"Thank you," she responded groggily, pressing the phone's OFF button. "Kyle?"

"I'm here," he said, coming into the bedroom. "Go shower. I've got a nice cup of cappuccino for you."

"You are perfect!" she told him, stumbling from the bed into the bathroom. She showered quickly, washing away the strong scent of unbridled sex from her skin. Toweling herself off, she walked naked back through the bedroom and into the living room. To her amusement he helped her into her short navy silk robe, and she cocked an eyebrow at him. "You don't like me naked anymore?" she teased him.

"We don't have much time, and I just want to enjoy your company for a few minutes," he told her, handing her the footed cappuccino cup. "When are you coming back to me, Nora?"

She sat down, and to her surprise, he sat on the floor by her side, his dark head in her lap. "I can't come tonight. It's Saturday, and if I let J. J. stay out with friends two nights in a row, it will look odd. And Sunday night is a school night, and he'll be home. Probably not until Monday night, Kyle." She sipped at the cappuccino. "Umm, this is really good."

"I'm going to miss you," he said softly.

"I'm probably going to miss you more," she told him. He was a fantasy, and you didn't have feelings for a fantasy, Nora reminded herself. But she did have feelings for him. He was her creation. The perfect man. The perfect lover.

"Let's just be together, the two of us, then, on Monday night," he said.

"Okay," she agreed. "No Rolf and pretty maid."

He looked up at her. "I'm falling in love with you," he told her.

She was startled. "You can't," she said. "You don't really exist, Kyle."

"I exist for you, Nora," he reminded. "I am as real for you as anything else is."

"But not in my world of reality," she said. "You're my fantasy, Kyle. Nothing more than a fantasy."

"I'm going to teach you to love again," he told her.

"If you can do that," she said wistfully, "it would be a miracle."

"I can do anything you want me to, Red Rover," he told her, looking up into her gray green eyes.

She smiled softly at him and, reaching down, caressed his jaw, but as she did she felt herself sliding away from him. Damn! Nora thought sadly. And then she woke up in her recliner once again. Sighing, she stood up, turning off the television with the channel changer. Another wonderful fantasy evening. Yet the taste of cappuccino lingered strongly on her tongue, and her body felt more alive than it had in years.

Chapter Four


"So, how bad is it?" Rina Seligmann asked, coming through the Buckleys' kitchen door. She was carrying a covered plate of chicken salad sandwiches on whole wheat bread she had made up at Trader Joe's this morning. She set the plate on the table, and pulled off the plastic wrap. "Tiff, where's that iced tea?"

"Right behind you," Tiffany Pietro d'Angelo said, plunking the pitcher and paper cups on the kitchen table next to the sandwiches.

"Worse than we even anticipated!" Carla said dramatically. She had driven Nora to her husband's office that morning, waiting while Nora had her first conference with Rick. "Absolutely everything is in the son of a bitch's name. Everything! He even tried to close down Nora's little household account this morning, but Rick put a stop to that."

"How did Rick know?" Joanne Ulrich was wide-eyed. This was even better than General Hospital.

"Well," Carla said with just the slightest air of self-importance, "when Rick got to his office this morning, he found a whole bunch of papers that had been faxed to him by Jeff's lawyer in the city. Only one bank account was listed, and it was the one here at Egret Pointe National Bank, and it was marked as closed. Well, Rick got on the telephone to Paul Williams at the bank. Paul said the request had come in this morning. Rick explained the situation, and told Paul to hold off until he could get back to the other lawyer. That the account was the only one Nora had, and if he would check back in the statements, he would see only she signed the checks, and they were mostly for household bills and personal expenses even if the account was in both names. So Paul said he'd hold off until he heard from Rick again."

"Well, that news will be all over town by closing time at the bank," Rina said dryly.

"How do you figure that?" Nora asked.

"Paul's secretary, Mae Taylor. She always listens in on his calls," Rina said. "She's the biggest gossip in town, and everyone knows it."

"Then why does he keep her on?" Joanne asked.

"He inherited her from his father-in-law, Lew Burnside," Rina replied. "Lew founded Egret Pointe Bank, and Paul is married to his daughter. When he retired, and Paul took over, Lew insisted he keep Mae on because, he said, she wasn't retirement age yet. But he really wanted to be sure he still knew everything that was going on at the bank. And before you ask, Sam plays golf with him twice a week. Will you all sit down? I'm starving." She reached for a half a sandwich and began to eat.

Joanne poured everyone a paper cup of iced tea, and then they looked to Carla.

"Rick called Jeff's lawyer back again, and told him the account couldn't be the only one Jeff had, because the one he had instructed the lawyer to close was Nora's household account, the only one she had, and she would need it to pay the household bills. That Jeff never used the account. He just made monthly deposits. Rick said the other lawyer seemed surprised at that, and said he'd call him right back."

"And did he?" Tiffany asked.

"Yeah. About ten minutes later," Carla said, grinning. "He told Rick that it was all a mistake, and he'd fax Paul Williams immediately that the account was to remain open. Rick told him he wanted Jeff's name off the account."

"Did he agree?" Tiffany asked.

"Oh, yeah, he agreed. Then he said that Rick should know that Jeff was under no obligation to put any more money into the account until a hearing."

"The bastard!" Rina said. "So he's going to play hardball, is he?"

"Yep," Carla said.

"It's worse," Nora told them quietly. "The kids' college funds have disappeared. They weren't on the list of stuff faxed to Rick. Jeff started an investment account for each of the kids when they were born. For college, he said, and he was always so proud of himself for looking ahead like that. You know how the market was after 'eighty-seven, and into the nineties. Jeff's a smart investor. Every Christmas he would show the kids and me their year-end statements. He said he didn't want them to come out of school with debt, like so many kids today. He said his father had done it for him, and he wanted to do it for his kids. That's why Jill was able to think of law school. There was more than enough money in each account, and now those accounts are gone."

"You're sure?" Rina asked.

"We called Jill up at school. I hadn't planned to tell her over the telephone about the divorce, but I didn't have any choice under the circumstances. She said her father had come to her about six months ago with some papers to sign. When she asked what they were, he said they had to do with the changes in the tax laws with regard to her account, and since she was of age, she had to sign the papers herself because he couldn't. She had no cause to distrust him."

"Nora hasn't had a chance to talk to J. J. yet, but Rick thinks he pulled the same or a similar stunt with him too," Carla said.

"My God," Rina said softly. "He's been planning this for months." She turned to Nora. "So what's Rick going to do now?"

"He's thinking about it. It has to be what's best for Nora and the kids," Carla said. "He doesn't want to make a mistake. This lawyer Jeff has hired is a pretty big-name, recognizable divorce attorney."

"Tell him not to take too long," Rina said acerbically. "So, what are you going to do while Rick is thinking?" she asked Nora.

Nora sighed. "I'll have to call my mother and tell her. Dad left her very well fixed. I think she'll help out until we get this straightened out. Of course I'll pay her back. She's not going to be happy to have her life disrupted, I'm afraid."

"Where does she live?" Rina said.

"In one of those elegant, perfectly manicured little retirement communities on the Carolina coast," Nora replied. "Dad moved them down before he died. It's a life-care community. He wanted her taken care of when he wasn't around to do it. I've been taking the kids down twice a year to visit. She never really liked Jeff. She'll be surprised, but not particularly devastated."

And Margo Edwards, Nora's mother, was indeed surprised by her daughter's news, but not because of the divorce. It was the timing that she found curious. "I thought he would have done this ten years ago," she said.

"What on earth would have made you think that?" Nora demanded of her parent.