*mild profanity, violence

Sweet Mystery of Life

By Kate

Trixie Belden hurried into Sisters of Mercy hospital, blond curls bouncing as she raced for the closing doors of the nearest elevator.

"Wait! Hold that door, please!" She called out desperately. The orderly who held the door for her received a dazzling smile in return. He grinned in return and eyed her appreciatively. At twenty-seven, Trixie had outgrown the sturdiness of her teenage years and simply looked like what she was – a healthy woman who scorned the popular ‘waif’ look and ate like a human being. Her fitted linen slacks accented her curves and the blue silk blouse she was wearing brought out the color of her flashing eyes. "Sixth floor, please," she said, turning her attention to the lighted floor numbers above the door. She watched out of the corner of her eye as the orderly casually looked at the third finger of her left hand and sighed at the diamond and platinum wedding band that proved that Trixie was very much a married woman. She smiled inwardly. When she had balked at giving up her maiden name, Jim had bought the most ostentatious set of rings he could find. "I want everyone to know that you’re mine, Trix," he had admitted sheepishly at the surprised look on her face.

As the elevator doors slid open on the sixth floor, Trixie caught sight of Honey Wheeler, pacing nervously back and forth in front of room 216. Honey is one of those people who never seem to age, Trixie thought admiringly. She still looks exactly like she did when we graduated from Sleepyside High School – same slender figure, same long brown hair, same big hazel eyes. Although now, Trixie noted, those big hazel eyes seemed to be filling with tears. She felt something grab at her heart as she quickened her pace.

Honey turned at the sound of her friend’s footsteps. "Oh, Trixie," she wailed, holding out her arms. She began to cry in earnest as Trixie hugged her tightly.

"Is it bad news?" Trixie asked worriedly, holding Honey away from her so they could look each other in the eye. "If he’s taken a turn for the worse, please, just tell me." She avoided looking into the hospital room, afraid of what she might see. Undercover Detective Dan Mangan had been shot three times in a gang-related incident. Unfortunately for Dan, his first hand knowledge of gangs had worked against him this time. During a disastrous sting operation, Dan had run into someone who remembered him from his teenage days and knew damned well Dan wasn’t his contact for a drug deal. The paramedics summoned by the back up team had pulled Dan out of the alley bleeding from his shoulder and chest. He had been barely alive when he had arrived at the hospital trauma center two weeks before.

"No, no, Dan’s really much better," Honey assured her, wiping at her eyes. "Physically, anyway. He’s sleeping right now. Brian talked to his doctor this morning, and he says that Dan’s recovery is actually going better than he had hoped. But, oh, Trixie, I haven’t seen him this depressed for years. It’s so awful. He’s still got that closed look he used to have when he first came to Sleepyside, remember?"

Trixie nodded. Dan Mangan had arrived in Sleepyside at the age of fifteen, on probation and with a large chip on his shoulder. It had taken years of friendship with the Bob Whites before he had finally been able to let go of the terrible events of his childhood. "It’s really that bad?"

Honey nodded. "No one can seem to get him out of it today. I mean, it’s not as if he’s rude, or anything like that. He’s just not really there. Di and Mart even snuck their twins in for a visit. Dan smiled at them and everything, but he looked so sad at the same time. He wouldn’t even laugh at Mart’s stories, although he chuckled sort of politely. Regan’s getting worried sick. I finally had Brian send him home under doctor’s orders."

"So Heathcliff has returned," Trixie sighed. "I can only think of one person who could ever get him out of a funk that bad. Have you tried calling her? Maybe by now…" She trailed off uncertainly. None of the Bob Whites were sure of what had really happened between Dan Mangan and Honey’s cousin, Ceridwen Hart. "She never really told you why they broke up, did she?"

"No," Honey said sadly. "All she would ever tell me was that it didn’t work out."

"Didn’t work out, my foot!" Trixie snorted. "Please. She ran off to Europe and they haven’t spoken one word to each other in six years. Something happened."

Honey shrugged. "That’s all she would say. I think if I asked her face to face, I might be able to get a better answer, but she hasn’t set foot in the states since she left."

"And Dan won’t even tell Mart." Trixie tapped her foot impatiently. "This sucks. The one person we’ve ever known who could bring him out of this is the one person we can’t get."

"C’mon, partner. I’ll let you buy me a soda at the cafeteria." Honey slid her arm around Trixie’s shoulders. "The prime operatives of the Belden-Wheeler Detective Agency are just going to have to come up with a plan that doesn’t involve Ceridwen."

In the darkness of his hospital room, Dan Mangan turned awkwardly over in bed as he heard the echo of their steps fade down the hallway. He reached for the drawer of his night table, grimacing as the IV needle pulled at the back of his hand. For a moment he scrabbled fruitlessly in the drawer, then relaxed as his fingers brushed the well-worn leather of the Native-American style talisman bag. Awkwardly, he hung the bag’s long rawhide cord around his neck. With his left hand, he held the familiar bag to his heart as he drifted into dreams.

Dan Mangan slammed the door of his girlfriend’s jeep and rushed from the Memorial Building parking student parking lot toward the Otto G. Richter Library. If he was late one more time, Ceridwen was never going to believe that he had spent the afternoon studying alone in the apartment they shared off of Route 1. Passing under the archway of the Arts & Sciences building, he took a quick sniff of his shirtsleeve, searching for tell tale odor. Just soap and his own cologne. He relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief. Stopping to shower and change was the right decision; if Ceridwen had gotten just one sniff of him the jig would be up for sure. He glanced at his watch and slowed his pace. He was right on time.

"Señor! Señor! Disculpe, necesito ayuda, por favor!"

Dan turned and smiled at the Hispanic girl walking toward him. With his black hair and deep water tan, he was used to people automatically assuming he was a native speaker, but his father had been black Irish and Dan now spoke the only words of Spanish he knew for sure to the girl holding her map in front of him. "Lo siento, no habla español," he said smoothly. I’m sorry, I don’t speak Spanish. "Ven aca." Go there. He pointed toward the administration building.

"Gracias!" She waved to him as she trotted toward the door of the Admin Building. Dan waved back. Being spoken to almost exclusively in Spanish had been one of the stranger things about following Ceridwen to UM for college, but he was used to it after three years. He still couldn’t believe he was there, among the palm and Banyan trees with there multiple trunks, basking in the warm sunshine. But the student aid had come through, his grades from New York State had been good enough to transfer and his Uncle Bill and Mr. Wheeler had helped with the rest.

Dan reached into his pocket for his student ID as he approached the glass doors of the library, automatically bracing himself for the rush of subzero air-conditioning. "Evening, Roy," he called to the student watching the gate.

Roy barely looked up from his magazine. "Hey, Dan. Gwen told me to tell you to meet her on the fifth floor. She’s still got to pull a couple of sources for that term paper she’s working on."

"Gotcha. Thanks, Roy." Dan pushed his way through the turn style and ignored the escalator in favor of the wide marble stairs. He could catch the elevator on the second floor.

The study carrels on the fifth floor were packed with students cramming for exams and desperately pulling sources for last minute papers. Dan himself had finished his final research paper weeks ago. He had better things to do with his time these days. He crept from carrel to carrel, glancing around for Ceridwen’s currently strawberry blonde hair. As he rounded the corner he heard someone say her name in a whispered exclamation.

"Gwen! Really? So what did you tell him?" Dan grinned as he recognized the voice of Jill McKay, Ceridwen’s best female friend outside of the Bob White girls.

"I turned him down, of course!" Dan felt his heart start to beat faster at his girlfriend’s words. So, she was having to turn people down now, was she? He decided to eavesdrop a little longer.

Unaware of Dan’s presence, the girls continued their animated conversation, not realizing how well their voices were carrying to his ears. As he listened to the continued conversation, his face grew pale under his tan and he could physically feel the haunted look dimming the sparkle in his dark eyes. Eventually, unable to listen any longer, he turned and stalked back to the elevator door. Someone was going to be hurt by all of this. There was no way out of it.

Jim Frayne looked up from the pile of English Essays he was reading as his wife hurried into their living quarters. Even after three years of marriage, he still got a lump in his throat when he looked at her. Trixie had grown into a striking woman, but he had always thought her beautiful, even during what she referred to as her ‘puppy fat’ phase of life. "Did everything go okay at your deposition today?" he asked as she bent over his chair to brush his lips with a kiss.

Trixie flung herself into her favorite armchair and sprawled like a rag doll. "It went fine. It’s an open and shut case – we’ve got the pictures of Carmichael taking the bribe, he’s not going to be able to deny it. They just have to go through the whole dog-and-pony show before they can decide what to do with him. Did you get the kids off okay?"

Jim nodded. "All two dozen of them. They should be at the camp by now, driving their counselors crazy instead of us. Did you stop by to see Dan on the way home?"

"Yes. Honey and I are really worried about him, Jim." Trixie pursed her lips and wrinkled her forehead as she tried to think of a way to explain her feelings to her husband. "You know, ever since Dan graduated college, all he’s done is work. None of us ever said anything, or asked him what happened to his law school idea, since we just figured he had decided to go back to his dream of becoming a cop. He’s done really well at it, too." She paused for a moment to collect her thoughts. Jim waited patiently. He had learned the hard way to pay attention to Trixie’s theories. Listening and helping her had gone a long way in keeping her from going off in the half-cocked way that had always ended up with her in danger in the past. Trying to talk Trixie out of her detective urges, he’d finally realized, was like trying to teach a pig to sing – it wasted time and annoyed the pig. As he’d listened to her and helped her along, he’d also come to realize that his wife really did have a brilliant mind for detecting trouble. "But the thing is," Trixie continued thoughtfully, "that’s all he did: work. He hasn’t really got much of a life outside of his work. It’s his whole world."

"And now that he’s been so badly wounded," Jim continued, following her train of thought, "not to mention having his cover blown, he’s probably not going to be able to go back to what he was doing."

"Honey said Dan’s boss came to see him yesterday and offered him a desk job," Trixie confirmed. She wound one of her curls around her finger, trying to picture intense Dan Mangan happy with a desk job, shuffling papers all day and watching others bring in the perps. It didn’t wash. She sighed. "I’m going to talk to Honey about offering him a position at Belden/Wheeler."

