Was it just because she was caring for Penny with him, or was it something more? She was sexy, for sure, but he was getting this weird she’s-the-woman-for-me vibe, which made absolutely no sense.
He tried to shake it off. The last thing either of them needed was for him to fall in love with her.
Fall in love? He, Cash O’Dwyer, didn’t do that.
Or maybe he did. Because when Holly’s eyes lit up, looking at Penny and the wine and the bag of sandwiches, he thought that maybe he’d like to cause her to have that look again, and again, and again. It filled something deep inside him, a hole he hadn’t known was there.
“Penny looks sleepy,” she said, kneeling down beside the baby and pulling her into her arms. “I missed you, sweetie,” she whispered, looking down at Penny with eyes full of love.
Cash’s heart went all soft again.
But he had to toughen up, had to talk seriously to her and not about his weird romantic feelings. He got out the sandwiches and poured them some wine and tended the fire. Holly cuddled Penny and rocked her until her eyes started to close. Putting her down gently, Holly covered her with a blanket.
He handed Holly a sandwich and set a glass of wine in the sand beside her, digging it in so it wouldn’t spill.
“Clever,” she said, smiling. “You’re a man who’s had a beach picnic or two in his day.”
His face heated as if she could see the string of girls he’d brought here. “I don’t want you to work anymore,” he said abruptly.
She froze in the act of unwrapping her sandwich and stared at him. “What do you mean?”
“Look, it’s hurting you and it’s hurting Penny. You can’t keep lugging her around like that, having her cry, and you can’t adequately tend to her, with jerks like Mitch Mitchell yelling at you both.”
Her eyes got shiny and she looked away, and Cash had been around enough upset women to realize she was going to cry. “Hey, hey,” he said. “I didn’t mean it as a criticism. You’ve been doing the best you can.”
“I thought I was doing pretty well, until today.”
“You are. You’ve started a business from nothing in just a few weeks, while raising a baby. If I could, I’d give you a prize. But the child support is supposed to make things a lot easier for you. You don’t need to work. Or at least, you don’t need to work this hard.”
“The child support is for Penny,” she said, her voice stubborn. “Cash, no one’s ever supported me. I’m not that kind of person.”
“You never tried to raise a child before.”
“I can do it!” She got up on her knees and backed away a little bit from him and Penny both. “I don’t want to be obligated to you, Cash.”
“You wouldn’t be obligated.” Suddenly the irony of the situation struck him. Here he was begging a woman to accept his support, when he’d evaded commitment for years, had gently pushed away all the hangers-on who wanted his money.
“Look,” she said, her eyes softening, “I don’t mean to be ungracious. I appreciate the generous support payments, I really do. I just wouldn’t feel right using it to support me. Like I said, it’s for Penny.”
He drew in a breath and let it out slowly. She was stubborn and independent, and he admired both qualities. But the image of her standing in the street with dogs barking and Penny crying—and Mitch yelling—wouldn’t leave him. “You don’t like accepting help,” he said. “Nothing wrong with that when it’s just you. But Penny is suffering for it.”
She bit her lip as a flash of something—worry, pain—crossed her face. Then she seemed to take hold of herself and lifted her chin. “Do you really think so? Seriously, Cash. Set aside your preconceptions about what a baby’s life ought to be like. Is it so wrong, me basically taking her to work with me?”
Cash had his mouth open to argue, and then he processed her words and stopped. She could be right. Moreover, he recognized something in her—that core of strength beneath what hadn’t been an easy life—and his heart and mind shifted toward her.
She was a woman, yes, and a beautiful one. But she was fundamentally like him, too. He knew her, that part of her at least; he got her. Got her in a way he’d never gotten a woman before.
He’d think later about why he’d always pushed women into the object box, looked at them as conquests rather than people. For now, he was on a blanket with a beautiful woman. A beautiful person.
“You’re right,” he said. “Some of what I’m worrying about is probably some imaginary, sexist image of how mothers should be.”
“Thank you,” she said, her teeth chattering.
He pulled the extra blanket from his backpack and draped it around her shoulders, not squeezing in an extra cuddle like he might have in times past, even though he wanted to more than he ever had. This new accord between them felt too fragile for any of his old moves.
“Perfect,” she said, pulling it tighter around her. When he sat back down, she tilted her head to one side. “Don’t you have a blanket for yourself?”
He shook his head and faked a sad face. “Are you offering to share?”
She studied him for a moment, eyes speculative, and then nodded, holding out one side of the blanket.
He couldn’t turn that down, could he? He scooted over next to her and put an arm around her, feeling the sparrow thinness of her shoulders, smelling her honeysuckle hair. They huddled together, and between the fire and the body heat, Cash was warm. Almost hot.
She might not know it, but she was affected by him. Her lips softened and her eyes darkened, and she shifted the slightest bit closer. He watched her chest rise and fall a little faster beneath her sweater and his thoughts went wild.
To distract himself from his physical reaction to her closeness, he pulled back his arm from around her shoulders. He grabbed their sandwiches and the wine bottle and pulled them closer, easier to get at. Something else to focus on, but it wasn’t enough. He drew in a calming, cool-down breath and cast about for a topic of conversation. “So tell me something about you, when you were younger.”
