Only In His Sweetest Dreams (Secret Dreams Book 2)

by Dani Collins

  “You should accept it more graciously. And please make sure Dayton doesn’t repeat your remark when you drop him off for tutoring.”

  “Hey—”

  “Oh yeah, you are.” She flew out with as much energy as she’d blown in on.

  He swore and said to the bottom of the washer, “No way, Jose.”

  The bubble in the level was nearly centered when the door opened again. This time a smaller voice said, “L.C.?”

  “I’m in here.”

  Dayton came to the door. “Auntie M. said you want to take me to Mrs. Garvey’s.” He slouched into the door jamb, body sagging in a boneless plea for deliverance. “You don’t really, do you?”

  L.C. scratched his eyebrow. He really didn’t, but he knew how worried Mercedes was about Dayton’s performance in school.

  “Sometimes a man has to do what a man has to do, champ.”

  “But she’s mean.”

  “She’s not mean. She—” Has issues. Standards, he imagined she called them.

  Dayton started to grin. “Needs a really big—?”

  “No.” L.C. cut in and came to his feet. “We’re going to forget I said that because it would hurt her feelings. You know what Mrs. Garvey needs? To feel important. Come on. I have an idea.”

  Edith opened the door to Dayton and L.C. Fogarty. She dropped her tea towel. “I expected Mercedes.” Why hadn’t she checked the peephole? Not that she would have refused to open the door, but a little warning would have been nice.

  “I wanted to speak to you myself, Mrs. Garvey.” The way he swiped his hand down the side of his thigh suggested nerves, which was ridiculous. Everything about the man warned he was a killing machine.

  “Yes?” she prompted, recognizing she was being rude not inviting him in, but he made her terribly nervous.

  “Uh...” He had already given her a stilted ‘thank you’ in passing for her apology letter. They hadn’t spoken since. She’d barely seen him, which had been a relief.

  Dayton hid behind Mr. Fogarty’s leg, the action telling of trust in the man and perhaps even qualms about staying with her since he looked up and whispered, “You said you’d stay.”

  “I said I’d stay if Mrs. Garvey invited me. I was hoping that while you’re working with Dayton, maybe you’d help me with something as well.” He lifted his head, his ruffian face becoming something like she’d only seen rarely: that of a boy whose confidence had fallen after a bad grade when he had genuinely tried. “I’m not sure what your tutoring rate is, but I’d rather unplug a sink or something in exchange anyway. Do you have anything needs repairing? Because I’ve been trying to get my GED and things aren’t working out.”

  His words had the oddest effect on her, striking in a way she hadn’t felt in years. Offering to tutor Dayton had been easy, something she’d done with dozens of young children who needed extra help. But on a very few occasions, she’d worked with adolescents. They’d been teenagers who had been pushed along through a system and wound up so far out of their depth, they had literally cried out for help, pulling on her heartstrings.

  How on earth she could feel that sort of thing toward this grown man, she didn’t know. It was so disconcerting, she could only answer with the obvious. “The plumbing is fine.”

  “I see.” His face went blank in the way a young man’s face did when he was trying to hide that he’d been hurt. He tried to ease Dayton to move in front of him, but the boy resisted. “So there’s nothing I could do to buy a few grammar lessons?”

  She couldn’t think of anything, yet he sounded so sincere, and looked so doting, this brute with his tattoos and his careful hands on the boy’s slouched shoulders.

  “C’mon bud, you have to stand up,” he said, gently insistent with Dayton.

  Dread darkened Dayton’s scowl as he glanced up at Edith.

  She so recalled her mother stridently insisting she leave off and get herself into the school where the schoolmaster had kept a strap he used swiftly and mercilessly on little girls who didn’t speak up fast enough.

  “I do find, however,” she said, fairly trembling with unease, “now that my little treasures are out of their boxes again, they look rather cramped on the mantel. Are you much of a carpenter, Mr. Fogarty? Could you install some shelves?”

  His quick, sharp gaze came back to hers, seemed to give her a moment to change her mind. In truth, she was tempted. Second thoughts rattled through her, but he smiled, revealing a crooked tooth and entirely too much masculinity.