Jim pulled her to her feet and embraced her lovingly. "That’s a wonderful idea, Trix," he said, planting a kiss on her forehead. "Although something tells me that it’s not just his job situation you’re worried over." He sat down on their sofa and pulled his wife onto his knee, so that she was leaning against him, her curly head on his shoulder. "Tell me all about it. C’mon, spill it." There was a twinkle in his green eyes as he looked at her. "I’d say ‘tell Uncle Jim all about it’ like I used to when we were kids, but that’s just weird now."

Trixie giggled and brushed a lock of red hair off his freckled forehead. She still felt like a schoolgirl when Jim looked at her like that. There had been a time when it seemed to her that Jim didn’t really understand her dreams, when all he wanted to do was lecture her, and while she didn’t know what had changed his mind, she was glad that he had finally seen the light and started treating her like an equal. "I guess I just wish Dan had what we have."

"I’m not sharing you with Dan," Jim said mock petulantly. "Let him get his own woman. You’re mine." He nuzzled her neck with a growl.

"Down, boy!" Trixie laughed, poking him in the chest. "No, I was thinking of someone else. Someone like your cousin Ceridwen, maybe." She looked at her husband innocently as he tried to bend his mind around what she was saying.

"Dan never talks about what happened between them," Jim said slowly. They had all tried to get the story out of him when he had showed up back in Sleepyside after Gwen had left him in Miami, dark and surly as he had been when he had first come to Sleepyside. In desperation, they had even tried getting him slightly drunk. Jim shuddered, remember the hangover he had had the next day. But not even Jack Daniels had been able to loosen Dan up enough to get him to give any other reason than ‘it just didn’t work out’. "In fact, he changes the subject if one of use even mentions Gwen’s name around him." Jim wished things were different. He had liked his chameleon-haired cousin after he had gotten to know her, and the affectionate verbal spats between Gwen and Dan had given him insights about his friend that he never would have had without her. It had been a particularly pithy comment from Gwen that had first made him see that if he didn’t watch how he talked to Trixie about her life’s dreams, he was going to lose her. She wrote occasionally to Honey, and Jim and Trixie always received Christmas and Birthday cards from her, but he hadn’t actually spoken to her in six years. He realized, with a start, that he missed his cousin. "It’s strange, not having her here, even after all this time."

"That’s my point, Jim. If we feel that way, how must Dan feel?" Trixie stood and began to pace their living room, thinking hard. "I think something happened between them. They were in love, and I mean with a capital L. Like you and I. Like Honey and Brian. Like Di and Mart. We’re all together – so what happened to Gwen and Dan? I think that’s why he’s been working so hard all this time – to forget her. Now that he can’t work…" She trailed off and looked at her husband. "Dan’s depressed, Jim. Big time. I guess he has been since he came back from college, and we never realized it because he was always so busy working. Do you remember how it was when we were kids?"

"Sure," Jim said, looking puzzled. "If Dan had the blues, he would ride around the preserve for a while. If that didn’t work, Mart could get him out of it."

"And what happened when Mart couldn’t get him out of it?" Trixie pursued.

"We left him alone for a week or so, and he usually snapped out of it."

"What if it went on longer than a week?"

Jim thought for a moment. "It never did, especially after…" His eyes widened at the thought.

"He started hanging out with Ceridwen," Trixie finished for him. "Especially after they started dating. This is a depression that’s been going on for six years, Jim. He’s been avoiding it with work, but that’s gone out the window. Heathcliff is back on the moors." She added significantly.

Jim groaned. "I didn’t realize it was that bad. He’s actually brooding?"

"Honey saw him. I saw him. He’s in a hole so deep he’s going to need a ladder to get out. The person who could probably get him out of it is also the one who caused it, originally." Trixie was talking quickly now. Jim could almost see the wheels in her head clicking along.

"We’ve got to find out what happened between them," Jim said, firmly. "It’s the only way. Honey and Brian are getting married in a few weeks, Honey is just going to have to insist Gwen come to the wedding."

Trixie stopped pacing to throw her arms around her husband. "My thoughts exactly, dearest."

Honey Wheeler sat at the small table, stirring the caffe con latte in front of her and trying to avoid glancing at her watch. It would only be about two minutes later that the last time she checked it, making Gwen officially half an hour late for their meeting. Obviously her cousin still had the penchant for late, dramatic arrivals that had caused all the Bob Whites to tell her a meeting was half an hour earlier than the actual agreed time. She sighed and motioned the waiter to her table. "Un menu, per favore." After years of French classes, the Italian phases sounded awkward to her, but the waiter quickly returned with a menu so she must have gotten it right. Fortunately, hamburger was the same in Italian, and by the time she was halfway through with her meal, Gwen decided to show up.

"Honey! Oh my god! You look fantastic!"

Honey turned to look at the woman coming towards her. The voice was not exactly the same as she remembered it; six years of the European party circuit, practically living on cigarettes and scotch had turned Gwen’s voice husky. Her hair was now almost all the way down her back, platinum blonde, and string straight. The face was the same, though. The Hart hazel eyes, a little greener than Honey and her mother’s eyes, the high forehead, and the stubborn chin marked Gwen as a descendant of Arthur Hart. Gwen had been out long enough in the sun, Honey observed, to have gone beyond the freckled stage. Every inch of skin revealed by the strapless white linen sheath she was wearing was a deep, golden bronze. "Gwen," she said, standing up to embrace the other woman. "It’s been a long time." She was surprised to feel the prickle of tears in her eyes. She hadn’t realized how much she had missed Gwen.

Gwen sat at the small table across from Honey gave instructions to the hovering waiter in rapid Italian. "I’m so sorry I’m late," Gwen continued , when her glass of white wine had been set down in front of her. "I just got back into Florence this morning. I’ve been over at the Giacomo Palazzo in Venice since the day after you called, trying to prove that the diary someone just sold them is a forgery." She gave a characteristic snort of laughter. "They hadn’t had it examined beforehand because the provenance seemed so solid. They didn’t want to believe me until the chemical tests came back. I was right."

"So what are they going to do?" Honey asked, intrigued. Gwen’s work for museums all over Europe was well known, at least in the matter of old books. Her in depth studies of Renaissance binding techniques and her mastery of several dead languages gave her the ability to spot a forgery most other people would miss.

"They’re going to bust the guy who sold it to them," Gwen said, taking a swallow of wine. "They’ve got the scientific back up, so I may not even have to testify. He’s toast. But you didn’t come here to listen to me ramble about my job." She set her wine down on the table and looked at Honey expectantly. "So, what’s the buzz, cuz?"

Honey looked demurely down at the table, crossing her fingers underneath. "Well, you know Brian and I are getting married in a few weeks." It suddenly occurred to her that she didn’t need to cross her fingers. She was telling the truth. Just not all of it. "I want you there, Gwen. I want you to be a bridesmaid."

Gwen cleared her throat and looked away, blinking back the tears in her eyes. She paused a moment, not trusting her voice. "Honey, I...I’m honored," she finally said. "But I just can’t, I’m sorry. There’s so much work for me and…"

"I’m not accepting no for an answer!" Honey insisted. "You didn’t get back for Di and Mart’s wedding, you didn’t get back for Trixie and Jim’s wedding, but you are damned sure coming back for mine!" It took Honey a moment to recognize the emotion she could feel welling up in her as she faced her cousin, and thought about the good friend she had left laying in a hospital bed back in New York. The emotion was fury. "We miss you, you know! You were a part of our family! Daddy and Mother loved you! Jim and I thought of you as a sister!" Honey realized she was beginning to yell, but she found she didn’t really care who heard her. "It was bad enough when you decided to run off to college in Miami, but then you just took off for Europe without any kind of explanation! You didn’t even say goodbye!"

Gwen sat it her chair, one step away from hyperventilating, not looking at the furious Banshee across from her, formerly known as Honey Wheeler. "I’m sorry, Honey, please try to understand." She pushed her chair away from the table, digging in her purse for lira. Throwing down some change, she turned and began to rush away. She was going to cry, she just knew it. She had thought she was done with the tears, but here they were, just like ants at a picnic. Hey! Gwen! Good to see you! Did you miss us? Would you like to sit down for a few hours and think about the mess you’ve made of your life? Don’t worry, we’ll be right here to help!

Honey watched the other woman stumbling toward the taxi stand. For the first time, she really understood how Gwen had felt as a teenager, saying the hurtful things that people had needed to hear. "If you’re worried about seeing Dan, don’t," Honey called out over the crowd. A lifetime of lessons in tact and politeness were clamoring in her brain, begging her to stop. She knew she’d feel really bad about this later, but it would be worth it if it worked. "At the rate he’s going downhill, I doubt he’ll be around in a few weeks!"

Gwen stopped. Just stopped. Honey could see the other woman’s shoulders begin to tremble, and her heart went out, sorry that her words had affected Gwen so much. Which explains why Gwen was always in such a foul mood after telling someone off, Honey thought ruefully. She hurried over to where Gwen still stood, hands clenched into fists at her sides. Almost as if she had been expecting such a thing, Gwen turned just as Honey reached her, grabbing her cousin by the shoulders. After one look at Gwen’s eyes, Honey could barely feel Gwen’s $60.00 manicure cutting into her skin through the thin silk of her blouse. Those hazel eyes, so like her own, led down into a private hell that Honey Wheeler, sweet, happy Honey Wheeler, couldn’t even begin to fathom. "You tell me everything!" Gwen hissed in a ragged voice. "Everything!"

"Gwen! Wait up!"

Gwen Hart paused halfway up the sidewalk in front of the Richter Library and waited for Jill McKay to catch up with her. As usual, Jill’s short red hair was pointing in the seventeen different directions in which it naturally grew, and her green ‘Canes sweatshirt was stained with yellow paint from her last art class of the day. In a lot of ways, Jill reminded her of Trixie Belden, making her just a little more or a little less homesick, depending on her mood. It had been a difficult decision to leave Sleepyside for Miami, but she had been correct in thinking the multi-cultural environment would be beneficial. Of course, Dan with a year-round tan was a big plus. She just wished she knew what his major malfunction was lately. "Hey, Jill," she said as her friend finally caught up, short of breath, but smiling as always. "I was just headed up to throw some stuff in my locker. What’s up?"

