by Cindi Myers
Taylor popped the lid on the first box and fingered a swath of blue, shimmery organza. “This fabric is so gorgeous,” she said.
“And it looks gorgeous on you.” Darcy returned to the closet and pulled out a skirt made of panels of the blue organdy over purple satin. She’d made the costume to dance at a friend’s wedding a few years back and it was still one of her favorites.
“Purple!” Taylor cried. “I want a purple costume.”
Darcy laughed, relieved to see the girl so excited. “I think there’s some purple in one of the other boxes.”
They found what was left of the purple fabric, along with a flesh-colored thin knit. “You told me you like to watch ice-skaters, right?”
Taylor nodded. “They’re my favorite in the Olympics. Dad always wants to watch ski jumping or racing, but I watch all the skaters.”
“You know how their costumes sometimes have cutout areas where it looks like bare skin but it’s really not? It’s fabric like this. Dancers use this kind of fabric, too. We can use it for part of your costume so that from a distance it looks like your skin.”
Taylor stared up at her. “Do they really do that?”
“All the time. Some of my older students aren’t comfortable showing their stomachs, so they cover up, but on stage they look like everyone else.”
“That’s what I want,” Taylor said. “To look like everyone else.”
“You’ll look even better,” Darcy promised. “Now stand up so I can measure you.”
As Darcy stretched the tape measure across her chest, Taylor sighed. “Because I was sick and then had the transplant, and now I take all this medicine, I’m behind everything for my age,” she said. “Dad says I’ll catch up, but he doesn’t say when. My friend, Keisha, already has her period, and a lot of the girls at school wear training bras.”
Taylor showed no signs of needing a bra of any kind. Her body was still that of a child, though in many other ways she was mature beyond her years. “Everyone develops at a different rate. I was always what my mother called a late bloomer.”
“What does that mean?” Taylor asked.
“It means I didn’t develop much of a figure until I was out of high school. Honestly, I was flat as a pancake up top until I had Riley.”
“I think about him a lot, you know.” Taylor put one hand over her heart. “Even before I met you. I always wondered what he was like. The Donor Alliance told me my heart came from a boy, and I know that’s not really supposed to make any difference, but I always wondered…”
“I can tell you he wouldn’t have been interested in doing this.” Darcy recorded the measurement in a notebook. “He was typical boy, into sports and cars.” As much as she loved her son, he’d been so different from her, and she’d known the differences would only mount as he grew older.
But of course, he’d never grown older. To her he would always be six. “I always secretly wanted a girl I could do stuff with,” she said. “Not instead of Riley, but as a sister for him.”
“Why didn’t you have another kid?” Taylor asked. “Or is that one of those questions my dad says I shouldn’t ask?”
“I don’t mind answering. I wanted another baby, but my husband thought we should wait.” She hesitated, wondering how much was appropriate to tell a young girl. “Pete was a good father to Riley, but he had a drinking problem. I worried it wasn’t right to bring another child into that situation.”
“Did it bother Riley that his father drank?”
“It did sometimes.” She had occasionally wondered what would have happened if Riley and Pete had survived the accident. But no good came of speculation.
“I’m thinking we can do a skirt like mine,” she said.
“And then a short top, with lots of sequins and beads, and a matching hip belt, and the body stocking fabric underneath.”
“Can I help make it?”
“Of course you can. Let’s start by drawing up a pattern.”
She sketched the design on tissue paper, then let Taylor color in the drawing while she cut the pattern pieces out of more tissue paper. “Will you show me how to operate the sewing machine?” Taylor asked.
“Sure,” Darcy said. “You can help put on the sequins, too.”
“I like crafts,” Taylor said. “Mom doesn’t do them.
She said she’d rather buy whatever she wants.”
“I like to shop, too,” Darcy said. “But sometimes it’s fun to be more creative.”
“Maybe I’ll be a fashion designer when I grow up,” Taylor said. “Only instead of regular clothes, I’ll design special ones—stuff that will look pretty but hide surgery scars, or scars from people who’ve been burned, and things like shirts that are easy to take on and off, for people who are missing an arm.”
“That’s an excellent idea.” She could picture Taylor, grown into a beautiful young woman, in charge of her own successful business. The strength of her desire to continue to be a part of Taylor’s life, to know what happened to her, stunned Darcy. It was the same sort of longing she’d had for a baby before she conceived Riley.
On the heels of this longing came a surge of joy. Though Taylor’s future health concerned Darcy, she hoped this ability to contemplate being a part of someone else’s life again was a sign that the worst of her grief had passed.
Two hours later, they had cut out all the pieces of the costume and sewn a couple of seams on the skirt when Mike arrived. “Dad, look what I did. I sewed this myself,” Taylor announced, running to him with the unfinished skirt billowing behind her like a flag.
“That’s great, honey.” Mike admired the somewhat crooked seams, then smiled at Darcy. “Looks like the costume’s coming together well.”
“It’s going to be fabulous,” Taylor said.
“We’ll work on it more next week,” Darcy said. “That is, if it’s okay with your dad.”
“Fine with me,” Mike said. “If you’re sure it’s not imposing on your time.”
