Half Past Mourning by Fleeta Cunningham Read Free Book Online Page A

innocent, joyous glow of a happy bride. But did Danny love her, Peter asked himself. He couldn’t tell. Nina said her young husband suffered from various health issues, but Peter didn’t see any sign of that in the photograph before him, not unless the slightly hunched shoulders suggested something. The way the couple stood precluded an exchange of looks. Nina looked up at Danny but Danny was looking into the camera. Can’t draw a conclusion from that, Peter told himself. Did Danny love her, marry her, and meet with foul play in some form? Or did he go through the ceremony for reasons no one guessed, only to duck out on a life he didn’t want? Peter studied the pictures but didn’t see any answers.
    Nina would wait forever for the husband she’d had for an hour. He knew that. Peter didn’t know her well, but he knew enough to bet that when she took a vow or made a promise she never backed out. Nina deserved to know if she was wife or widow, married or not. A second thought sent Peter rigid and erect in his chair. He suddenly knew he wanted an answer to those questions, not just for Nina’s sake but for his own. Because if Danny Wilson was out of Nina’s life, Peter Shayne wanted to be sure of it. Peter’s own code of ethics didn’t include kissing another man’s wife. And Peter had just realized he had every intention of kissing Nina Kirkland, kissing her and seeing if it led to anything more. Was Danny alive, was he dead, and where had he been the last two years? The time had come for someone to find out. Peter just wasn’t sure which way he wanted the result to fall. Danny alive and back in Nina’s life, or Nina free, free to see the interest in another man’s eyes? Which way? And how long would it take a skilled untangler of knots to find the answer?
    Peter managed very little sleep that night. The blanket was too warm, the room too chilly without it. The bedclothes wrapped in knots around him, leaving his feet bare and cold. He blamed the late evening coffee with Nina for his restlessness, but he suspected the answer was a lot more complicated than he wanted to admit. In his brief snatches of sleep, he saw tantalizing visions of a girl with soft curly brown hair blowing in the wind. A slender figure turned to look at him with caramel-colored eyes. A provocative bit of laughter teased him as a yellow sports car flew by. Other girls had gotten under his skin, but none had been as innocent or as unobtainable as Nina Kirkland. Peter finally gave up his quest for sleep and tumbled out of bed as the first light of a new day brushed the windowsill.
    With no patience for cooking and little interest in eating, Peter made a passable plate of toast, blackened only on the edges, poured canned orange juice into a tumbler, and contemplated the situation. If Danny was alive, he could be found. Finding him was the first step. If for some insane reason he didn’t want a life with Nina, a legal remedy could be found. Given the circumstances, an annulment should be easy to obtain.
    But what if his disappearance was involuntary? An accident, an injury might have left him with no memory. Amnesia did happen, not often, not with the frequency fiction and film writers suggested, but it did happen. If Danny were found, disoriented, or disabled, then what would Nina do? Peter didn’t even have to think on that one. Loyal, loving Nina would take her husband home, care for him, no matter what the circumstances. That would leave Peter Shayne exactly where he was right now, falling for another man’s wife. Of course, Danny might well be dead, Peter reminded himself, and grimaced at the idea that he could wish, even hope, that was the case. No, he didn’t want that. If that were the situation, finding out what had happened to the groom on his wedding day was practically hopeless. Peter could only guess what the effect of Danny’s death would be on Nina. She’d clung to the hope he’d come home to her for so long, to find that he