"Oh, the sky, the stars, my blood pressure," Jill said, swinging into step beside her friend. "Carsnovar returned my paper again. I’ve got until the end of the week to get the corrections done and give it back to him, or I earn an ‘I’ and my G.P.A. goes in the toilet. How did your "Comparative Analysis of the Poetry of Dante, Petrarch, and Bocacchio with a focus on the Madonna " go over with him?"

"Oh, I got an A." Gwen tried to say it casually, but it was all she could do to keep from performing one of Dan and Mart’s patented Indian war dances right there in the breezeway between Richter and Brockway Hall. Carsnovar had begun the semester by announcing that no one, but no one, ever received higher than a B in any of his classes, let alone one that doubled as a graduate seminar. "I guess it helped to be able to read it in the original."

Jill thwacked her with her water bottle. "Give up the modest act, Hart. You worked your ass off on that one. In fact, I’m pretty sure Carsnovar is going to have you bronzed and keep you on his mantle. I heard him tell Prescott that he hasn’t had a student like you in years. Teacher’s pet."

"Please," Gwen snorted, holding the Library door open for her friend. "I’m sure the man owns a cobra. It’d be the only thing he could relate to."

Gwen’s locker on the 6^th floor was in a windowed study carrel facing Lake Osceola and the Towers. Gwen dropped her heavy knapsack onto one of the wooden chairs and leaned against the table. "Bleh. One more year of this and I’m going to look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Remind me that taking 21 credits is a bad idea."

Jill collapsed into the other chair. "No, Gwen. Walking up the stairs with books for 21 credits was a bad idea. But at least we only have three more days here, and then we’re free, free, free! I can not wait to get back to Yuma. At least it’s a dry heat. When are you and Dan driving back to Sleepyside?"

Gwen looked up from her knapsack, where she was digging for her locker key. "Hmm? Oh, probably not until Monday or Tuesday. We’re going to sublet the apartment to John Chase and Ronnie Veeder. I’m not looking forward to the drive, though. Dan’s been in a mood."

"Maybe he’s not looking forward to returning to Manor House. Y’know – you in the big house and him over in the servants quarters or wherever he sleeps." Jill giggled. "Do your families know you two are living together yet?"

"My aunt and uncle don’t – I’ve had them send all my mail care of the library and they’d be calling Dan looking for me anyway, so it’s okay if I pick up the phone there. I think Regan suspects, though." Gwen grinned, as she dug through her knapsack again. "I think there was a reason he decided to take Dan on a horse buying expedition just around gelding time. But it’s not that, I don’t think. I mean, Dan’s been in a mood a lot longer than necessary for worrying about the trip home. He’s been acting sort of odd – y’know, out until all hours, late. You remember the day I told you about Scott – Dan was like an hour and a half late picking me up. Oh, and that shower fetish! He must take three a day. I’m starting to think he’s got OCD. I guess it’s stress. He’s only got the fall semester next year and then it’s law school time. Urrrrr – that’s it, next year it’s a combination lock."

Jill frowned. "You didn’t mention Scott’s European offer to him, did you?"

Gwen put her hands on her hips and stared at her friend. "Do I look like a crack head to you? Of course not! But he was a little off before that, anyway." She returned to pawing through her knapsack. "Where is that thrice damned key?" Gwen began pulling books and crumpled paper out of the seemingly bottomless knapsack, finally gave up and dumped the whole thing on the table. Papers, books, and writing utensils flew everywhere.

"Gwen, I hate to say this about Dan," Jill said, bending to retrieve Gwen’s calculator from beneath the table, "but it sounds like maybe he’s getting a little on the side."

"Dan? My Dan?" Gwen started to giggle. "You’ve got to be kidding! First of all, Dan wouldn’t do something like that. He’s no Jim Frayne, but he is pretty honorable in his way. Secondly, I think I’d know if my boyfriend was screwing around behind my back." She pounced on the rabbit’s foot keychain stuck to the bottom of her Spanish text. "Bingo." She began stuffing the books back in the bag, separating the ones she wouldn’t need for that night to be put into the locker.

Jill put her freckled hands on her plump hips and stared critically at Gwen, who continued to give small snorts of laughter as she bent to unlock her locker. "Fine, Gwen, if you don’t think he’d cross that line, I’ll take your word for it. But I still think men are pigs – you should confront him when you get home and find out what his damage is."

"Sure, sure. Gods, you’re really getting militant, Jilly. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were about to start playing for the other team. Yay – it looks like our chain letter fiend is back in action." Gwen frowned down at the envelope that dropped out of her locker. For the past several months, some one had been frequently sliding chain letters into the lockers through the gap at the top of the doors. The librarians hadn’t been able to figure out who’d been doing it. "He doesn’t usually use envelopes, though."

"So open it and see," Jill said reasonably.

Gwen turned the envelope over. It felt somewhat thick, as if there were pictures inside. Her name was on the front in an unfamiliar delicate cursive writing. She picked up a paper clip from the mess still on the floor, unbent it, and used it as a letter opener. She pulled out the note first. "Gwen," she read aloud for Jill’s benefit, "I thought you’d enjoy seeing these pictures. No signature." She pulled a thin pile of photos out of the envelope and looked at them casually.

"Gwen? Gwen? What is it?" Jill asked as her friend’s face turned pale beneath it’s tan.

Gwen silently handed the pictures to Jill with a shaking hand. There was a terrible pain along her jaw as she clenched her teeth to avoid being sick. She felt as if the world was dropping out from under her, the roller coaster sensation of nothing beneath her feet and the gut-wrenching weightlessness of free-fall. She felt her knees going and thumped helplessly into one of the wooden chairs, quickly putting her head between her knees to stop the dizziness. She wasn’t crying – that would be for later. Right now she was in too much pain to cry.

"That rat bastard! Is that her tongue in his ear?!" Jill exclaimed, flipping through the pictures. "My god! Could he have picked up someone sleazier? Is that a skirt or a belt?! And he’s taking her into your apartment! Oh, Gwen, I’m so sorry. I really didn’t think he was…I mean, it’s Dan."

Gwen heard Jill drop the pictures to the table and kneel down next to her chair. "Gwen, are you okay? Dumb question, of course not. Someone just sent you pictures of Dan going into the apartment with his hands all over Bimbo Magic Barbie. Can I do anything for you, get you anything?"

Gwen slowly sat up, trying to breathe normally, which was a riot, since normal just went right out the door. She looked around the study carrel. It looked a little different. She wasn’t surprised. Her world had just shattered; of course it looked different. How novel. Slowly, like an invalid, she raised herself up on her own two feet. She was a little dizzy, but that was okay, too. It distracted her from the fact that the man she loved was obviously a cheating bastard. Jill was looking at her funny. Gwen raised a hand to her face, to see if maybe her nose had fallen off. Her cheeks felt wet. Oh. She was crying – that’s what that weird hitching breathing was all about. Then she realized that Jill’s mouth was moving, but it was hard to hear what she was saying through that stupid ringing. Gwen concentrated really hard, and Jill’s mouth movements started to make sense. "… Gwen, I know it seems horrible now, but you have to talk to him, or something. Do you want to run over to the health center and see if they can give you something? Can I get you anything?"

Gwen tilted her head to the side and considered her friend’s proposition. "Yes, yes, you can get me something." She began to calmly finish filling in her knapsack. Fingers seemed to be working. That was good.

"What can I get for you – you name it!" Jill was actually wringing her hands. Gwen hadn’t thought people really did that. Wow, she must look super bad.

"A gun," Gwen said, calmly zipping her knapsack closed. Her voice sounded completely normal. Interesting. "Go out and buy me a gun, Jill. I’m going to blow his lying head off."

 

 

The Present – Belden/Wheeler Detective Agency, White Plains, NY

"Arrrrhhgghh!!!" Trixie slammed the door to the office she shared with Honey, then opened it. "Hold all our calls!" she barked at the receptionist in the outer office before slamming the door again. "I can’t believe they let him off!!!" she growled, kicking her trashcan across the room where it bounced off the wall and spilled out of spite.

"I know, I know," Honey moaned, head down on her arms at her side of the antique partner’s desk they shared. "Thirty-six hours of tailing that bozo, watching him go from home, to work, back to home, then back to work, just waiting for a flat tire he has to change, a kitten up a tree he has to rescue, anything we can turn over to the insurance company to prove fraud."

"He was playing street hockey," Trixie hissed. "I crawled through a drainage pipe to tape it and he gets off on a technicality." She looked around for something to throw, picked up a mug from her desk, realized Jim had given it to her, hesitated, then overhanded it at the wall anyway. It bounced off and clattered to the floor unharmed. Her husband knew her very well: the mug was plastic.

"Do you feel better now?" Honey asked, lifting her head up and looking at Trixie with bleary eyes. She had been working almost straight through since she had gotten back from seeing Gwen in Italy four days before, trying to catch up on the mountain paperwork that had mysteriously migrated to her desk while she was away. Between the jet-lag and the lack of sleep she wasn’t sure if she was ahead or behind.

"Yes," Trixie admitted sheepishly. "I don’t know what it is about throwing things, but it’s sooooo satisfying." She collapsed onto the sofa. Jim had had the inner office redecorated for their anniversary, and she loved it. Honey had generously helped him, since it was her office, too, and they had combed the antique shops to pick up the partners desk, the blue velvet Queen Anne sofa, and the collection of magnifying glasses that covered one wall. The effect was warm and reassuring, as long as you ignored the mountain of paperwork. "So, now that we have a moment to talk, how was Italy?"

"Very Italian," Honey mumbled around a yawn. "There were domes, and things. Gwen looks fabulous. All blonde and tan." She reached for the cup of coffee sitting on the corner of the desk and said a silent prayer that it was at least todays before she took a deep swig of the cold brew. "We had a nice talk."

Trixie sat up attentively. "Did you get anything out of her?" she asked eagerly.

