“It looks beautiful to me. Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” When he smiled at her like that, she forgot she had earned a doctorate of veterinary medicine. She forgot she was a single mother of two children and felt as if she were screwing up at every turn. She forgot about the fact that his father held her future in his hands and that ruining this opportunity Frank Morales had given her would be a disaster for her and her daughters.
Nothing else seemed to matter except the thick surge of blood in her veins, the butterflies suddenly swarming in her stomach, her overwhelming awareness of him.
She cleared her throat, appalled at herself. “Mia, now that you’ve seen the Christmas tree, you really do need to get to sleep. Tell Ruben good-night one more time, then head in.”
Mia sighed and rested her cheek against his shoulder for a moment, as if she didn’t want to leave him, either.
“Good night, Mia,” he said.
“Okay. Good night.” Mia threw her arms around his neck and hugged him, then kissed his cheek. “Thank you for putting the twinkly lights on my Christmas tree. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“You’re very welcome. I’ll see you later.”
The poor man looked completely enamored and Dani supposed she couldn’t blame him. Mia had a great deal of her father’s charm when she wanted to use it. The little girl smiled at him, waved and hurried out of the room.
“I need to tuck her in,” she said. “You said you are almost done?”
“Yeah. It won’t take me long to hang that last string. I can let myself out, if you have to help Mia with her bedtime routine.”
“Thank you again for everything.”
“I’m glad to help,” he assured her with another smile that made her hurry down the hall to the girls’ bedrooms with her heart pounding as if she’d never seen a gorgeous man smile.
In Mia’s room, she read her daughter a short bedtime story and listened while she said her prayers.
“I sure like Deputy Ruben,” Mia said sleepily when she finished.
Dani did, too. Entirely too much. “He’s very nice, isn’t he?”
“Why doesn’t he have any little girls?”
That was an excellent question. Why hadn’t the smart women of Haven Point snapped up a gorgeous, kind man like him years ago?
“I guess because he’s not as lucky as I am,” Dani said. She kissed her daughter on the forehead. “Good night, sweetie.”
“Tomorrow, I get to decorate the tree,” Mia said, already half-asleep.
“Yes, you do.”
“I can’t wait.”
Dani couldn’t help feeling a little envious as she left the room with Mia still smiling about the prospect. How long had it been since she treated each new day like an adventure?
She did love her job. Working with animals had always been her refuge, from the time before her mother got sick. She used to hide any stray cat and dog she found in her room, smuggling in food to it and making little beds on the floor.
Her mom would always find out and would shake her head.
“I’m sorry, but we can’t keep it, cara mia,” Sofia Capelli would say. “You know the rules about animals in the apartment and we can’t afford to be evicted.”
The two of them would take the subway to the nearest shelter, where Dani would say goodbye, then cry all the way back to their apartment.
That love for animals had sustained her through what she called in her head the “foster care years.” In several of her placements, the families had pets, much to her delight. For reasons she couldn’t fully explain, they always seemed to gravitate to Dani.
In her experience, animals could have amazing emotional instincts, sensing where they were needed most. Maybe they could tell she was bruised by life, lonely, afraid, and needed the steady, uncomplicated love of a dog or a cat.
Regardless, she loved caring for them and would always end up taking over responsibility for feeding them and cleaning up after them.
It had always been harder to say goodbye to the animals in each foster care placement than it had the people, even those who were kind to her.
Loving animals and having a calming way with them had led her to getting a part-time job in high school at that same shelter where she and her mother used to drop off the strays she gathered. Every day when she would take the subway, she would remember those trips with Sofia and miss her mother with a sharp, piercing ache.
She pushed away the memories. She no longer wallowed in self-pity, as she might have done when she was Silver’s age.
Yes, her mom had died when she was a kid and she had ended up in foster care. That truly sucked. She had caught a bad break, like millions of other kids who found themselves in a similar situation, but she still had managed to create a good life for herself and her daughters.
Silver’s bedroom light was out, she could see by the dark crack under the door, but Dani decided to say good-night anyway. She pushed open the door and, in the small glow from Silver’s retro alarm clock picked up at a thrift store in Boston, she could see her daughter’s hair and a pale blur of skin.
Silver shifted her gaze sleepily toward the door. “What do you want?” she asked, belligerence still threading through her voice.
Dani sighed. “Just checking on you. Do you need anything?”
“No,” her daughter said after a moment, her tone a little less abrasive.
“Good night, then,” Dani said softly. “I love you, Silverbell.”
“Love you, too,” Silver whispered, and Dani had to swallow away the emotions at those rare words that felt like a gift.
When she returned to the hallway, she assumed Ruben had finished and left already, until she heard the low murmur of a man’s voice coming from the living room as Ruben said something to Winky.
