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  Daniel looked up into Cecily’s face as she knelt beside the couch, her eyes wide with anxiety. He sat up and rubbed his face, hands trembling.

  “Sugar, what’s wrong?” she asked and he thought she must’ve asked the same question several times.

  “Bad dream,” he said. “It’s an old nightmare.”

  “Well, you scared the crap out of me,” Cecily told him. “Are you okay? You look like death warmed over.”

  Before he had time to form an answer, she opened her arms and embraced him. She held him close and it wasn’t sexy but far more intimate. Daniel doubted he’d felt such a sense of comfort, of almost coming home since he’d been young enough to curl up on his mama’s lap. Cecily’s touch banished the terror and tempered the grief down to a bearable level.

  With shock, he realized he could love this woman – if he didn’t now.

  Chapter Seven

  Feeling like the ultimate domestic goddess Cecily turned a few Yukon gold potatoes, an onion, and some salmon fillets into a five star meal. With a little olive oil, some lemon and lemon pepper, a dash of salt, and some real butter, she took ordinary ingredients and make them something special. She couldn’t take credit for the salad because all she did was take it out of the bag and toss it a little or the bottled dressing but she took pride in everything else. She hummed and occasionally broke into snatches of song as she worked. Midway through, she’d peeked in the living room and found Daniel asleep. She couldn’t resist tiptoeing over to plant a kiss on his mouth before she retreated back into the kitchen.

  She’d just put the potatoes and salmon into the oven when her cell phone rang. Cecily picked it up so it wouldn’t wake Daniel. “Hey, Nia,” she said.

  “Hey, yourself,” her cousin said. “Where in the hell have you been, bitch? I thought you’d call me last night after you closed up the store to let me know how opening day went down.”

  Shit. I meant to call her and would’ve but Daniel distracted me. “I got kind of tied up,” she said with a little giggle. Nia, lifelong confidant, guessed the truth. “You hooked up with some dude,” she squealed.

  “Oh, yeah, I did,” Cecily said. “He’s pretty freaking awesome, too.”

  “Tell me!”

  “Can’t,” she said. “He’s here and I’m making dinner. I’ll call you first chance and we’ll catch up, cross my heart but I gotta go for now.”

  “You sound happy.”

  “I am.”

  “’Bout damn time! You deserve it.”

  “Thanks. TTL.”

  Chin resting on the steeple of her folded hands, Cecily reflected on Daniel. In the short time since she met him, a chance customer at her shop, desire flared between them with the heat of a struck match. But it wasn’t just physical attraction. He touched some deep chord within and she thought she managed to evoke something similar in him. She’d never opened up to anyone with such speed or experienced such a sense of closeness or connection. If anyone tried to tell her she’d hook up with a guy, sleep with him, go out for a day of fun and bring him back home for dinner, Cecily would’ve have suggested insanity.

  A hoarse cry sliced into her reverie and put her on high alert. Shit, that’s Daniel. Cecily jumped out of the chair with such haste it toppled to the tile floor but she didn’t stop to pick it up. Anything awful enough to evoke such a reaction from such a tough guy had to be rock bottom bad. He lay on his back on the couch, eyes closed, but he writhed and wiggled. At first she thought he must be suffering intense physical pain and her mind raced through some possibilities, appendicitis, gall bladder, heart attack, migraine but when Daniel woke, his eyes met hers. Naked pain, darker than the worst midnight, deeper than the lowest pit of hell, radiated from his gaze.

  “Sugar, what’s wrong?” she asked, one hand stroking his short-cropped hair. He didn’t appear to hear her voice and she repeated the question, twice, before he responded.

  “Bad dream,” he croaked. “It’s an old nightmare.”

  “Well, you scared the crap out of me,” Cecily told him. “Are you okay? You look like death warmed over.”

  His anguished expression ripped her heart and she hurt for him. Without thinking, just reacting, she rose up as high on her knees as possible and wrapped her arms around him. Cecily held him, the gesture meant to soothe him and to make him aware someone cared. Whatever old demons haunted him, she wanted to chase them far away. A wave of protective affection washed over her, so strong it almost drowned her ability to think. Although she couldn’t begin to fathom why she felt this way, she did.