Honey nodded. "Yeah. That her relationship with Dan didn’t work out." She grimaced. The coffee was today’s, but Trixie had made it.

"Damn! But did she say she would come?"

"She said she would think about it." Honey shrugged. "Trix, I had to ask her to be a bridesmaid and practically tell her Dan was dying before I could even get that much of a commitment from her," she said as Trixie scowled. "I did get one very distinct impression, though."

"Well?" Trixie bounced impatiently as Honey stifled another yawn.

"Sorry about that," Honey said, wiggling her lower jaw back and forth. If she didn’t get some sleep soon, the next yawn was going to turn her face inside out. "She still loves him, Trix," she continued. "Whatever happened between them, it wasn’t because she stopped loving him. You should have seen her face when I told her how badly he was hurt and how he doesn’t seem to be snapping out of it." Honey shuddered involuntarily, remembering the haunted look in Gwen’s eyes. "

"If she still loves him, she should just come back and make up with him," Trixie said firmly. "Wasn’t she always the one spouting off about honesty and the wonders of communication in a relationship?"

"I don’t think it’s that easy, Trix," Honey said. She lurched to her feet and grabbed her purse. "C’mon. You’d better get me home before I pass out. I think I can sneak in a couple of hours rest before Regan gets back to Manor House with Dan."

They walked out of the office, Honey leaning on Trixie’s arm for support. The receptionist waved at them as she picked up one of the four ringing lines. Trixie felt vaguely guilty for leaving the poor girl there by herself with only the voice mail as her back-up, but Honey needed to get home, and she could use a pre-party nap herself.

"So why isn’t it that easy?" Trixie demanded as the elevator doors closed and they began their descent to the parking garage. "Jim and I have had some pretty awful fights, but we always make it up."

"Gwen’s got a temper worse than yours," Honey reminded her sleepily. "I think she did something that can’t be undone."

 

The Present – Manor House, Sleepyside-on-Hudson, NY

Diana Belden taped the final crepe streamer in to place and stepped carefully down from the step stool. Mart would have a conniption when he discovered she had decorated the Game Room for Dan’s welcome home party by herself in her condition, but Honey and Trixie had been called back to the courthouse in White Plains for one of their cases sentencing, and Hallie was even more pregnant than she was. She looked over to where her cousin-in-law was currently passed out on the couch, snoring gently. As slim as Hallie had been, she had started showing almost immediately, and now, at seven months, she looked like she was carrying a basketball in front of her at all times. Di reached over to shake Hallie awake.

"Dammit, Bill, let the horses eat their bedding. I’m tired," Hallie said crossly, not bothering to open her eyes.

Di suppressed a smile. When Hallie Belden had moved to Sleepyside to manage the Ten Acres school stables after getting a degree in equine science, Mart had bet Diana that Hallie and Regan would attempt to kill each other at some point. Six months later, Regan asked Hallie to marry him and Mart found himself owing his lovely wife two weeks worth of 2am feedings. Now after four years of marriage, Regan and Hallie were expecting their first child and Hallie was truly experiencing the myriad joys of pregnancy.

"I’d sympathize with you, Hal," Di said to her friend, "but after carrying two sets of twins, this one’s a cake walk for me. It gets easier the second time around. Trust me."

Hallie’s dark eyes flashed open and she pinked in embarrassment. "Gosh, Di," she said, pushing herself awkwardly into a sitting position. "I’m sorry! I can’t believe I fell asleep like that." She covered her mouth as a gigantic yawn stretched her jaw. "When do you stop being so tired all the time?"

"I’ll let you know," Di said as she stretched out a hand to help Hallie to her feet.

"The place looks great, Di," Hallie said, looking around at the decorations. The large, cheerful wood paneled room was decorated with blue crepe streamers and silver Mylar balloons attached to just about anything that didn’t move. A large, hand painted welcome home banner was hanging over the stone hearth. A table in the corner was ready to be loaded with all the delicacies in the Manor House kitchen. "I certainly hope this will cheer Grumpy up."

"Well, it’s not as if we can blame him," Di said. "Getting shot three times can’t be fun. But I know what you mean. Mart told me that it took Honey three hours to talk Dan into staying here at Manor House during his convalescence. He was bound and determined to go back to his apartment in the city and take care of himself."

Hallie nodded and began to plump up the pillows on the couch, disguising the substantial dent she had made in it. "Bill was on him about that, too. We invited him to stay with us over the garage, but we don’t have that much room. He would have had to sleep in the nursery. That apartment of his is too depressing." She wrinkled her nose. "It’s bare, Di. Like nobody lives there. He does so much overtime that I guess he’s never there, so he doesn’t notice. All he does is work. I don’t think he’s even been on a date in ages."

Di walked over to the food table and began to open packages of paper napkins and plates. "I haven’t mentioned this to anyone," she said hesitantly, "but I fixed Dan up on a blind date a few months ago. A friend of mine from college was going to be in the city, so I asked him to take her out to dinner. I told him Mart and I couldn’t get a sitter." Di smiled, thinking of her four year old twin daughters, and two year old twin sons. Every babysitter in Sleepyside, with the exception of Miss Trask, avoided the Belden twins like the plague. They had inherited their father’s verbosity and their aunt’s curious nature as well as their mother’s beauty, and were widely known as holy terrors. "Gail is one of those women you want to push down a flight of stairs – you know, bright, witty, charming, gorgeous, stacked."

"Sounds like a nightmare," Hallie agreed, grinning. Di herself was no slouch. Even pregnant, she was gorgeous. "So what happened?"

"Nothing. She said Dan was very polite, but he might as well have called it in," Di sighed. "To quote: ‘Thanks a bunch, Diana. The wheel was moving but the hamster was gone.’ She’s right. It’s like our Dan is gone. He’s been gone for a while – it wasn’t just the shooting. I miss him. I’d pay to know what happened in Miami to make him like this."

"Cherchez la Femme," Hallie muttered darkly, slamming a handful of plastic forks into a holder. "Look to the woman," she translated as Di gave her a look. "Specifically, look to Gwen Hart. It’s obvious – she set him up for a fall. Whatever she did to him in Miami broke his heart, so he came back here and threw himself into all the dangerous assignments he could get. If you ask me, it’s her fault he got shot. As for how he acted with your friend Gail, it’s so painfully clear. He doesn’t trust women anymore."

"Do you really believe that, Hallie?" Di asked.

"Yeah," Hallie said. Di was shocked to see tears in her eyes. "Dan’s my friend, as well as my husband’s nephew. Seeing him like this is painful to us. We’re worried about him," Hallie admitted. "Bill and I have talked about it a lot. We were worried at first that Dan was distant to us because, well, you know." Diana nodded. She well remembered Hallie’s crush on Dan and Dan’s crush on Hallie. "Then we noticed that he was like that with everybody, not just us. Bill’s afraid that these dangerous assignments are Dan’s way of trying to hurt himself."

"You mean suicide?" Diana asked. She wasn’t as shocked as she wished; she and Mart had discussed it, too.

Hallie nodded. "We’re afraid that now he can’t work like he has been, especially with his injuries, that he’ll really try and do something to himself. That’s why I’m so angry at Gwen, Di: she’s a hypocrite. She told me once never to hurt him, and now he’s hurt more than anyone else I know, and it’s all her fault."

 

Eleven years ago – Manor House Stables, Sleepyside-on-Hudson, NY

"Thanks again for asking me out, Dan," Hallie said sweetly, glancing sideways at Dan from beneath her thick lashes. It was really too dark to tell, but she was pretty sure he was blushing.

"Not much of a date, I’m afraid," Dan chuckled, "keeping me company while I patrol the preserve." He reigned Spartan in as they reached the stables and slid down to open the door so Hallie would not have to dismount from Susie. Hallie smiled as the little black mare nibbled at Dan’s shoulder as he passed. Dan looked even better this summer than when she had first met him two years ago. She was wondering if Dan would kiss her good night before he rode back to Mr. Maypenny’s. She hoped so – he looked like he had nice lips. Besides, they would have the barn with all that nice comfy hay all to themselves. That brought up all sorts of possibilities.

A gleam of light from Regan’s office greeted them as they walked into the stables. "Uncle Bill?" Dan called. "I’m returning Hallie and Susie. I’ll help her clean the tack and bed Susie down before I walk her home." He turned to help Hallie slide down from Susie’s back.

"Uncle Bill went to bed ages ago, Danno," a female voice said from the area of the horse stalls. "It’s almost midnight."

They both jumped as Gwen came walking out of the shadows. "Sorry I surprised you," the red-haired girl said mildly, eyes on Hallie. "I came down to visit Rhiannon earlier, and Regan looked totally wiped from Jupe’s shoeing, so I told him I’d wait here until you two got back. You can go ahead and start back if you want, Dan. I’ll help Hallie put Sue to bed. Trix is spending the night at Manor house tonight anyway, and Hallie’s invited too. I’m sure Mr. Maypenny won’t sleep until you get in."

Hallie glared at the newcomer. If looks could kill, Gwen would have been dropping to the floor. Dan, however, grinned easily at his friend. "Thanks, Gwen. If Spartan hurries, I might get an extra hour of sleep." He gave her a quick, one armed hug. "Walk me out to my horse?" he asked Hallie.

They walked out to where Spartan was standing in the moonlight, cropping at the perfectly manicured lawn. "I had a nice time with you tonight," Dan said softly. He had his hands on her shoulders and was staring down at her with those dark, dark eyes.

She had him exactly where she wanted him. Fortunately he was taller than she was; she tilted her face down demurely and looked up at him through her lashes as she spoke. "Me, too, Dan," she said softly, and leaned forward to brush her lips to his. He took her up on it, and the kiss deepened. She was right – he did have nice lips. She mentally cursed Gwen for thinking she had to wait for them.

"Wow," Dan whispered, breaking away from her. He was definitely blushing this time. "Um, I’d better go. See you tomorrow?"

She gave him her sexiest smile. "You’d better." With a wink, she turned and walked back into the stable, making sure her hips had the right amount of swing to them. She found Gwen hard at work, currying Susie. The tack lay in a pile on the floor next to the horse.

