"Honey, if that was a crime worthy of divine punishment, don't you think half the people in the world would be struck with it, too?"

"At least the male half."

He gave me an impatient smile and took my hand. "You have a soul and a heart; you just got lost for a while."

I lifted his hand and kissed it, wanting to tell him about my conversation with Sara, wanting to ask if he really thought this was going to work. I still wasn't sure what other ways we could find of loving each other, but to keep him, I was willing to try, and keep trying.

I would tell him later. If I started crying now, I'd mess up my eye makeup. I couldn't bring a picture of my face to mind, but I was certain that I didn't want to have raccoon eyes the first time I ever told a man I loved him.

Rosa greeted us at the door, her gnarled fingers taking mine as I bent down to kiss her cheek.

"Welcome, cara. You look lovely."

"So do you, ma'am."

"Call me Nonna," she said imperiously, and winked at me. "Is this your man?" she asked with a great deal of appreciation.

"Yes," I said, turning so that I could eye him as well, and I could've sworn that a blush tinged his cheeks.

She laughed and ordered him to bend down so that she could kiss his cheeks, first one and then the other, and I found myself pulling out my camera and taking a shot before I'd completely realized what I was doing.

Marshall looked up at me, and I thought that if I had seen a total stranger look at a woman that way, I would've said that he loved her like a crazy man. I stared back at him, wondering if he saw the same thing in my eyes.

Nonna led us to our table, and all the women crowded around us, giggling and asking when the photos would be ready.

"Soon," I told them, and nodded at Marshall. "I've been a little distracted," which sent them into gales of laughter again. Isabel's husband, a strapping older man with a barrel chest and a twinkle in his eye, winked at me from the kitchen door.

They opened a bottle of the house red for us and left us to ourselves in our dark little corner of the restaurant.

"How did you find this place?" he asked around a mouthful of garlic bread.

"I thought you wanted to make out with me later," I said, staring pointedly as he pulled off another piece.

"So you eat some, too, and you won't know the difference," he said, feeding me.

I chewed, looking around at the other diners. "I was just wandering around mostly. I had an idea for taking some photos using the old lighthouse as backdrop, so I came by one evening and found this place."

"And the rest is history."

"It will be. I did a couple prints. They're amazing. And there are some even better ones if the contact sheets are anything to go by."

"That's the one with all the negatives printed on it."

"What a man."

"I can't wait to see the ones from last night. As long as I'm the only one seeing them."

"What, you're not willing to give it up for posterity?"

"Not on your life. Those are going in my private collection."

"Along with your Playboys from 1978 to 1986 and your signed photo of Alyssa Milano?"

"How'd you know about the Playboys?"

"Stevens."

"Is nothing sacred?"

"He's probably told the whole station about us by now," I said, and waited uneasily for his reaction.

"He didn't have to. Everyone was sitting around innocently when I got in yesterday. Never mind that the mayor's daughter had turned up dead, the package on my desk still looked as rumpled as my date the morning after prom."

"They saw the photo," I guessed, already picturing the scene.

" 'What's the photo for, Scott?' " he mimicked, wiggling his eyebrows.

" 'I never got a photo, Scott,' " he said, doing Barnes's high-pitched Boston accent so perfectly that I snorted with laughter. "And then they began a rousing rendition of 'Scott and Debbie sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I- N-G.' ".

"Cops are so juvenile."

"That's why they like you so much."

"Ha ha. Did you always want to be one?"

"A cop?"

"No, a juvenile. Yes, a cop."

He looked down at his plate, then back up at me. There was something in his eyes that made me think of a five-year-old who just shoved his sister's Barbie down the toilet. "Actually, you wanna know a secret?"

"Oh, yeah," I crooned, leaning over my half-eaten salad. Unfortunately, one of the many DeTavola men showed up bearing a heavy tray with steaming plates of pasta and vegetables.

I smiled at him, he was gorgeous after all, but I really just wanted to hear Marshall's secret. I had a feeling he didn't make that offer lightly.

Our plates were set in front of us. Chicken cacciatore for me, mussels in clam sauce over a bed of linguini for him. It looked delicious, but I had another kind of sustenance in mind.

"So, don't leave me hanging here. What?"

He wasn't paying me any attention. He'd just wrapped his fork in his pasta and taken a bite. Even I couldn't mistake the look of divine bliss that passed over his face. DeTavola's restaurant had that effect on everyone.

I smiled and shook my head at him.

"This is... this is..."

"I know," I said, taking pity on him.

We ate in silence for a while-Marshall letting out an occasional moan of pleasure while I laughed at him.'

When we were finished, a different handsome Italian boy came over and took our dishes. Isabel followed shortly after him, smiling at our empty plates as they passed her in the strong arms of her grandson.