She caught a hint of his outdoorsy soap above the overwhelming pine scent from the tree and she stood for a moment, eyes closed, trying to ignore the sudden jittery ache inside her.
She could do this. She only had to make it through saying good-night to him, then she could close the door behind him and do her best to push the man out of her head as easily as she did out of her house.
After sucking in a deep breath, she made her way to the living room, where she found Ruben on the sofa, winding an unused strand of lights around a plastic organizer that must have been inside the box from his father.
He had turned all the lights off so that only the Christmas tree glowed in the room, a kaleidoscope of colors gleaming against the walls and reflected in the window.
He smiled when he caught sight of her. “Nice, isn’t it?”
“It’s beautiful,” she admitted, oddly emotional at the sight—or maybe at his kindness in helping put it up for her daughters.
“I feel as awestruck as Mia right now,” she said. “There’s something so magical about a Christmas tree, especially the first night or two when it feels new again but somehow familiar.”
“Agreed. To me, a beautiful Christmas tree like this one represents hope and peace and the wonder of the season.”
“Yet you still don’t have one of your own.”
“I can appreciate the beauty of something even when it’s not mine.”
She smiled, moving closer to the tree. “In a week or so, I’ll be tired of the needles and the sap and bored with having to water it every day, but right now I will simply enjoy it.”
He gestured to the sofa beside him. She hesitated, everything inside her telling her it would be a bad idea, considering this awareness she couldn’t seem to fight. She gave a mental shrug. She could live a little dangerously for a few more moments. Besides, she had something she needed to say to him and now seemed the perfect opportunity.
She sat next to him, aware of the heat coming from him. “I’ve been looking back across the last few days,” sh
e said slowly, not meeting his gaze, “and I have the sinking suspicion that, like Silver, I probably haven’t acted as...grateful to you as I should have.”
“For what it’s worth, I don’t have that impression at all.”
She sighed. He was trying to be nice and she couldn’t take the easy way out. Not when she was trying to teach the same lessons about expressing gratitude to her children.
“It’s not easy for me, accepting help. You probably figured that out by now.”
She finally dared to look at him in time to catch a slow, sweet smile that made her swallow hard.
“I may have had a hint or two,” he drawled.
“I’m sorry. It’s an ingrained reflex.”
“Like Pavlov’s dogs?”
She made a face at his reference to the classic psychological experiment. “Something like that. I’ve had to do most things on my own on and off for most of my girls’ lives. Their father was...not around much.”
She didn’t tell him why, that the man she had married the day before her eighteenth birthday had spent most of their married life in prison and that even after he came out, he couldn’t wean himself away from the life.
“I’ve had to learn how to do everything, from fixing the garbage disposal to changing oil in my cars to setting up the Christmas tree.”
“Seems like you’ve done a pretty good job so far.”
For some reason, his words hit her hard. Dani thought of all her insecurities, all the lonely nights she sat up worrying for her daughters, all the things she couldn’t give them, all the mistakes and fears and sorrows she couldn’t heal.
She thought of the nights over the last three months where Silver had cried herself to sleep over her father, and her fear the time Mia had influenza, and the loneliness that sometimes had her tossing and turning in bed, longing for something that hadn’t been part of her life in years.
Couldn’t he see she was a disaster, barely holding the pieces of her life together?
“Sure. That’s me. Totally in control. No problems here.”
She laughed a little hysterically. The sound horrified her and she tried to cover her mouth with her hand but a sob escaped anyway.
“Are you okay?” he asked, setting aside the light string he had been holding.
“I...” She couldn’t lie. Not to him and not to herself.
In the end, she didn’t need to. He reached for her and, like Mia had earlier, she sank into the safety of his arms and the undeniable comfort of that wide, capable chest.
How long had it been since someone had offered to take on her burdens, if only for a moment? It felt incredible to push them out of her mind and lay them down for now.
Another sob escaped and then another and before she knew it, her shoulders were shaking as she let out all the stress and turmoil that had been haunting her since the night he had brought Silver over with red spray paint on her hands.
Since much, much longer, if she were honest.
She couldn’t have said how long she cried against him while the tree lights sparkled against the window and Winky snored softly at their feet. She couldn’t have even said exactly why she was crying. It didn’t really matter, she supposed, as reason intruded again and she came back to the reality that she was snuggled against Ruben, practically on his lap, and had just let him see a vulnerability she hid so carefully from the rest of the world. Even from herself.
She sniffled one last time, her breathing ragged, then pulled away slightly, too embarrassed to meet his gaze. “I can’t believe I just completely lost it and blubbered all over your shirt. Can we just pretend the last few moments never happened?”
“If that would make you feel better.”
She was not one of those lucky women who cried prettily, with delicate, diamond-shaped teardrops leaking out from under their perfect eyelashes.
When Dani cried, her nose ran, her skin went splotchy, her eyes turned as red-rimmed as Christmas ornaments.