"You can clean the tack – I’ll take care of Susie," Gwen said, not looking up from her task. Susie seemed to be loving the attention. If it were possible for a horse to purr, Susie would have been doing so.

Hallie considered the older girl for a moment. "You know, I can take care of the horse myself. Or Dan would’ve helped me. You didn’t really have to wait for us." She couldn’t keep the hint of annoyance out of her voice as she wrenched the lid of the can of saddle soap and dropped it to the floor with a clang.

"I know that," Gwen said reasonably. "But I think you and I need to have a little talk." She didn’t look at Hallie, didn’t turn her eyes from the currycomb. It was as if she were having the conversation with Susie.

Hallie picked up the bridle and began to clean it with rough, irritated strokes. "What about?"

The only sound for a moment was the she shirring of the comb along Susie’s flank. "About what you’re doing to Dan."

"Oh, and what am I doing to him?" Hallie asked snidely. "I mean, besides showing him a good time."

Gwen turned to her, hands on hips. It was funny, Hallie thought, but Gwen looked much older than sixteen. It was something about her eyes. Although, from the looks of it, she was about to give Hallie a typical, teenage ‘You know very well what I’m talking about’.

"I know about Chris," Gwen said instead. There was no anger in her voice, just sadness. "So you can cut the crap, Hallie."

Hallie froze. She opened her mouth for a quick denial, but none would come out. "Who told you?" Hallie finally croaked. Chris was the last person in the world she wanted to talk about.

"Your brother, Cap, isn’t it? He called yesterday, when I volunteered to babysit for Bobby when everyone went riding." Gwen turned back to Susie, brushing her in long, even strokes. "He was worried about you. Asked me if I thought Dan was the kind of guy to take advantage of a girl with a broken heart. I said I guessed not. Dan’s a nice guy. But it got me starting to wonder if you were the type of girl to use a nice guy to prove something to herself."

"Like what?" Hallie asked. She was watching Gwen now instead of cleaning the bridle. "What do you know about Chris, anyway?" She could feel the ache starting in her chest already.

"I know he was a senior, and you were a freshman," Gwen replied. "Cap told me you were madly in love with him, and that you’d just broken up on the last day of school. The rest I can guess."

"Oh?" Hallie’s hands were shaking now, but she’d be damned if she’d give Gwen the satisfaction of knowing she was upset. "Tell me a story, Grandma. I’m dying to hear what you think."

Gwen stopped brushing and came to stand next to Hallie’s chair. "Okay." Her voice was still deadly calm as she began tick off her theories. "I think he was probably very charming, at least to you. Cap didn’t sound so thrilled about him. I think every time that the two of you had a fight, he told you it was your fault, and that you probably believed him. I think that you slept with him and he dumped you anyway. I think that you’re rebounding on Dan. He’s your Charlie Hamilton," Gwen finished.

Hallie’s heart sank. Cap must’ve known more than she had thought. "Who’s Charlie Hamilton?" she asked, dully, not looking at Gwen.

"Scarlett O’Hara’s first husband, in Gone with the Wind," Gwen said. "The one she married when she couldn’t get Ashley Wilkes, the guy she really wanted. He was nice, and he was in love with her, so she used him. Like you’re using Dan Mangan right now. Except I’m pretty sure Dan’s not going to conveniently get called off to war and die of the measles before he figures out you don’t really want him."

"So what?!" Hallie asked defensively. She shoved the bridle off her lap and stood up to confront Gwen. Hallie had a good four inches on her. "What’s wrong with having a summer fling with a nice guy who likes me? It’s not like it’s serious!"

Hallie may have been taller, but the fury in Gwen’s eyes backed her up to the wall. She’d seen Trixie angry, and that was scary enough. Gwen had eyes like Charles Manson’s. "It’s serious to him!" Gwen wasn’t actually shouting, but Hallie could hear the strain in her voice from holding it back. "It’s serious to him, Hallie! He likes you a lot! We’re talking about a guy who, at some point in his life, has lost just about everything that means anything to him – so if he falls in love with you and it’s just a game to you, or a way to prove to yourself that Chris was wrong, you’re going to hurt him!"

"You’re jealous," Hallie shot back. "You’re jealous because he’s with me instead of you! Why don’t you just admit it?"

"I don’t know if I am or not!" Gwen said. "I try not to think of him that way because I don’t want to screw things up between us, you stupid little git! But even if I am jealous, that doesn’t make what you’re doing to him any less wrong! It doesn’t make it any less wrong than your boyfriend playing with your mind to get what he wanted!" She threw the currycomb down at Hallie’s feet and stalked back toward the stalls, fists clenched tightly to her sides. Hallie could hear the horses beginning to shift nervously in their stalls. The tension in the air was tangible. She could see Gwen struggling to control her temper, but she couldn’t help pushing it just a little bit farther. "Besides," she called after her, "what are you going to do about it? Hunh? What’s your big threat?"

Gwen stopped in her tracks. "Nothing," she hissed, turning back around. "I’m not threatening you, Hallie. I’m warning you. I’m warning you to break it off with Dan before you get him too involved and end up hurting worse than his life already has. I’m saying that if you keep this up, you will be sorry."

"Ohhhh, poor jealous girl doesn’t want to watch me with her imaginary boyfriend," Hallie mocked.

Gwen took a deep breath and let it slowly out. "No, Hallie," she said quietly. "No. I’m just trying to stop you from making the same mistake I did. I know what it feels like inside your head right now. I know you aren’t really a bad person. I know that." Gwen hesitated for a moment, as if trying to find her way to what she needed to say. "But I also know how much fun it is to play the game you’re playing," she finally continued. There were tears in her voice, if not her eyes. " I’m very good at it; I learned from an expert. I also learned that making someone love you isn’t a game, and I’m telling you, in this time and in this place, from personal experience: do not do this to Dan. Because if you think it’s ugly inside of your head right now, it’s a paradise compared to what if feels like when you look at someone who loves you crying and know you hurt them just to prove you could."

 

The Present – Manor House, Sleepyside-on-the-Hudson, NY

"Whew! I think this is the last load we need to worry about, for a while anyway." Trixie backed through the swinging door between the Manor House rec room and the kitchen carrying a tray full of dirty cups. "It looks like it’s calming down to just the core group."

"Does Dan look like he’s enjoying himself?" Honey asked from the sink, where she was attempting to come up with enough clean glasses for the Bob Whites’ champagne toast.

"For a while there he was just sitting with that glassy smile on his face, half listening to conversations. Then Meg and Kerry climbed into his lap with a story book." Trixie chuckled. "You know our nieces – four meltingly innocent big blue eyes turned up trustingly to his face and a lisped ‘Pwease wead to uth, Unca Dan’." Trixie peaked back through the swinging door. "He’s making big bad wolf noises as we speak," she informed Honey. "It’s not quite our old Dan, but I think we’ve at least reached not-exactly-evil twin material."

"The girls are still awake?" Honey asked, stepping away from the sink to join Trixie at the door. She wiped her hands on the apron she was wearing tied over her silk slacks. Manor House still employed the full complement of staff, even though Matt and Madeleine Wheeler no longer used the house as their primary residence, but Honey had insisted on giving the help the night off so that the Bob Whites could handle the party preparations themselves. "It’s almost midnight. Di must have let them have an extra long nap so they could stay up, since Dan’s their favorite uncle." She peered out into the rec room.

The large group of people that had shown up at Manor house to welcome Dan home from the hospital had slowly begun filtering out around eleven o’clock, and now they were down to the ‘Old Reliables’. Nick and Cody, Di and Mart’s younger twins, were curled up on the furry rug in front of the fireplace fast asleep, with Hallie and Regan sitting nearby to prevent any pyrotechnic incidents. Hallie was leaning back against Regan, a contented smile on her face as she stared into the depths of the fire, while Regan rubbed her distended belly and whispered something in her ear. Di and Brian were playing a game of pool. Ostensibly, if Di won, Brian would have to deliver the latest addition to the family free of charge. There was the click-plunk of a ball sinking in a pocket, and Brian began to look worried. Mart and Jim stood playing a game of darts and discussing Mart’s latest foray into the world of literature. Mart had finally lived up to his promise to write about all of the Bob White’s adventures one day, and volume five of his Bonny Tolman series, Bonny Tolman and The Game Preserve Mystery, was proving very popular among the set of girls and boys who loved a mystery, but not necessarily Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. Bobby Belden, now known as ‘Rob’ to everyone but his immediate family, sat Indian-style in front of the stereo, flipping through CD cases, his long ponytail glinting gold in the light. Dan sat in the middle of the smallest couch, a four year old girl nestled in each arm, each sweet faced moppet holding her side of the story book while ‘Unca Dan’ huffed and puffed to the best of his ability.

"How cute is that?" Trixie asked rhetorically as Dan paused in his reading to plant a kiss on the top of each curly head.

"I think I’m going diabetic just looking at it," Honey replied, stepping away from the door and removing the apron. "Dan is just one of those people who should have kids. I mean, I always knew Mart and Di would end up with a big family, but I thought Dan would give them a run for their money. He likes kids, they like him." She looked critically around the large kitchen.

"Leave it, and I’ll help you before Jim and I go home," Trixie told her. "Just grab the glasses – Larry’s radio show will be on any minute." Larry Lynch was spending the summer interning at the local radio station for credit going towards his degree in communication.

"I hope Di remembered to give him the play list of Dan’s favorite songs," Honey said, handing half of the champagne flutes to Trixie.

Just as they walked back into the rec room, Brian glanced at his watch. "Hey, Bob-, I mean, Rob," he called to his youngest brother. "Dump the CD’s – Larry should be on the air."

