Elissa’s eyes swept across Nick as she followed her father and the other man carrying her brother upstairs, and Nick noticed that she still wore her engagement ring.

She must have really loved that old captain, he thought, and tried to tell himself that wasn’t such a bad thing.

He could have kicked himself for falling asleep this morning. He had been determined to stay awake all night, to make sure he wouldn’t miss meeting her train, but around four o’clock, with the depot swathed in utter dark and quiet, his eyes had got to feeling like someone had run sandpaper over them. He stretched out on one of those church pew waiting benches, rested his head on his duffel, and just closed his eyes for a minute. When he woke up, it was nine o’clock, the day was bright outside, and he was stiff as hell.

Shit! he thought when he looked at his watch. Nine o’clock. He’d not only missed Elissa’s train, he’d just missed Hastings’s deadline.

He quickly decided Hastings would be none the wiser if he was thirty minutes late with the proposal. He’d come all this way, after all.

There was a public phone at one end of the depot. Nick hurried on his stiff knee over to it, grabbed up the city directory, and flipped through the pages. He found the M’s, scanned over them until he found Mickelson, John, Sr., 502 W. First Street, President, First National Bank. Her grandpappy. The next entry, though, read John, Jr., “Jack,” 505 Rapids Avenue, Vice President, First National Bank. He tore the page out and stuffed it in his pocket. He found Rapids Avenue on the map at the front of the book, and tore that page out, too. Then he found the restroom, shaved, and brushed his teeth. Wouldn’t do to propose to a girl with breath earned by a night spent drinking too much coffee before finally dropping off to sleep on a bench in the Pine Rapids depot.