by Rachel Lee
“Thanks. I’ll check into it.” She looked down at Krys. “We’ll see what I can find out.”
The ice cream parlor was just off the town’s central square. Vicki was able to find parking nearby, and Dan almost as close. They met at the door and he ushered them in.
Retro would be a good word for the place’s appearance. Vicki wondered if it just hadn’t changed in fifty years or if it had been designed to look like something out of Happy Days. Most people were buying cones or cups and leaving with them, so the three of them found seats easily at the counter, which was where Krys wanted to sit, on a high stool. Vicki and Dan sat on either side of her, and Vicki helped her daughter read the menu. While the child did fairly well with simple children’s books, the menu was full of a lot of words she had to sound out. Vicki was not surprised, however, when they got only partway through the listing and Krys made her decision.
“Chocolate with chocolate sprinkles.”
“Cone or cup?”
Krys thought about it for a second. “Cone,” she announced.
Dan ordered a double scoop of chocolate chip and Vicki a cup of frozen yogurt. She soon discovered why most people probably didn’t stay here with their ice cream. Dan was greeted by everyone, while his ice cream began to melt down the cone into the napkin he’d wrapped around it. He introduced Vicki and Krys to all comers, which took a fair amount of time, as well.
He winked at Vicki over Krys’s head. “Great place to have a meet-up.”
“So it appears.” Glancing down at Krys, Vicki saw fatigue beginning to appear. Her daughter had stayed up late last night, had gotten up early this morning filled with excitement about going to the soccer game, and had been running at full speed ever since. She was still enjoying her ice cream, licking round and round to make sure she caught all the drips, but she was slowing down.
Just then Dan’s cell phone beeped. He shook his head a little and pulled it out, quickly scanning a text. “Gotta go. I’m sorry. Work. See you later?”
Vicki nodded, watching as he dropped a kiss on the top of Krys’s head. “Later, pumpkin,” he said, before hurrying out.
Vicki looked up from her ice cream at her mother. “He works a lot.”
“Yes, he does.” Apparently, around here hours weren’t as regular for cops as they’d been in Austin. Smaller department, she decided. Sometimes they probably needed officers on call, more than she was used to. But really, she had little on which to base that. This might be unusual. Regardless, she somehow seemed to be getting in tune with his job and becoming more accepting of it.
“Mommy?”
“Yes, honey?”
“Wanna go home.”
So, ice cream in hand, with plenty of napkins, they went out to the car and drove home. Krys kept up licking her ice cream until it was down inside the cone, but then she nodded off, just as they pulled into Lena’s driveway.
Vicki climbed out and looked into the backseat. Krys was sound asleep, with the contents of the cone dribbling onto one of the napkins. Smiling, Vicki caressed her daughter’s head gently, then grabbed the cone in a wad of napkins. She heard the front door and saw Lena come out.
“Need help?” her aunt asked.
“If you could grab the ice cream mess, I’ll grab Krys.”
Lena took the wad in both hands. “My, she’s tuckered. Of course, she’s been going like ninety.”
Vicki laughed quietly, unbuckling her daughter, then lifting her out of the car. “That she has.”
With her hip she shut the door, then used the auto-lock button on her keys and settled Krys more comfortably on her hip.
“You can just put her on the couch if you want,” Lena said as they headed inside. “We can klatch in the kitchen.”
“Sounds good to me. Dan had to run in to work. He said he’d be over later.”
“’Bout time he started coming by again.”
Krys stirred a little, her eyes fluttering open as Vicki laid her on the couch and spread an afghan over her.
“Mommy?”
“Sleep, little dove. I’ll be in the kitchen.”
Krys sighed, rolled over and stuck her thumb in her mouth. Evidently all the problems weren’t gone yet.
*
Sitting at the kitchen table with Lena felt relaxing to Vicki. Her aunt was a good woman, always great to talk with about nearly anything. She might joke that bookkeepers were boring, but she was a widely read woman who could discuss almost anything if she chose.
