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heart. "That's horrible, Nathan. Were they married a long time?"
    I swallow what's left in my own wine glass. "They were married for fifty-four years."
    She lets out a little gasp as if there's not enough air in the room." That's so long. They must have gotten married very young."
    I don't want the words to bother me but they do. I'm thirty-two years old. I want to be married and I want to be a father. I want all of that with Jessica and I want it now. "He told me that he can't remember what it was like before he married her."
    Her bottom lip trembles as if the words have cut right to her core. "That's beautiful. That's true love."
    I push on, not to explain more about my client but to touch that part of her. I want her to be open and vulnerable. I want her to take inspiration from a love that is that deep and enduring. "The first day that I met him, he told me something."
    She leans forward on the table, her elbows resting on either side of her plate. "What was it? What did he say?"
    I mimic her stance and cover her hands with mine. I look straight into her beautiful blue eyes as I say, "he told me he was the luckiest. He said every day before he gets out of bed he thinks about her and how lucky he is to love her."
    She looks down at our hands. "You mean how lucky he was to love her. I mean before she..."
    "Died?" I interrupt. "No that's not what I mean."
    She bites the corner of her bottom lip. I know that she's searching for the right thing to say. This conversation is touching her the same way it's touching me. "What do you mean?"
    I swallow hard before I pull in a heavy deep breath. "He loves her as much today as he did the day he married her. He told me he'll never stop loving her. She owns the other half of his heart."
    Her eyes fill with tears, her hands grab tightly to mine as she whispers the words, "You own my heart too. You do."
     
    ***
     
    "What the hell you talking about?" I ask, the tone of my voice unmistakably loud and clear.
    She pushes past me the entire time whispering something into the microphone attached to her earpiece. "I don't have time for this right now. Can't you see we're completely full?"
    I quickly pull my eyes around the near capacity restaurant. "I don't care. Where the fuck is Jessica?"
    She turns sharply to face me. "I'm a hostess. I'm not a babysitter. I don't know where Jessica Roth is. I do know that she called in sick only an hour before we opened. It's the third time in the past month."
    The third time in a month? What the hell is going on? Jessica hasn't been sick. I stopped at the apartment on my way home from work to drop off my laptop and she wasn't there. I came here to see her because I felt badly about last night. I got called into conference call right after dinner. We were both overwrought with emotion after talking about Mr. Wilkinson and his wife's death.
    "I don't have time to stand and talk to you." The hostess isn't very hospitable. "When you do see her you should tell her that she's on dangerous ground right now. There are a lot of people that want to work here."
    I shift on my feet and step closer to her, blocking her path away from me. The only way around me is through me. "My name is Nathan Moore. I'm an attorney." Hell, yes, I'm going to play that card. "It sounds as though you're threatening Ms. Roth."
    "You're an attorney," she says the words with obvious disdain. "I should've known by the suit. What's with all the suits who want to talk to Jessica? Is she in some kind of trouble?"
    Again, I'm being thrown into the middle of the ring of confusion that is Jessica's life. "What did the other suit want?" Christ, let there be only one other man in a suit looking to talk to my suddenly popular girlfriend.
    She scans her eyes over my face before they dart behind me. "I'm too busy for this. He looked like an attorney too."
    I step forward a touch. Intimidating this woman isn't going to be easy. It's obvious that she thinks her hostess job is vital to the earth continuing