The Nationalists had interpreted it as an undercover method of replacing the locally elected authority with soldiers who would do the government's dir...ty work. Students in the university towns of the north went on strike, and found some sympathy with those in the capital.Their demands escalated from the reinstatement of the police to better pay for state employees, a shorter working week and a minimum wage. The television reports were full of small riots, looting in the north and beatings of. ” “Too much for me to handle?” She raised an eyebrow at that.Twisting the cone in her hand, she looked it over carefully. “I thinkI’ve handled bigger,” she said, a wicked note creeping into her voice.Pressing her tongue flat against the ice cream, she licked straight upthe ice cream, her eyes half closed. Repeating the motion, she workedher way around the cone, then captured the offending drip with a tipof her tongue. His eyes were glued to her every. I needed to know that she was chaste. I also needed to regain trust in my choice of living as a man of the cloth.During communion, I whispered to her that I needed to see her after the morning service. She smiled and said that she would wait for me.---As the final few members of the congregation left, I approached Amber, who was still sitting in the front pew. She looked so pretty in her blue cotton summer dress and white heels. Her dark curls fell gracefully over her china doll face.“My dear. Okay, so maybe that’s a bit of an overstatement, but I seldom lacked female companionship if I wanted it. I’d developed a whole new dark glower, a quiet intensity. It wasn’t deliberate, but I scared myself a couple of times when I’d had too much to drink. I also stayed clear of anything resembling a serious relationship. I was purely in the “once burned...” mentality.Then came that unseasonably warm early March Saturday night in the Central West End when I saw Margot again. I’d just settled.