Winter's Daughter (14 page)

"You’re cold," Dillon said harshly.

The suddenness of his withdrawal chilled her as the water had not. "Small wonder," she muttered, feeling dismal and rejected. "I’m all wet."

His voice was gentle, but he didn’t move toward her or put his arms around her. "I know. I’m sorry about that." He bent to pick up her coat and dropped it over her shoulders. "Come on, my car’s in the City Hall lot. I’ll take you home."

She didn’t argue. They said very little on the drive, except to ask and give directions. Dillon drove with one hand, keeping the other loosely arranged over the lower half of his face. His expression, in the intermittant illumination of streetlamps and headlights, suggested deep and troubling thoughts.

Tannis kept her eyes straight ahead for the most part, and thought about how damp and itchy and uncomfortable she was, and how strange it felt to be sitting in Dillon’s two–seater car, with all its small personal betrayals of him: today’s newspaper and a map of the city on the floor under her feet; three pennies, a quarter and two nickels, a package of breath mints, and a restaurant check stub in the caddy at her elbow; his keychain—a brass oval with the initials DEJ on it—catching the light in minute flashes. She wondered what the E stood for.

She tried hard not to think about the kiss, that incredible embrace. And, of course, in trying not to, thought about it all the more. She’d never been so conscious of her body. She was conscious of every breath she took, every heartbeat. The sound of a swallow seemed shocking.

She felt so confused. She thought about the kiss, and the way he’d withdrawn from her afterward, just when she’d wanted so badly for him to kiss her again. Maybe, she thought, to him it had been no big deal. Maybe she was making too much of it. She wanted to ask him what was happening inside him, what the kiss had meant to him, and where things were going to go from here. But she didn’t. Whatever was happening between them, it seemed too precarious just then, too fragile to talk about.

"Oh," she said in sheer relief when a lifetime later they pulled up in front of her sister’s driveway. "Richard’s home."

Dillon turned off the motor. "You said you live with your sister?" His tone was neutral, even cautious.

She nodded. "Yes."

"That surprises me."                            

"What does?"

"That a woman as independent as you are doesn’t have a place of her own."

Funny, she’d never felt ashamed before of being thirty years old with nothing to show for her life but a string of college degrees.

"I have lived alone." she said with a shrug. She felt flat, depressed. "In New York and L.A. And Paris. For the moment, this arrangement suits everyone concerned. I needed a base from which to conduct my research, and my sister offered. Her husband is a pilot on international flights and has to be away a lot, so they were both happy to have someone to keep Lisa and Josh company. We’re a close family," she added when he went on looking at her. "We don’t demand a lot of each other, but we’re there for each other when it counts. Does that answer your question?"

He nodded, frowning. "Yeah, that one. I have another one." There was a pause. She heard him take a deep breath. And then, very casually, he asked, "Are you seeing anyone?"

Tannis listened to the ticking sounds of the cooling engine. "
Seeing
anyone?"

Dillon made an impatient gesture. "Yeah. You’re not married, or living with anybody. Are you—you know, seeing anybody special?" There was another pause that seemed to stretch on forever. "Because if you’re not, I’d like to. See you, I mean."

Tannis noticed that her heart had begun to beat hard and fast, the way it might when something momentous—or terrifying––was about to happen. "See me?" she asked faintly. "As in—
date?"

The sound he made may have been laughter or exasperation. "I guess you could call it that. I know I’d like to see you again. In the daylight, without having to peel and scrub you first." He paused. She caught a glitter in his eyes before he shuttered them with his lashes and brought their focus to rest on her mouth. "Will you have dinner with me tomorrow night?"

Her pulse was so violent, it rocked her. She listened to it for a few moments, thinking about the fact that only a little while ago she’d been wondering what might be happening between Dillon and her, feeling depressed because it didn’t seem as if anything would. And now that something definitely was happening, she felt a sense of panic, as if she’d climbed aboard a fast freight without asking first where it was going.

"Tough question?" Dillon brushed her cheek with the backs of his fingers. Her breath sighed between her lips. As she fought an urge to close her eyes, she saw the wry lift of his smile and felt again that unanticipated mix of tenderness and excitement.

"All right," she heard herself say. "Yes. Okay."

His hand dropped to her neck and cradled it warmly. "Great. Shall I pick you up at, say, seven?"

"All right."

His fingertips moved, down—up—feathering lightly over the bumps of her spine. She shivered, and to disguise the fact that his touch could so unnerve her, she grabbed awkwardly for the door handle.

Dillon released her abruptly and started the car. "See you tomorrow, then." She nodded and opened the door. "Oh, and, Tannis?"

She paused to look back, catching his smile. Again she felt that starburst of warmth in her chest.

Nodding at the bundle she held in her arms, he said, "Wear civilian clothes, huh?"

"Tannis Winter?" Logan said with interest, looking at Dillon across the disaster of his desktop. "Good Lord, the bag lady?"

"Come on, Logan, help me out." Dillon dropped into a chair and regarded the chief of police with exasperation. "Where am I going to take her for dinner?"

"You could always wait and see what she’s wearing," Logan suggested, and held up a hand to ward off Dillon’s rejoinder. "Now, wait, I didn’t mean it that way. Although, if you want to spend your time with a woman who chooses to go around looking like Tugboat Annie when you could have any woman in this town from your own age bracket on down—which is a considerable span, by the way—that’s your business."

