Page 8 of Waste of Worth

“It makes me curious when I’m photographing cemeteries and see people talking to graves or whatever, and I almost stop them to chat, but never do. It wouldn’t be right.”

Yet, there she was, talking to him.

That was not lost on Dino.

She stuck her hand out, offering it to him.

“Karen Martin,” she said.

Dino’s gaze flicked down at her hand, and without his permission, lifted his own to take hers. There was a warmth to her skin that wasn’t in his, he noticed. They were both outside, so there was no real reason for the temperature difference.

Karen smiled widely. “You should tell me your name, it’s only fair.”

“Dino,” he said, surprised at how quietly his name came out.

“Do you come here often?”

Again, he answered, more honestly than perhaps he should have spoken. “Once a week usually to visit my mother.”

That brightness in her features dimmed just a bit, but she still managed a smile.

Dino couldn’t help but notice that it was a beautiful smile.

Even when it was sad.

“Can I make a confession, Dino?” Karen asked.

Dino eyed her, both curious and a little wary of her sunny disposition while she stood chatting happily in the middle of a cemetery with a man she didn’t know from Adam.

“Go for it, Karen.”

“Me bumping into you wasn’t really an accident,” she said with a wink. “You looked sad—I wanted to see if I could make you smile.”

He wasn’t quite sure what to make of that.

Karen shrugged her one shoulder again, letting go of his hand and pointing at his face as she took a step backward. “And you are, Dino. Smiling, I mean.”

Was he?

Karen laughed, a sweet sound that reminded him of a melody, floating in the wind and being carried further away. “Have a great day, Dino. And if you need to smile next Sunday, I might be around.”

Before he could reply, Karen was already gone back up the pathway, and disappearing behind a rather large statue in the cemetery.

It took two minutes for Dino to get back to his car.

His reflection in the driver’s window confirmed Karen’s statement.

He was smiling.

How strange …

“FOR the sake of business?” Theo snarled.

Dino barely passed his younger brother a glance at his show of anger—it wasn’t unusual for Theo, as far as that went. “We all have to play nice with people we don’t like, Theo.”

“Riley Conti is a fucking—”

“Cool it,” Dino interrupted, finally giving his brother his attention. “We’re in the middle of a fucking church parking lot. The least you could do is keep your tantrum at a quiet level so that we’re not sharing our problems with the goddamn neighbors. It’s not like they need more to gossip about where the Outfit is concerned.”