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interested. Yet Maggie seemed undaunted.
    “Well,” she said, “I’m just lucky that J.D. came to my rescue. Otherwise I might not have been able to walk at all today.”
    Rick straightened up, sensing that she’d dismissed him. “Yes, well, glad to see you’re okay. We’ve got to get moving, J.D.”
    “I’ll be right with you.”
    Rick rejoined his group, which was preparing to leave the table.
    “Well, I’ll look for you tonight.” J.D. got up and turned the chair around and pushed it under the table. “I hope you can make it.”
    “If not, I’m glad we ran into each other today. I really did want to thank you again for helping me yesterday.” She looked up and smiled, and he noted the light sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Fairy kisses, someone had told him once. It seemed appropriate.
    He wished he had the nerve to beg her to cancel her dinner plans and go with him instead. He sighed inwardly, telling himself he had done the best he could do to see her again. The rest would be up to her.
    “By the way,” she called to him as he turned to go, “what’s the J.D. stand for?”
    “James David,” he responded over his shoulder, grinning, pleased that she’d been interested enough to ask.
    Catching up with the others as they passed through the doorway into the hall, he asked the promoter, “Where can I get a haircut?”

 
     
     
     
     
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    “ A ND DID YOU, IN FACT,” H ILARY INQUIRED, “manage a haircut?”
    “Absolutely,” he laughed. “Immediately upon leaving the arena, I went back to the hotel and sought the barber. Not the best haircut I ever had, mind you, but it served the purpose.”
    “And I take it you were suitably impressed with his efforts, Maggie?”
    “I don’t recall,” she replied flatly, attempting to add as little as possible to the conversation.
    J.D. knew she was lying through her teeth. It was a good sign.
    “Well, I recall perfectly,” he told Hilary. “It seemed I’d waited hours that night, wondering if she’d show up. My eyes never left the door, watching for her. I can’t tell you how relieved I was to see her walk in. She was dressed in a sort of long sweater, like a sweater, but it was a dress, dark green it was, like her eyes. We had to wait a bit for the show to begin, and there was recorded music playing,” he reminisced, his voice slowing slightly as he described the scene.
    “I asked her to dance, just to have an excuse to touch her. I was the world’s worst dancer…”
    “You still are,” Maggie jabbed with neither emotion nor a glance in his direction. Her eyes remained fixed on a painting across the room.
    “No question.” He laughed good-naturedly. “But you were as soft and warm as I’d knew you’d be. And you smelled of honeysuckle. Even today, that scent brings back that evening in vivid detail. You, Hobie, the wonderful music … ”
    He watched with a sinking heart as she turned her face to the garden. The image had not been strong enough, he told himself. It had not been the memory that would open the door.
    “And Narood played that night? Wasn’t that the first leg of his big comeback?” Hobie Narood was a topic Hilary’d very much like to discuss.
    “Yes,” J.D. stammered slightly, tripping over his own memories, finding himself suddenly tangled in something he wanted desperately to avoid. He heard a voice speaking rapidly, then realized it was his own. “God, but he was great that night. He was always great … ” His voice faded momentarily, and Hilary was afraid he’d refuse to go on, but go on he did in a rush of words that seemed to pour out on their own, as if they, not he, had control of his mouth.
    “Rick and I joined him onstage. We just plain jammed— the three of us—for better than an hour. Just like old times. He was very definitely the best sax player I’ve ever heard. We tried to talk him into coming with us on tour. We’d missed him terribly—Rick and I—since Daily