Winter's Daughter (25 page)

Tannis glanced at it, then did a double take. "But—isn’t this—Dillon, this is—"

"My place. Yes. Binnie’s my housekeeper now." He grinned. "She’s not a bad cook, if you like vegetables. She’s already making plans to put in a garden."

"Oh," Tannis said weakly, sinking into a chair.

"Is that something for Binnie?" Dillon asked, nodding toward the box. "I can take it to her if you’d like." His voice and his manner were distant, polite.

"No," Tannis mumbled, feeling heartsick and defeated. "It’s for you." She put the box on his desk and pushed it toward him. He gave her an intrigued look.

"For me?"

She nodded and watched numbly as he untied the string and lifted the lid. Dryness settled in her throat as she watched his hands fold back tissue paper and touch the dingy purple pompon, the limp gray wig. She thought,
It’s too late. I’ve hurt him too badly.

After what seemed like an eternity he looked at her and asked sharply, "What’s this for?"

"I don’t need it anymore."

He frowned. "You’ve finished your work, then?"

"No." She shook her head. "I still have a lot of work to do. I’ve just decided that I don’t need the disguise anymore."

"Why are you giving this to me?"

Panic began to stir in her. This wasn’t going well at all. She didn’t know how to tell him she was done with hiding and running away, and she was pretty sure it wasn’t going to make any difference anyhow. "I just wanted you to know," she muttered, standing up and turning blindly away.

"Tannis." Something about the set of her shoulders reminded him of the way she’d looked that day in the park, walking away from him, trying not to cry. He pushed back his chair, opened his desk drawer, and took out a dirty blue Dodger cap. When she turned to look at him, he was turning it over and over in his hands.

"Have you seen this?" he asked, laying the hat beside the purple pompon and picking up the newspaper that was lying on his desktop.

The Daily Bulletin's headline read: JAMES SELECTED TO HEAD MAYOR’S HOMELESS TASKFORCE.

Looking puzzled, Tannis stared at it and shook her head.

Dillon took a deep breath. "I still need a partner," he heard himself say. And then, knowing the risk he was taking, knowing he was probably crazy, he went around his desk and gently took her by the arms. Holding himself together, holding her with his eyes, he said harshly, "Tannis, why did you come here? Why did you bring me this? What are you trying to tell me with all this?"

"I—" She stopped, frozen.

He wanted to shake her, shout at her. Instead, he took her ice–cold hands in his big warm ones and said softly, insistently, "Tell me. In plain English, please. What does this mean?"

She swallowed and whispered, "It’s hard." Her eyes stared up at him, winter–bright with pain. And something else. Unmistakeably.
With love.

"I know," he said as the tension ebbed, and he felt a rush of tenderness. "But it gets easier with practice."

"I—love you," she said, then closed her eyes.

"There now," Dillon said softly. "That wasn’t so bad, was it?"

She was shaking. "I feel like I just fell off a building."

His voice was tender. "Say it again, so you’ll feel more comfortable with it."

It came on a gusty exhalation. "I
love
you."

"And?"

"And I’m not going to run out on you ever again."

"Promise?"

"Promise. Oh, Dillon—"

"I want to hold you," Dillon said huskily, "but I don’t know where you’re hurt."

"My ribs," Tannis said with a broken laugh. "Just like yours. Now we really
are
a matched set. But hold me anyway, please. I need you."

I need you.
Needing someone, she discovered as Dillon drew her into his arms, was as wonderful, in a different way, as
being
needed. It felt good to be vulnerable, and to be surrounded by tender, loving arms.

"I have just one question," she said as he bent to kiss her. "How do you feel about picket fences?"

"Picket fences?" He paused, looking bewildered.

Tannis looked up into Dillon’s eyes and felt the biggest, most wonderful explosion she’d ever known in her life. An explosion of love and joy and
certainty.

"Never mind," she whispered, touching the twin grooves in his cheeks with tenderness. Because she knew, with all her heart and soul, it was going to be all right.

–End–

Want more? Read an excerpt from
Sorcerer's Keeper

Sorcerer's Keeper

ELIZABETH RESNICK PEERED at the brass numbers on the massive stone gatepost, illuminated clearly by her high beam headlights. Nope, no mistake.

"Why stoppin’, Mom?" Wendy, her two–and–a–half–year–old daughter, had begun to rock impatiently in her car seat. "What you doin’?"

"Having second thoughts," Elizabeth muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing, sweetie. Sit still, okay?" She took a deep breath, put her ancient Toyota in gear and crept through the gate. It was open, at least, so Dr. Ward must be expecting her. She only wished she knew what to expect. Grace Ward had been disquietingly vague about her son, except to say that final approval, of course, would have to be up to him.

"Gramma’s house?" Wendy ventured, sounding doubtful.

"No, baby," Elizabeth told her gently, "this isn’t Gramma’s house." As always, she fought to keep any negative inflections out of her voice when she spoke of the Resnicks; the last thing she wanted to do was let her own fears contaminate Wendy’s love for her grandparents.

