Afterward, Elisa expected to feel better. But now, instead of her mind being occupied by her paying job, it was a jumbled mess of more than a dozen things: Brody, mysterious online crooks stealing from her, and her ability to pay her bills in just a few months. She should have known Brody would have been too hard to shove out of her mind. The man was too dominant of a force.

The moon was nonexistent, and her house was shrouded in a thick blanket of blackness. The darkness surrounded her and made her eyelids grow heavy. For the first time all evening, Elisa felt like she could actually sleep. She had just dragged her weary bones to her bedroom when the phone rang. Briefly she considered not answering, then changed her mind. She went to the phone, hoping it was Brody apologizing and professing his undying for her.

“Hello?” she answered.

“Hey, gatinha.”

The Portuguese slang for good-looking rolled off her brother’s tongue and brought tears to her eyes.

“Marcello?”

“Who else would be calling you this late?” His question was accented by a deep chuckle.

The sound was so familiar and as welcome as a warm fuzzy blanket on a cold day. She sank to the bed and leaned against the headboard.

“Sorry for the phone tag. I’ve been so swamped with studying, lectures, and logging hours in a clinic that I’ve barely had time to breathe.”

Elisa couldn’t respond because tears were streaming down her face like Niagara Falls. She held back a hiccup and tried to gather her composure.

“What’s wrong, irmã?” he asked when she still hadn’t said anything.

Slang word for sister made her cry even harder. “I’m sorry, Marcello. I’ve just missed you so much. I’ve really needed someone to talk to.” The floodgates had opened, and nothing was going to stop her from spilling her guts now.

“Tell me,” he demanded in his slightly accented voice.

Elisa pulled in a cleansing breath and emptied everything she had inside her, including Brody. It all came out in such a rush, as if saying the words was a way of detoxing her system. Her brother remained silent, allowing her to say as much as she needed, sometimes crying in between stories. He didn’t interrupt her, or tell her to calm down or get over it. Marcello always knew the right thing to say.

“Are you in love with this man?” he asked after she finally stopped whining.

She dropped her head back and stared at the ceiling. “Yes. How do I always manage to fall for the wrong guy?”

“Something tells me this guy isn’t going to screw you over the same way Micah did.”

“Yeah, Brody definitely isn’t gay.” Didn’t matter. Brody would end up shattering her heart a thousand times more than Micah did.

Marcello sighed. “Do I need to fly up there and kiss this guy’s ass?”

Elisa giggled and picked at a thread on her blanket. “You’re so sweet. But I can fight my own battles.”

“You want my honest opinion?”

She hesitated, then answered with a soft “Yes.”

“This guy’s running scared. Sounds to me like he’s carrying around a lot of guilt, and his first marriage didn’t end well. When men get scared, we turn into babies. Our first instinct is to run the other direction.” He paused while speaking softly to someone. Then he continued, “This guy’s in love with you, Elisa. I’m sure of it, and I don’t even know him.”

“How can you be sure of that?” Elisa so badly wanted to believe Brody returned her feelings, but his actions told the complete opposite.

Marcello chuckled. “I know how the male mind works. Our minds are weak. We fall for a woman and we don’t have a clue how to handle it. My best advice is to give him space and let him figure it out on his own. If you push the issue, he’s likely to shut down completely.”

If only. What if he never figured it out? What if she waited her life away for a man who couldn’t let go of his demons?

Elisa wiped at her eyes with the cuff of her soft robe. “Enough about me and my poor woes. Tell me what’s going on with you.”

Marcello went on to tell her about how he spent more time in school than he did at home. Their grandfather had been helping him study for his next round of exams, which were in a few weeks. Then the tone of Marcello’s voice changed when he talked about Adriana, a young professional ballet dancer, who was originally from Argentina. He met the woman when she’d come in to the clinic with a sprained ankle, a hazard of her occupation.

“I discharged her and coaxed her into giving me her phone number. I think she pitied my desperate attempt at a date.”

Elisa smiled. Her little brother was so grown up. “That’s not why she agreed to go out with you. You’re charming and good-looking. And you’re a med student.”

