"Cabanela, is something wrong?" Alma asked when she found the man standing strangely still, staring at her ailing flowerbed--a busy schedule and an unusual heatwave hadn't been kind to the poor withering things.

He spun to face her and shook his head with a slightly too-bright grin, and said, "Nothing more than an ooodd thought, baby, don't worry about it."

"It's difficult enough to pull Jowd from the past some days without our partner joining that particular dance," Alma said with a soft, if worried smile, but her worries dropped away like flower petals as Cabanela suddenly swept her into a hug that was very present and spoke of nothing but certainty in this wonderful life they had now.