shane from her reveries. As the line began moving, she anticipated the expo and the exhibits she would view that day. Tomorrow would be soon enough to think more on the subject of Oliver and his wayward wife.

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1:30 PM

Oliver took a deep breath, gazing up at the building before him. Have I gone completely mad? he asked himself. I danced one time with Ms. McInerney and gained such enjoyment from it that I am finally willing to take those dancing lessons, when I wouldn't even consider them at Holly's request?

Squaring his shoulders, he pushed the door open and entered. A statuesque brunette in a leotard greeted him.

"Hello, may I help you?" she inquired.

"Yes, I believe so," he replied. "My name is Oliver O'Toole; we spoke on the telephone earlier?"

"Of course, Mr. O'Toole!" she remembered. "I am Madame Francesca. You were looking to purchase a ballroom dance package but are currently without a partner, is that correct?"

"Yes, precisely," he nodded.

"Well," she said brightly, "you are in luck. I do have one female student who is beginning in today's class who is also without a partner. Her name is Louise, and she should be here momentarily."

"Excellent!" he announced. As she led him to the registration desk to fill out the forms and pay the fees, his mind went back to the reason for the lessons. He told himself that he would only take a few lessons; learn just enough dance to hopefully show Holly that he would no longer completely disregard her feelings and desires were she to come home. He ignored the Voice inside him that told him these lessons had nothing to do with Holly, but with his growing admiration for Ms. McInerney.

He had just finished registering for the class when the door opened and a woman walked in. She was elderly – in her eighties at least if she were a day – but that was preferable to Oliver as he was struggling enough over his feelings for two women in his life; he had no wish to complicate matters further. He fervently hoped that this lady was his new dance partner.

"Louise," Mme. Francesca greeted. "I would like you to meet Oliver. He has just registered for the same class as you and will be your dance partner."

"Wonderful!" The sprightly octogenarian clapped her hands. "Let's see if you can keep up with me, honey!" she winked.

Oliver laughed. Between work, and church, and Ms. McInerney's knack for…pushing the envelope, and now Louise at dance class, life for the foreseeable future would be anything but dull.

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3:30 PM

Oliver let himself into his home, placed his keys in the dish by the door, and hung up his jacket. His dance class had gone well; Louise had proven to be just as active and unpredictable as he had assumed at their meeting. He began to think he would enjoy dance class.

Noticing the hunger pangs that had been growing in intensity for the last half hour, he realized he had had nothing to eat all day. He had gone to church that morning, stopping for an Americano on the way, then had gone straight from church to the dance studio. He had no food in the house, however, having eaten out all week and not having gone shopping to replenish his food supply from the week before.

Coming to a decision, he spun around, grabbed his keys and his jacket, and got in his car. Fifteen minutes later, he was parking at Marczyk Fine Foods, his grocer of choice. He wandered the departments first, gathering the items needed for salads from the produce department and a loaf of his favorite Pugliese bread at the bakery. He was grabbing a container of soup from the grab-n-go cooler when, glancing up, he stopped short.

There, not twenty feet away at the Deli counter, was the woman he had seen at the Bluegrass Festival the previous weekend, the one who had the boyfriend who didn't care enough to go to the festival with her but wanted her to drive back to Denver that night for a date. He was sure it was same woman: she had the same build, the same height, the same hair…as…as…

Shane.

It was Shane he had seen at the Bluegrass Festival, Shane he had compared (favorably!) to Holly, Shane who had driven five hours to make a date with a boyfriend she hadn't mentioned once all week. His heart plummeted in disappointment. She was also at a market, buying groceries when she didn't have a means to cook it while staying in a hotel suite. He took that to mean that she was cooking for her boyfriend in his kitchen, wherever that may be.

He sighed. He had no right to be jealous, he knew. He was married and she was simply a colleague. However, he had admired her forthright personality and had thought that he had earned her trust enough, especially given how he had opened up about Holly, for her to talk to him about the issues with her boyfriend.

He completed his shopping, gathering enough ingredients to make himself dinners for the week, and headed to his car. In the parking lot, he saw Ms. McInerney drive away in her little blue rental car. Sighing again, he slid in, placed his shopping bag in the back, and drove home.

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Fifteen minutes earlier

Shane, having seen nearly every exhibit at the Expo, had begun to grow hungry. Checking the time on her phone, she got in her car and pointed it in the direction of Marczyk Fine Foods. While driving, she remote dialed the number she had only recently memorized and waited for the other end to connect.

"Hello?" Rita asked after the third ring.

"Rita, hi!" Shane greeted excitedly.

"Oh, hi Shane!" the brunette responded. "How's your day off going?"

"Great," Shane told her. "But I am starting to get hungry and wanted to know if you guys wanted another night in? I can stop at the market and pick up some hot soup and the makings for some sandwiches and salad, maybe?"

"That sounds better what I had planned," Rita informed her. "Which was nothing. Have you spoken to Norman or Oliver yet?"

"I don't have either one of their numbers," Shane admitted. "Could you do me a favor? Could you call them for me?"