"You got it, Doc." Rob grabbed the remote and Larry Lynch’s familiar voice boomed out of the speakers, startling Cody and Nick awake. They looked around in puzzlement, as if wondering how their uncle got into the speakers. "…ning, all you listeners out there. In case you didn’t know, this is Larry Lynch coming at you from WSDE, the voice of Sleepyside. Almost didn’t get here tonight, folks. It’s a dark and stormy night out there, and there’s a jackass in a Maserati who’s driving like he’s got a lead foot and a death wish. Buddy, if you’re listening, slow down before you hurt someone. Captain Molinson, if you’re listening, you might want to check this bad boy out, ditto on the hurting someone. Okay, now that I’ve done my bit to make the world a safer place for everyone, I can TCB. I know all my listeners who don’t know already are going to be happy to hear that good old Dan Mangan is back on his own two feet and back in town. Since we’re all sort of glad that he’s not taking the big dirt nap, I decided to dedicate tonight’s show to playing a selection of Dan the Man’s favorite songs. Big sister Diana Darling got together with all the BWG’s she could get her hands on and made me out a play list. I have to admit, though, my first song isn’t on it. I guess Diana Darling thought it would be tacky, given the circumstances, but I can remember Dan playing this one over and over, so I know it’s at least in his top twenty. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Blue Oyster Cult and Don’t Fear the Reaper."

As one, all the adults in the room turned to look at Dan. There was a reason they hadn’t included the song on the play list, and it had nothing to do with Dan’s near death. It had everything to do with Ceridwen. Dan had his lips pressed together, looking over Kerry’s head at nothing, and as they watched as muscle in his jaw tensed, then relaxed. He turned back to them and they all ignored the brightness of his eyes.

"Do you want me to turn this off?" Rob asked, looking at Dan innocently. Trixie glanced at her younger brother. From the look on his face – overly casual as it was – he remembered that Reaper had been Dan and Gwen’s song, even if Larry didn’t. Then again, Rob had been around more than the Lynch twins.

Dan shook his head. "No, that’s okay." His voice was gruff, but calm. "I haven’t heard this one in a while."

Honey looked over at her fiancé and raised one eyebrow delicately. Brian nodded and began to pour champagne, handing the glasses to everyone but the expectant mothers, Rob, who was under 21, and Dan, who couldn’t have alcohol with his pain medication. They received sparkling grape juice.

"Dan," Mart began, after clearing his throat, " there are some things I’ve been asked to say, as the official Mouth of the Bob Whites, on behalf of all of us in this room." He stepped in front of Dan, who looked up at him, surprise written all over his thin face. "Dan, it seems appropriate that it’s a dark and stormy night outside," Mart continued, "because you were always the darkest of us. You were the one who faced the most adversity, yet you came through it with flying colors. You went from living on the streets as a troubled teenager to cleaning them up as a member of the vice squad, and with every step you took, we were all behind you, and all proud of you." He looked around the circle of the Bob Whites for agreement, giving himself time to control the emotion in his voice. "You taught us a lot of lessons, Dan, from the time you arrived in Sleepyside. You taught us not to judge a book by its cover, just for starters. At least not one covered by black leather." A light chuckle went around the group, remembering Dan’s tough appearance when he first arrived in Sleepyside. "You’ve risen to a lot of challenges since we first met you, Dan. Now you’re facing recovery from a life threatening injury, not to mention a possible change of career, and we want you to know that we’re all here for you, all the way." Mart cleared his throat again before he continued. "Robert Frost once wrote that home is the place that ‘when you have to go there, they have to take you in’. We don’t just have to take you in, Dan, we want to. So, I guess that’s what this all boils down to, Dan," he paused and raised his glass, "welcome home!"

"Welcome home," everyone echoed. With a round of applause for Mart’s touching speech, the group raised their glasses to Dan.

"Not a dry eye in the house, brother dear," Trixie whispered to Mart.

"Including mine," he admitted. "Couldn’t help it."

"Speech! Speech!" Rob clamored, pulling a stunned Dan to his feet.

Dan looked at each familiar face in turn, tears glittering in his dark eyes. He was thinner than he should have been, and paler, but he stood straight under the gaze of his friends. His family. He cleared his throat, started to speak, then stopped to clear his throat again. "Well," he finally began, voice choked with emotion " I, I’m not sure where to start, except to say thank you all for everything…"

He was interrupted by the sound of the heavy front door being blown out of someone’s grasp and slamming against the wall of the foyer. All eyes turned to the archway that connected the rec room to the hall, where a drenched vision in a black trench coat and voluminous rain hat appeared. "Hells bells, it’s wet out there!" Gwen Hart exclaimed, taking the hat off and shaking her long, red hair free. She took in the gathering, the champagne flutes, and the welcome home sign. "I heard my favorite female cousin was getting married, so I thought I would surprise you all, but it looks like I was expected. Quick, don’t everyone hand me a glass all at once." She slid the trench coat from her shoulders revealing a simple pair of black Capri pants and a white tank top, and quickly stepped out of her soaking Mary Janes. She stepped from person to person in turn, chatting, seeming oblivious not only to their apparent confusion, but also to Dan, who had that old, familiar strained smile on his face again. Gwen patted Hallie’s stomach, confessed sheepishly to Regan that she hadn’t cleaned her own tack in ages, pretended to swoon over Rob, hugged and congratulated Honey, and generally butterflied her way around the room, avoiding meeting Dan’s eyes until she had joked with every person, cuddled every child. Dan didn’t move, watching her as she moved from person to person, his expression guarded. Finally, she stood in front of him and they looked at each other for the first time in six years. The room was silent.

"So, Danno," she said lightly, "this is awkward, isn’t it? Do we hug?" There was a hesitation about her that seemed to carry over into every level; physically, mentally, emotionally, she paused for an instant facing those dark eyes. "Or are we fighting?" she finished with a quirk of her lips.

"As you wish," Dan said quietly, his expression not changing. It was his city face, his back alley face that hid all emotions.

"We hug, as old friends should," she said, stepping forward and putting her arms about him gingerly. She hesitated again as her fingers felt the bandage on his shoulder through his shirt. "You’re hurt. I’m sorry."

"That’s okay," Dan replied, putting his own arms around her, careful not to pull her too close. "You didn’t do it." He closed his eyes as she stood on tiptoe to brush his cheek with a kiss. He caught her scent: sandalwood and lily of the valley, unmistakably Gwen. Trixie saw a tremor run through him and he took a deep breath as Gwen stepped back from the hug.

"We are friends, aren’t we, Dan?" Gwen asked softly, her great eyes troubled.

Before Dan could open his mouth to answer, they heard the sound of the door slamming again. "Fiammetta?" a deep voice called confusedly from the hallway. Gwen started and turned towards the door. "Sono qui, Dante!" she called out. Trixie risked a glance at Honey, who looked just as confused as she felt. Dante turned out to be roughly 6’8" tall, tanned, and carved from one muscle. He wore a drenched white silk shirt, tight black pants and smiled absently at the dumbfounded group as Gwen stepped forward to take his arm and lead him into the room. Gwen looked guiltily at Honey. "Honey, this is Dante Giacomo, my…friend. I hope you don’t mind if he stays here, too."

 

 

Disclaimers: Okay, blah, blah, not mine, blah, Golden Books, blah, no money, etc.etc. Thanks to my husband Brett for putting up with being called ‘Dan’ occasionally the past few days. Any mistakes in Italian are due to me not speaking Italian and using a pocket translator. The Biltmore Hotel is a genuine Miami landmark. It is supposed to be haunted, and has really excellent golf courses to run around on in the middle of the night, in the fog. After five Bloody Marys…but I digress.

 

The Present – Crabapple Farm, Sleepyside-on-the-Hudson, NY

"Dante," Honey fumed, "his name is Dante. As in abandon all hope!" She picked up a carrot stick from the tray of cut vegetables Trixie was preparing and bit into it savagely. "I can’t believe the nerve of her, bringing him here to parade in front of Dan like that," she mumbled around her mouthful of carrot.

"To be fair," Trixie pointed out morosely, "she’s not parading him. They’re sitting out there, having a very nice conversation with B-Rob." She glanced out the window over the sink to the back porch.

Gwen and Dante were in the porch swing, listening as Rob described his adventures as a Marine Biology major at University of Miami. Rob had been at the very impressionable age of eleven when Gwen and Dan had first departed for Florida, and their tales of sunbathing in December had been a major factor in Rob’s college choices. Trixie could hear the sounds of Gwen’s laughter through the window as she and Rob compared professors and dorm life. Dante listened attentively, a small, bemused smile on his handsome face. Gwen had explained that Dante knew very little English, but could understand more than he spoke. Trixie wondered how he was handling such conversational gems as ‘man, she was such a psycho hose-beast!’ and ‘so, this poser was trying to crank his base line up to rattle the windows, but he ended up blowing out his woofer.’ Even she wasn’t totally sure what Gwen and Rob were talking about, and English was her native tongue.

"He seems like a nice guy," Diana said forlornly. She continued to stack rolls on a tray with the air of a martyr. "I really hate that about him."

"Oh, he is," Honey ranted, searching through the refrigerator for a beer. "He is nice, and it’s driving me batshit! He smiles and opens doors and holds chairs, and Gwen and Dan are being just sooo polite and pleasant to one another. You should have seen them at breakfast this morning! I never thought I’d live to see the day when I’d be dying to hear them referring to each other as ‘Retard’ and ‘Buttmunch’ again, but, oh, no, not them! It’s all ‘how was your flight’ and ‘You just give yourself time to recover’! Gwen’s been here less than twenty-four hours and the pressure is already getting to me." She finally happened on a bottle of Corona Mart had hidden behind a cadre of baby bottles. "See? They’re driving me to drink. It’s like watching two people agree to ignore the dead body on the floor in front of them. I hate it!"

"We should have thought about this when we came up with our brilliant plan," Trixie admitted. "We couldn’t reasonably have expected Gwen to remain celibate for six years, could we?" She glanced out the window again. Dante had moved from the porch swing to the open, grassy area between the house and barn where Mart had set up the Bocci ball set Gwen had brought back from Italy for him. Dante very politely, and through much use of sign language, began giving Regan and Jim pointers on how to play, continually glancing toward the porch where Gwen still sat with Rob. Mart and Brian presided over the smoking grill, while Hallie entertained both sets of twins at their swing set. Dan lay on the chaise longue, near Gwen and Rob on the shady porch, apparently dozing. He, at least, seemed to be handling the appearance of Dante with sang-froid. Trixie wondered if she and the others had been wrong in supposing Gwen was the reason for Dan’s state of mind.

