by Susan Meier
Knowing it wouldn’t help matters if he were late for dinner that night, Danny stuffed a few files into a briefcase and left early. At her front door, he hesitated. He felt so ill at ease just walking inside that he should ring the bell. But he was living here. The next two weeks this was his home. And maybe walking in would jar Grace into realizing she had to deal with him.
He opened the door and saw Grace on the floor with Sarah, playing peekaboo.
“Hey.”
Sarah squealed her delight at seeing him. Grace glanced over. “Hey.”
He didn’t smell anything cooking and finally, finally saw a golden opportunity. “I was thinking this afternoon that things might go easier if we just went out to dinner.” He paused, but she didn’t say anything. “On me, of course.”
She sighed, lifted Sarah into her arms and rose from the floor. “It’s not practical to go out to a restaurant with a baby every night.” She walked into the kitchen, Sarah on her hip.
With Grace’s reply ringing in his head, Danny looked around again. Two bears sat on the sofa. A baby swing was angled in such a way that the baby inside could be seen from the kitchen, dining room or living room. A high chair sat by the dining table. Blocks were stacked on the buffet. The room smelled of baby powder.
He remembered this now. For the first few years of a baby’s life everything revolved around the baby. That had been a difficult enough adjustment for a married couple. But it had to be all-consuming for a single mom. Not just because she didn’t have assistance with Sarah, but because it affected everything.
He walked into the kitchen. “Can I help with dinner?”
She pulled a package of hamburger from the refrigerator. “Do you want to grill the hamburgers?”
Eager to do his share, Danny said, “Sure.”
He reached for the hamburger, but Grace pointed at his jacket and tie. “You can’t cook in that.”
He grimaced. “Right.”
After changing into jeans and a T-shirt, he took the hamburger from the refrigerator and headed for the back deck and the grill. Grace was nowhere around, but he assumed she and the baby were in her room. Maybe because the baby needed a diaper change.
Gazing out over the short backyard Danny studied the houses near Grace’s. Realizing none was as well kept as hers, he remembered her telling him about remodeling her home the night they spent at his beach house. That was why her comments about wanting to be rich hadn’t struck him oddly that night. He knew she was a hard worker. But three weeks later when she told him she was pregnant, he’d forgotten how eager she was to earn her way in life. He only remembered that she’d wanted to be rich and he’d assumed the worst.
He’d seduced her, left her for a week, said he didn’t want to see her again when he returned, refused to believe her when she told him she was pregnant and then threatened to file for full custody of their baby. While he’d acted on inaccurate “interpretations” of things she’d done, he’d given her five very real reasons to hate him.
It was no wonder she was cool to him. He’d not only misjudged her. He’d behaved like a horrible person.
The sound of a car pulling into her driveway brought him out of his thoughts. He strode to the far end of the deck and glanced around the side of the house just in time to see Grace pulling Sarah from the car seat. With a grocery bag hooked over her arm and Sarah perched on the other, she walked, head down, into the house.
Danny’s heart squeezed in his chest. Would he ever stop hurting people?
* * *
Grace stepped into her house at the same time that Danny walked in from the deck. “Where did you go?”
“I needed milk and hamburger buns.” Carrying Sarah, she went to the kitchen to deposit her purchases.
Danny grabbed the gallon jug that dangled from her hand and put it in the refrigerator. “I could have gone to the store.”
“Well, I did.”
He sighed. “Grace, I want to help but I can’t do things that I don’t know need done.”
“I didn’t ask you to do anything.”
But even as the words were coming out of her mouth, Grace regretted them. She slid Sarah into the high chair and turned to face Danny. He might be a difficult person, but she wasn’t. And she refused to let him turn her into one.
“Here’s the deal. I’m accustomed to being on my own. There’s no point in breaking that habit because you’ll only be here for another twelve days. So don’t worry about it. Okay?”
He nodded, but he kept looking at her oddly as if she’d just discovered the secret to life. He continued to steal peeks at her all through dinner, making her nervous enough that she chattered to Sarah as they ate their hamburgers and salads, if only to bring some sound into the room.
When she could legitimately slip away to feed Sarah a bottle and put her to bed, she felt as if she were escaping a prison. She extended her alone time with a long, soothing shower, but rather than slip into her usual nightgown and robe she put on sweatpants and a T-shirt and shuffled downstairs to watch a little TV to unwind before trying to sleep.
She had just turned off all the lights and settled on the sofa with a cup of cocoa, when Danny came down the steps.
Seeing her curled up on the couch, he paused. “Sorry.”
He pivoted to go back upstairs and Grace said, “Wait.” She didn’t want to be his friend. She didn’t want to like him. She most certainly didn’t want to get romantically involved with him. But she couldn’t take the silence anymore and she suspected he couldn’t, either.
“You don’t have to leave. For the next two weeks this is your home. We might as well get accustomed to each other.”
At first he hesitated, but then he slowly made his way down the steps and into the sitting area.
