“I can’t believe how upset you are.”

“I’m not upset!”

He laughed harder. “You don’t lie, remember?”

She growled, pulled him into the house, squeezing the circulation out of his hand the entire way. Her fingernails dug in when she caught sight of Mary Frances’s guy.

“Here they are,” Mary Frances said when they walked into the room.

“My goodness, Mary . . . just look at her. She’s just as you described.”

“Burke, this is my girl, Mary . . . and her friend Glen.”

Glen pried Mary’s hand free of his and extended it. “Glen Fairchild. Mary’s boyfriend.”

“Oh, is it boyfriend now?” Mary Frances asked. “It was just friend when you arrived.”

Glen winked. “We move quickly in the city.”

He liked watching the older woman blush.

“A pleasure.” He shook the other man’s hand. “Burke Perry, Mary Frances’s boyfriend.”

Mary clenched at his side, the physical weight of his words and their meaning hitting her like a truck.

“I take it you weren’t ready to hear that,” Burke said, his English accent somehow softening the blow.

“Nope. Can’t say that I was. First there was pie . . . then makeup . . . now a boyfriend.”

Glen wished he had this on film. He couldn’t remember ever seeing a woman so amusingly torn.

“It might take some getting used to.”

Mary nodded like a bobblehead doll. “Yep. Probably.”

“Changes make life interesting,” Burke told them.

Mary kept nodding.

Glen kept laughing.

“If it makes you feel any better, Mary and I dating is like it was for you in secondary school. Quite innocent.” Burke placed an arm on Mary Frances’s shoulder. “Wouldn’t you say, m’dear?”

“Well, of course it is . . . you’re dating a fifty-eight-year-old virgin.”

Glen lost it.

Mary tossed her hands in the air, twisted around, and said, “I’m out.”

Glen followed her into the kitchen while the older couple giggled behind them.

“She’s delightful.” Burke’s words carried through the house.

It was a damn good thing Jesus drank wine.

Mary handed a second bottle to Glen for opening before they started on the main course.

Burke was actually really nice.

It was Mary Frances who’d somehow morphed into something other than what she was when in the man’s presence.

She blushed, giggled, and held his hand even after they said grace.

Watching Mary Frances, Sister Mary Frances, being a woman and not just a motherly type or a nun, was sensory overload.

Halfway through the meal Mary realized she’d all but removed herself from the conversation. She listened to Burke talk about his career before he’d retired. He spoke of his children and his late wife.

Glen touched on Fairchild Charters and explained that his parents were gone.

It was during a discussion of loss that snapped Mary out of her unease.

“The past is what molds you, it’s what you do with that mold that counts,” Burke said. He lifted Mary Frances’s hand from the table and kissed the back of it.

There was happiness in the woman’s smile that Mary hadn’t seen before.

“Mary Frances says you have grandchildren.”

Burke seemed pleased with her change in the subject. “I do. Would you like to see pictures?”

“Of course.”

Burke pulled a phone out of his back pocket and placed a pair of reading glasses on the edge of his nose.

Mary Frances met her eyes from across the table.

Mary mouthed the words I love you and turned her attention to Burke’s pride and joys.

When the evening wore down and Burke took his leave, he kissed each of Mary’s cheeks and told her she’d been a delight.

The older couple walked out of the house to say good-bye without an audience, and Mary stayed in the kitchen cleaning up.

“Feeling better?” Glen asked when they were alone.

“Yes. It’s just strange.”

He moved in behind her, dropped his lips to the side of her ear. “I think he’s good for her.”

“So do I. It would be easier if I didn’t like him.”

“I doubt that.”

Glen pulled up his sleeves and started in with the dishes.

“Mary Frances is precious. I think she kept talking about her virginity just to get you used to the fact she may not always have it.”

Mary couldn’t help but laugh. “Probably. It must be crazy strange for Burke to know that if they do . . .” She tried to picture it, winced, and squeezed the image from her brain. “Never mind.”

Glen bumped her shoulder, handed her a clean dish to dry. “You’ll survive.”

The front door opened and closed.

“Oh, good. I dislike doing dishes.” Mary Frances sat at the table and finished her wine. “Burke thinks you’re lovely. I told him he had great taste.”

Glen jumped in. “How nice of him, tell him I liked him, too.”

“Always the charmer, this one.”

“He’s everything you said he would be,” Mary said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t more social when he first arrived.”

“No worries. We both expected as much. With all the change you’ve had in your life, this one was bound to toss you down the rabbit hole.”