Chapter 3

Chapter Three
Through weakness and strength, happiness and sorrow,for better for worse, I will love you withevery beat of my heart.

The hours of the afternoon stretched on as Rico waited impatiently until the time he could be in her company again. He chided himself for his foolishness. Here he was thirty-eight years old and he was acting like a fourteen year old boy with his first crush. When he wasn’t with her he thought about her. When he was with her he wanted to be closer to her. He thought about her, dreamed about her, yearned to be with her. Damn, the afternoon was dragging on. One more hour until he can see her again. He had to get out, to stop the daydreaming and do something productive. Rico decided to take a walk toward the hills to pass the next hour away.

Rico spotted the old cabin up high on the hill sitting by itself. He decided to walk up and check it out. Rico was lost in thought imagining a pair of gorgeous blue eyes when a rustle in the bushes off the side of the road startled him. He suddenly stopped in his tracks and listened. First it was just a slight rustling and then he heard a soft giggle. Then a dark head popped up out of the bushes and were quickly followed by a second head of dark hair and dark laughing eyes. The two small children giggled at him and the scurried away back into the brush.
His eyes followed them to a camp set up. There were wagons and tents set up on the side of hill, partially hidden from the road he walked on by the bushes. These must be gypsies he thought to himself. Being from the United States he knew about gypsies, but had never had the opportunity to see real, live gypsies up close and personal.

He glanced at his watch and realized he had spent too much time pondering the gypsy children and decided he didn’t have enough time to finish his walk up the hill, so he turned back to go meet Zorka and walk her home. He planned to convince her to invite him to dinner tonight, since he and Baba were going to be gone for a couple of days, he wanted to spend as much time as possible with her, so that she would miss him while he was gone. Where had that thought come from? He chided himself. He was only here for a couple of weeks. He had his career in the United States and she was here in Serbia, what good was it going to do either of him for her to miss him? Or him to miss her?

Their lives were so far apart and so different that he couldn’t let himself get involved with this woman. Besides she was just a child. She had her whole life ahead of her. What would she want with a middle aged man like him? “Get a grip on yourself!” He ordered himself impatiently.