A Time for the Night

    She'd waited so long. As the years passed, it seemed the wait grew longer. Liz Carter paced along the sea wall, intermittently glancing at her gold watch and the darkened sea. The horizon had long since vanished, and only the bottom edge of the stars told her where the sky ended and the turgid Atlantic Ocean began.
    For the hundredth time, it seemed, she pulled the compact out of her clutch and examined her features. Would he be pleased? She'd aged little since their last encounter. She smoothed the color over her left eye then dabbed powder on her pert nose and smooth cheeks. She appreciated her beauty -- such a rare thing that is was. Not that she didn't good any other day, but time had certainly taken it's toll.
    “Lizzy?”
    The thick, rugged voice came from behind her, so familiar and yet new and frightening at the same time. She snapped the compact closed and shut her eyes, forming the image of a wild-haired boy with blond locks and bright, wide blue eyes. He'd been thin, but as she remembered the Brick of the past, she could see the promise of manhood wrapped in the long, slender lengths of the boy. The image changed into the man he'd become, so many years ago. A wam wind blew through her thin gown and brushed her heart.
    “Is that you, Brick?” she asked, her voice trembling. Please. Please let it be him.
    “It's me, Lizzy. Turn around. Let me look at you.”
    Slowly, as if she were afraid she might trip on her tiny, beaded slippers, she faced him. He was so tall. Taller than she remembered. His hair was darker now, with streaks of blond that said he still loved the sun. It fell past his wide, muscled shoulders. He wore simple black trousers, cut low on his hips. A loose shirt, with wide sleeves and a collar open at the neck, billowed in the gentle breeze. She allowed herself to examine every dark, forbidding inch of him, tamping down her fear.
    Those eyes...His eyes were still that same, crystal blue that could look straight through her into her innermost secrets.
    Over the course of the past decades, she'd come to trust him -- at least, the memory of him. Longing danced in the back of her mind. His presence was a gift she should treasure. When Brick came to her, she was whole again -- physically, mentally, emotionally -- and    more >>