  “Whatever you need to help me pass that test, I’m your man.”

  “That’s up for debate, I’m sure,” she said, making clear he hadn’t won her over, but her remark made him smirk in the way that was so annoying. She cleared her throat. “Dayton, I’ve prepared the kitchen table for you. If you could both leave your shoes on? Feet produce oils that harm carpets.”

  They came in and she closed the door behind them, then crossed to the living room where she opened the patio door, leaving the screen closed but allowing sound to travel in from the courtyard, and out, if necessary.

  Fingering the lace of her collar, she took a moment to search her shelves then selected the thin hardcover she’d been looking for.

  “My style guide from when my mother was at Oxford. Please read the first chapter while I start Dayton on his lesson, Mr. Fogarty. Ask me questions as they arise.”

  “L.C., ma’am, if you don’t mind.”

  “Mrs. Garvey, sir, if you don’t mind,” she responded, and handed him the book.

  Chapter 16

  “Hey,” Mercedes said the next day, spinning in her desk chair to face where L.C. was taping plastic across the empty window spaces. The glaziers had just left and this was their first minute alone. The lounge was empty, the TV off, and it was the lull between lunch and dinner in the cantina. Only the distant sound of dishes penetrated. “Thank you for staying with Dayton. It made all the difference for him.”

  “She said I was setting a good example. I’ve never been accused of that before.” He bit off a section of tape and smoothed it into place.

  She grinned, propped her elbow on her desk and her head on her hand, admiring his lean shape as he moved so efficiently.

  “Can I ask you something? Zack said something to me the other day and I’ve been curious. He said I should ask you about April.”

  L.C. stalled a moment, staring at the roll of tape he held before he gave it a yank so it screeched before he bit off the next section. “Isn’t he a helpful little shit.”

  “God, you two. It’s obvious you love each other, but you have this elephant in the room you both glare at each other around. Is it April?”

  “No.”

  “He told me you lived with her.”

  “I did.” He hooked his hands on his hips, keeping his back to her. “We, uh, were going to have a baby. She died.”

  “April?” Mercedes brought her head up as her heart plummeted in shock.

  “The baby. Ester.” His shoulder shrugged, the one indelibly printed with a strong, fierce warrior—Zack, she instinctively recognized—and the smaller, curled up angel. His daughter, she now realized.

  “Oh, L.C.” She stood and moved to touch his arm, but he immediately side-stepped away, his profile like granite. “I’m so sorry,” she murmured.

  “Me too.” He pulled a fresh strip of tape. Bit it off. “But honestly, I don’t know that April and I had much besides a baby between us. We didn’t mean to get pregnant, but we were both willing to give it a go. She left after. Went to her sister’s and didn’t come back. I did my best to disappear into a bottle of Jack Daniels.”

  Who wouldn’t, she thought, watching him smooth tape into place. She’d gone on a self-medicating bender when she’d had her surgery, angry with her body for making her choose between fertility and slowly bleeding to death. To lose a baby, though...

  The automatic doors opened and Harrison came in. His sharp old gaze took in the two of them standing close then moving apart, pretend
ing to go back to work. A knowing amusement hovered around his mouth, but he only said, “I like what you’ve done with the place, L.C.”

  “This is nothing. You should see the garden plots.”

  “I’ve caught a whiff,” Harrison drawled, referencing the manure that Zack had shoveled into the repaired beds. “Mercy-girl, can you check if my heart meds are on this week’s order? I’ve run out.”

  “Of course. I can pick them up if not, when I get the kids from school.” She sat and tapped into the computer to look it up.

  Behind her, Harrison asked L.C. how things were coming along at the duplexes. Her place needed some finishing work with baseboards and the backsplash in the kitchen. He still hadn’t installed his dishwasher and had some work in the en suite bathroom.

  “Zack has another fifteen hours of service. That should take us to exam week and end of school. We’ll move on and you can put that unit up for sale. ‘Course, it’ll be a tough sell, given the neighbors.”

  “Lemme guess,” she interjected, swinging around in her chair again. “The kids are fine, but the broad who lives there is a nag?”

  “At least she’s not hard to look at.” L.C. winked, his half-grin teasing and affectionate.

