He narrowed his eyes. “Look, Dolly, you’d better not tell anyone about this. Especially those damn church ladies, or else the whole town will know. Anne would never forgive me if she knew I’d told anyone.”

“I won’t say anything,” Dolly assured him.

He fixed her with a glare.

“Don’t worry!” she said.

He leaned back on the sofa, folding his hands across his stomach and taking a deep breath. He felt like he’d just run an obstacle course with someone shooting live ammo over his head.

Dolly leaned forward to tap the ash from her cigarette into the ashtray. He watched her, and softened at the sight of the curve of her waist and the cute plumpness of her arm. He wished he hadn’t snapped at her. It seemed he couldn’t stop messing everything up, no matter how he tried not to.

“Well,” Dolly said. She didn’t look at him. “From the way you talk, I guess it was love at first sight.” She sighed. “I can’t imagine giving up on that, just because you’d already agreed to marry someone else.”

He could still remember the softness of Anne’s skin, her sweet jasmine scent. But she was just another person he’d bulldozed, his good intentions overcome by his selfishness. “Well, I guess you just don’t understand,” he said finally.

They were quiet a moment.

“When I saw my husband for the first time, I knew I would end up marrying him,” Dolly offered. “Of course, he didn’t even know I existed, until about four years later.”

JJ laughed. “You saw him and decided you’d marry him, and he didn’t know you existed? Now, why doesn’t that surprise me?”

Dolly made a face. She stubbed out her cigarette. “Very funny.”

“So how did it happen?”

She told him how she had seen Byron at the depot in her hometown, lined up with all the boys going off to the war. “I can still see him in that red and black mackinaw, with his big red ears!” she said. “I thought he was the most attractive man I’d ever seen. And then, when he got back from the war, I managed to get his attention.”

“Well,” said JJ. “I guess I don’t blame him for falling for you.” He flashed her a smile.

“Stop it,” she said, and reached for another cigarette.

Chapter 71

THE MICKELSON HOUSE
502 W. First Street, Pine Rapids
Friday, November 23, 1945