by Jill Monroe
“I just happen to be thirsty.” The humor reappeared in his dark eyes.
“There’s a coffee shop at the end of this block. Why don’t I meet you there in about thirty minutes? My clothes should be dry by then.”
“Thirty minutes it is,” he told her.
But she knew the truth. He wouldn’t show up. Sure, he’d accepted, but then who wouldn’t in order to get the crazy person at the Laundromat away from them? Besides, he was definitely corporate. Corporate never went for her.
TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER, Danni slid her laundry basket with clean clothes into the trunk of her car and slammed the lid. She turned and faced the street. Five minutes to go. She couldn’t seem too eager. She dug out her cell phone and dialed Cassie’s number.
“I’ve asked someone out for coffee,” Danni said as soon as her best friend answered.
“It’s snowing outside, right?”
Danni checked the sunny blue sky. “What are you talking about? It’s way past snowing in Reno.”
“That was sort of my point. You never get my jokes. How did this come about?”
“I insulted him, took his money, then apologized without really apologizing.”
“That’s like my last three relationships,” Cassie said, her teasing voice making Danni grin.
“He won’t show,” Danni said.
“Whew, that’s better. For a minute there I was afraid you were nervous. But then, your normal cynicism reappeared.”
“Nerves give men the upper hand on a date.” Was this a date? Meeting? Whatever. Nerves were never good. “You can never show them that you like them.”
“Absolutely. Dating suicide.”
“Do I detect a bit of facetiousness in your voice?”
“If you only detect a bit, then you need your hearing tested. Listen, Danni, since you’ve asked this guy out and that’s a first for you, why don’t you make this a date of firsts. Here’s a guy who knows nothing of your past. He’s not going to be judging you. You’re just a woman, he’s just a man. Enjoy each other’s company. Enjoy the moment. Why are you talking to me when there’s a man waiting for you? I’m hanging up now.” Click.
She smiled as she closed her cell. Cassie was probably right. Danni hadn’t consciously decided to treat this new guy differently than every other man who’d stumbled into her life. But she had, and that was a valid reason to be nervous.
After putting her phone back into her purse, Danni locked her car and headed to the coffee shop, leisurely passing by others on the sidewalk. Actually, the coffee shop was more like a bistro, with a selection of breads, teas and coffees. An electronic chime sounded as she strolled through the door.
Normally her glance would head straight for the refrigerated display cabinet, then she’d stop and look at the specials written on the chalkboard, or take a sample of the bread of the week. Not today. Instead, her gaze went directly to the seating area filled with fashionable glass-topped wrought-iron tables and matching chairs.
He was there.
He’d waited for her. Her steps slowed for a moment as she approached him lounging against one of the high-backed barstools. Her knees turned wobbly all of a sudden and she hadn’t expected that.
So, how should she play this? Classic vamp? No, that wouldn’t work—she wasn’t wearing the right shoes. Girl next door? No, she’d already blown her chance at innocence back at the Laundromat. She paused and that’s when he looked directly at her. He smiled. A slow, open smile that moved across those sexy, sensuous lips of his and every nerve ending in her body fired up.
She’d been right to be cynical. She’d been right to push him away at the beginning because this man was dangerous. This was the kind of man who made logical women say, “Sure, I’ll invest everything I own in your pyramid scheme.”
She had no clue how to angle her behavior. Cassie had suggested that Danni should just be a woman. Could it ever be that simple? Just be yourself. Whoever that was.
Danni realized she was smiling back. I’m an idiot. She slid into the stool beside him, and the waitress came by and asked for their order.
“You took my money and I don’t even know your name,” he said after a moment of silence.
“Danielle, but everyone calls me Danni.”
“I’m Eric.”
She shook his hand, his fingers feeling softly calloused. “So, Eric, do you usually pick up women while doing your laundry?”
A moment passed before he answered, his body relaxed. “Only on Wednesdays. Thursdays it’s the grocery store. Besides, that wasn’t a pickup.”
“It wasn’t?” Her feet began to tap under the table. Had he spotted something in her the way she had in him?
“You were the only person in the place using dryer sheets. Everyone else had the liquid stuff.”
She glanced up quickly, her gaze meeting his. Humor danced along the brown of his eyes.
“I was the only person in the place, period. You’re messing with me,” she said.
“A little. Besides, you clearly picked me up.”
Surprisingly, she liked him teasing her. Previous guys either took themselves way too seriously—rebels searching for clues—or they, like her father, took nothing seriously. Life was one big day at an amusement park. No waiting in line, only fun. Nothing subtle like bantering.
“Technically, you made the first move, so I’ll have to award the pickup to you.” Who knew what the ultimate prize would be for the winner.
He inclined his head as if to accept. Her heartbeat quickened. He wasn’t denying his making a move. Just a man meeting a woman. It could happen. It could work.
The waitress brought Eric his coffee and her a soft drink. “We have fresh chocolate cheesecake.”
Danni sucked in a breath. Cheesecake was one thing she could barely resist. But to enrich it with chocolate…that was almost too low a blow. Could anything be more decadent? Maybe Eric feeding it to her off his fork…
Her mouth began to water.