“I feel funny around her, like my heart just dropped to the bottom of my stomach. I’ve never felt like this before.”

Yes, Elisa understood that. Because she felt the same way around Brody.

“Sounds to me like you have your own love problems,” she told him.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a problem.” He paused a moment. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“It’s okay. I’m really happy for you. You deserve to find a good woman.”

Some background noise came through the other end of the line. “Listen, I’ve got to go. But I wanted to tell you that I’m planning on coming up to see you next year. I could really use the break from studying.”

The thought of being with her brother filled her heart with so much joy. “Only if you have time. I don’t want to take you away from your work. I know how busy you are.”

“I can take a little time away from work to see my sister. And it’s not fair that you always have to fly down here.”

Elisa smiled at her brother’s thoughtfulness. “I’ve only been down there twice, and once was only because I had happened to already be there.”

“Nevertheless, I haven’t come to visit since I moved down here.”

“Maybe you could bring Adriana with you,” she suggested with a grin.

Her brother chuckled, which sounded a bit nervous. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. My pager’s exploding so I have to go. We’ll talk again soon.”

They said their good-byes and hung up. Elisa placed the telephone on the nightstand and sank down to the bed. The glowing clock across the room said one a.m. She ought to be fast asleep, but she was afraid. The dreams might return: the one where Kelly and Brody blamed her for causing turmoil, the one where Brody glared at her with accusation and resentment. Or, even worse, the one where his eyes smoldered at her right before he stripped her down to her bare skin. She hated that dream even more, because it reminded her how much in love with him she was.

Thankfully, no dreams came. Just sweet, restful sleep.


“Can I come in?” Elisa practically held her breath while the other woman didn’t say anything. Kelly had a suspicious look on her face, as if she wanted to slam the door on Elisa for being so presumptuous. And maybe coming to see Kelly was a bit audacious. But a little voice had been nagging at her, saying You need to make this right. Simply dusting things under the rug wasn’t the way Elisa operated, and her friend was no different. She’d caught Elisa making out with her ex-husband. Even though the off-limits rule had never been enacted, she felt like she owed the woman… well, something. At least an explanation.

Kelly pursed her heart-shaped lips and seemed to consider the situation a moment longer. Then she stepped back and held the door open wider. “Sure.”

Elisa resisted the urge to heave a huge sigh of relief. Instead, she followed the other woman inside and tried not to gawk at the interior of the home. Kelly and her husband had completely remodeled their sixties ranch-style home. Everything was contemporary yet homey. At the same time, all the touches, down to the wainscoting in the entry hall screamed top dollar. Kelly and her husband had probably spent more money on the deep-mahogany hand-scraped wood floors than Elisa had for all of her camera equipment combined. Then again, they could probably afford it. Colin was a chiropractor in a neighboring town and worked long hours.

The two women walked down the narrow hallway, which opened up to a great room with a vaulted ceiling. Rich-wooden exposed beams decorated the top of the soaring room, which was twice the size of Elisa’s cozy family room. Various photos of Tyler were perched on random shelves of a built-in bookcase. Kelly’s home was very comfortable, the type of place where Elisa felt she could curl up on the couch with a roaring fire.

“Would you like something to drink?” Kelly asked.

They entered an eating area, where the centerpiece was a gorgeous antique farmhouse-style kitchen table. On the wall opposite the table was one of Elisa’s black-and-white photographs, blown up and adorned in a shabby-chic frame. Elisa was surprised Kelly hadn’t taken the picture down and burned it.

“No, I’m fine. Thank you,” Elisa finally answered.

“I promise not to poison it,” the other woman said with a smile. She gestured toward the kitchen. “And I just made iced tea.”

Elisa found herself smiling back, and she relaxed by slow degrees. “In that case, I’d love some tea.” She settled in one of the four chairs at the dining table and waited. The house was so quiet, save for the ticking of the old German-style cuckoo clock. Tyler still didn’t get out of school for several hours, and Elisa missed the boy. She missed his inquisitive questions and quiet, thoughtful voice. No doubt, he was back where he belonged: with his mother. Would Kelly object if Elisa were to drop by and visit the boy?