Chapter 18.

'Damn!' she thought. 'Oh hell.'

She thought of a few other unprintable things over the next few hours. She couldn’t decide if she was more furious or hurt.

She knew, of course, what he was doing. He was out bedding another woman. Having sex with another woman. She refused to talk about making love with another woman. She was sure that love had nothing to do with it unless it was because he was running scared of his love for her.

Did he love her?

Or was that merely wishful thinking? Had she gone beyond Mary Poppins, right into a Pollyanna approach to life?

Lucia sat in the...