“Like what?” She took a sip of wine. “Tiff was the exciting one. I just kept my head down and got through.”
They ate their sandwiches for a couple of minutes while he processed that comment. “How come you’re so independent?”
She shrugged and wiped her mouth. “All the school moves meant I couldn’t count on friends. And Mom had a lot of boyfriends, one after the other, so we learned pretty quickly not to get close to them.”
“Sounds lonely.” But it also sounded familiar. Cash hadn’t found people so dependable, either.
They ate and chatted a little more, but when they’d both finished their sandwiches, he was still thinking about her being lonely as a kid, and the connection to her major independent streak today. He had the same streak, but it didn’t come out quite the same. He did a lot of his best work with other people.
What he’d had different was his brothers. “Were you and Tiff close?”
She frowned, tilted a flattened hand from side to side. “At home, we were inseparable. Shared a room, stuck together when Mom was in a rocky spell, figured out how to cook something from nothing. But out in the world—” She broke off.
He let himself put a friendly arm back around her. “Out in the world, it was different?”
She nodded. “I kept to myself, but Tiff was always good at making friends fast. Lively, funny, warm...” She trailed off. “Well, you remember.”
He did, and now that he knew Holly better, he could see the similarities between her and Tiff. Holly was funny, had the same sense of humor. And while it took a while for her to show it, she was also a very warm person.
But there were a lot of differences, most of them much to Holly’s advantage. Tiff had been friendly and fun, but also a lot more worldly. He found Holly’s innocence appealing. She wouldn’t ever try to take adv
antage of someone; just look how she’d reacted when he’d suggested he give her more money.
No good would come from comparing Tiff and Holly, not now. “It got Tiff into trouble, being so friendly, I guess.” He was surprised to find his throat felt a little tight. Had he been part of the trouble? He guessed he had, but then again... He reached out to cup Penny’s head, adjust her blanket. When such perfection had come out of his and Tiff’s brief relationship, you couldn’t call it anything but right.
Penny turned, sighed and then settled back to sleep.
Holly smiled. “She’s such a good baby.”
“She is.” Cash felt...tender. Different from how he’d ever felt before about a woman. He was attracted, sure, but he almost felt he wanted to shelter her from his own physical desires.
Holly shifted a little closer, and he got the sense that she was having some tender feelings, too.
When she looked up at him, eyes darkening, he knew it. Automatically, he leaned toward her and brushed her lips with his.
Her sharp inhale told him she liked it, and the way she looked up at him through half-closed lashes confirmed it.
So maybe her rebuff of him at the parenting class hadn’t been the final word.
He really wanted to pull her into his arms, and there was every chance that if he did, she’d let it happen. He even leaned a little closer, and she closed her eyes. Yep. This could definitely go in that direction.
Don’t.
He didn’t know where that voice came from. Seemed like somewhere deep inside, but if so, he was unacquainted with it.
But he wanted to be a good father, better than his own dad. He didn’t want to do things he’d regret, like Pudge had said. And for all her courage and strength, Holly seemed pretty innocent when it came to men.
On the other hand...she’d shifted closer. She was definitely willing. He’d be an idiot not to take advantage of what was right in front of him.
Don’t.
He sighed regretfully. “It’s getting cold out. We should probably go back.”
Her eyes fluttered open, and two tiny wrinkles appeared between her eyebrows.
He moved away from her, tucked the blanket around her shoulder and patted her arm in as impersonal a way as he could manage. Then he started stuffing sandwich wrappings and wine into the backpack.
After a minute, she joined him, then picked up Penny so he could fold the blanket. But something about her movements was sort of...muted.
She was hurt.
So he’d restrained himself from taking advantage of Holly, moving things in a direction he wasn’t sure they should go. For all the best reasons, and it hadn’t been easy because he was more attracted to her than he’d ever been to any woman in his life.
And instead of feeling like a good guy, he felt like a chump.
CHAPTER NINE
THE KNOCK ON the screen door made Rita jump. “I’m not ready!” she called, feeling panicked.
It was an unseasonably warm day, and she had all the windows open. The new things she’d bought for Taffy the yellow dog were all out, her water bowl filled, kibble neatly in a clear plastic bin.
But she’d looked around her place and realized that it wasn’t in the least dog-proofed: that her shoes were out on a rack by the door, dish towels were hanging on the oven handle and there were small knickknacks on an end table that could choke an untrained, mouthy dog. The awareness came from somewhere deep inside her, because she didn’t remember baby-proofing for her own kids, let alone puppy-proofing for a dog.
What she remembered, what she felt in her body, was that laser-like vision that took in a room at a glance and saw every potential hazard as if it was framed in fire.
Unfortunately, that preternatural mom-vision hadn’t come back to her until five minutes before Taffy was to arrive.
“It’s just us,” Norma called through the door. “Can we come in?”
“Sure,” Rita called back, relieved. “Who’s with you?” She had a small hope that it was Cash, but she doubted it; he seemed ever-so-slightly more friendly in his waves and greetings, but he still didn’t voluntarily seek her out.
A male throat cleared. “It’s me, Stephen.”
