“I may never want to get up from here,” Liddy told her happily, surveying her little domain and examining the selection of books Callie had set out for her. “Throw in a personal masseur, and I’m set. You’ve thought of just about everything, haven’t you?”
“Except dinner,” Callie said, glancing at her watch. “I’ll go heat up something up, if you want. I’ve lost count of the number of people who have stopped by to drop off casseroles. You’re set for food for the next couple of years, I think.” It had been rather amazing to see all of the people who had appeared out of the woodwork to offer their support if Liddy should need it. Touching, even. Having roots did have some advantages after all.
But her mother shook her head. “Oh, no. I’m really not that hungry. I’ll just have a yogurt or something. But you two — Danny, would you humor an old lady and take Callie out for a decent meal? I’ll bet she’s had nothing but take-out and leftovers since she’s been here.”
Callie stiffened. The two of them out for dinner? Alone? She wasn’t sure if she was ready for that. Their fragile truce might not survive it. “I’m fine, Mom, really. I like leftovers. Anyway, I don’t want to leave you — ”
“I insist. I’ll be absolutely fine, honey. See? I’ve got the phone right here if I need to have you hurry home. I just feel awful that you had to drop everything and fly out here like this, and I know you’ve been working at the shop all week, too. You deserve a treat. Please, Danny?” Liddy fixed wide eyes upon him that would have melted the most hardened of hearts. There was even a slight quiver in her voice.
Callie frowned at her. It was a little over the top, and quite unlike her mother.
“Sure,” Danny said, his face neutral. “You want us to bring you back something?”
“No, no. I’ll probably just settle in for the night right here and be out like a light within no time. Don’t hurry back on my account. I’ll be fine.” Liddy smiled brightly up at them and then yawned a yawn that seemed a little forced to Callie. “You two go out and catch up.”
She could tell, Callie decided, that things were not right between her daughter and Danny, and this was her way of trying to fix it. There was no graceful way to get out of it.
She looked at Danny, hoping the unease didn’t show on her face.
His own face was unreadable as he gestured toward the door. “After you.”
Chapter Four
It was clear that she didn’t want to be here. She sat stiffly in her seat and looked everywhere else around the sports bar but at him.
“You can pretend to watch that baseball game if you want to,” he said dryly, opening up his menu and looking it over, “but don’t think for a minute that I’m buying it.”
“What?” she returned. “Maybe I like baseball now. For all you know, I could be the Yankees’ biggest fan.”
“Fine,” he said without looking up. “Then tell me what a ground rule double is.”
She mulled it over. “Oh, shut up,” she muttered finally.
He grinned at her then, unable to help himself, and she reddened. But she smiled a little, too. He felt a sweet stab of pleasure at the sight and told himself not to ruin things by saying anything else.
Their waitress stopped by their table and turned her attention immediately to Danny. “Ready to order?”
“Steak,” Danny said. “Medium rare.”
“The same,” Callie echoed. “And a side order of onion rings.”
“Anything to drink?”
“A beer.” He glanced at Callie.
“Make that two.”
The waitress upped the wattage of her smile, and Danny returned it politely but only for a moment, and she left. “Quite the appetite,” he observed. “I remember you as more of a soup and salad kind of person.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me anymore.”
“I suppose so. It’s a little unnerving.”
“Really?”
“Don’t look so pleased.”
She smiled again, and he felt a little more of the tension between them melt away.
“So tell me,” he asked, careful to keep his voice casual, “what else don’t I know about you now?”
Their waitress delivered their beers and the onion rings, smiling coyly at Danny again. “Anything else I can get you?”
“Thanks,” Callie said with a pointed stare. “We’re good now.” She waited until the other woman left before answering Danny’s question. “Hmm. Let me think … I’m unemployed now.”
He nearly choked on his first swallow of beer. “What?”
She shrugged in an apparent lack of concern and sampled an onion ring. “My choice. I’ll find something else when I’m ready.”
“When you’re ready?” He thought he felt his blood pressure rise on the spot. Did she not have a practical bone in her body? “Callie, jobs aren’t just — ”
“Have an onion ring,” she interrupted, thrusting one into his open mouth.
“Callie — ”
“And don’t talk with your mouth full. It’s rude.”
How could she make him want to shake her and laugh with her at the same time? He considered himself to be a laid-back sort of person, but she brought out tension in him that he hadn’t even known existed. No one else made him worry quite like she did.
She took a drink and leaned back in her chair. “What else … I’m addicted to salsa.”
“The condiment?”
“The dance. Oh, and I’ve been mugged a couple of times.”
“You were mugged? Why didn’t you tell anybody?”
“Oh, come one. You haven’t truly experienced New York City until you’ve been mugged,” she said. “And I’ve got a tattoo, a pimp, and a coke habit, too.”
“What?” He watched as a wicked grin spread across her face, and his eyes narrowed. “You little sadist. Was any of that true, or was it all BS?”