  As she embraced Daniel, his body began to relax. His rapid, erratic heartbeat slowed to a normal pace and his breathing returned to average. His stiff arms uncoiled to wrap around her and they clung together for a few minutes. He broke away first but he said, “Thanks, querida.”

  “No problem. Are you okay now?”

  He made a face and nodded. “Yeah, I’m great. Not really but I’ll do.”

  Cecily rose from the floor to sit beside him on the couch. She rested one hand on his right knee. “Want to talk about it? Sometimes it helps.”

  Daniel jerked. “No,” he said. Then he sighed. “But, yeah, I do, I think. I should and maybe I will but later. Maybe I’ll talk about it after we eat if you’ve got any booze in the house.”

  “I might be able to find some,” she said with a smile she didn’t feel. “Supper’s about ready, though, if you’re hungry.”

  “I am,” Daniel said. “Let me wash up, first.”

  She admired his apparent determination to carry on as if nothing happened. While he headed for the bathroom, Cecily set the table. She put their salad bowls at each place and then brought the salmon and potatoes out of the oven. Then, after a moment’s consideration, she put the disposable salt and pepper shakers she’d bought between them and added the container of Cajun seasoning.

  “Whatever the hell you’re serving, it smells good,” Daniel said. Having failed to hear him come into the kitchen, Cecily jumped.

  “It’s lemon pepper salmon filets and some oven potatoes,” she told him. “Plus, there’s a salad to start. I hope you like balsamic vinaigrette dressing - it’s all I’ve got.”

  “Sure,” he said as he sat down at the table.

  Resisting an urge to grasp his hands and ask a blessing, an old habit from childhood she hadn’t followed in years, Cecily dripped a little salad dressing over her greens. Then she took a bite and watched Daniel do the same. “It’s nothing fancy,” she said. “It’s salad out of a bag from the supermarket.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “I think the salmon will taste better.” Their conversation seemed awkward after the intimate moment or it seemed so to Cecily. Uncertain how much more she could say about the simple meal, she finished her salad without speaking. Head down, Daniel did the same. Judging by the way he cleaned the bowl, he must either be hungry or as ill at ease as she was.

  About the time she’d decided to scrape her dinner into the trash, she glanced up to see him grin. “What?” she demanded.

  “Food’s delicious,” Daniel replied. “I don’t get much chance to sit down and eat anything home cooked so it’s a treat.”

  The sincerity in his voice reached through her prickly mood and Cecily forced herself to admit the uneasiness belonged to her, not Daniel. “Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate the compliment. I didn’t have much chance to cook for years but I like it. I used to be a pretty fair cook back when I was a teenager.”

  After he swallowed, Daniel nodded. “I’d say you still are.”

  Her natural sass surged back. “Yeah? So what do you eat? Let me guess – bologna and salami sandwiches, frozen burritos, pizza and fast food or what?”

  Eyes shut in apparent food ecstasy, Daniel sighed and grinned. “Guilty of all of the above at times but I’m not always that lame.”

  “No?”

  He shook his head. “Once in awhile I do make a huge pot of chili and then freeze it so I can warm it up when I come h
ome from a long day. I can manage to fry a hamburger once in awhile or nuke a couple of hot dogs in the microwave. And you forgot to include canned soup and ravioli.”

  “Poor baby.” Cecily meant to sound mocking but the words came out softer than she intended, probably because she felt sorry he endured such a crappy diet. “Don’t you ever get invited home for Sunday dinner or over to someone’s house?”

  “My mama lives in El Paso now,” he said. “It’s a long damn way to go home very often.”

  Desire to know more about him overruled her manners. “I bet she can cook.”

  “Oh, yeah, she can. Her Tex-Mex stuff is better than any restaurant I’ve ever tried. Burritos, enchiladas, quesadillas, even tamales.”

  “I think I’m jealous,” Cecily said. “My mom could make the best damn fried chicken you ever put in your mouth, biscuits and gravy too. She made ham and beans with cornbread so good it’d revive the dead.”

