She laughed.

"Well, I'd better go tell my dad anyway. Wait here, I'll be back in a second."

He watched her cross the street and walk back into the church. He waited, wondering if she would change her mind and chicken out. Then he saw her emerge from the pretty white building and walk back toward him.

"I told him you were my girlfriend's cousin… so I guess it's okay. Let's go."

She drove him to the Red Coach steakhouse, and as they walked in from the bright sunlight, it took their eyes several moments to adjust to the darkness in the atmospheric restaurant.

"What will you have to drink," Denny asked her when they were seated.

"I don't drink," she said, smiling shyly. And again, she had that weird, frightened feeling; what was she doing here with this strange man? Everything seemed so unreal to her. Yet he seemed so nice and friendly… And she had spent such a bored and restless summer dreaming of the man that would find her and carry her away from this sleepy old town. She knew there was a big exciting world out there, and she knew of its dangers. Yet when her eyes had met his in church that morning, she felt something she had never known before, an attraction that seemed to crash through all the rules and barriers within which she had lived her entire young life.

"Well," Denny told her, "it's time you had your first drink then."

She smiled, her silence an assent.

When their martinis arrived, she sipped it slowly. She did not like the taste, but it made her feel a warm sensation through out her entire body. In fact, by the time she had finished it, she seemed to be more aware of her body than she had ever been in her life.

When their steaks arrived, she felt terrifically hungry. And eating, she figured, would help curb the effect of the liquor. With candles on the table glowing with a softly dancing light, they sat across from one another eating the rare steak and drinking a good red wine.