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same time that a more disheartening emotion stabbed at his insides. “I’m sorry to hear it, Beth.” He reached for her hand, and she let it remain limply in his as she stared at the webbing between his fingers. “Then who’s Luke?”
    He could almost see the crack in her composure. Clearly, she’d been using her anger to keep her together. But at the mention of Luke, something in her spirit splintered. A single, plump tear trailed down her cheek, and Mack feared it was the precursor to many more.
    “Luke,” she began quietly, “was my son. He’s dead too.”
    *
    Whenever the topic of her dead family had come up in conversation with others, Beth had always seen the same reaction: eyes averted in awkwardness. She understood. People never knew what to say, just as she’d never known how to comfort others who’d experienced loss. There was no comfort. What could one say to a woman whose entire family had been annihilated? No words of empathy were ever sufficient.
    As much as people meant well when they mumbled, “I’m sorry,” it really didn’t help one iota.
    She expected the same clumsy expressions of sympathy from Machar Kirk, the strange man with the black eyes who seemed to tease a rainbow of color out of her grim world.
    He did not react the same way. For long moments, he didn’t say a word. He simply held her gaze, searching her face for … for what? An indication she wasn’t certifiable? An inkling she wasn’t a suicidal freak?
    Or was it that he was simply sharing the excruciating moment of grief with her? Beth wouldn’t have expected such dark eyes could possess such warmth, but they did in that moment. He looked at her, blinking a couple of times, but never dropping her gaze. The lines around his full mouth were tight, and Beth got the sense he was fighting the urge to rail against the injustice of her situation.
    And for that brief spell, Beth was oddly glad to have him in her corner. She felt lighter in his presence, less of a prisoner to her guilt.
    When he did speak, his response was one evocative word. “Beth.”
    At least, it seemed evocative coming out of his sensual mouth. His one syllable was laced with such caring Beth’s heart broke all over again. And when Machar squeezed her hand, she squeezed back. She felt better sitting with this stranger than she’d felt while commiserating with family, friends, and priests over the past soul-numbing year.
    He ran his other hand through his thick, ebony hair, sighing, and she glanced back at him.
    At another time, in another place, Beth might have considered Mack Kirk a very handsome man. Sinfully gorgeous, to be honest. With his noble forehead and the mischievous arch to his eyebrow, to say nothing of those haunting eyes, he was easily the most flawless man of her acquaintance.
    But now wasn’t that time or place. And all Beth wanted to do was cry for her lost child.
    Sensing she needed to, Machar squeezed her hand again. She looked at him, ready to burst. He nodded.
    But she couldn’t. Even though she desperately wanted to cry and wail and whimper. Even though she knew how badly she should let out all the pain that was festering in her soul. The punishing side of her nature wanted to keep her agony bottled up, as if letting it out would somehow mean her loss was less important than it was. Loss had defined her life for a year. It wasn’t about to change now.
    There wasn’t a single crack in the dam that protected what was left of her heart. She’d walled it up. No one would get at it now.
    And so, for about an hour or so, Beth stared into space, a stony captive to her grief. Mack didn’t question her, although he regarded her with curiosity. Clearly he was of the opinion that she should just let it all out. He’d obviously watched too many TV psychologists and felt she should share her feelings. Well, as Frank used to say, “Bullocks.” Mack Kirk could think whatever he wanted of her.
    Even still, in all that time, Mack never once let