“Unfortunately, I’m flush out of cash. Just spent my last five dollars,” he said.
She glanced his way. His lips were twisting in a smile. “Bring us a slice,” she told the waitress. “Put it on my bill. Do you like cheesecake, Eric?” she asked when the waitress hurried away. His name tasted delectable in her mouth.
“I’m not one for sweet things.”
That was a point in her favor because she was a lot of things, but sweet wasn’t one of them.
“You’re a student?” he asked. “I noticed your book.”
“I’m going to court reporting school at night. I wait tables during the day. Wednesday is my free day.”
“You work at one of the casinos?”
Danni almost coughed. As if she wouldn’t immediately be “escorted” out of any casino. “No, a diner. What about you? You mentioned a hotel?”
“I only recently moved to Reno. The company’s putting me up in a hotel until I can find my own place.”
That explained the corporate haircut. That explained a lot of things.
“What is it that you—” The waitress interrupted her question when she placed the cheesecake on the table.
How could anyone talk with this tasty bit of heaven between them? Chocolate cookie crust, a scrumptious white chocolate ganache with a dark chocolate spiderweb design. With eager anticipation, Danni took a bite. She immediately closed her eyes and moaned. Ahhh, those spiders were always offering something bad for you. It was the ultimate in chocolate indulgence. The creaminess of the cheesecake melted in her mouth.
“That good, huh?” he asked, his voice tight.
Danni opened her eyes and met his gaze. Oh, yeah, there was fire and heat in his eyes. The only thing that could take her mind off the best tasting thing on the planet was sitting right in front of her. Had she ever been this attracted to a guy this quickly?
“Want a bite?” she asked, her voice turning low and husky.
“Sure.”
“I thought you weren’t one for swe
et things.”
“I’ve changed my mind.”
She cut off a portion of her cheesecake and reached across the table. His brown eyes never left hers as his mouth took the chocolate from her fork, his lips touching where hers had been. His gaze became intense as he savored the mouthful. “I could really get used to that,” he said.
A shiver ran down her spine. They weren’t talking about dessert.
“How is it?” their waitress asked, returning to slide the check facedown on the table toward Danni.
“It’s excellent,” Danni replied. “Why don’t you bring us another piece?”
Eric shook his head, glancing down at his watch. “Actually, I have to go.”
Disappointment made the cheesecake lose its flavor. She looked at the waitress. “Bring it to go.”
Eric shook his head as if to clear it. An odd tenseness seemed to enter his body. His back seemed more rigid, his hands falling to his sides. “You don’t have to do that,” he told her. This was no polite I-really-want-you-to kind of refusal.
“No, I want to.”
“Thanks,” he said, reclining in his seat, the warmth and humor is his eyes gone. What had she done?
So here it was. The brush-off. His body language couldn’t be more evident if he’d crossed his arms in front of his chest.
Eric shifted in his chair. And yes, there was the arm cross. Maybe that hot chemistry she felt wasn’t mutual at all.
“How about you give me your phone number. I’ll call you,” Eric said.
His lips were moving, but his actions didn’t fit with the words. He made no move to whip out a pen or a piece of paper. She was putting an end to this here and now. In fact, she would take the to-go cheesecake, too.
“Listen, I know ‘I’ll call you’ is the male equivalent of ‘let’s be friends.’ We don’t have to go through that scenario.”
Eric uncrossed his arms and leaned into the table. There it was again. That sense of danger. That zip of attraction she felt between them. His eyes grew hooded. “I want your number, Danni.”
If he’d said I want you naked, on this table, it couldn’t have been any less heated than how he’d said he wanted her number. She could feel goose bumps along her arms. And her legs. And even on her ears. He was better than cheesecake.
Against her instinct, she opened her purse and took out a pen and a piece of paper. She also slid Eric’s five dollars and enough extra cash to cover the bill, plus tip, onto the table.
“You know what?” he began. “In any other circumstance, I’d hand back a woman’s money and use my card. But I’m willing to bet you’d instantly consider me just like every other guy you’ve met, wouldn’t you? Traditional. Boring. So, all right. I’ll let you pay for my coffee, and I’m gonna enjoy it.”
This man so did it for her. After scribbling her name and number onto the paper, she handed it to Eric.
His fingers brushed against hers. She ignored the tingles he gave her with such a simple touch. “That telephone number expires after two days. No waiting to call me to whet my appetite. No game playing. If you want to see me again, you just say so.”
Eric took the paper from her and pocketed the number in his shirt. Not a hint of his thoughts registered on his face. How frustrating. With a nod, she got up and left, walking quickly to her car.
As she slammed the key into the ignition, she realized she’d left the cheesecake behind.
WITH HER LAUNDRY DONE, Danni steered her car toward the highway ready to take the forty-minute drive to Carson City. Wednesday afternoons were reserved for her dad. She owed him that much. Or so he kept reminding her.
The halfway house was a lot better than the visiting rooms courtesy of Nevada’s prison system, but since most of her teachers predicted she’d wind up as one of Nevada’s “guests” herself, it was no wonder she felt uncomfortable there. That and the fact that any lawenforcement official automatically made her uneasy. Dad said it was in the genes. And some days she believed him.