“The tattoo part was true.”
Picking up his beer, he put it to his lips to stop himself from asking where the tattoo was. Bad enough that images were already popping into his mind of inked artwork in intimate places. He took a long drink and tried to clear his head but found it difficult. She was teasing him, goading him because she was still irritated that he had not kept his opinions to himself about her choices. He shouldn’t let her bait him.
“Couldn’t resist,” she said, pushing the basket of onion rings closer so that he could help himself. “You’re so convinced that New York is this den of iniquity that’s going to swallow me up.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to. I know you, Danny. You still think of me as some little-girl-lost, but I’m all grown up now.”
That she was. There were certainly flickers of the girl he used to know. Same independence, same devilish sense of humor. But there was something … harder about her. He guessed it came from living on her own since she was barely old enough to do so. When she’d first left, he’d had many restless nights spent wondering about all the people out there who wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of a beautiful young girl, and he felt that he had let Elliot and Liddy down in some way by not finding a way to convince her to stay. “You certainly grew up fast,” he said finally.
She eyed him from across the table. Maybe she was trying to figure out if there was some sort of implied criticism in his words. He hadn’t intended any. It was just difficult for him to figure out how to relate to her now. Somehow a stand-in for her big brother didn’t seem to fit anymore, if it ever had. He would have to figure out something new.
“So, you love New York,” he said, changing the subject.
“Love is a strong word. The city has charm, though.”
“You’ve been there a while now. You planning on making it permanent, then?”
Her expression became wary. “I don’t want to fight with you, Danny.”
“I don’t want to fight either.”
“Then let’s not get into it again. I’m here to help Mom out for a while, and then I’m heading back to New York. I don’t know how long I’ll stay or what I’ll do after that, and I like it that way. You think I’m crazy, I know, or a flake, but I’ve just got a different perspective on life than you do.”
Danny leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. “Enlighten me.”
“All right. When’s the last time you threw caution to the winds and just did something crazy? Felt some instinct tug at you and just … went for it? Can you even remember?” She leaned forward. “I’ll bet you can’t. You’ve had a plan for your whole life figured out since you were a teenager. And that may be fine for you, but not for me.”
Her dark eyes lit up as she talked, and he found himself unable to look away as she continued.
“If I want to take off and backpack across Europe or hop a boat to China, I can do that because I’m not tied down. I know you thought it was a huge mistake when I decided to forget about college and head to LA, but I’ve never regretted it. What I would have regretted was living a life someone else picked out for me instead. I’m only twenty-four years old, Danny, and I’ve already done and seen some things that most people never will.”
“I know.”
She looked at him in surprise. “What do you mean?”
“I saw the piece you wrote a few years ago about the bayous. And the one you wrote about that old shopkeeper in Atlanta. The one from Saudi Arabia.” They had been well written, understated but moving. They had also been a way for him to get a glimpse into her life even though she was miles away. And when he’d finished reading them, he had saved the magazines in which they were printed.
“You saw those?”
“Your mom let me know about them. They were good, Callie.”
There was a faint blush in her cheeks. Self-conscious, she turned her attention to her onion rings, sweeping some of her dark hair behind one ear when it threatened to fall forward into her face. A few years ago she’d clipped it short, no-nonsense. The longer length suited her better, he thought, all soft and silky. He felt an urge to slide it between his fingers and find out for himself just how soft it was. Stifling the thought, he picked up his beer again instead and wondered if he had had too much to drink or not enough to be thinking such thoughts.
There had been another article that he had read, a couple of years ago, that he would be wise not to bring up now. She had written it not long after she had moved north, and it was about the differences between men and women. It, too, had been well written, but he thought that he had read something else between the lines. There had been a man somewhere along the line, and a bad break-up. He had no idea over what, but it had left her raw. Liddy hadn’t known about that piece. Danny had found it himself, and it had been hard for him to read. Partly because of the hurt she seemed to be feeling. And partly … well, partly he wasn’t sure.
He cleared his throat. “I don’t doubt you’ve done some major living, Callie. I just don’t think you need to live all the way across the country to do it.”
“How would you know? You’ve never tried it.”
“I’ve seen more of the outside world than you think.”
“Really? When?”
But that was not something he was prepared to talk about, with her or with anyone. He kept silent, feeling Callie’s questioning eyes on him.
Their waitress returned with their steaks, a welcome distraction.
• • •
Dinner was rather quiet after that. Danny kept his attention mostly on his steak, and the few times he looked up, Callie thought his eyes seemed distant. Their waitress, she noted, did not seem put off by that in the slightest and kept coming around to their table to refill water glasses that didn’t need refilling. Callie shouldn’t have minded since she and Danny were only there as friends, but the waitress could not have known that. The young woman tossed her blonde hair around and leaned forward in a blouse that Callie was fairly certain had been buttoned a couple of buttons higher when they had first sat down. It irritated her more than it should have.
