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but our bakery is pretty good.”
    Peter bit into one and grinned, suddenly looking more like ten than thirty. “It is, indeed. I’ll have to get acquainted with the cook.”
    His appreciation and delighted grin took away some of Nina’s reluctance. Instead of reliving those first days after Danny disappeared, she was telling one friend about another one, one who shared his fascination with sports cars. Peter, with a bit of chocolate on his chin and a boyish smile warming his face, wasn’t the same stern man she’d met in the college parking lot. That also made it easier to talk to him.
    “All right, the last time I saw Danny was right after our wedding. I told you that.” Trying to cover the facts with as little emotion as possible, she put her coffee cup aside. “There really isn’t much more than that to say. Danny and I were married at a little church outside of town. We had cake and punch with the wedding guests in the church parlor. He’d left the car behind the pastor’s house and went to get it. He never came back, and no one ever saw a sign of the car again until I noticed it in the parking lot that day I met you. That’s the whole story.”
    Peter wrote for a minute, then looked up. “Remember, I don’t know you and I never met Danny. Tell me about your time together. What was Danny like? Will that be too hard for you?”
    Hard? Yes, it would be hard to think back to those days, Nina admitted, but Peter was right. He didn’t know them, had no knowledge of their history. If he was to be any help, he’d have to know everything she remembered.
    “I can do that,” Nina answered but even as she spoke she thought of a way to give him a better understanding. “I have my scrapbook with pictures; that might help more.”
    “Do you mind showing it to me? Pictures can make clear what words never will.”
    Nina didn’t answer, just went to the bookcase in the corner and pulled down the red plaid book that held her memories and took it back to him. She opened the cover to the last photograph in the book. “This was our wedding picture, taken right after the ceremony and about an hour before Danny vanished. It’s how he looked the last time I saw him.”
    Staring down at the faces caught in that transitional moment, Nina was struck by how young, how terribly vulnerable the two people in the picture looked. A band of silk petals hid half of her short, brown curls. Beside her, tall and blond, Danny smiled, his eyes hidden behind the tinted lenses of his glasses. The white jacket of his linen suit blended into the white of her simple dress. Almost as if we really were one person.
    “No satin and lace, cascading roses, or troops of bridesmaids in baby blue gowns?” Peter asked in a quiet voice.
    Nina shook her head. “Every girl dreams of her wedding, wants to look the picture-perfect bride, but sometimes it just isn’t in the cards. Danny has health problems, allergies and a lingering irregularity with his heart from rheumatic fever when he was a baby. He picks up every germ that comes close, and any illness is dangerous for him, so he stays out of crowds. We only had about twenty people at the church. And no flowers, because he starts choking and wheezing when he gets around them. Special cake, too, without eggs. He can’t tolerate eggs. The wedding was simple, but it was very nice.” She turned back to the beginning of the book. Pages of photographs brought back a flood of memories, things she’d not thought about in a long time.
    Peter caught one page before she turned it. “Where was this one taken? Isn’t that the T-Bird?”
    Nina glanced at the photo and smiled. “That’s Uncle Eldon’s place, the car museum out on the highway. That shot was made the day Danny got the T-Bird. See the grin on his face?”
    As Peter examined the picture he asked, “Where did you and Danny meet?”
    Nina closed her eyes, remembering that day. “At Uncle Eldon’s place. I was in high school. Danny and his