“Would you like some cocoa?”
As he lowered himself to the love seat, he chuckled softly. “I haven’t had cocoa in—”
He stopped. Grace suspected that the last time he’d had cocoa it had been with his son, but she was also tired of tiptoeing around his life. He’d told her very little about himself the night they had dinner at the beach house and she’d not pushed him. But if she had to accept him into her house and Sarah’s life, then he had to accept her into his. They couldn’t pretend his other life didn’t exist.
“In?” Grace prompted, forcing him to talk about his son.
“In years.” He took a breath and caught her gaze. “Since I had cocoa with my son.”
The words hung in the room. Danny kept his gaze locked with Grace’s, as if daring her to go further. But she had no intention of delving into every corner of his world. She only wanted them to begin having normal conversations, so the tension between them would ease.
“See. We can talk about both of your children.” She rose from the sofa. “Let me make you a cup of cocoa.”
Without waiting for his reply, she walked into the kitchen, pulled a small pot from the cupboard by the stove and set it on a burner. Danny lowered himself to one of the stools by the counter, reminding Grace of how she had sat at the beach house bar while he poured himself a glass of Scotch.
Danny suddenly bounced from the seat, as if he’d had the memory, too, and didn’t want it. He strode into the kitchen and reached for the refrigerator door handle. “I’ll help you.”
Removing the cocoa from a cupboard, Grace turned so quickly that she and Danny nearly ran into each other in the compact kitchen.
He caught her elbows to steady her, and tingles of awareness skipped along her skin. This close she could feel the heat of his body. Memories of making love, of how different he had been that night and how happy she had been, flipped through her brain. The sizzle between them was so intense she suddenly wondered what might have happened if they hadn’t made love that night. Would the nice guy she’d met at the beach house have pur
sued her? Would he have remained nice? Would they have discovered differences and gone their separate ways or lived happily ever after?
Pulling her arms away, she turned toward the stove. What might have been wasn’t an issue. If she thought about what might have been for too long she might get starry-eyed again and that would be insane. The guy had hurt her and now he wanted her child. She wouldn’t be reckless with him again.
“Hand me the milk.”
He did.
“Thanks.” Exaggerating the task of pouring it into the pan so she didn’t have to look at him, she said, “How are things at Carson Services?”
He walked back to the counter, but didn’t sit. Instead he leaned against it. “Fine.”
“How’s Orlando?”
Danny laughed. “Great. He’s a dream client. Because he does his homework, we’re always on the same page when I suggest he move his money.”
“That’s so good to hear. I liked him.”
“He’s asked about you.”
Dumping three scoops of cocoa on top of the milk, she grimaced. “What did you tell him?”
Danny shifted uncomfortably. “That you’d moved on.”
She heard the stirring of guilt in his voice. Though part of her found it fitting, she couldn’t pretend she was innocent. She’d recognized from the beginning that losing her job was one of the potential consequences of a failed relationship between them. So she wouldn’t pretend. She would discuss this like an adult.
She faced him. “So you told him the truth.”
“Excuse me?”
“What you told him was the truth. I had moved on.”
He barked a laugh. “Yeah.”
Grace walked over to him and stood in front of him, holding his gaze. “We won’t survive twelve more days of living together if we don’t admit here and now that we both made mistakes that weekend. We don’t need to dissect our sleeping together and place blame. But we do need to admit that we both made mistakes.”
“Okay.”
“It is okay because we both moved on.”
“Bet you wish you had stayed moved on.”
She might be willing to agree to be polite and even friendly, but she didn’t intend to discuss nebulous things like regrets. So she fell back on humor to get her out of the conversation. Batting her hand in dismissal, she said, “Nah. What fun is having a nice, quiet life with no one pestering you for custody of your child?”
He laughed again. She turned to leave, but he caught her fingers and stopped her. Her gaze swung back to his.
“You’re one of only a few people who make me laugh.”
Memory thrummed through her. Her being able to make him laugh had been their first connection. But the touch of his fingers reminded her that they’d taken that connection so much further that night. She remembered the way his hands had skimmed her body, remembered how he’d held her, remembered the intensity of the fire of passion between them.
But in the end, passion had failed them. The only thing they had between them now was Sarah. And everything they did had to be for Sarah.
Grace cleared her throat and stepped back. “We’ll work on getting you to laugh more often for Sarah.” She pulled her hand away from his, walked to the stove and poured Danny’s cocoa into a mug. “So what do you like to watch?”
“Watch?”
“On TV.”
He took the mug she handed to him. “Actually I don’t watch TV.”
“Then you’re in for a treat because you get to watch everything I like.”
That made him laugh again, and Grace’s heart lightened before she could stop it, just as it had their weekend together. But she reminded herself that things at the beach house had not turned out well. And she didn’t intend to make the same mistake twice. He needed to be comfortable and relaxed for Sarah. She and Danny also needed to be reasonably decent to each other to share custody. But that was all the further she could let things between them go.