The driveway’s gentle curve carried them through trees and shrubbery made spooky by moonlight and suggestion.
All Hallows’ Eve.
To keep from being intimidated by the grounds around the house, Elizabeth tried to imagine them in daylight with birds singing in the trees and squirrels rummaging busily among the fallen leaves. In the spring, she told herself, there would be crocuses and daffodils. This would be a lovely place for a child to play.

In front of the house the gravel drive made a sweeping circle around a large lily pond with a stone fountain in its center. Elizabeth pulled the car to a stop between it and the front steps, turned off the motor and lights, and sat for a moment, staring up at the big house.

"Trick–’r–treat?" Wendy asked hopefully.

"No." Elizabeth reached for the door handle. "No more trick or treat. I told you, remember? Mommy has to talk to a man about a job."

"Talk to a man?"

"Right."

"Man’s house," Wendy announced, pointing over her mother’s shoulder as Elizabeth bent to unbuckle the harness of the car seat. "Big house."

"It certainly is," Elizabeth agreed, mentally squaring her shoulders. After all, while big meant lots of work, it also meant lots of room. Room for her, and for one very energetic little girl.

Taking a measure of courage from the small hand which had crept into hers, Elizabeth marched up the flagstone walk and pressed the doorbell. For good measure, Wendy pressed it, too. Twin foghorns echoed and resounded beyond the massive wooden door, delighting Wendy, who gave a little gasp and turned a pixie smile upward. The sight of her daughter’s sparkling eyes and open face, still framed by the red hood of her Halloween costume, gave Elizabeth a squeezing sensation in the vicinity of her heart.

"Someone’s comin’," Wendy said in a breathless whisper.

"You think so?" Elizabeth murmured doubtfully, reaching for the iron knocker. Just as she grasped it, the door opened abruptly inward, yanking her forward over the sill. There was an awkward moment while she struggled for balance, and strong hands reached reflexively to steady her. And then there was silence.

It was the kind of silence that follows lightning—tense, waiting for the clap of thunder. As she stared openmouthed at the man before her, Elizabeth even found herself silently counting:
One… two… three…

But except for that, her mind was a blank.

"Trick–’r–treat?"

As thunderclaps go, it wasn’t much, but it did the trick. The world began to turn again. Elizabeth’s mind began to function. She drew breath, felt her heart beating, became aware of an unaccustomed warmth in her cheeks and on her arms where a pair of masculine hands were touching her.

She realized that the man to whom the hands belonged was only a head taller than she was, no more than average height, and that he was surprisingly young. He didn’t look much like her idea of a nuclear physicist, but he wasn’t in any way intimidating. There was no reason why she should have a sudden attack of butterflies in the stomach, or a wildly pounding heart. Perhaps, she told herself, her nervousness had something to do with the fact that his dark brown hair looked as if he’d just gotten out of bed; or the fact that, behind a pair of dark–rimmed glasses, his brown eyes had focused on her with a warm but intent and puzzled stare.

Something about that stare made her feel off balance, uncertain. Fighting to regain the composure she’d lost, she shook her head and said, "Wendy, no—" just as the man ventured, "Trick or treat?"

"No, that isn’t—"

The bewildered look left the man’s eyes; they widened in a look of incredulity and delight that made him seem almost boyish.

"Trick or—hey, that’s great! I didn’t think anybody—Wait a minute now, I know there’s something here somewhere…" He looked around. With a triumphant "Ah!" he snatched up a basket of candy bars, knocking over a white envelope in the process. Without looking at the envelope, he picked it up and stuffed it into his shirt pocket.

That was when Elizabeth noticed the fork. The man had a fork in his shirt pocket. Not a clean one, either; bits of something resembling meat loaf were clinging to the tines.

Of course.
A smile blossomed inside her, banishing butterflies. What was it Grace Ward had said to her? "My son needs a keeper." Not housekeeper. Just a keeper.

While Elizabeth was still gazing in awe at the fork, Dr. Ward dropped to one knee in front of Wendy.

"Well now, let’s see. Are you Little Red Riding Hood?"

Wendy’s head bobbed in vigorous confirmation. "Riding Hood!"

Too bemused, for the moment, to intercede, Elizabeth stared down at the man she’d come to ask for a job. She observed that his hair was in need of a trim. She noticed the way the muscles in his back and shoulders changed shape beneath the fabric of his shirt when he reached to touch her daughter’s cape.

Planting her tongue in her cheek, Wendy took a tentative step forward and touched the man’s face with a chubby forefinger. And somewhere deep in her midsection, Elizabeth felt that warm, squeezing sensation again.

Wendy turned wide blue eyes on her mother and stated with absolute conviction, "That’s a
man.
"

Yes, it certainly was. And to her profound dismay, Elizabeth was beginning to realize that he was a very attractive one, too, something his mother had neglected to mention.

"Daddy?"

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