Dillon glowered at him. "What do you mean, a considerable span? I’m not even forty."

"Pushin’ pretty hard," Logan drawled, but Dillon wasn’t paying attention.

"She’s no Tugboat Annie," he said moodily, propping his head on his hand. "You know." he added thoughtfully, trying to put into the words the insight that had come to him last night, "I get the feeling she does that—the clothes, the makeup—to hide herself. You know what I mean?"

Logan got a cop look on his face. "Hide? From what?"

"Not what, who," Dillon said, making an impatient erasing motion in the air with his hand. He paused, then said tentatively, "Me. I think she’s hiding from me."

"Now, why on earth would she do a thing like that?"

Dillon shrugged. "I don’t know. But I kind of have the feeling sometimes that she’s afraid of me. Maybe not just me, maybe all men, maybe of getting involved, period. Hell, I don’t know. I simply know she’s afraid of something. Kind of makes me wonder if something might have happened to shake her confidence. You know what I mean? Like maybe she’s been burned. What do they say? Once burned—"

Logan shook his head, looking pained. "What do you want to mess with this for? I gotta tell you, buddy, I haven’t seen you this uptight about a woman since Cindy kicked you out. Man, here you are, a free spirit at a time when single women outnumber single men about thirty to one, and you’re tying yourself up in knots over a chick with a problem? Listen, trust me—you don’t need this."

Dillon gave him a baleful look. "Where should I take her, Logan?"

"How about the Union Rescue Mission?"

"Very funny."

Tannis spent the afternoon agonizing over what to wear. She bounced from her closet to her dresser to the washing machine and ironing board to Lisa’s closet and dresser, while her sister followed her around, asking questions she couldn’t answer.

"Well, where is he taking you?"

"I don’t know."

"Why didn’t you ask him?"

"I don’t know, I just didn’t."

"Why don’t you call him now and ask him?"

Tannis merely looked at her.

"Listen, why are you so frazzled about this? In the fifteen years since Mom and Dad started letting you go out alone with guys, I figure you’ve been through this only— oh, maybe a couple thousand times, right? You’re acting like a high school kid! No—you’re acting like
I
would have if anybody had asked me out in high school. You always had confidence. I’ve never seen you like this. Is it him? Do you have some sort of special feelings for him, is that it?"

"No!" Tannis stated emphatically. "I barely know him."
Sure. And so far I’ve knocked him windless in a gutter, gotten him arrested, kicked him in the shins, clobbered him with my purse, and embarrassed him in front of the entire city council. And what has he done to me? Given me a job, and very probably saved my life. And he kissed me.

"Hmm," Lisa said. "Then it’s you, I guess. Tan, what’s happened to your self–confidence?"

"I don’t know." Tannis groaned. "What should I do with my hair? Do you think I should wear it up?"

Lisa sighed and went off to check on Joshua, leaving Tannis gazing dispiritedly at her reflection in the mirror.

Is it him, or me? What
has
happened to my confidence?

She stared harder at her reflected image, trying to determine what other people saw when they looked at her. She saw an oval face with a belligerent chin, a nondescript mouth, a medium–sized nose with a smattering of freckles, blue eyes with dark brown brows and lashes, and hair that could be called either light brown or dark blond. Nothing remarkable. Nothing special.

The truth was, she’d never worried much about her appearance; she’d always felt good about herself just because she had so many friends and seemed to make them effortlessly. People liked her, she thought, because she genuinely liked people, and looks had nothing to do with it. Girls liked her because she was a good friend, fun to be with, and easy to talk to. She’d always thought boys liked her for the same reasons. Most of the boys she’d dated had been really good friends, and until Dan, it never occurred to her any of them might have wanted to be something more.

Until Dan
. Right from the start he’d made it plain that he wanted more from her than friendship. Dan was older, in college, and well on his way to a career. He was a young man who knew where he was going and what he wanted, and one of the things he’d wanted was Tannis. And beyond that she knew now he had truly and deeply loved her.

Her feelings for him had confused her. Just looking at him and having him look back at her made her feel disconnected, fragmented, as if everything inside her were shaking loose. She loved talking with him, being with him, doing things for him. She knew he was everything she could ever want in a man, and she’d often pictured herself spending the rest of her life with him.

Oh, she’d told herself, but it’s too soon! She was too young—barely seventeen, with another year of high school ahead of her, and after that, college, and Europe, and acting school.
It isn’t fair,
she used to think in the depths of the despair only seventeen–year–olds seemed equipped to survive. Why did she have to meet Dan
then,
when there was still so much she wanted to do!

So she’d tried to make a friend of Dan, hoping, she supposed, to keep him in the periphery of her life until she was ready to commit herself. Like putting him in the deep freeze. Only Dan wasn’t buying that. He’d forced her, in his quiet way, to make choices, and so she’d made the only one she could. Even now, after everything, she knew she couldn’t have done things differently. The timing had been wrong.

So she and Dan had gone their separate ways, and she had felt a cold emptiness inside her, a bleak sense of loss. But she didn’t forget him, and whenever she saw him, which she did periodically during visits home, she’d known in her heart the feelings were still there—for both of them. And always in the back of her mind was the hope that someday, when she was ready to settle down, she’d find a way to bring him back to her.