  She smiled weakly and turned back to the computer, heart heavy. That was only a couple of weeks away. He would leave and she would have no one to flirt with or fantasize about.

  Glum, she told herself at least she had her job and the kids.

  “I don’t see your name on here, Harrison. I’ll call now and pick them up this afternoon.”

  “It can wait ‘til Friday,” he dismissed.

  “No, it can’t.” Honestly. Men. She picked up the phone and called in the refill.

  Edith followed Mercedes’s flustered stride to the meeting room. It was empty of board members, but occupied by the ladies from the cantina as they set up the tea service on the side table.

  Edith checked her brooch watch. Either it was gaining time or this was a day of chronic lateness. The cantina ladies should be finished and the rest of the board should be here by now. And what was she to do about Mr. Hilroy’s failure to turn up?

  “Oh, good morning, Mrs. Garvey,” Mercedes said, noticing her as she went around the table, setting out her agenda with little slaps of pages to the tabletop. “I’m glad everyone’s running late, because so am I. You know what I can’t understand? Why doesn’t the school simply tell you up front that you have to pay so many dollars per month, rather than nickel and dime you through the week for hot dogs and field trips and fundraisers? I had to raid the kids’ language jar and you should have heard the blue streak when Dayton caught me.”

  “Not Dayton,” Edith protested. The boy was good as gold with her. She certainly never heard curses out of him.

  “Yes, Dayton. Hi, Mrs. Yamamoto.” Mercedes smiled as the tiny woman hustled in. “How are you today?”

  “I am forgetful,” Mrs. Yamamoto said. “But perhaps Mrs. Edith is, too? Mr. Hilroy is waiting for you.”

  “He was supposed to be here an hour ago.” Now they would start the meeting without her. Why on earth couldn’t this Hilroy person have arrived on time?

  “Not to worry,” Mercedes assured her, setting chairs before each place at the table. “Harrison and Mr. Dol— Hi, Mr. Dolinski. Isn’t Harrison with you?”

  “I thought we were walking up together, but when he didn’t come by, I thought I’d misunderstood and he was ahead of me.” Peter Dolinski smoothed his hair.

  “There you go,” Mercedes said, turning back to Edith. “Harrison is running behind as well. Do you want me to escort Mr. Hilroy to his apartment while you wait with everyone here?”

  “No, no,” Edith said. “I said I would do it and I will. I have to show him the way to adjust the blinds to avoid the late afternoon sun, otherwise he’ll be cooked alive. It will only take fifteen minutes. You’ll wait?”

  “Of course. Thanks, Mrs. Garvey.”

  She and Mercedes were enjoying a slightly warmer relationship these days, having cleared the air and found a common interest in Dayton’s education. Therefore, Edith didn’t bother correcting the young woman’s dreadfully lazy ‘thanks’ and simply trusted Mercedes would, indeed, wait to start.

  Making her way back to Mercedes’s desk, she found a white haired man waiting for her. He wore a shirt in splashes of pink and turquoise, baggy white shorts, and white socks in sandals. He towered over her as she shook his hand in greeting.

  Thomas had been one of the few men she had ever met who stood short enough to look her directly in the eye. She privately wished all men were that height. These tall sorts intimidated her.

  “You’re laughing at my get-up, aren’t you?” Mr. Hilroy said as she led him through the doors to the courtyard.

  “Not at all. That would be rude,” Edith said. And she was working on not making snap judgments of people. “However, you may think me rude for rushing you. I understood you were arriving at nine so we booked our meeting for ten.”

  “My house collapsed,” he blurted.

  The news was so shocking, Edith halted, instantly forgiving him for both the interruption and his lateness. “That’s terrible. How on earth did that happen?”

  “Sinkhole. I almost went in with it. I don’t know how I woke up and got out, but I did,” Mr. Hilroy said. “Here, let me get that for you.” He stepped forward to open the door of the apartment building, waving her to continue leading him. “It’s the most peculiar thing, too. My wife and I bought the house when we married. I’ve been in it alone since Patty died, fifteen years ago. The kids have been after me to cash it in and find something smaller, but I didn’t want to give it up. Felt too much like giving her up, you understand? I was still thinking of backing out a few nights ago. I asked Patty—”

  “You speak to your deceased spouse?” Edith asked as they stepped into the elevator. “That was my door on the left, by the way. I should have pointed that out. Number one-o-one.”