Their eyes met and Darcy felt the thrill of attraction. Forget cooking—the way to this man’s heart was through his daughter.
Mike was the first to look away. “We’d better not keep you any longer,” he said. “Taylor, get your things so we can go.”
Taylor raced back to the sewing room, where she’d left her backpack. Darcy seized the opportunity to pull Mike into her laundry room.
“What are you doing?” he protested.
“This.” She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him soundly, as if her life—or at least her future—depended on it.
THE KISS WAS the kind men—or at least Mike—fantasized about, all heat and passion and intensity, erasing all the rationalizing and analyzing and thinking that was so much a part of his life, touching some primitive animal instinct.
He pulled Darcy more tightly against him, deepening the kiss, claiming her with his mouth as one hand slid down to cup the roundness of her bottom and the other slanted across her shoulders. She let out a soft moan and he pressed her back against the washing machine, the silk of her shirt sliding against his hand as he shifted position, one thigh thrust between her legs.
“Dad, I—oops!”
The small voice jerked him out of a haze of lust. Still clinging to Darcy, he looked over his shoulder. Taylor stood in the doorway, one hand to her mouth, not quite covering her grin.
“Sorry, Taylor. We didn’t mean to embarrass you.” Darcy’s voice was shaky as she extricated herself from Mike’s grasp. He stepped back and shoved his hands in his pockets, his face burning. He stared at the floor, at the washing machine—anywhere but at his daughter or Darcy.
“It’s not like I’ve never seen people kissing before.” She giggled. “But not Dad. At least not since I was little, and then just Mom and he never kissed her that way—”
“We’d better go now.” Mike gripped Taylor’s shoulder and turned her toward the kitchen, and the exit.
“See you soon,” Darcy said.
He risked a glance at h
er. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair mussed, and her lips were slightly swollen. She looked like a woman who’d just had sex, and the thought made him hard all over again.
One thing she didn’t look was the least bit ashamed or embarrassed at being caught by his ten-year-old daughter. Not that they’d been doing anything wrong, exactly, but it certainly wasn’t like him to act so impulsively.
In the car on the way home, he chose his words carefully. “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about Darcy and me.”
“I’m glad you like her,” Taylor said. “I like her too. I think she’d make a cool stepmom.”
“Stepmom?” His heart pounded. “Taylor, Darcy and I hardly know each other.” Not that he wanted his daughter to think it was okay to go around kissing virtual strangers. “We’re friends. That’s all.”
“You weren’t kissing her like a friend.”
“What would you know about that?”
“Dad—I watch TV.”
Obviously, he needed to pay more attention to what she was watching.
“I think it’s cool if you have a girlfriend,” Taylor said. “Sometimes I feel guilty that you don’t, like maybe it’s my fault.”
“The fact that I don’t have a girlfriend has nothing to do with you,” he said. That wasn’t entirely true. Without Taylor in his life, he might be with someone. Or he might not. He wasn’t the swinging-bachelor type. His medical practice claimed a lot of his time and what was left he devoted to Taylor.
He glanced in the rearview mirror. Taylor was watching him, a serious look on her face. “Do you want a stepmother, is that it?” he asked. At ten, on the brink of so many changes in her body and in her life, Taylor probably felt the absence of a woman more keenly than at any time since he and Melissa had divorced.
She shrugged. “I don’t need a stepmom, I just wanted you to know I’m okay with it if you want to marry again. As long as it’s someone nice.”
“And you think Darcy is nice.”
“Yeah. And you must think she’s nice, too, or you wouldn’t have kissed her that way.” She giggled again.
That way. Like a randy teenager who couldn’t control his emotions.
Or a man who’d been alone too long. “I have no plans to marry Darcy, or anyone else right now,” he said. “When I do, you’ll be the first to know.”
“You should probably tell the woman first.”
He shook his head and tried to focus on his driving. But all he could think of was Darcy—the way she tasted and felt. The way she smelled. The look in her eyes when they’d parted. It was full of mischief and passion and delight, as if she knew exactly how much he wanted her and was very pleased with the idea.
It was an idea that ought to please him, too.
Yes, he wanted Darcy, in the physical sense. Darcy was alive and passionate, glowing with an inner light he envied. She had been through more than any one person should have to bear, yet she hadn’t lost herself to suffering. His own losses seemed trivial in comparison, and yet he felt as if he’d been permanently affected by them.
Whatever his feelings for Darcy, he couldn’t call any of them love. Love was something that grew over time. It didn’t ambush a man the way his desire for Darcy had taken him in her laundry room just now. He had dated Melissa for two full years before he’d told her he loved her.
He’d been drawn to Melissa in part because she was so unlike him. At the time he’d told himself they filled in the gaps in each other’s personality. Yet the marriage had been a disaster.
Now he was on the verge of making the same kind of mistake with Darcy, letting desire blind him to the differences between them. Had he learned nothing from the past?
“Dad, do you think one day I can have plastic surgery?”
“Plastic sur— Taylor, what are you talking about?” He slammed on the brakes at a stop sign and turned to stare at his daughter.
