G.A. McKevett
Page 29
“Starving,” Gran replied. “It’s been so long since breakfast that my stomach thinks my throat’s been cut.”
“Well, the steaks will be done in a few minutes. You eat one of those, a few ears of corn, some big scoops of potato salad and finish it off with a whomping bowl of that homemade peach ice cream . . . and that should take the edge off that hunger.”
“It’ll make a serious dent, to be sure.”
Savannah smiled, reached over, and took her grandmother’s hand. “You and I have some catching up to do in the visiting department. Where do you want to go? Disneyland?”
“Always. It’s been too long since I’ve had a Mickey and Minnie sighting.”
“We’ll take care of that next week.”
“Actually,” Dirk said, sitting up and brushing the grass off his arms, “if you could get to Disneyland this week, I have a suggestion as to what you girls might do next week.”
“Oh?” Savannah couldn’t help being intrigued. Since when did Dirk act as social director for anyone? Anyone at all? “And what would you recommend?”
He grinned, walked over to the chair where he had tossed his jacket, and fished around inside one of the inner pockets.
He walked back to them, a shiny golden envelope in his hand. Laying it in Savannah’s hand, he bent over and kissed the top of her head. “There,” he said. “That’s for you.”
“For me?” She looked down at the envelope. “Why?”
“Because you mentioned to me . . . quite recently... that I never buy you presents unless I have to. And I realized that’s true. So I figured it was time I changed that. I bought you a present.”
She was dumbfounded. “You?”
“Don’t be a smart aleck, or I’ll take it back. Open it up.”
As she pulled the fancy silver seal off the back, he said, “You helped me a lot with that case. You all did. So that’s actually for all three of you. All of my girls.”
Savannah reached inside and pulled out three gift certificates.
“Oh, oh, oh... Dirk! These are for...oh...I don’t believe it! Gran, Tam, he’s bought us all a full day of beauty at Euro-Spa in Twin Oaks! Facials, manicures, pedicures, massages! Can you believe it?”
“Full days of beauty!” Tammy leaped off the bench and threw her arms around his neck. “No way! Dirk!”
A moment later, he had Gran and Savannah hugging him, too.
“How could you afford that?” Savannah asked, while kissing his cheeks. “What did you do, sell your house trailer?”
“Naw, I couldn’t have gotten that much for it.”
“Did you finally have a winner in the lotto?” Tammy asked.
“Hey, I make good money, you know,” he said. “And you may have noticed that I never, ever spend any of it.”
Gran nodded. “Uh, yes, we did notice you squeeze a nickel pretty tight before lettin’ it go.”
“Well, I decided you deserved it. All of you. So, go get rubbed the right way for a change...on me.”
Gran and Tammy finally let him go and hurried across the yard to show their gift certificates to Ryan and John. But Savannah remained behind, still hugging him close, her arms tight around his waist.
“Thank you, buddy,” she said. “This means a lot. You’re the best.”
Dirk looked down at her, his eyes warm with affection and more importantly, respect. “No, babe, you are,” he said. He nodded toward Daisy, who was standing next to her mother, her beautiful red hair shining in the afternoon sun, her pretty face lit with the pure joy of living.
“This time, we did it,” he said. “We got to her in time. We saved this one.”
She leaned her head on his shoulder and nodded, too emotional to talk. When she could finally trust herself to speak, she said, “We sure did. We can’t always save them all. But once in a while, we can pull one back from the edge . . . and that makes it all worthwhile.”
“It does.” He kissed the top of her head. “It really, really does.”
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