Weekend Wife by Carolyn Zane

peeked through the candlelight at the man seated across from her. He stretched his arms up over his head, and she admired the way the muscles in his chest flexed and moved beneath his shirt. She wondered if he had any idea at all just how attractive he was. With his beautiful, dark brown hair, and his chiseled movie-star looks, it was no wonder his boss was after him.
    “Oh, no big deal. I only lost half my mind. Besides, it was worth it to see the look of rapture on her little face.” He grinned and dropped to his elbows on the table. “She’s a doll. I can see why you and Helga are so protective of her.”
    Nodding, Emily took a small sip of her wine. “Helga tells me that this last year has been pretty rough on her.” She ran her fingers slowly over the rim of her glass. “As soon as I’m finished with my job for you, I want to see about getting her placed with a family through an adoption service. I know there must be some family out there that would just love her to pieces.”
    A paternal look of concern momentarily crossed Ty’s handsome face. “But how could you be sure? How do you know that the new family would love her as much as you do? Or worse, what if no one wanted her at all?”
    Emily shook her head ruefully. “I wouldn’t know. But, I’m beginning to think being passed around by the system has to be better than being out on the street.”
    The muscles in his jaw worked angrily, and Emily could see that Carmen’s situation was starting to affect him the same way it affected her. It was hard to believe that life wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows for such a small child. And, unfortunately, it wasn’t just the one small child. There were literally thousands of children out there who weren’t even as well-off as Carmen was.
    “Hey,” she admonished, trying to lighten his mood. “You’re taking good care of her now, and that’s something. And today you gave her an adventure she will probably never forget.”
    “Doesn’t seem like a whole hell of a lot.” He shook his head in disgust. “It’s so easy to take things for granted. A warm bed. A hot meal. And then you meet a kid like Carmen and it kind of knocks you for a loop.”
    She knew exactly how he felt. “Mmm-hmm.”
    “She kind of worms her way into your heart, doesn’t she?”
    Emily smiled sadly. “In a big way.”
    He glanced at her, then focused on the candle flame. “I was pretty freaked when she disappeared after the teacup ride,” he admitted, referring to the few tortured minutes that Carmen had gotten turned around and lost in the crowd. “And then when I found her standing there crying, holding on to Mickey’s giant hand, it almost broke my heart.”
    Sensing that this type of admission did not come easily to a man like Ty, Emily just sat and listened.
    He pushed his chair slightly away from the table and crossed an ankle over his knee. “You know, when she saw me and smiled that big, watery-eyed smile, I thought I’d bust.” He ran a weary hand over his face, and around to the back of his neck. “I got lost at Coney Island when I was a little boy,” he reflected. “It was pretty scary. I hated that she had to go through that.”
    “I know,” Emily murmured. “And the sad part is, in her short life, she’s been through so much worse.”
    “So have you.”
    Emily could tell that he was dying of curiosity about her past. And she was dying to tell him. But she couldn’t. Not yet.
    “It hasn’t been nearly as bad for me,” she replied, leading him away from thin conversational ice. “It’s a lot harder on the children.”
    The poignant moment gripped them both, and they sat, filled with a heavy sense of melancholy, regarding each other silently in the dancing glow of the candles. Shrouded in the intimate circle of light, they shared a moment together that slowly began to change the way they viewed one another.
    “I learned a long time ago, you can’t save them all,” Emily murmured, twirling the stem of