Lorna Michaels - A Candle For Nick

She nodded, stirred her coffee. “I wasn’t supposed to go out with you,” she blurted.

He frowned. “Really? Why?”

“You were a guest at Comanche Trails. Employees weren’t allowed to socialize with guests.” Yet without a qualm, she’d said yes the minute he asked. She, the rabbi’s daughter who never broke rules, hadn’t given the restriction a second thought. And that was only the first rule she’d broken.

Kent’s lips curved into the slow smile Mallory used to adore. “I didn’t know that. I’m glad you decided to go.”

Mallory didn’t answer. Couldn’t.

What if she’d stuck with her usual behavior and said no when he asked her out? She’d have avoided all the grief, all the anguish.

But she wouldn’t have Nick.

She glanced out the window at her son, who was talking to another youngster on the playground. She’d endure everything she’d gone through again because of him. She glanced back at Kent and found him watching her thoughtfully, a half smile on his face. “What?” she asked.

“After we left the Burger Bar, you took me to see a prairie dog town.”

Mallory laughed, half-embarrassed that she’d thought such an unsophisticated outing would impress a man who’d spent his last four years in Chicago. But he’d kissed her there, on that sun-scorched afternoon, with a chorus of tiny creatures chattering in the background and the whistle of a train sounding from somewhere far away.

She’d fallen in love that hot June day, and those same feelings, long buried, were stirring now. Again. Fool. Now you know better.

Abruptly she said, “How long were you married?”

He blinked at the sudden change of subject. “Three years.”

“What happened?”

Kent hesitated, then answered, “Lisa and I were a bad match.”

Curious now, she asked, “In what way?”

“We wanted different things. I met Lisa in New York when I was at Sloan-Kettering. She was a model. Then when we moved here, she had some offers and…she didn’t want to spoil her body having children.”

Mallory studied him thoughtfully. “Would you have sacrificed your career for children?”

“Yes,” he said.

His voice rang with such intensity, his eyes shone with such pain that Mallory was staggered. Beneath the table she clenched her hands, which had suddenly gone cold. If he wanted a child this much, didn’t he deserve to know that Nick was his?

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