Her sights were set a little lower at the moment, however. She eyed Vicki with concern. “Are you all right? I can see that Krystal is, but you were the one who got the biggest shock last night.”
“It rattled me a lot,” Vicki admitted. “Right now, I don’t want Krys out of my sight.”
“We can move into the other room if you want. I doubt the two of us talking will wake her. She’s out like a light from what I saw.”
“Yeah.” Vicki stared down into her coffee cup. “You know, Lena, even with all that’s happened, I don’t think I’ve ever been as scared as I was last night. If not for Dan...” She could barely stand to think about it.
“A long time ago, I decided kids must all have guardian angels. How else do so many of them ever grow up?”
A weary laugh escaped Vicki. “She sure had one last night.”
“And I’m mad at the jailers.”
At that, Vicki lifted her head. “Why?”
“They wouldn’t let me scold Junior Casson. Now I ask you, the man nearly kills my grandniece and one of my best friends, and if he doesn’t want to see me I don’t get to tell him off?”
Vicki’s laugh came a little easier this time. “Dan may do it for you. He said he was going to give Junior a piece of his mind.”
Lena ruminated a moment, then said, “He’ll do a good job of it, too. I’ve heard him dress down some youths before. Junior will have no doubt that he’s an idiot by the time Dan is done.”
“Good.”
Lena peered at her. “Did you sleep much last night?”
“Honestly? No. I kept seeing it over and over—Krys running into the street, me falling, Dan running faster than the wind. He barely made it, Lena. However casually he treats it, except for him...” The tears came then, running freely down her cheeks. A choked sob escaped her.
Lena jumped up and came to hug her tightly. “Let it out, girl. Let it out.”
Vicki couldn’t stop it. She’d remained calm for Krys’s sake, but she couldn’t do it another moment. Her daughter had come within a second of being run over by a car. The scene ran repeatedly in Vicki’s head like a horror movie on infinite loop.
Lena patted her shoulder, made comforting sounds, but didn’t do a thing to make Vicki feel she should stop crying. She’d lost her husband, and had just almost lost her daughter, and the pain surged in her, needing an outlet.
It took a long time, but finally she began to run out of tears. Her chest felt so tight she could hardly breathe, but finally she managed a ragged one. Lena straightened and passed her a fresh kitchen towel to wipe her face.
“Maybe you should take up kickboxing.”
Startled, Vicki raised her head, holding a now damp towel. “What?”
“There must be enough rage in you to want to take on the universe sometimes. Pounding something might do you some good.”
“I agree.” The deep voice startled her even more and she swung her head around to see Dan standing in the doorway, arms folded, leaning against the jamb. “Sorry, I let myself in. If I should go, tell me.”
She didn’t want him to go, although she was sorry he’d seen her such a mess. But then she remembered he’d lost his wife. He was probably as familiar with her reaction as anyone could be.
“Stay,” she said, her voice still hoarse from crying.
He came into the room, poured a coffee and joined the women at the table. “There was a spell after Callie died that I went to the gym nearly every day just to pound the punching bag until I couldn’t
punch it anymore.”
“Did it help?”
He tilted his head. “I don’t know that anything really helps. But it sure does wear you out. So the anger gets expended, and the grief moves back in, until the next time anger takes over.” He shrugged his uninjured shoulder. “It eases, Vicki. That’s all I can say.”
Silence fell. When Vicki at last reached for her cup to moisten her throat, she found the coffee had grown cold. The instant she stirred as if to rise, Lena snatched the mug, emptied it in the sink and refilled it.
“Thank you.”
Lena smiled sadly at her. “I can’t do much else except keep the coffee coming.”
Vicki reached out to squeeze her aunt’s hand. “You’ve done a whole lot for Krys and me. A whole lot.”
“Time will tell.” She turned her attention to Dan. “So did you give Junior a piece of my mind for me?”
“Yeah, I did,” he said. “And a piece of mine, as well. Sorry you couldn’t do it yourself. I know you’d have felt better.”
