“Frank. The light is yellow. Frank!” Diana Morgan stomped the passenger-side floor of the Buick. Hard. If only she had the brakes on her side.
Frank Morgan pulled to a smooth stop as the light went red. “There,” he said, in that calm, deep, untroubled voice she’d always loved. “We’re stopped. No need to wear a hole in the floor.”
Diana glanced over at her husband of thirty years. She loved him so much. There were a whole lot of things to worry about in life, but Frank’s love was the one thing Diana never doubted. He belonged to her, absolutely, as she belonged to him, and he’d given her two beautiful, perfect daughters. Abby and Melissa were all grown up now.
The years went by way too fast.
Diana sent her husband another glance. Thirty years together. Amazing. She still loved just looking at him. He was the handsomest man she’d ever met, even at fifty-seven. Nature had been kind to him. He had all his hair and it was only lightly speckled with gray. She smoothed her own shoulder-length bob. No gray there, either. Her hair was still the same auburn shade it had been when she married him. Only in her case, nature didn’t have a thing to do with it.
A man only grew more distinguished over the years. A woman had to work at it.
The light turned green. Frank hit the gas.
Too hard, Diana thought. But she didn’t say a word. She only straightened her teal-blue silk blouse, re-crossed her legs and tried not to make impatient, worried noises. Frank was a wonderful man. But he drove too fast.
Abby and her husband, Greg, were having them over for dinner tonight. They were on their way there now—to Abby’s house. Diana was looking forward to the evening. But she was also dreading it. Something was going on with Abby. A mother knows these things.
And something was bothering Melissa, too. Diana’s younger daughter was still single. She’d been going out with Josh Wright for a year now. It was a serious relationship.
But was there something wrong between Josh and Melissa? Diana had a sense about these things, a sort of radar for emotional disturbances, especially when it came to her daughters. Right now, tonight, Diana had a suspicion that something wasn’t right—both between Melissa and Josh and between Abby and Greg.
“Remember Venice?” Frank gave her a fond glance.
She smiled at him—and then stiffened. “Frank. Eyes on the road.”
“All right, all right.” He patiently faced front again. “Remember that wonderful old hotel on the Grand Canal?”
She made a humphing sound. “It was like the rest of our honeymoon. Nothing went right.”
“I loved every moment of it,” he said softly.
She reminded him, “You know what happened at that hotel in Venice, how they managed to lose our luggage somewhere between the front desk and our room. How hard can it be, to get the suitcases to the right room? And it smelled a bit moldy in the bathroom, didn’t you think?”
“All I remember is you, Diana. Naked in the morning light.” He said it softly. Intimately.
She shivered a little, drew in a shaky breath and confessed, “Oh, yes. That. I remember that, too.” It was one of the best things about a good marriage. The shared memories. Frank had seen her naked in Venice when they were both young. Together, they had heard Abby’s first laugh, watched Melissa as she learned to walk, staggering and falling, but then gamely picking herself right back up and trying again. Together, they had made it through all those years that drew them closer, through the rough times as well as the happy ones… .
A good marriage.
Until very recently, she’d been so sure that Abby and Greg were happy. But were they? Really? And what about Melissa and Josh?
Oh, Lord. Being a mother was the hardest job in the world. They grew up. But they stayed in your heart. And when they were suffering, you ached right along with them.
“All right,” Frank said suddenly in an exasperated tone. “You’d better just tell me, Diana. You’d better just say it, whatever it is.”
Diana sighed. Deeply. “Oh, Frank…”
“Come on,” he coaxed, pulling to another stop at yet another stoplight—at the very last possible second. She didn’t even stomp the floor that time, she was that upset. “Tell me,” he insisted.
Tears pooled in her eyes and clogged her throat. She sniffed them back. “I wasn’t going to do it. I wasn’t going to interfere. I wasn’t even go
ing to say a word…”
He flipped open the armrest and whipped out a tissue. “Dry your eyes.”
“Oh, Frank…” She took the tissue and dabbed at her lower lid. If she wasn’t careful, her makeup would be a total mess.
“Now,” Frank said, reaching across to pat her knee. “Tell me about it. Whatever it is, you know you’ll feel better once we’ve talked it over.”