” Matti continued to hold her tightly for the next few minutes as the worst of the storm passed over them. When it seemed, minutes later, that the t...me between the flash of lightning and the roll of thunder was beginning to lengthen, he began rubbing her back, trying to soothe her. She was still getting tense with each loud crash, but slowly it seemed that she was relaxing a bit. Eventually he realized that Dawn had fallen asleep in his arms, and at first he intended to simply let her sleep. On top of that, the horse would have to be replaced and trained to accept Rolf as its new master. That definitely was going to complicate things, but it was a problem that every knight knew how to deal with. Luckily, Father had some extra warhorses, and he could spare one for his son's squire, so Rolf was saved that great expense.We waited the 30 minutes that it took for Rolf to wake up. We were more than glad to see him get to his feet. While he was still unconscious, the two dead magical. The Cardinals were scary!"You guys know how many times -- regular season -- that we lost three in a row? I looked that up, too! Six times! Six! And two of those times, we went on to lose another one! Four in a row! We lost four in a row just as often as the Cardinals lost three!"So, shit, we ought to lose to these guys! It's just simple justice, really. --Let the best team win -- right?"But then I got to thinking about those two times, there, when the Cards dropped three straight. Who beat. I felt hurt and wondered where this would lead our marriage. I went back to a fitful sleep. Suddenly there was a blaring ringing attacking my head. Shaking off the cobwebs, I realized it was the phone and remembered I’d left a 6 o’clock wake up call. After I hung up the phone, I looked over at Roland’s bed and it was empty. I scanned the room but they were nowhere to be seen. Visions of her running off with him hit me like a ton of bricks. Then I saw Roland’s uniform still hung in front of the.