“I feel good enough that you did it.”
“First he was angry, but I just kept at him, Lena. You know how stubborn I can get.”
“Pretty stern, too,” she agreed.
“By the time I was done I saw something I thought I’d never see on a Casson face—shame. Doubt it’ll last, though.”
“How long will he get?”
“I don’t know. A lot depends on whether he was under the influence. As it is, reckless endangerment carries a decent sentence. Maybe assault with a deadly weapon. It’s up to the county prosecutor now. We’ll see.”
“If the county attorney feels like most of us in this county, she’ll throw the book at him,” Lena said. “About time a Casson got sent away for a while.”
A quiet laugh escaped Dan. “He’s going to have trouble finding a sympathetic jury, that’s for sure.”
Vicki was only half attending to the conversation as she waited for her emotional storm to settle completely. All she had to do, all she ever had to do, was take one step at a time. Then the next. Since Hal’s death, looking too far forward occasionally daunted her, and right now she wasn’t the least interested how long Junior Casson spent in jail. It was enough that he’d been caught.
What mattered was that her daughter was all right. Vicki wasn’t feeling especially vengeful, although she might later. Right now she was absorbing the fact that she had something to be truly grateful for. Krystal was fine, apparently less disturbed by last night than anyone else.
Vicki closed her eyes a moment, accepting a quiet sense of blessing, a blessing that existed because of Dan. She opened her eyes and looked at him, to find him regarding her with concern.
“Thank you,” she said again. “And don’t tell me I don’t need to thank you. I do.”
He nodded once, saying nothing, his gaze steady.
He was a remarkable man. Handsome, of course. She liked the way time and the sun had put fine lines around the corners of his eyes, lines that crinkled when he smiled. She liked the warmth she almost always saw in his gray eyes. She liked the way he treated Krys, and with the passage of time she had stopped worrying that he might overstep with her daughter. He never did, and the more he became involved, the more comfortable Vicki felt. He had good instincts, and she didn’t mind it when he made a suggestion. Not now. She no longer feared him encroaching.
He was very different from Hal. She had loved Hal with her whole heart, but he’d been a different man, more excitable, more hyperkinetic. Everything about Dan created a calming atmosphere, which she appreciated.
Well, except for her attraction to him. Traitorously, it was rising in her again, the longing for another kiss, for more than a kiss. She looked quickly away for fear he might read her reaction.
How could she be feeling such things hard on the heels of her near breakdown? It seemed impossible and made her feel both guilt and shame. But as soon as she recognized it, she caught herself. It was simply a sign that she was still alive. And like it or not, she was very much alive.
Just pass it off as life trying to reassert itself. That was inevitable, and it was surely no crime.
The conversation between Lena and Dan flowed into slower, easier channels. Lena asked about soccer practice, then talked about her plans with her friends the coming weekend.
“I’m going to spend more than I should, eat more than I should, and laugh until my ribs hurt,” she told them. “Say, Dan, aren’t you about due for vacation again?”
“Yeah, but I’m waiting. I always go in August or September, and I decided this year to take a winter vacation.”
Lena cocked a brow. “Heading for the sun?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t been skiing in a while, and I was thinking about that.”
Lena snorted. “Talk about spending more than you can afford!”
Dan laughed. He glanced at Vicki, but didn’t make any effort to get her to talk. Nor did she feel any desire to. It was enough to ride the flow of their conversation while matters inside her tried to settle. All the changes, especially Dan and last night, had altered her internal landscape. It might take a while for her to become comfortable inside her own skin again.
“I think I’m going to run to the store and pick up something easy for dinner,” Lena announced. “I don’t feel like cooking tonight.”
“I could cook,” Vicki offered immediately. “I’ve been feeling bad about you doing it all.”
Lena eyed her. “I told you I’d let you know when I want you to cook. And don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you’ve been cleaning this place. I don’t believe it’s been this clean since it was built.”