  Once she realized what she’d shared, her mind froze. Her mother wasn’t someone she talked about, ever, to anyone but Nia. Remembering hurt too much and she’d schooled herself not to even think about mom.

  “Sounds pretty damn good to me,” Daniel replied. “Does she have you over to eat very often?”

  The last bite of salmon caught halfway down her throat and she choked, a little. Cecily drank some ice water to wash it down and blinked back a stray tear. “Not anymore,” she told him. “She died two years after I got married.”

  His expression altered. “I’m sorry, Cecily.”

  “Yeah,” she said. The words cut her throat like broken glass on the way out of her mouth. “I am too.”

  The old grief threatened to kick up again and her emotions must’ve been plain to read because Daniel reached out across the table and grasped her hand. His fingers curled around hers, warm and solid. “Hey,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “It’s okay,” she said and meant it. “I know you didn’t. I have a hard time talking about it, that’s all.”

  Most guys would press for details and ask questions she’d rather not answer but Daniel didn’t. “I understand,” he told her, voice serious and low. “If you ever want to, though, I’ll listen.”

  He sounds like he means it but how can he? He’s here on vacation and he’ll be gone in a few days or weeks. I just got settled and I can’t traipse off to Kansas City.

  “Thanks,” Cecily said. “Maybe I will, sometime.”

  Strange but she felt like she could spill it all out to Daniel. He wouldn’t condemn her or blame her when he heard the sad story. Willard, damn his soul to the pit, never wanted her to mention it, afraid some of his society friends might make the connection between his young trophy bride and the laundry worker mugged, then stabbed to death behind a Southside bar, The Half and Half. Although he paid for a simple funeral and burial, he kept it quiet as if ashamed of his mother-in-law, her humble life, and her horrible death. Cecily shut the memories out before they swamped her and focused on Daniel as he finished the meal.

  “I think there’s a few potatoes left if you want them,” she told him.

  Daniel put down his fork with a flourish. “No, thanks, I’m full,” he said. “It was a good meal.”

  ****

  A glass of sweet red wine mellowed Daniel’s mood. He sat slumped in a plastic lawn chair, feet propped on an old milk crate in Cecily’s back yard, totally at ease. As he sipped from the blue plastic goblet, he glanced over at Cecily, seated at his side. Although the tiny backyard offered nothing besides overgrown grass, a few straggly weeds and a sagging clothesline, he liked the place and the company. She grew on him and he couldn’t help but tag his growing emotions to her as some kind of addiction. His reaction to her offered comfort startled him and yet he savored it too. Their relationship – a word he didn’t even want to believe he used - wasn’t just the sex although it’d been mind blowing so far. They connected on another level too, down where whatever might be left of his soul lived deep within.

  They hadn’t spoken in several minutes when Cecily broke the silence. “So, did you want to talk about your bad dream?”

  Damn. He’d said he might and he probably should although it was the last thing he wanted. Sharing would destroy his peace but if he didn’t, Daniel figured the dream would return and he’d have more explaining to do. “I suppose I should,” he told her.

  Cecily stretched out her hand to stroke his. “You don’t have to if it hurts,” she said.

  “It does but that’s why I do,” Daniel said and hoped his words made sense.

  She nodded. “Okay, so tell me what the dream was about.”

  He drew a long, deep breath and exhaled. Then he plunged into it before he lost his nerve. “It’s as much memory as nightmare,” he said. “Sometimes I dream about my daughter and the day she died.”

  Her hand held his and squeezed tight. “I didn’t know you had a daughter.”

  Of course she didn’t. I’ve known her for what, two days if you count today. I know more about her because I’ve read her file and I’m supposed to be investigating her but there’s no way she’d know. “Her name was Mollie,” he said, each word stabbing into his heart like a knife wound. “She’d just turned four when she died.”

  “Oh, sugar.” Her voice resonated with soft compassion. “That must’ve been very hard for you and your wife.”

  “No wife,” Daniel said. “I never married her mother, Lisa. But there wasn’t any doubt Mollie was mine so I paid child support and got visitation. I saw her the night she died, a few hours before.”