Another peal of Gwen’s laughter filtered through the glass. "Jill McKay became a professor! She couldn’t manage to roll out of bed for an 8am class as a student!" Cody, bored with the swings and attracted by the laughter, ran across the lawn toward the porch. Halfway there he took a typical two-year-old tumble and let out a wail of frustration. Gwen was on her feet in an instant, hurrying to lift the small boy in her arms and check for injuries. "He’s okay!" she called out to the others, who had turned at the sound of the cry. She walked back up to the porch swing, carrying him with her, sat with him on her lap, cuddling him as easily as his mother, and turned back to talking with Rob. As Trixie watched, Dan, awoken by Cody’s mishap, turned his eyes to where Gwen was sitting with the small, dark curled boy on her lap. Thinking himself unobserved, Dan’s composure slipped, and he looked at the scene with such raw longing on his face that Trixie stepped back from the window, embarrassed. She quickly turned her eyes back to the kitchen, hoping she wasn’t blushing.

"I really thought she still loved him," Honey was saying mournfully. "I really did. Instead she shows up here with that…that…"

"Really nice Italian guy?" Di offered helpfully.

"Yes!" Honey agreed. She began to giggle as she realized how ridiculous she was beginning to sound. "Doesn’t she know that she and Dan are supposed to take one look at each other and fall back in love so that they can have a double wedding with Brian and me? How dare she not follow the script I wrote out for her! Some cousin she is." She sat down at the kitchen table and massaged her temples. "Oh, maybe it’s not as bad as I’m making it out to be. At least she and Dan are talking. Maybe they can get some closure out of it, at least. Or maybe we were wrong about the whole thing in the first place and Dan just needs a good round of Prozac."

Trixie thought about the look Dan had just given Gwen and decided that Honey would need a good round of Prozac if she saw that look of mingled love and despair on Dan’s face. "Dante is a nice guy," Trixie said quickly, trying to get the conversation away from Dan. "He looks familiar, but I can’t imagine where I would have seen him before."

Di looked at Trixie in surprise. "You know," she said, "I was thinking the same thing! The name, too. Dante Giacomo. Dante Giacomo. I’ve got it! But I don’t believe it. Hold on just a second." Violet eyes flashing with merriment, Di departed the kitchen at top speed, headed for the stairs. She came back a moment later carrying an oversized coffee table book that Trixie recognized as one Di had purchased at a photography exhibit they had all attended in New York City a couple of years before. "Here it is," she said, triumphantly turning to a section three quarters of the way through the book. "Photographs by Paolo Giacomo, Venice. Bet dollars to doughnuts they’re related. Just look at this." She dropped the book on the kitchen table, heedless of all food preparations.

Trixie took one look at the black and white photograph and slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from giggling like an idiot. It was Dante, all right – you could tell even with the mask he was wearing. Of course, the mask was all he was wearing. He lay, as if exhausted, carelessly across an oversized, lush bed in a room draped with white satin, his long blonde hair mingled with the long black hair of the woman lying beside him. She was wearing a Carnival-style feathered butterfly mask, her white skin gleaming against his rich tan, and she, too, seemed to sleep as if totally sated.

"I remember this photograph!" Honey exclaimed. "It’s called ‘Dante and Beatrice at Rest or something like that. Paolo Giacomo was displaying a whole series of Dante and Beatrice nudes." She blushed crimson and bowed her head so that her honey colored hair covered her face. "Brian bought me a poster of one of them – Dante and Beatrice Dancing. It’s the one where he’s dipping the girl and it looks like he’s about to…"

"Start dipping the girl?" Trixie suggested with a naughty grin. "Actually, Jim bought one for me, too. The one where they’re frolicking in the waterfall – Dante and Beatrice in their Element."

"You should ask him to sign them," Di snickered, closing the book with a snap. "I’m going to go right out there and get him to sign this book."

"Wait," Honey hesitated. "Do you think Gwen knows about Beatrice?"

Di shrugged. "I would guess that she does – this wasn’t that long ago, in dating terms. Beatrice was probably just some model, anyway. Besides, who cares? If she doesn’t know about it, it may be the thing that comes between them and presto! Gwen and Dan are back together and you get your double wedding."

"Good point," Honey agreed, following behind Di and Trixie as they walked out to the porch.

Dan appeared to have his emotions back under control as he casually thumbed though an art catalog that some of Di’s latest watercolors were in, avoiding looking at Gwen again. It was Rob who couldn’t seem to take his eyes from her face. He looked almost resentful when Di interrupted Gwen’s account of a ‘wild night out at the Biltmore golf course’. "Excuse, me, Gwen," Di asked, sweetly, "but could you ask Dante to come here for a minute? I have a question to ask him."

Gwen grinned her old lopsided grin. "Sure. You could call him yourself, though. I promise he knows his name."

Dante hurried over to the porch in response to Gwen’s call. Trixie kept a careful eye on Gwen’s face as Di held the book out toward Dante. "Is this you?" Di asked both slowly and loudly, pointing to the Dante and Beatrice picture.

Dante nodded enthusiastically. "Si, si." He turned to the cover of the book and pointed to Paolo Giacomo’s name. "Mio fratello, my brother," he repeated, in heavily accented English. He turned back to the photograph. "Me. Dante."

Trixie watched patiently as Gwen turned white, then a peculiar shade of purple, but she did not look so much angry as embarrassed. A moment later, Trixie understood. Dante pointed to Beatrice in the photo, then back at Gwen. "Beatrice."

Di shook her head. "No, that’s Gwen."

Gwen took deep breath and held her hand out to Di. "Also known as Beatrice, at least for these photos," she said lightly, shaking Di’s hand, cheeks still pink. "Paolo is a friend of mine – he’s got quite an impressive collection of old manuscripts at his palazzo. I was up visiting him the weekend he took these. His models flaked on him, so Dante and I stepped in." She smiled sheepishly at their shocked faces. "It seemed like a good idea at the time. Beatrice was the woman Dante Allighieri, he of the Divine Comedy, was all obsessed over. Paolo thought the title would be a good play on words, because of Dante’s name," she explained.

Rob snatched the book out of Di’s hands and gave an appreciative whistle. "Wow! Nice gams, Gwen!"

"Grazie," she replied, giving a little mock curtsy.

"You know, if you ever get tired of Dante…" Rob began, giving Gwen a look that would possibly have peeled paint off a wall.

"Bobby!" Trixie said sharply. "I mean, Rob, Rob. Give me a hand getting this stuff out to the picnic table, will you?" She grabbed her younger brother by the arm and yanked him unceremoniously into the kitchen. "What do you think you’re doing?" she hissed, shutting the door behind them.

Rob shook his sister loose. "I’m flirting, Trix. Give me a break! Gwen’s a hottie. It’s not like she’s that much older than I am." He glared at her, blue eyes stormy.

"Point A," Trixie informed him, "Gwen is here with Dante. Point B, don’t you have any respect for Dan? He is one of your friends, and she is his ex-girlfriend!"

Rob looked at her as contemptuously as he ever had when she was trying to wash his face as a child. "Dan has no one to blame for that but himself, Trix. If he wanted to keep her, he shouldn’t have cheated on her."

"What are you talking about?" Trixie asked, shocked. The idea of Dan cheating on Gwen was as foreign as, well, Dante.

He leaned back against the sink and pretended to polish his nails on his t-shirt. "Are you telling me that I know something the Great Detective doesn’t?" Rob winked at his sister, and pretended to consider the ceiling. "Hmm, I wonder what my information is worth?"

"Me not calling Moms and Dad in Arizona and telling them to cut off your allowance," Trixie replied through gritted teeth. She was serious. Rob’s allowance was a sore point for all three of his older siblings. They had all had to work during college, although their parents had paid as much of the expenses as they could afford. Now that Moms and Dad had retired to Arizona with their investments doing well and only had one child in college, instead of three at the same time, they were able to provide a nice little allowance for Rob. As long as he kept his grades up enough for his scholarship and generally behaved himself, Rob received a monthly check. Brian and Mart were mildly resentful, but Trixie was downright furious. "I’m sure they’d love to know about you flirting with older women, staying out until all hours, and don’t think I didn’t see you sneaking that beer at Dan’s party."

"Okay, okay," Rob said nervously, "I give. Don’t go all Gestapo on me. I was just kidding – I figured you all knew about Dan and Gwen’s break up, that’s all." He glanced uneasily at the phone, wondering when Trixie was going to dive for it and dial the fateful number.

Trixie shook her head so impatiently her curls bounced. "Neither of them would ever talk about it. How did you find out anything?"

"I asked Gwen’s old college friend, Professor McKay," Rob explained. "We got to talking about Gwen after she recognized my name. She wouldn’t go into any detail, but she did tell me that Dan was playing hide the salami with some bimbo, and someone sent Gwen a set of pictures to prove it."

Trixie was completely bewildered. "But that doesn’t make any sense," she said weakly, sinking down in a chair.

"Tell me about it," Rob snorted. "I mean, seriously! Look at her – he’d have to be nuts. Unless the other chick was, like, y’know, Miss America or something."

"No, not that!" Trixie waved her hand impatiently at her younger brother, trying to sort all this out in her mind.

"What then?" Rob asked impatiently. Trix was sitting there with that old familiar something-smells-fishy look on her face that he had known so well as a child. "Dan cheated. It happens." He shrugged and began loading a tray with napkins and plates. "Statistically, at least one of the Bob White boys had to end up being a pig. I don’t count – you never made me a Bob White."

"Oh, shut up, Bobby!" Trixie flashed. "That’s not what I’m talking about! Dan was going to ask Gwen to marry him once they came home for the summer, you idiot! Now why one earth would he want to screw that up?"

 

Author’s Note: The buying pencils in the morning line comes from a saying I picked up on my exboyfriend’s college campus in Bennington, VT. I’m not sure who originated it, but it is used here as the equivalent of having been told where to go and what to do when you got there – and not in the nice travel agent sort of way.

 

Eleven years ago – Bob White Club House, Sleepyside-on-Hudson, NY

"You’re right, Jim," Trixie admitted a little shamefacedly. "You usually are. I know I should look before I leap, but I can’t seem to help it once I smell a mystery."

