Mike studied Alice as she drank her
coffee. She glanced up, and caught his earnest gaze, and smiled, the corners
of her full mouth lifting upward, and incredibly reaching her eyes.
“I don't know how to thank you,” she
started, and he reached across the table and caught her hand. “Bringing me
here, staying with me, missing the funeral,” she finished. “Weren't you supposed to be a pall bearer?”
“It's all right,” he said softly.
“I can't believe I'm here. I've
wanted to find her for so long, and when I met Guynelle last year, I believed
it would happen right away.” She looked at her hand, resting in the grip of his
larger one. “But she talked me into waiting, explained about Silas and everything.”
She stared at him. “Then Tuesday, I happened to see his obituary. And I had to
come, Mike. I had to.”
“I'm grateful that you did,” Mike
replied, “and that you came by the store.”
For the second time in one day, he
couldn't help but notice that her skin was naturally free from makeup and her
lashes bore no gluey black mascara. He'd dried plenty of customers' weepy faces
over the years, and was used to getting make-up and black goo on his handkerchiefs.
Of course, those ladies had needed all the help they could get.
Not Alice, he
thought, his eyes settling on her incredible eyes once more.
Copyright 2017 Lynn Lacher
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