“I don’t think anything could make me feel better right now.” There was a box of tissues on the side table, left there from the last time Mia had a cold when Dani had scattered them all over the house for her, and she reached for it gratefully, dabbing at her face even though she knew nothing she did would help fix what was likely a hideous mess.
“I never lose it like that. Ever. I can’t remember the last time I cried.”
“Then you were overdue,” he said, with such kindness in his voice that she almost started up all over again.
“You must think I’m an idiot.”
“I think you’re a woman doing her best to raise two girls, trying to make a new life in a new town. I’m surprised you haven’t had a dozen breakdowns since you came to Haven Point.”
“I’ll admit to three or four small ones, after the girls are in bed.”
“If that’s all, then I would say you’re doing fine.”
She didn’t necessarily agree. If she was doing fine and things were going well, her daughter wouldn’t have felt compelled to damage the property of three of their new neighbors.
Still, she appreciated his efforts to make her feel better.
“You’re a very nice man, Deputy Morales. I imagine in your line of work you get plenty of experience dealing with irrational people.”
“Sometimes. But there’s a difference between being irrational and being emotionally exhausted and justifiably stressed. In my professional opinion, you fall in the latter category. There’s no shame in needing someone to hold you once in a while.”
She was in deep, deep danger of falling hard for this man. How in the world was she supposed to prevent it, when he could be so very sweet?
“Well, thank you. I appreciate you being so understanding.”
“Anytime.”
He spoke the word gruffly and she gazed at him, that hunger from earlier swirling back.
It had never really left, she realized.
If it felt so good to be held by him, how wonderful would it feel to kiss him?
One little kiss. What could that hurt?
She didn’t give herself time to answer, only leaned forward to close the space between them and kissed the corner of his mouth. She told herself it was done only in gratitude, a small, rather insignificant gesture to let him know she appreciated all he had done for her family over the past few days and especially for doing his best to help her not feel like an idiot for the last few moments.
The moment her mouth touched warm male skin, however, she knew that for a lie. She was kissing him because she wanted to kiss him. Because she wanted him.
Ruben froze for only an instant and the moment seemed crystallized in time, like a pretty snow globe ornament hanging on the tree, then he shifted his mouth and kissed her fiercely, urgently, as if he had been waiting weeks for just this moment.
She hadn’t been with a man since her divorce and only now did she admit how very much she had missed this surge of her blood, the catch in her breathing, the ache deep inside.
Everything she had so carefully stored away inside her after her marriage fell apart came roaring back, all her needs and hungers and aches.
His mouth was warm, firm, and she tasted hints of thick, rich chocolate and cinnamon sugar.
If she thought a woman could get drunk on the smell of his mother’s kitchen, the taste of those same delicious flavors on his mouth against hers was a thousand times better.
9
She didn’t want the kiss to end.
It was magical, delicious, like a hundred dreams come true wrapped up in one heated embrace.
With the snow fluttering down outside and the Christmas tree lights gleaming beside them, the moment seemed perfect. Better than she ever could have imagined.
He didn’t seem to want things to end, either. His mouth was fierce on hers, as if he couldn’t get enough, and sh
e could feel his racing pulse, his ragged breathing.
She had a wild urge to lead him down the hall to her bedroom, to keep kissing him—and more—all night, but she could never do that with her girls in the house. They risked disaster here, kissing in the front room where Silver or Mia might walk in on them at any moment.
The reminder of her daughters cast a shadow over the kiss, a shadow that darkened further when she felt a pressure against her leg that didn’t feel quite right.
Her mouth still tangled with Ruben’s, she shifted her gaze down and found Winky resting her chin on Dani’s knee, watching the two of them with interest. They had an audience. Her little dog.
That was the distraction she needed, the one that effectively snapped her out of the heated embrace and back to reality.
She should not be doing this, kissing Ruben Morales as if her life depended on it.
What was she thinking?
Yes, he was a kind man. Big deal. She didn’t need a kind man right now. She didn’t need any man, but especially not this one, a law enforcement officer and her boss’s son.
If she wanted a life for her daughters here in Haven Point, she needed to make it through this yearlong internship. She couldn’t allow anything to threaten that. She especially couldn’t let down her guard around Ruben.
She couldn’t be foolish enough to think she might actually have a future with a man like him. Why would he want someone who had her history of poor judgment, who had been naive and stupid enough to marry a man capable of Tommy’s crimes and have not one, but two children with him?
If Ruben knew the truth about Dani and her past, he wouldn’t want her anywhere near him or his family.
That didn’t change the fact that she wanted him, that she wanted to stay right here nestled against his hard chest and broad shoulders, where the past and her own mistakes seemed far enough away that they couldn’t hurt her.
She sighed. The past always had a way of painting the present with its own ugly brush.
Season of Wonder Page 12
