01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, September 21, 2003

Sheila Harrington and Christopher Rhodes

Ocean Cliff, Newport

8.1.03

It has a nice ring to it: Harrington & Rhodes. And it even sounds like a law firm.

Sheila Harrington was born, raised and educated in Rhode Island, Christopher Rhodes in Vermont. But their two paths crossed in Newport Beach, Calif., in September 2000, at a seminar for real estate lawyers.

They didn't meet at the seminar, but in a limousine that transported some of the participants to Pasadena's Rose Bowl for a game between UCLA and Michigan.

"I knew it the minute I met him that he was the guy," says Harrington. "I had been with someone for seven years, and all I could think was 'Why can't I be with someone like this?' So we returned to New England, and every weekend for a year, we commuted between Saunderstown and Rutland. It was tedious -- 220 miles from house to house. Sometimes we met halfway, in Springfield, Mass."

Rhodes, who practiced law in Vermont for 13 years, moved to Rhode Island in January 2002. Harrington opened her law office in February. Rhodes took the bar exam here, and in May, was sworn in.

Both had been married before."I was 20 . . . ," says Harrington, now 36, and Rhodes, 38, chimes in: "and I was just stupid!"

They are admittedly smitten with each other.

"He's funny, he's nice, and he cooks every night!" says Harrington.

"She has a spark of life that's infectious -- she's fantastic, someone you want to be around," says Rhodes. "She's done everything herself -- put herself through Katharine Gibbs, became a secretary in a law firm, then worked full-time while she went to Rhode Island College and Roger Williams Law School."

Today, a friend delivers a reading Rhodes found on the Internet:

. . . I love you enough to share all of my sentiments, dreams,

goals, fears, hopes, and worries, my entire life with you.

Enough to want the best for you, to wish for your successes,

and to hope for the fulfilment of all of your endeavours . . .

And here they are, almost three years after the California limousine encounter, becoming partners in more ways than one. That law practice that she started in East Greenwich is now Harrington and Rhodes.