Vicki managed a smile. “It’s the least I can do.”
Lena looked at Dan. “She won’t listen to me. She insists on helping out financially, too. I ask you, do I look like I’m poor?”
Dan spread his hands. “I’m not getting into this with you two. Anyway, now you can spend even more than you thought in Denver.”
Lena barked a laugh. “Maybe I will.”
“As for dinner, I could make chili,” Dan said. “You like my chili.”
Lena shook her head. “Vicki might not. She’s from Texas, don’t you know.”
At last Vicki was able to let go enough to join in. “Hey!”
“Might be too hot for Krys, though,” Lena said, standing. Evidently her mind was made up. “I want something different tonight, so just let me go take care of it. I won’t be long.”
That left Dan and Vicki sitting at the table by themselves. Vicki had nothing to say, afraid that she would only talk about last night again. Then Dan surprised her back into the present.
“Callie and I wanted children,” he remarked.
She looked at him and saw that his face was shadowed. “You didn’t get the time?”
“Oh, we had time, we thought. When it finally struck us something might be wrong, we went to the doctor to find out. That’s when we learned she had ovarian cancer.”
“Oh, Dan. Oh, my...” Words seemed so inadequate. Vicki reached out and he took her hand.
“It still kills me that we didn’t know until it was too late. Sometimes I still read all the articles about warnings and signs that need to be checked out, but if Callie ever had any of them, I didn’t know it. One day she seemed perfectly healthy, with a whole future ahead of her, and the next day we were facing death. Those kinds of things haunt you. But you know that.”
“Yes.” But Vicki didn’t dare say any more. She waited, giving him some space to talk. After all, they’d agreed they could talk about their late spouses, a subject that generally made others uncomfortable. But apart from that, she really hurt for him.
He averted his face for a few seconds, and she could almost see him absorbing the blow all over again. But then he turned to her again and squeezed her hand. “Krystal’s a doll. You’re lucky to have her, and I’m lucky I met her.”
Vicki answered with a wryness that surprised her, given what she’d bee
n feeling and what they’d been discussing. “She gets her energy from her father. He didn’t like holding still. She’s not easy to keep up with sometimes.”
A smile washed away Dan’s haunted expression. “A definite powerhouse.”
“Until she runs empty.” Vicki hesitated, thinking of the little girl in the next room. She ought to check on her, then told herself she was being overly protective. She’d been trying hard to avoid that, because she didn’t want to deprive Krys of a normal childhood, or instill any unnecessary fears in her. The urge was strong today, however, exacerbated by last night.
But she had to consider Dan, too. She didn’t want to pop out when he’d been sharing something important with her. It would be rude at the very least, and possibly cruel.
He sighed, rubbing his thumb lightly over the back of her hand. An instant shiver of pleasure passed through her, and a self-protective instinct almost made her snatch her hand back. But she liked his touch. What was so wrong about enjoying it? Besides, he already knew how she felt about a relationship with a cop, how it terrified her. He’d have to be an idiot to have misread that.
He pressed her hand gently, then let go. “How’d we get so maudlin?” he asked. “Oh, yeah. Junior Casson started the show last night. Scares. Reminders. But this time no loss.”
Dan’s gaze grew intent, earnest. “Just keep reminding yourself of that, Vicki. Krys is all right.”
“No thanks to Junior,” she said a bit sharply, but then admitted he was right. Maybe she needed to reexamine herself in light of last night’s near miss. Apparently cops weren’t the only people who could walk out a door and never return.
What a thought! She banished it, not wanting it to pop into her head every time she was away from Krys. “You know,” she said suddenly, “it would be so easy to get neurotic.”
Dan’s eyes widened, then he laughed. “Yeah, it would. I’d really rather not.”
“Me, either. I’ve got enough problems I don’t want to pass on to my daughter. Additional ones are not welcome.”
His expression softened. “I think you’re doing pretty darn good, actually. She seems totally normal to me, in every way.”