  “What happened?”

  “House fire,” he said. “Accidental or so the report said, after. They couldn’t determine how it started but it was probably bad wiring. The house was a wreck. Thing is, Mollie should’ve been with me but her mother wouldn’t let her go. So I’ve always felt it was my fault.”

  “It’s not,” Cecily told him. “You shouldn’t beat yourself up like that. I’m sorry you lost your little girl but you can’t blame yourself, Daniel.”

  A bitter laugh thrust up from his belly. “I have for the last nine years, chica and probably always will.”

  “You have to let go or it’ll eat you alive,” Cecily said. The way she spoke, it confirmed what he’d already figured out – she knew pain, too.

  “Easier to say than to do,” he replied. “Is there more wine?”

  “Sure,” she told him as she lifted the bottle to fill his glass again. “And another bottle if we want it. Drinking may dull the pain but it won’t take it away. If you want to banish those old heartaches, you need to talk about them. Then they don’t have so much power.”

  “I can’t.” As soon as the words were out, however, Daniel knew he would. He spilled everything, all about Lisa and how he met her. He sketched a realistic portrait and left out nothing, not her naïve innocence or how he seduced her to prove he could. Although he cringed to tell it, Daniel told about Lisa’s fundamentalist religion and how it grew to take over her life like choking kudzu. And he talked about Mollie, not just her death but for the first time, he shared memories of his kid. “She loved those damn Disney channel shows, the ones about teenagers most of all,” he said as his voice broke. “Poor kid never made it to be one but she loved that shit. And she adored animals so we went to the zoo a lot and I think she would’ve eaten pizza for every meal. Lisa didn’t want to let her watch Disney or eat pizza, too much of the wicked world so Mollie did both at my place. And she had a laugh, Mollie did, like music. God damn, I miss her.”

  Cecily gave him a few minutes of space before she said, “I wish I could’ve known her, sugar. I love kids.”

  To shut off the pain radiating through his body Daniel asked, “You got any?”

  He knew she didn’t, though, but he wondered why so he asked.

  “Nope,” she said. “I would’ve loved some but ‘the mister’ couldn’t father any. He’d been fixed, something he never mentioned until we’d been married three years. It�
��s a good thing, though, it would’ve made things a lot more complicated to get out of his house and away.”

  She’d make a good mother, he thought, with her caring, her compassion, and urge to nurture. “You’d be a great parent,” he said. “You’re young enough you might still get the chance to have some children.”

  Those dark eyes widened for a moment and then she said, “True. And you might have another kid or two too. You’re not quite an old man just yet, sugar.”

  Her words hit him harder than a punch to the solar plexus. Daniel never considered another child. Mollie, as beautiful, as loved as she was, had been an accident. He hadn’t allowed himself to get close enough to a woman to consider a child and he’d made damn sure he used protection. His long range plans involved nothing but working for the bureau and growing old, alone. But Cecily made him think, she evoked a want he hadn’t even been aware he possessed. And for a few moments he couldn’t speak for the intense emotional pain.

  “Anything’s possible, I guess,” he said.

  Cecily smiled with a beautiful expression powerful enough to light up the darkness. “Oh, yeah,” she replied. “Now you’re getting somewhere. Listen, I thought my life dead-ended years ago and then one day, something happened made me see things in a different way. And so I changed my course and here I am, in a new town, with the boutique of my dreams and with you.”

  Daniel admired her wisdom, her spunk, and her spirit. He ached to find a new path for his lonely life and out of curiosity, with need he asked, “Why did you leave after what was it, ten years?”

  Proud and unashamed her gaze met his. “Will's been unfaithful ever since I married him,” she said after a pause. “And once he had me, he just wanted to keep me to show off like a doll on a shelf. When we had sex, it was like a ritual, a habit, just something you do because you’re supposed to do it. Then I found out he dressed up like a 1940’s movie star, wig, heels, and all to go pick up other transvestites. On top of all the rest and his drug abuse, it was just too damn much for me. He treated me like shit anyway and I decided I wasn’t going to put up with anymore so I told him I was getting a divorce.”