"I just worry about you, Trix," Jim said kindly, patting her hand. "You know Brian and I drove home for the weekend just to take you and Honey to Homecoming, not to get involved in one of your escapades. One of these days I’m afraid you’re going to find yourself in a situation that’s way over your head."

"Not to mention dragging Honey in along with you," Brian added firmly. "When I think about all the messes you two have gotten into…"

"Alright already," Di interrupted, shrugging into her jacket. "I’m sure Honey and Trixie know the drill by now, and if you two keep yakking at them, we’re never going to be ready in time to make the Homecoming Dance." She deliberately stood up and walked over to the corner where Mart was playing M&M poker with Gwen and Dan, helping herself to a few of Mart’s ‘chips’ as she leaned down to kiss his cheek. "I’ll see you in two hours."

"With bells on," Mart promised, returning Di’s kiss.

"Coming with, Gwen?" Honey asked, pausing at the door to the clubhouse to disentangle her gloves. She and Trixie both looked relieved to be escaping another of Jim and Brian’s famous scoldings. With any hope, once they all got to the dance, Brian and Jim would be out of lecture mode and into dancing mode.

Gwen frowned down at her cards. "You three go ahead – I want to finish this hand." She ran her fingers through her close-cropped black hair. "This will take about two minutes to dry, five minutes to do make up, and about thirty seconds to step into my dress, so I’m good as long as I leave myself fifteen minutes for a shower."

As the door closed behind Honey, Trixie, and Di, and Jim and Brian again bent their heads over the road maps the Bob Whites would be using on their Thanksgiving trip to Maine, Gwen dropped her cards to the table and turned her eyes to Brian and Jim. "Did it make you dizzy?" she asked casually. Dan and Mart looked at Gwen, then each other, and hunkered down in their chairs, grinning.

"Did what make us dizzy?" Brian asked, not looking up from the route map he was highlighting.

"That time warp you two stepped through back in 1957 Milwaukee that deposited you here in Sleepyside," Gwen provided.

"I’m sorry…" Jim began, looking up at his cousin with puzzlement in his green eyes and all over his freckled face. Brian looked just as confused.

"You should be," Gwen interrupted sharply, "after the way you just talked to Trixie and Honey." She was pacing back and forth across the wood floor of the clubhouse now, her booted heels making a firm ‘thunk’ at every step. "I mean, here you have two fantastic women with a genuine talent, and all you want to do is stomp all over it because their actions don’t fit into your phallocentric view of the universe. This is their way of preparing for their chosen profession. I don’t see you raining all over anyone else’s parade."

"What, exactly, are you trying to say, Gwen?" Jim asked in a controlled voice, his face slowly began to suffuse with the reddish tone that usually presaged anger.

Gwen bent down and placed her hands over the maps they had been reading. "I’m saying that you two need to stop dumping all over Trixie and Honey."

"We are not dumping all over them," Brian replied hotly, "we’re just trying to protect them! Detective work is dangerous!"

"Every job is dangerous!" Gwen shouted back at him. "Getting up in the morning is dangerous! You’re going into a profession where you could be exposed to gods know what freaky diseases, not to mention emergency room duty with the joy of having berzerkoid drug dealers freaking out on you! Jim’s going into a profession where he’s going to have to learn how to restrain kids who feel like they have nothing to lose! Not all of your orphans and runaways are going to be as stable as you and Dan, Jim! Some of them will be drug users, some will have mental illness, some of them will be just plain sociopaths."

"We’re not doing it now!" Jim protested, jumping to his feet. "Brian and I are going to be trained to deal with those types of things, Gwen. We aren’t trying to jump the gun. Trixie and Honey…"

"Have a natural aptitude for this sort of work," Gwen finished for him, taking him by the shoulders and easing him back down into his chair, "as you of all people should know. Or maybe you think they should’ve minded their own business and stayed out of Ten Acres while your uncle was in the hospital. Or called the police once they found you trespassing. I’m sure the first thing Sergeant Molinson would have done was contact Jonesy for you. Why don’t you tell them that? I’m sure they’d appreciate it." Jim’s eyes bugged at the very thought. He made a move as if to stand up again, but she held her ground in front of him, as if daring him to lay a finger on her.

"Ouch!" Mart said under his breath, as the color drained from Jim’s face. Watching Gwen finally take some of the starch out of the college boys was better than cards any day. He popped an M&M into his mouth.

"Shh," Dan whispered back, "I think she’s going in for the kill."

"That was different," Brian fumbled, looking down. Jim was still speechless, staring at Gwen open mouthed.

"Was it?" Gwen countered. "Because I don’t think it was. I think the only reason it’s different is that it’s Jim and Jonesy, and you weren’t even here to complain when it happened, Brian. Jim could just as easily have been one of those toughs you two are so worried about them running into."

"I’ll give you that one," Jim said quietly. His expression had changed from one of offended outrage to one of patronizing attentiveness. "But we aren’t asking them to give up what they want to do," he explained in his best lets-humor-Trixie-in-a-snit voice, " we’re just asking them to postpone it until they’re ready."

"They’re ready now, or they wouldn’t be doing it," Gwen stressed, turning the tone of voice back at him, with a little smirk. When she continued, her voice was softer, firm but gentle. "Guys, I hate to break it to you, but you can either help them, or criticize them. We’ve established which role you’ve chosen. They aren’t always going to be in Sleepyside, boys. There’s a great big world out there, and they’re going to be in college in a couple of years. There are a lot of different guys at college. They might even meet someone who is equal to you in every way, with the slight exception that they offer unconditional support instead of criticism. Then Trix and Honey’ll have their own choice to make."

"I see," Brian said, flatly. He was chewing his lower lip thoughtfully. For maybe the first time, he seemed to be considering the idea that Honey wouldn’t always be there waiting for him. From the expression on his face, he didn’t find the thought very pleasant. Jim was looking out the window with a faraway look in his eyes, his lips pressed together in a thin line. "So you’re saying we’re going to lose them?" he asked. His voice was controlled, but the line of his jaw was tensed and he did not look at his cousin as he waited for her answer.

Gwen hesitated, biting her own lip now. She glanced back at Mart and Dan, who quickly became very involved in redealing the cards between them and dividing Gwen’s pile of ‘chips’. "Maybe," she finally said, reluctantly. "There’s always the chance that they’ll actually be stupid enough to listen to you, that they’ll let go of their dreams just to stay with you." She paused, giving her next works more emphasis. "Once they do that, though, they won’t be the same people, and although you won’t have to worry about their detective work, you will have to worry that one day they’ll realize how much of themselves they gave up to be with you. You’ll wake up one day with a stranger looking back at you from inside your wife’s head, or you’ll wake up alone, and know she’s gone for good because it was either give you up or give up on herself."

She stepped away from Jim’s chair and grabbed her BWG jacket. "You two fell in love with Trixie and Honey – let them be Trixie and Honey," she continued, as she pulled the jacket around her and worked her gloves out of the pockets. "Enroll them in a self-defense course for Christmas, give them pepper spray and a taser for their birthdays, whatever it takes to make you feel better, just don’t ask them to change." Gwen stopped and brushed her gloved hands together briskly, not looking at Brian and Jim’s troubled faces. "I’ll put my soap box away now and go try and make myself presentable for the dance," she said, heading quickly for the door, eyes cast down. Before any of the boys could speak, she had slipped through the door, letting in the cold November wind, sharp with wood smoke.

For a moment the clubhouse was silent except for the sound of M&M’s rattling across the table as Mart and Dan continued their game. Brian and Jim stared at each other, stunned, both by Gwen’s message and the method of her delivery. "Well," Brian finally said, "I think we’ve just been told where to buy our pencils in the morning."

Jim nodded thoughtfully. "I think she had a point, though. Don’t you?"

Brian sighed and began to refold the maps that covered the table. "I hate to admit it, but yes, I do."

"The youth center in White Plains has self defense classes for women," Mart said helpfully.

"I know where you can get a good deal on a taser," Dan added. Neither of them looked up from their cards as they fought to keep the serious looks on their faces.

"Laugh it up, Dan," Jim said, sagely. "You’re the one going to the dance with her. I’d wear a cup if I wanted to try for a good night kiss."

Dan leaned his chair back against the wall, put his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. "I probably should," he said thoughtfully.

Mart’s jaw dropped in surprise. "You are not!" His eyes lit up with evil glee as he realized what Dan had finally slipped. "You are!"

A look of surprise, mingled with panic passed over Dan’s face as he realized what he had just admitted. "Oh. My. God," Dan croaked, the front legs of his chair hitting the wooden floor of the clubhouse with a slam. "Oh. My. God." The next slam was Dan’s forehead hitting the wooden table and scattering M&M’s in all directions. "That. Was. Out. Loud." Each word was punctuated with a bang.

Jim , Brian, and Mart looked at Dan with the sort of pity displayed by one who has found himself in a similar situation and now finds that seeing someone else in it amusing .

"He really didn’t know?" Brian asked Mart in an amused tone.

Mart shook his head and grinned. "Nope. Pure denial. Exquisite denial. Hell, he almost had even me convinced."

"What tipped you off?" Jim asked, smiling. He’d had approximately the same reaction on the day of the Valentine Dance, when he had sent Trixie that orchid and spent half and hour beating head against a handy wall while he waited for her to laugh, knowing that there was no going back.

"Played "Girl, You’ll be a Woman Soon" until I was ready to hunt down Quentin Tarantino and beat him with a Pulp Fiction soundtrack," Mart sighed.

Brian sighed. "I would have pegged him for a "Fade to Black" man. Mine was "Brown Eyed Girl""

Mart nodded. "I favored the oldies – Stones, actually "Paint it Black"."

Jim walked over and clasped Dan’s shoulder to keep him from concussing himself. "Knocking yourself silly won’t help. Just kiss the girl. Once you’ve got her, don’t give her any reason to doubt you. She’s been hurt enough. Don’t play any games."

"Or you’ll sick Trixie on me?" Dan retorted.

Jim smiled. "Nah. I’ll need her to help me pull Gwen off of you."

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