“You have got to try the mud pie,” the woman urged Danny, not even pretending to care about Callie now. “I can’t let you leave here without a taste of something sweet.”
Callie choked on her last bite of steak, then recovered. “Just the check will be fine.”
She could have sworn the other woman’s eyes narrowed slightly in her direction before refocusing on Danny. “Maybe you should let him decide what he wants,” she suggested, leaning forward a little bit more.
If Danny was aware of the tension simmering between the two women, or the cleavage being displayed, he gave no sign of it. “No, just the check, thanks,” he said, glancing up only briefly from the table.
Callie grinned at the waitress.
The blonde scowled back and left.
Relaxing back into her chair, Callie watched Danny. She was both embarrassed and pleased that he had seen the articles she had written and had liked them. How her mother had found about them in the first place, Callie didn’t know. She hadn’t mentioned her writing any of the few times she had called her mom, preferring to keep the details of her life to herself. Maybe she wanted to avoid the possibility of parental disapproval. More likely it had been a way to get back at Liddy for withholding a few details herself, she thought with a flicker of guilt.
Across from her, Danny sighed heavily. She looked at him, startled, and realized he wasn’t even aware he had done it. Something was weighing on him, and she thought it must be more than Liddy’s accident or Callie’s lifestyle. She was ashamed to realize that she had no idea what was going on in his life now. It was her own fault, since she had virtually broken off all contact with home. She reached out to touch his hand. “Something wrong?”
He jerked his hand back as if she had burned him. She tried not to let it bother her. Some people were just private, that was all, and she should respect that. Wasn’t she like that herself?
“Maybe we should have ordered some of that mud pie to go,” he said with false lightness instead of answering her question. “For your mom. I know what she said, but I doubt she’d turn it down.”
She tried to match his casual tone. “Too late. Check’s here.”
The blonde slid their check in front of Danny and favored him with one last smile.
“Come back soon,” she said over her shoulder as she moved on to another table.
As Danny reached into his wallet for some cash, Callie glanced at the check. Her mouth fell open. “Of all the nerve!”
“What?” he asked, glancing up in confusion.
Wishing she had kept her mouth shut, Callie just shook her head and got up from her chair.
Danny leaned forward to get a closer look at the check. “Oh,” he said, dawning comprehension in his voice. “Her phone number.” He looked up at Callie. “You disapprove?”
“Well, for all she knows, you and I could be out on a date!”
“Mm. But we’re not, right?”
“She doesn’t know that.” She heard the annoyance in her voice and forced it out. “I just think it’s tacky is all,” she said with an indifferent shrug. She pulled enough cash from her wallet to cover her meal. “Are you coming?”
“Tacky,” he repeated, appearing to consider her words. He fingered the check thoughtfully. “So you think I shouldn’t take it, then? I mean, if she’s so tacky.”
“Hey, whatever floats your boat. Here’s my share of the check.”
He shook his head. “I’ve got it.”
“I insist. I wouldn’t want you to think I was a mooch as well as a flake. I’m going to the ladies’ room. Give you time to make your move o
n Blondie over there.” Looping the straps of her purse over her shoulder, she departed for the restroom without a backward glance, even though a part of her was dying to see if he actually did approach the waitress.
She pushed open the restroom door and braced herself against the sink, staring at herself in the mirror. What is wrong with you? she mouthed at her reflection. Her cheeks were flushed and her dark eyes flashed back at her. There was no reason for her to be snippy with Danny, and she certainly had no right to offer opinions on his love life. He could date whomever he chose. For all she knew, he was seeing somebody already and she had been so preoccupied with her own life that she had neglected to ask him.
Could he be seeing someone? It was only natural that he should. She would be lying to herself if she said she hadn’t been wondering about it since the phone call he’d gotten back at the house her first day back. As their waitress had proved tonight, he was the kind of guy to catch a girl’s eye. Why wouldn’t he have someone special in his life? She was embarrassed that the thought left a bitter taste in her mouth. Had she really expected him to live like a monk for the rest of his life so he could be at her or her mom’s beck and call? That was hardly fair.
She felt a flicker of panic that surprised her, and she did her best to smother it without examining it too closely. This was Danny, after all. True, she had carried a torch for him when she was younger, but he didn’t know anything about that. As far as he knew he was just a friend, and that’s all he had ever been. A good friend, but one she had left behind her in her pursuit of … what, exactly?
She frowned and peered more intently in the mirror. Life? The thrill of the open road? That was what she had told him earlier, but lately she wasn’t entirely convinced. There was something else she was looking for. Maybe the same thing her father had been looking for.
An image came to her mind, hazy around the edges, of her father holding her hand as they walked through the local park. It had been so long since she had seen a picture of him that the features of his face were vague and indistinct. Her heart constricted, and she turned away.
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