  Mr. Hilroy nodded once in acknowledgment, then smoothed the front of his flamboyant shirt. “You think I’m crazy for talking to her, don’t you?”

  “Not at all, sir. I hear my husband’s voice all the time, despite his being gone two decades.” She had never told anyone that and perhaps shouldn’t have revealed it now. Mr. Hilroy seemed a chatty man. No doubt Harrison would turn her foible into a raging joke when he heard.

  “It’s an enormous comfort, isn’t it?” Mr. Hilroy held the edge of the elevator while she exited, then followed her down the hall. “In any case, I asked Patty if I was doing the right thing, or if I should stay with her. Next thing I know, I wake up to a rumble and think it’s an earthquake. I ran outside and—poof!”

  Edith paused outside her old door, key at the ready.

  “You think I’m crazy for thinking she did it, don’t you?” Mr. Hilroy said.

  “I’m trying very hard not to think anything of people that isn’t deserved, sir, but I have to admit that’s a remarkable story.” Edith opened the door for him, but stayed in the hallway. So did Mr. Hilroy.

  “See, everyone kept telling me she would want me to move on, but I just couldn’t find the courage. I’d barely started packing because giving up all her things... It was too hard. But she took care of that, didn’t she?”

  Now she looked at Mr. Hilroy more closely, she saw his weariness and latent shock. “So you were alone? No one was hurt?”

  “No, my neighbors have been turned out of their houses while everything is assessed, but all I had was my pajamas. The victim services people brought me this get-up. It’s not my sort of style at all, but it makes for a fresh start, doesn’t it?”

  “So you have nothing, sir? No furniture? No...” She trailed off, unable to comprehend such a tragedy. “No family?”

  “My daughter lives in California. She said she would fly out in the next few days to help me furnish this place and get back on my feet. Honestly, I’ve been in shock, not in any mood to shop. I thought I would sleep here until I ca
n think straight.”

  “On the floor? You’ll do no such thing, Mr. Hilroy. We have a guest house. I only need to fetch the key and make up the bed. Now I wanted to show you these blinds, but that can wait.”

  She would ask the auxiliary to help with finding him a wardrobe and some toilet items, she thought as she dragged poor Mr. Hilroy around, and on his last legs too. She arrived back in the meeting room to find only Mrs. Yamamoto.

  “Mercedes and Mr. Peter have gone to fetch Mr. Harrison.” Mrs. Yamamoto smiled at Mr. Hilroy when Edith introduced them and nodded approval as she dug the guesthouse key from her knitting bag. “Take your time. I will let the social committee know that the house is occupied.”

  Outside, they met Mercedes leaving the golf cart. Edith had a vague thought that it was odd the men weren’t with her, but she was just so relieved to see Mercedes. “Mr. Hilroy, let me introduce you to our manager—”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Garvey,” Mercedes said in a faint voice. The hand she closed over Edith’s arm was icy and painful in the way she gripped her. Her freckles stood out against her pale face. “I have to get my protocol notes and meet the cor—” She choked on the word, then got it out. “Coroner.”

  “No,” Edith breathed, looking to the cart empty of Peter Dolinski and—

  “Harrison,” Mercedes murmured with a nod, eyes blinking to hold back tears.

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry,” Mercedes said, finally releasing the claw-like grip on her arm. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Hilroy. I’m sorry. I have to go.”

  Mr. Hilroy. Edith glanced up at him.

  He wore a deeply sympathetic expression. “If you could just give me the key to the apartment, I’ll go lie down.”

  “No, no,” Edith said, too stunned to think beyond doing what needed to be done. “The house is just over here.”

  The tiny house was stuffy, despite the lowered blinds holding out the heat. She clicked on the air conditioner and opened the linen closet, finding the sheets and carrying them into the bedroom. She didn’t bother with the light. Enough filtered sunshine came through the cracks in the blinds.