Harry flicked his Zippo lighter. “I’ll take my chances, all right? If ever a man needed a cigarette . . .”

Ruth turned back to Iris. “What were you thinking, pumpkin? I mean honestly. Isn’t it just like you to cross the street without looking first. Head in the clouds.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“Of course you didn’t mean to. You never do. Harry, what about this Digby fellow? Would it be all right to ask him to dinner or something? I feel something’s called for.”

“Sure, why not? He’s a good man. They say—”

A soft knock sounded on the door. A blond head poked around the edge.

“Hello? Mind if I join you? Nurse said it was family only, but I talked my way through.”

“Digby! Man of the hour. Come on in, it’s a real party.”

Sasha Digby stepped inside the room, looking exceptionally tall and golden. He lifted his hands, which both held bottles of champagne. “Managed to smuggle these in for the invalid. How is she?”

“Just fine,” Iris croaked.

“Broken ankle, sixteen stitches, and black and blue all over,” said Ruth. “Otherwise she’s just fine. Thanks to you.”

“Just grateful I happened along at the right instant.” Sasha looked tenderly at Iris with his ultrablue eyes. “Fright of my life when I saw you step off that curb.”

Possibly Iris was going to die of humiliation. She lay there on her white hospital sheets—in her green hospital pajamas—trapped beneath Sasha Digby’s sympathetic blue gaze. Thank God she hadn’t looked in a mirror yet. Meanwhile, Ruth was still wearing the tangerine dress from the fashion shoot, scarlet lips, blond hair curled and glossy.

“I’m so sorry,” Iris said.

“Sorry? Sorry for what? I’m sorry.” He held out his hand to Ruth across the bed. “Sasha Digby. We met at the reception a couple of weeks ago.”

Ruth half rose from her armchair to take his hand. “What reception was that?”

“You remember, Ruthie. At the residence.” Harry winked at Sasha. “Too sauced, I guess.”

“No, I remember now. Right at the end, wasn’t it?”

Sasha shrugged his rangy shoulders, set down one of the champagne bottles, and removed the foil from the other. “I arrived late, I’m afraid. Cups anywhere?”

“What are we celebrating, exactly?” Ruth asked.

“We are celebrating life, Miss Macallister.” Sasha eased out the cork with the gentlest of pops. “The fact that we’re all still in it.”

Harry, having scrounged cups from the tray on the bedside table, held one out beneath the neck of the bottle. “I’ll drink to that.”

Sasha poured champagne into each glass—Harry ducked into the corridor and came back with a third and a fourth—and everybody cried joyously, To life!