"Sure. Give me half an hour and I will call you back, OK?" Rita requested.

"OK," Shane agreed.

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4:00 PM

Oliver's phone was ringing as he walked through his front door. He placed his bags on the counter and picked up the handset off its cradle.

"Hello?" he answered, digging through the bags and placing his groceries on the counter.

"Hi Oliver!" Rita's bubbly voice came from the other end of the line.

"Rita?" Oliver asked, afraid something was wrong. Rita rarely called him on the weekends unless there was an urgent need. "Is everything OK?

"Oh, I'm fine!" she assured him. "I was just wondering if you wanted to join me and Norman at Shane's hotel suite for another dinner in? Maybe we can actually watch a movie this time!"

"Oh, uh, Rita," he stammered. "Thank you, um, for the, uh, invitation, but perhaps Ms. McInerney has, um, other, uh, plans with a, a boyfriend, perhaps?

The suggestion was difficult for him to even contemplate, and even more difficult for him to voice, but he didn't wish to beat around the bush. If she was involved with someone and she was happy, then he wanted to wish her well.

"Boyfriend?" Rita asked. "She doesn't have a boyfriend, Oliver, or at least none that I know of. She called me about half an hour ago and asked if the three of us wanted a night in. She said she would stop at the market and get some hot soup and the fixings for some sandwiches and a dinner salad."

Oliver's heart lightened. She hadn't been purchasing food to cook for a boyfriend, after all! He thought back to what she had had in her cart: soup, arugula, goat's cheese, pears, walnuts, champagne vinaigrette, whole grain bread, tomatoes, avocado, pre-cooked bacon, and wine. Nothing that needed a stove or oven or even a microwave to prepare. Still, there was the matter of that dinner she had rushed back to Denver for from the Bluegrass Festival the previous weekend.

Wait, didn't she purchase her home on that day? "I'm staying at the Brown Palace until the house I bought two days ago closes," she had said while they were walking to the Mailbox Grille the previous Monday evening. Suddenly, something else she had said later that evening came back to him and he suddenly felt foolish for his assumptions: "I have eaten at my hotel, mostly…Oh, and I had dinner with my realtor at the Meadowlark Kitchen on Saturday night."

So it had been a business dinner he had overheard her scheduling on their way into the Bluegrass Festival and not a dinner with a boyfriend who cared too little about her to share her interests!

"Oliver?" Rita's voice interrupted his thoughts. "Are you still there?"

"I am, yes," he acknowledged quickly. "Please thank Ms. McInerney for the kind invitation, Rita, but I have just completed my own shopping expedition for my evening meal. Another evening, however, I would be happy to accept."

"Oh," Rita replied. "OK, Oliver. Have a nice evening. We'll see you tomorrow at work?"

"Of course," he affirmed. "Tomorrow."

He hung up and sighed. Eleanor was right yesterday, Lord. I need to guard my heart. I could easily fall for Ms. McInerney, but that would not be fair to her, it would not be fair to Holly, and it would not be fair to me. Help me maintain a professional distance, Lord, I pray. And Lord, I pray for Holly, too. I pray she is happy, healthy and safe. For nearly two years I have wondered, and worried, and prayed. Please bring an answer to my prayers soon, one way or another. If she wishes to come home, please let her come soon. If, however, she no longer wants me for a husband, I pray she finds a way to let me know so that I can go on with my life and she may go on with hers. In Jesus' name, Amen.

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7:30 PM

"Does anyone want to play a game of chess?" Shane asked, after she had cleared their dinner dishes and had served coffee and slices of the cake she had bought that afternoon.

"We don't play," Rita answered.

"Wait, you play chess?" Norman asked in surprise.

"Yes," she answered slowly. "Why does that surprise you?"

"Well, uh," he stammered. "It's not that it surprises me, exactly. It's just that Oliver plays chess, too."

"I know," Shane replied steadily.

"Oh, so he told you," Norman assumed.

"No," Shane laughed. "But its kind of hard to miss the chessboard set up right in front of his desk. I assume it's not just there to fill space."

"Maybe you guys could play sometime!" Rita suggested. "Are you any good?"

"Well, my dad started teaching me when I was four," she explained. "By the time he left when I was ten, I was beating him at every game. I joined the Chess Clubs in Junior High and High School, and was on the Chess Team in college, competing all over the East Coast. One time I even went to an international competition in Beijing. That was fun! Challenging, but fun."

"Then I definitely don't want to play against you," Norman stated emphatically. "No offense. But I wouldn't mind watching a game between you and Oliver sometime."

A short time later, Rita indicated that they should be going, as they had to work the next morning and a new supervisor to meet. "I wonder what the new supervisor will be like," she mused, pulling on her jacket.

"Whoever they are," Shane concluded, "They cannot possibly be any worse than Andrea was!" Thank you, Becky, Shane thought. I don't think I could have taken another day of Andrea's snarky attitude without attempting homicide.

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A/N: Well, there it is! Please review and let me know what you thought! Up next: Monday morning, the introduction of Theresa Capodiamonte, and Owen/Casey's letter!