Aka the Silver Fox. Rita opened the door and looked at Norma, quirking her eyebrow a little to ask “why is he here?”
Norma rolled her eyes as if to say “wasn’t my idea.” “I’m here to offer moral support.”
“And I insisted on coming along,” Stephen said with a twinkle in his eye Rita hadn’t seen before. “I love dogs,” he added sheepishly.
“Do you have one?” Rita spotted an electric cord that was exposed and chewable and moved the floor lamp closer to the couch, then tucked the cord behind it.
“No.” Stephen went to the other end of the couch and did the same thing Rita was doing with that floor lamp. “But I grew up with standard poodles, and I always wanted to get another one. I’m hoping to convince her—” he nodded over at Norma “—to adopt Snowball.”
“Why didn’t you get a poodle if you always wanted one?” Norma’s voice was impatient. “I always say better to make a mistake than to live with regrets.”
“Ah.” Stephen nodded. “A wise philosophy. But my wife didn’t care for dogs.”
“Mistake to get one, then.” And that idea, too, came from a deep place inside Rita. Had she gotten the yellow dog Cash insisted they used to have against her husband’s will? Had that been a part of the problem between them?
“I don’t see a wife in the picture now,” Norma said. “What’s stopping you from doing what you want? In fact, why don’t you adopt Snowball?”
Stephen looked at her, surprised. “I don’t know. It never occurred to me.”
“Never occurred to you to follow your dreams?” Norma sounded disgusted.
Rita frowned at her friend. “Don’t be so hard on him. Not everyone has the—the recklessness to just jump in and think later.”
“I travel, too,” Stephen said hastily. “I guess that’s why I never thought I could get a dog. No one’s at home to take care of it during my business trips.”
“I’ll take care of Snowball when you travel, for Pete’s sake,” Norma said.
A smile spread across Rita’s face. She’d been searching fruitlessly for a way to get Norma and Stephen together. She knew, from how gruff Norma was being, that she was starting to like Stephen; that was how Norma was.
Snowball might just be the cupid she’d been looking for.
“Yoo-hoo, anyone home?” Holly called through the screen door, accompanied by a lot of excited barking.
When Rita hurried to the door to let in her new companion, she saw Cash behind Holly, holding Penny.
Maybe Taffy would be a unifier, too.
Taffy burst into the apartment and pulled mightily on the leash, trying to see everything and start exploring.
Rita took one last look around but couldn’t see any more hazards, though undoubtedly Taffy would discover some she hadn’t noticed. And that, too, was something she just knew in her bones. “Okay, let her free,” she said, and Holly unhooked the leash.
Taffy ran madly around the perimeter of the room, sniffing out the new environment.
“Her owner kept her in a crate most of the time,” Holly explained. “She’s going to love getting more attention and being able to explore.”
“Sit down, everyone. I’m sorry my hostessing is so weak. Who wants some sweet tea?”
“I’ll get it,” Norma said. “You enjoy your dog.”
So Norma poured tea while Rita, Stephen, Holly, Penny and Cash watched the little dog run around. Rita felt mesmerized by her, and she sat cross-legged on the floor, delighting each time the dog rushed over to greet her before zooming away again.
“I love her already.” She looked up at Holly. “Thank you so much for suggesting
I adopt her.” She looked at Cash, a little curious about why he’d come. She thought it had to do with Holly, because those two were obviously interested in each other. But instead of paying attention to Holly, Cash was staring at the yellow dog. “Is she a lot like the dog we had?” she asked quietly.
Cash nodded, then looked at Rita. “You don’t remember at all?”
She shook her head, surprised to find tears pushing at the backs of her eyes. “I wish I did. I wish I remembered a whole lot more than the dog.” She glanced up at Stephen. “Amnesia,” she said by way of explanation, and he looked startled, but nodded.
She looked back at Cash. “I wish my old brain would remember you, your childhood, but it doesn’t. It breaks my heart.”
Taffy trotted over, climbed into Rita’s lap and jumped up to lick her face.
“Aww, she knows you’re sad,” Holly said.
“She’s a sweetheart.” Rita rubbed the dog’s ears and sides until she ran off to sniff around more. She found her water dish and slurped some up, then pounced on a squeaky toy.
“She loves to tug,” Holly said, demonstrating. “It’s a good way to use up some of her extra energy.” She wrinkled her nose at Rita. “She has a lot of that. I hope you’re ready.”
There was another knock on the door. “Hey, you home?”
Jimmy. And for once, she didn’t feel excited to see him, because she knew he wasn’t excited about Taffy. But how could he resist her once he saw her? She got up and opened the door, gave him a quick hug and kiss. “Come meet my new family member,” she said.
“I didn’t know today was dog day,” he said, waving to everyone and greeting them. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked her in a quieter voice.
“Because you as much as told me you didn’t want to know,” Rita said. Deliberately, she turned away from any guilt trip he was going to offer. She didn’t need that. And she didn’t need a man making decisions about how she ought to live her life.
“You’ll be able to go to the dog park with her,” Holly said. “She loves other dogs.”
Stephen cleared his throat. “Bring her over to see Snowball,” he said.
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