Episode 953: Dancing in The Dark

“This is a nice surprise,” he said. He leaned in to kiss her, but her head turned just enough that his lips landed on her cheek. He thought nothing of it, just a case of missed timing, life wasn’t perfectly choreographed like the movies.

“I thought you were being a homebody today, filling the well after all that travel lately. Did you decide to get a jump on the holiday shopping instead?”

“No, I gave up the remainder of my day off to come see my husband.”

Curran smiled, pleased that after all these years all the bumps in the road, his wife still wanted nothing more than to spend time together. “Give me a couple minutes to tie up loose ends,” he said, “then we can go to lunch.”

“We need to talk here, in private,” Michael said. “We’ll see after that whether I have any appetite.”

Suddenly, turning her face during that kiss didn’t strike him as so accidental. “What’s going on? Is Hope having some kind of problem?”

“You’d know that better than I would.” She crossed her arms, never a good sign.

“I honestly don’t know what this is about. Whatever you think I’ve done, I haven’t.”

“You know that Hope saw Lucy on Halloween and you didn’t tell me. This huge moment happened and you didn’t tell me.” It was actually nothing. I got caught up with my phone and lost track of her for a minute. It’s terrible, I know and I swear I will be more vigilant, but it all worked out. I simply didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to feel like you couldn’t go away on business.”

“She ended up at Lucy’s, that isn’t nothing, yet Lucy is the only one who told me.”

“Lucy? So Lucy recognized Hope?” He’d thought it was all settled, nothing to worry over, clearly he shouldn’t have been so quick to move on, so rattled that he’d just wanted to put it behind them.

“Lucy didn’t say anything, she was too stunned to have a little girl at her door asking if she were her other mother.”

“What?” His heart pounded in his ears. “No. That did not happen. Hope told me Lucy was a stranger, that they hadn’t talked.”

His wife’s eyebrows raised. “Looks like I’m not the only one who’s been kept in the dark.”

Episode 954: Let It Snow