‘I will treat your young ladies with the utmost respect and will be a gentleman in every sense of the word . . . with both them and you.’ They loo...ed at each other quietly for a minute or two before the mother looked away toward her children. She then rose and waited as he slowly got to his feet. ‘I take you at your word, Cal, but know that I have done so before and been greatly disappointed . . . a couple of times. Please don’t break our hearts.’ Instinctively he reached out, taking both of. Steve and Beth were in Maryland waiting for the warm weather to return before they went back to the camp. The phone rang in Tampa, “It’s a boy Jim. We named him Christopher.” “That’s great, you must be so proud. We had a girl. Her name is Helen. We named her after Pat’s grandmother.” “We sure do love him, but you’re the one that should be proud. He’s your son, not mine.” The news hit Jim like a ton of bricks. He knew Beth had been impregnated in the time that the two couples spent together,. My pink lipstick marks the empty glass and my perfume lingered. He picked up the other glass and drank- Jameson. She remembered, he thought with amusement. Ripping open the envelope, a card key. Hotel Le Marais, six blocks away by his calculations. Inside, a note in my handwriting - room 347. **** I walked into the night New Orleans night with that secret smile still clinging to my face. I wonder if he’d come. I hope he would. ***The hot chicory coffee and the beignets smelled heaven-sent when. “We are going back to that Ranch where we delivered those ten loads of beer. They have everything we need there! Okay, Dale where is the nearest town, and what speed are we making?”“Twelve miles an hour. Two hours left on batteries. There’s a town twenty miles ahead.” Dale said.John finished filing off the padlock on the underground fuel tanks at the mom and pop grocery where Ron got the light bulbs. Opening the lid, he lit up the interior of the tank by shining down a 110v light bulb trouble.