She found her father tending one of the small gardens at the back of the house. If anyone had bet her a thousand dollars that Daniel Flynn would enjoy getting his hands dirty, she would have upped the ante and called them a sucker.
But she’d be the one paying because her dear old dad had taken a keen interest in horticulture, and she did have to admit, the deep purple flowers he’d coaxed to bloom under the hot Nevada sun thrived. He’d even sent her home with a sack of fresh snap peas once. Yeah, there was another ironic observation there, but it was too hot outside to make it right now.
She dumped her backpack on the ground next to her father. “Hi, Dad. I got the book on plants in dry soils you wanted.”
Her father looked up, squinting in the sunlight. “Danielle, my love. That’s the first thing you say to me? No, I missed you? Come give your da a kiss.”
“Ah, so we’re Irish today,” she said, good-naturedly.
“Never discount the importance of an authentic-sounding accent. Those of the British Isles are especially good about not sounding cheap. Let’s hear your Scottish.”
Danni merely shook her head. Growing up, there were Irish Days. Russian Days. Australian Days. All great fun when a person is eight and before men in uniforms with real cop accents knock on the door.
She unfolded the pamphlet she’d stuffed in her back pocket and placed a kiss on his cheek. “This is the information about the horticulture classes at the community college. There’s still time to enroll.”
“Ahhh, like your dear old ma, trying to set my feet on the straight and narrow path.” Her dad’s eyes twinkled. After her mother died, those blue eyes of his had led many a woman on the wavy and broad path to sin.
“Just humor me and take the pamphlet.”
Her dad took the flyer and stored it in his gardener’s bucket. He nodded sadly. “I may have to find legitimate work. With the Internet now, it makes it harder to run a good con. Everybody’s a cynic.”
“Yeah, that’s a real bummer, Dad.”
Humor entered her father’s famous blue eyes. “Now that I think about it, something on the Internet might be the ticket.”
Danni frowned. “Dad, you’re in this halfway house for a reason. It’s not supposed to be halfway between jail and crime. It’s halfway between you and making straight with your life.”
The lightness between them vanished, and a thoughtful look passed across her father’s face. “Don’t worry about me, Danni-bear. I won’t put you through that again.”
Silence stretched between them. Seven years they’d been caught by circumstances determined to crush them. The night that had sent each of them on their current course.
Her father stood and clutched her hand. “Come and sit with me under the tree. It’s cooler. Tell me what you did today.”
He led her to the picnic table some ex-con had thought would be funny to paint in black and white stripes. “Actually, I’ve met someone.”
“You did?”
“His name is Eric Reynolds.”
“That name sounds made up,” he said, waving his hand.
“Daddy, not everyone’s like us. I met him at the laundry. He needed to borrow a dryer sheet.”
Daniel Flynn rolled his eyes. “That’s weak. Dump him. If a man isn’t willing to go to more trouble to impress you, you don’t need him.”
“I thought so, too. So I charged him a buck.”
“There’s my girl.” Pride laced her father’s voice.
“But all he had was a five, so I took all of it. I felt bad about it later, and I ended up buying him a cup of coffee and some cheesecake.”
Her father’s lips twisted. “Let me get this straight. He got you to buy him a drink, some cheesecake, which by the way I’m surprised you didn’t wrestle him for, and dryer sheets?”
“He did pay me for those.” And she came close to wrestling him for the cheesecake.
“Did you spend more than five dollars on him?” her father asked, frowning.
“Yes.”
>
“I take it back, it’s not weak. He’s brilliant.”
Danni couldn’t help it, she grinned. “Dad, he’s not a con man. Not everyone looks at things the way you do.”
Daniel sat on the bench. “I don’t know why I bother giving you advice. I taught you skills, which you turn your back on, and now you’re studying. Studying is bad enough, but what’re you studying? Law…It’s too painful for me to even finish the thought. Now you’re getting taken by a man. Maybe you’re more like your mother than I thought.”
“And you love me for it,” she told him as she gave him a hug.
“More than you’ll ever know.”
THE PHONE WAS NOT RINGING as she keyed into her apartment. Not a good sign. Had Danni been expecting it to? Hmm, yes, she had.
Hoping, at least.
Dropping her purse by the door, and hooking her keys on the bulletin board, she made a big production of setting the laundry basket on the kitchen table while not taking the trouble to see if the red light on her answering machine was flashing. She was not the kind of woman who waited around to see if a man called her.
Still, in the end, she looked at the machine anyway.
The red light was flashing. The muscles between her shoulders tightened. Might not be him. Could be a telemarketer. Could be a charity looking for a donation.
Two messages. Surely one of them was Eric.
“Hi, Danni, it’s Cassie. Wanted to see how the coff—”
Skip.
She smiled as the voice of her second caller filled her tiny kitchen. Six words. Six words she replayed at least three times. “I want to see you again.”
2
TO BE HONEST, Danni wasn’t one for dating. From seventeen until twenty the only one-on-one time she’d spent with a male had been with her lawyer. So when other girls her age were learning the rules of dating, refining their flirtation skills, honing their allurement proficiency, she was left alone on her bunk with her notebook.
