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“Uh-huh.” Dawn slouched to the table, pulled out a chair and dropped into it. She propped her elbows on the table and rested her chin in her cupped hands. “Kissing. Just goes to show how utterly dumb I can be.”
“No,” Nick said quickly. Everyone looked at him. It was the first word to come out of his mouth since he and Dawn had switched on the light. His fuzz-free cheeks pinkened under the scrutiny of his bride and her parents. “You aren’t.”
“I am. Getting married when anybody with half a brain could see it was a mistake, because marriage doesn’t last. We all know that.”
“We don’t know any such thing,” Nick said, hurrying to her. He squatted beside her chair and reached for her hands, taking them gently in his.
“Just look around you, Nicky. Your guardian, your uncle Damian? Divorced. My parents? Divorced. Even Reverend Craighill—”
“The guy who performed the ceremony?” Chase said.
Dawn nodded.
“How do you know that?”
“I asked him. The poor man’s been divorced twice. Twice, can you imagine?”
Chase shot a look at Annie. “No,” he said tightly, “I certainly can’t.”
“Don’t look at me that way,” Annie snapped. The teakettle let out a piercing whistle and she snatched it from the stove. “What has the man’s marital history to do with anything?”
“A minister who can’t keep his wedding ring on ought to consider going into some other kind of work,” Chase growled.
“No,” Dawn said, “he’s in the right kind of work, Daddy. He’s a reminder of reality.” She sighed again. “I just wish I’d been smart enough to realize all this before today instead of being so darned dumb.”
“Sweetheart, stop saying that.” Nick clasped her shoulders. “You were smart to fall in love with me, smarter still to marry me.” He shot an accusatory look at Chase and Annie. “As for thinking you saw your folks kissing when we turned on the light—you were right.”
Dawn’s head came up. “I was?”
“Absolutely. I saw them, too.”
“No,” Annie said.
“We weren’t,” Chase added.
“Not at all,” Annie argued, waving her hand in her ex’s direction. “Dawn, your father already explained what happened. I was upset. He was trying to comfort me.”
“You see, Nicky?” Dawn’s eyes filled with tears. “They weren’t kissing. Oh, how I wish they had been.”
Annie frowned. “You do?”
“Of course.” Dawn snuffled and wiped the back of her hand across her nose. Annie and Chase both reached for the paper towels, but Nick pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to his wife, who blew into it. “See, when I saw you in Daddy’s arms, well, when I thought I saw you in his arms, it was such a big thing that I felt happy for the first time since Nick and I got to the airport. I figured, just for a second, I admit, but still, I figured...”
“You figured what?” Annie said, softly, even though she already knew, even though it broke her heart to think that her daughter still harbored such useless dreams, such futile hopes. She went to Dawn’s side, looped her arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. “What, darling?”
Dawn took a shuddering breath. “I figured that a miracle had occurred today,” she whispered, “that you and Daddy had finally realized what a mistake you’d made in splitting up and that you still loved each other.”
There was a pained silence. Then a soft sob burst from Annie’s throat.
“Oh, Dawn. Darling, if it were only that simple!”
“You can’t judge the future of your marriage by the failure of ours,” Chase said gruffly. “Sweetie, if you and Nick love each other—”
“What does that prove? You and Mom loved each other, once.”
“Well, sure. Of course we did, but—”
“And then you fell out of love, like everybody else.”
“Not everybody, sweetie. That’s an awfully broad state—”
“It must have been awful, knowing you’d loved each other and then having things fall apart.”
Chase looked at Annie. Help me with this, his eyes flashed, but she knew she had no more answers now than she’d had five years ago.
“Well,” he said carefully, “yes, yes, it wasn’t pleasant. But that doesn’t mean—”
“You guys did your best to keep me out of it, but I wasn’t a baby. I used to hear Mom crying. And I saw how red your eyes were sometimes, Daddy.”
Nick got to his feet and stepped back as Chase reached for his daughter’s hand.