She stuck out her lower lip, glowering in a way that was so much like Melissa he didn’t know whether to laugh or despair. “Darcy’s making me a costume that covers up my scars, but I’ll still look different from all the other girls. It would be so much better if I could just have plastic surgery to make them go away.”
The guy in the car behind them honked and Mike resisted the urge to make an obscene gesture. He faced forward and started driving again, trying to gather his thoughts. “We’ve talked about this before,” he said. “The scars will fade over time. They’re al ready much less noticeable to other people than they are to you.” Every one of those scars was precious to him, a reminder of the miracle that had saved her.
“Darcy says there’s special makeup made to cover scars like mine. She said maybe we could go shopping for some.”
Darcy again. She claimed to be teaching the girls to accept their bodies, so what was she doing discussing makeup with a ten-year-old? “I don’t think you need to be wearing makeup.”
“But Darcy said—”
“I’m your father and I say no.” He cringed, waiting for Taylor’s face to crumple into tears, but she only continued to glower, her silence like a cold knife slicing him.
He gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles throbbed. This was partly his fault. He’d let a woman’s attractive figure and a passionate kiss distract him from his responsibilities to his daughter.
Yes, Darcy had made the generous decision to donate her son’s heart so that Taylor could live. Yes, Taylor liked her, but what girl wouldn’t? She was pretty and fun and she didn’t have a clue how fragile Taylor really was.
Now she’d gone too far, upsetting Taylor with all this talk about her scar, when Mike was sure they’d been past all that.
Maybe Darcy was even the one who’d brought up the stepmom idea. Maybe she looked at his house and his medical practice and saw an opportunity to move up in the world.
He felt sick to his stomach. Darcy wasn’t like that.
But how did he really know? They’d shared a couple of meals, a cup of coffee and two intense kisses. He couldn’t claim to have been thinking clearly through any of that, distracted as he was by lust.
He glanced in the mirror at Taylor again. Her head was turned and she was looking out the side window. His first job was to protect her. He couldn’t let one woman, no matter how seemingly well-meaning, take over their lives.
All the passion in the world wasn’t worth upsetting his daughter.
CHAPTER EIGHT
DARCY TOLD HERSELF she had no reason to regret her impulsiveness in kissing Mike, but his car was scarcely out of the driveway before doubts assailed her. It was one thing to enjoy Mike’s lips on hers and his arms around her, but she shouldn’t have let Taylor see them together like that.
After all, Mike had made it very clear that night in the coffee shop that he wasn’t interested. And Darcy couldn’t pretend she was ready for a serious relationship. She’d acted impulsively, living in the moment, something she hadn’t done much of since Riley’s and Pete’s deaths. It felt almost too good to let go of the reserve she’d built up as a kind of wall around her emotions. She still needed to protect herself.
She tried to call Dave. Talking to her brother about his problems would distract her from her own. But Dave didn’t answer his phone. Maybe he and Carrie were kissing and making up, as Taylor had suggested.
But when he didn’t answer again when she phoned the next morning, she drove to his condo, trying not to imagine the worst. She rang the bell, then knocked, and was debating calling the police when the door finally opened. His shirt was untucked and he needed a shave…he looked perfectly normal.
“What took you so long?” she asked, pushing past him into the living room. “I was starting to worry.”
“I was in the basement.”
“I tried calling this morning. And last night. You never answered.”
“I didn’t feel like talking.” He headed down the stairs. She followed at his heels, surprised by the thinning patch of hair at the back of his head. When had Dave begun losing
his hair?
“Where’s Carrie?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“She left.”
Darcy’s spirits sank. “Oh, Dave. Why? Is this about the house?”
“Mind your own business, sis.”
Most of the basement had been converted into a woodworking shop. A workbench filled one end of the room, with bins of lumber and projects in various stages of completion crowded between the water heater and the washing machine. The air smelled of wood shavings and varnish.
Dave headed for the workbench and picked up a length of wood—a chair spindle, she guessed.
“What did you say to Carrie in the restaurant the other night?” she asked.
“Stay out of it.” He shoved a pair of safety glasses over his eyes, then switched on a lathe.
Darcy watched him work, not put off for a minute by his gruff manner. Dave hadn’t listened to her when she’d tried to get him to leave her alone after Riley and Pete had died. He’d stayed right with her, making her soup and handing her tissues and refusing to let her wallow in her despair.
Maybe this thing between him and Carrie wasn’t her business, but she wouldn’t leave him to suffer alone. He might think he didn’t want to talk about it, but she’d be here if he did.
He shut off the lathe and picked up a piece of sandpaper and began rubbing down the wood. “What are you making?” Darcy asked.
“A rocking chair.” He inspected the piece and resumed sanding. “It’s a commission.”
“That’s terrific!” His ambition was to open a shop making custom furniture. Construction work was what he did to fill in the gaps while he built his business. “Who’s it for?”
“That new birthing center at the women’s hospital. If they like this one, they’ll order more.” His eyes met hers, excitement shining in them.
“That’s wonderful. Congratulations.” Carrie must be so proud. So why wasn’t she here?