"Nonna said you were to have tiramisu and coffee. Is that all right with you?"

"We'd love it," I said immediately. I'd had their tiramisu before.

The gorgeous, multilayered dessert was brought out to us on china plates while the coffee was poured from a silver urn. I wouldn't let Marshall touch it until he'd told me his secret.

"No, don't take a bite until you tell me."

"Can I sip my coffee at least?"

"Fine, but I have to warn you, it doesn't taste like the coffee down at the station."

"You mean it doesn't taste like it was run through someone's dirty socks? What a disappointment."

"So-the secret. I'm dying here."

"Well," he began, sipping his coffee, "my first look at the inside of a police station actually happened the first time I was arrested."

I'm sure my jaw dropped. I couldn't have been more shocked if he'd smacked me one. He snickered at the look on my face.

"I was a bad, bad kid. Stole, did drugs, ran wild. My mom and I lived in a trailer just outside a small Georgia town. We were dirt poor and I had no idea who my father was. I got teased by all the other kids. My mom did the best she could for me, but I was always bored in school. Thought I knew everything. When I was about thirteen, I got hauled into the local station by a big, burly cop named Ted Fields. He called my mom to pick me up, and when she came tearing into the station, it was love at first sight. My little sister was born eight months and one wedding later."

I smiled, hearing the affection in his voice.

"She was beautiful. A little moppet with big green eyes and a silly smile. It took us a while to figure out that she was deaf." '

I nodded, remembering what I'd learned at the crime scene that day.

"That's why you know sign language."

"Yeah, the sergeant and I learned together, and I figured out that I wanted to be like him more than I wanted to be a badass."

"So you became a cop," I said quietly.

"Yeah. I started going to school, skipped a couple grades, and eventually went on to Georgia State."

"Did you play football?" I'd always been a sucker for football.

"Yeah, only second string. The girls liked me anyway, though."

"I'll bet."

He laughed and reached across the table to take my hand. "So, now you know why I like you so much. At heart, I'm a man who likes his women hot and just a little wild."

"Isn't that a song lyric?"

"No, that's 'I like my women on the trashy side,' or something like that." He winked and let go of my hand, picking up his fork. "Can I eat my dessert now?" he asked.

"Sure," I replied, still reeling a little from the tale. I couldn't get over the idea that my detective had been a bad boy. Maybe we really did belong together.

Chapter Twelve

The fair was in full swing when we arrived about nine P.M. We went by the photography displays first, and I showed him my name on the list of contributors. He bought me cotton candy, and kissed me on the Ferris wheel.

The air smelled like popcorn, peanuts, and sea air. Trash-cans were overflowing with wrappers and paper cups. There were stands for fried sausages, crepes, pretzels, smoothies, deep-fried Oreos (which I refused to let Marshall try), and other disgustingly fattening treats.

I looked for the twin, but didn't see anyone whose body even remotely resembled the one we'd found. Marshall told me to stop staring before some strange guy thought I liked him.

We went into the funhouse, one of those ones with a maze of full- length mirrors on the walls. It reminded me of my old apartment.

Marshall was following behind me and would occasionally squeeze my butt or drop a kiss on the side of my neck. I was giggling as much as the teenage girls ahead of us.

I walked up to a mirror that had a spot in its center where my face was in perfect focus while the rest of me stretched outward crazily, like the reflection you get when you look in the drain stop on a bathtub. I touched my lips, my nose, my eyes.

"Hey, baby," Marshall murmured, putting his face next to mine, so that we were both strangers in that little spot of perfection.

"Hey," I said, and he wrapped his arms around me.

"What are you thinking?" he asked, rocking me a little.

"I'm thinking about a question I asked my best friend, the morning after you told me you wanted to be with me."

"What was that?"

"I asked her how it could really be love, when I'll never recognize your face. I'll never be able to look at you across a crowded room and know your thoughts just by the look on your face. You'll never look in my eyes and see that recognition, that joyous connection that says I belong to you."

"You're wrong about that. You might not recognize it, but I want you to know that the look you see on my face right now-that's love." He gave me a squeeze. "And the look on your face, that's love, too. It's there, even if you can't ever see it."

"She said we could find other ways of loving each other," I whispered, covering his hands with my own.

"She was right."

"Are you sure?" I asked, knowing that I was making a huge commitment.

"Uh-huh. I've had a lot of time to study you. And you don't look at anyone the way you look at me. It's a great start. We'll just take it one step at a time."

I bit my lip and twisted around, hugging him tight. "Promise you'll tell me all the time."

"That I love you?"

"No. Well, yes, that, too. I want you to tell me how I look at you. Every day."