Bullseye by Virginia Smith Page A

she realized she knew the answer. Margie. His wife’s death must have created some sort of crisis of faith for him.
    But, Mason, surely you don’t blame Jesus for what happened to Margie .
    The words were on the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed them. Some topics were too far beyond her ability to discuss calmly, and Mason’s wife was one of them.
    After all, hadn’t she suffered her own crisis of faith when he broke up with her to marry Margie? Karina and Mason had been together for years, since early high school. They’d loved each other. Even now she did not doubt that. But they’d been young, and their relationship had grown predictable, too comfortable. They both knew it, but neither had admitted it to the other. When he’d proposed to her, she’d been overjoyed with the tiny promise ring he’d given her and had hoped it would renew the depth of the passion that had begun to cool. But then he’d met Margie. Bigger than life, vibrant, beautiful Margie.
    She finished the cut in silence. As she worked, Mason’s face clouded over with painful memories, his thick brows sunk low over his eyes. Was he thinking of her, his dead wife? Karina clamped her teeth together. She should have kept her mouth shut. The last thing she wanted was for Mason to brood over his wife while sitting in her kitchen.
    When she’d finished the clip, she removed the guard and trimmed a clean line at the back of his neck and around his right ear. The burned left ear she left alone. Then she
unsnapped the apron and removed it from his neck, careful to trap the hair fragments in its flimsy folds.
    “There. All finished.” She pointed toward the bathroom a few feet away, down a short hallway. “Go take a look and see what you think.”
    When he left the room, the atmosphere became noticeably lighter. Karina retrieved her broom from its storage place in the pantry and began cleaning the floor.
    Mason returned within a minute and stood in the doorway. “It’s terrific. Thank you.”
    She looked up at him, and her breath caught in her chest. The shorter hair transformed him. Stubble across his jaw gave him a rugged look. And the short hair did something to make his eyes stand out. They were so bright blue it almost hurt to look at them, like looking into the sun. Those were the eyes she’d gazed into countless times, had lost herself in. Had planned to look into for the rest of her life.
    Until he broke her heart into a million pieces.
    She tore her gaze away and turned to retrieve the dustpan. “You should wear your hair short all the time. That style looks good on you.”
    “Feels good, too.” He ran a hand across his head. “Here, let me get that.”
    He took the dustpan from her and knelt at her feet, holding it in front of the pile of dark hair. In a flash, Karina remembered another time Mason knelt before her. That time he’d held a ring in his fingers. Pain squeezed her throat shut.
    With an iron effort she swept the hair into the dustpan, then nodded toward the cabinet beneath the sink, where the trash can stayed. She turned her back on him to put the broom away and spoke over her shoulder. “So where are you staying tonight? Did you make reservations somewhere?”
    There was no answer, but the weight of his stare burned into the back of her head. With purposefully smooth movements, she put the broom away and shut the door before turning to look at him.
    Something smoldered in those blue eyes. Something intimate and familiar.
    “I was thinking maybe I should crash on your couch.” He moved his head in the direction of the living room and the sofa, but didn’t break the eye contact that held her captive. “You know. Some extra protection for you.”
    What was he saying? Her pulse kicked up speed. Was he offering more than simply a protective presence for the night? The Mason she had known years ago would never suggest such a thing. He was too dedicated to the Lord, too determined to save himself for marriage. But that