* * *
They spent two hours watching crime dramas on television. Danny was oddly amused by them. The conversation remained neutral, quiet, until at the end of the second show the eleven o’clock news was announced and Grace said she was going to bed.
“Ripped from the headline is right,” he said, when Grace hit the off button on the remote and rose from the sofa. “That program couldn’t have been more specific unless they’d named names.”
“That’s the show’s gimmick. The writers take actual situations and fictionalize them. It’s a way to give curious, gossip-hungry viewers a chance to see what might have happened, and how it would play out in court.”
Danny said, “Right,” then followed her up the stairs. In the little hallway between their closed bedroom doors, Danny put his hand on his doorknob, but he couldn’t quite open the door. It didn’t seem right to leave her just yet. And that spurred another beach house memory. He hadn’t wanted to leave her after he’d given her her bonus. He’d tried to ignore the feeling, but Grace had followed him down to the bar in his great room.
That made him smile. The hall in which they stood was far from great. It was a little square. Only a bit wider than the bar that had separated them at the beach house. He’d closed that gap by leaning forward and kissing her, and he’d experienced one of the most wonderful nights of his life.
And he’d ruined even the pleasant memories he could hold on to and enjoy by not believing her. Not appreciating her.
“Thanks for the cocoa.”
She faced him with a smile. “You’re welcome.”
He took a step away from his door and toward hers. He might not have appreciated her the weekend at the beach house, but tonight he was beginning to understand that she probably had been the woman he’d believed her to be when he seduced her. Everything that had happened between them was his fault. Especially their misunderstandings.
He caught her gaze. “I’m glad you moved on.”
He took another step toward her, catching her hand and lifting it, studying the smooth skin, her delicate fingers. He recalled her fingers skimming his back, tunneling through his hair, driving him crazy with desire, and felt it all again, as if it were yesterday.
“I’m a lot stronger than I look.”
Her words came out as a breathy whisper. The same force of attraction that swam through his veins seemed to be affecting her. In the quiet house, the only sound Danny heard was the pounding of his heart. The only thought in his mind was that he should kiss her.
Slowly, holding her gaze, watching for reaction, he lowered his head. Closing his eyes, he touched his lips to hers. They were smooth and sweet, just as he remembered. Warmth and familiarity collided with sexual hunger that would have happily overruled common sense. Their chemistry caused him to forget everything except how much he wanted her. How happy she made him. How natural it was to hold her.
But just when he would have deepened the kiss, she stepped away.
“This is what got us into trouble the last time.” She caught his gaze. “Good night, Danny.”
And before he could form the words to stop her, she was behind her closed bedroom door.
CHAPTER SEVEN
DANNY AWOKE FEELING oddly refreshed. He opened his eyes, saw the sunny yellow bedroom around him and was disoriented until he remembered he was living with Grace.
Grace.
He’d kissed her, but she’d reminded him that was what had gotten them into trouble the last time. And he didn’t think she was talking about creating Sarah. Sarah wasn’t trouble. Sarah was a joy. Their “trouble” was that they had slept together when they didn’t know each other, which was why he hadn’t trusted her enough to continue the relationship, and why he hadn’t believed Grace when she told him she was pregnant. He’d thought she was lying to him. Tricking him. Because he
didn’t know her well enough to realize Grace would never do something like that.
He now knew his accusations were the product of an overly suspicious mind, but he also had to admit to himself that he hadn’t changed much from the man who had dismissed her as a liar. Yes, he’d gotten past the tragedies of his life and to the outside world he appeared normal. And he really could be normal at work, normal with friends, normal with a woman only looking for an evening of entertainment. But his divorce had soured him on commitment. He wasn’t marriage material. He wasn’t even a good date for anyone who wanted anything other than a fun night out or no-strings-attached sex. Forget about being the right guy for someone as wonderful as Grace. She deserved better. Even he knew it.
She needed a husband. A mate. Someone to share her life. He was not that guy.
He rolled out of bed and tugged on his robe. But once the slash belt was secured, he stopped again. He’d nearly forgotten he was sharing a bathroom.
Sharing a bathroom.
Watching TV.
And happy.
How long had it been since he could say he was happy? Years. He’d accustomed himself to settling for surface emotions, convinced that if he loved anything, life would yank it away. But though he might not believe he could make a commitment to a woman, living with Grace made him consider that he could love Sarah and he could be a real dad. Especially since Grace was kind enough, honest enough, fair enough that she was willing to share custody. Not as adversaries, but as two friends. Both having the best interests of their little girl at heart. And without a hearing that would air his less-than-perfect past.
He grabbed his shaving kit, opened his bedroom door and glanced down the short hall. The bathroom door was open and Grace wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Good. He didn’t want to bump into Grace dressed only in a robe. As she’d reminded him last night, kissing—or more appropriately runaway emotions and hormones—had gotten them into trouble the last time. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. Getting romantically involved had cost them. He’d lost a good employee and someone who probably would have turned into a friend.
