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Monday Puzzler
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5th Mach 2018
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HERO was standing alone in the dark, his hands shoved deep into his trouser pockets, his head tipped back as if he were looking up at the stars. HEROINE opened the door and silently slipped outside, watching him, trying to think where to begin when all she wanted to do was fling herself into his arms. She’d rehearsed a dozen opening speeches on the flight there, all of them designed to let her stay and face his trouble together with him. She’d thought of pleading, of reasoning, of demanding. She’d considered trying tears to weaken his resistance. But when the moment was finally upon her, she couldn’t seem to begin. She took a step forward and saw him stiffen with resistance the instant she spoke. “HERO?” He didn’t even turn his head or look at her. “What are you doing out here?”
“Praying.”
Tears stung her eyes when she remembered the way he had dismissed the idea as the last resort of fools—dreamers who won’t face the fact that they cannot have something. “What are you praying for?”
“I’ve been praying for you,” he said in a hoarse whisper.
HEROINE walked into his arms. They closed around her, yanking her against him, while he buried his lips in hers. When he finally ended the kiss, he kept her crushed against his length, his jaw resting against her head, as if he were afraid to let her go for fear she would vanish. Content to stay there, she rubbed her cheek against his hard chest. “I love you.”
His hand slid up her back in a caress, and he brushed a kiss against her temple. “I know you do. The proof is in my arms.”
“I know why you’re having so much trouble with the SEC. ------- ------- told me.”
He went very still. “He told you what?”
“I went to see him last night. He told me you got ------- pregnant and she had to have an abortion. She can’t have children because of complications from it. She’s been in and out of intensive therapy programs for years.”
“He told you all that,” HERO said, leaning back and studying her with puzzlement and disbelief, “and you came here, to me?”
She smiled at him in the moonlight and nodded; then she cuddled closer in his arms again. “I know it isn’t true.”
“Because you believe in me?” he speculated, confused.
“Yes. And because back then we all had bets about who would get you to kiss them.”
A low chuckle rumbled in HERO’s chest beneath her ear. “And no one won,” he stated, understanding at once where she was going with that. With a smile in his voice, he whispered, “How much did you bet?”
His wife opened his shirt button and pressed a playful kiss on his chest. “Nothing. I only make idiotic bets in Las Vegas.”
They were on their way to the bedroom when HEROINE remembered what she’d brought to give him. “What’s this?” HERO asked, setting her suitcases at the foot of his bed. She handed him an envelope and a hand-decorated sack. He opened the envelope first and then the sack. ------- ------- had sent him a brief history of ---- --------’s drunk-driving arrests, the last of which was while he was in law school and had resulted in serious injury to the face of the female passenger with him at the time.
---- ------- had sent him a bag of homemade chocolate chip cookies.