Everything had changed. She was too aware of him. Of how he made her feel. She could no longer pretend that their relationship was one of simple friendship.
Daniel was beginning to mean far too much to her. Get real, she ordered herself angrily. He already did. She'd known it from the beginning, hadn't she? That she could care for him…she refused to think beyond that.
So what did she do?
Absently, she picked up a skein of heather colored yarn.
She approached the problem as she would a knot in a tangled ball of yarn. Normally, she would gently tug at the yarn, first one way, then another until the knot finally loosened. A final tug and it would give way. No matter how she tried to unsnarl the twisted pieces of herself and Daniel, though, she could see no way to reconcile their differences. It wasn't that they saw they world through differently colored glasses; they weren't even looking at the same world.
She picked up the knotted skein, the strands hopelessly enmeshed in each other. And if the knot failed to unravel?
Well, then, she had no choice but to cut it out. Slowly, she picked up her scissors. The nearly silent snip mocked what she knew she had to do.
Somehow, she knew that cutting Daniel from her life would be far more painful.
When he arrived that evening, he didn't have to wonder what her reaction to the article in the paper had been. It was there on her face.
"You saw it?"
"Yeah." She flipped the paper over casually, covering the picture.
She was upset. He could see it in her eyes, hear it in what she hadn't said.
"I'm sorry." He reached out and let his fingers glide down the satin of her cheek.
"It's not your fault." She twirled a curl around her finger. "It must be hard living in a fishbowl."
"You get used to it."
"Do you?" She picked up a vase, set it down again and reached for a book.
He stilled her restless hands in his. "Why don't you let me take you out? We'll go for a drive and—"
"It doesn't matter. Don't you see? You're news. Wherever you go, whatever you do, someone will be there waiting, wanting a piece of you."
"It's not that bad."
"I won't let it happen to me. Not again."
"You're letting something that happened years ago control your life." He had to reach her somehow. Maybe cruelty could accomplish what understanding had failed to. "I thought you were stronger than that."
She looked as though he'd slapped her, but then she slipped on the mask that he knew she pulled out only when she was upset. Or scared. "You're entitled to your opinion." The uppity tone would normally have had him smiling, but he heard the pain, the fear that layered the words.
"What I'm entitled to is the truth."
"You want the truth, Senator. Try this. I don't want a relationship with you. Not now. Not ever. You pushed your way into my life, and I gave in. But I'm calling it quits. My choice. My right."
"Your choice. Your right. What about my choices, my rights? I…care about you." He might as well say the rest of it. "I haven't felt this way about a woman in a long time.
Maybe never." He waited for her reaction to his admission, one that had surprised him, not by the words themselves but by the intensity with which he'd uttered them.
"I know. But I can't care for you."
"You already do."
It wasn't arrogance on his part since he'd spoken only the truth. She did care. More than she'd believed possible.
"Daniel, I'm sorry. I can't see you again."
"You don't want to see me again."
He didn't know how much she wanted. Self-preservation kept her steadfast, despite the accusation in his eyes. "I can't."
She reached up to skim her knuckles down his jaw. The gesture was one of good-bye.
"Okay." Not a hint of sarcasm colored his words; not a glint of mischief sparked his eyes.
She stared at him, waiting for the relief she was sure she would feel to come. It didn't.
He was serious. He didn't intend on calling her, coming by to see her, bullying her into accepting dates—everything she'd claimed she wanted. She would be able to have her life back again, secure in the knowledge that Daniel Cameron wouldn't be coming around anymore, making outrageous suggestions, tempting her with what couldn't be.
She ought to be jumping for joy, planning a celebration.
She ought to be doing all those things and more. Then why did she feel so depressed?
Daniel walked out the door. And out of her life.
* * * *
A meeting with Sam Hastings about the homeless problem in Saratoga forced Daniel to focus on something other than Eve. Or it should have.
"What's up?" Sam asked when he had to repeat a question a couple of times before Daniel took it in. "Your mind's obviously somewhere, but it's sure not here."
Daniel dredged up a semblance of a smile. "A certain redhead."
Sam's grin was gleefully unsympathetic. "What's Eve done?"
"Refused to see me."
"Ohhhhhh."
Daniel gave his friend a sour look. "Yeah. Oh." His lips tightened. "The lady's due for a surprise."
Sam's expression sobered. "Just be sure you know what you're doing. Eve's a great person. She's also vulnerable."
"I know." Daniel looked about. "Carla out?"
Sam nodded. "Visiting a new mother. She promised to take the older kids out and give the mom a rest."
"Don't you ever get tired of it? I mean, Carla's wonderful, but doesn't all that…”
"Do-gooding?" Sam suggested.
Daniel smiled wryly. "Doesn't it get to you after a while?
Even the milk of human kindness has an expiration date."
Sam gave the expected laugh. He couldn't take offense at Daniel's flip words. Hadn't he thought the same thing when he'd first met Carla? "I thought so too. At one time."
"And now?"
"I know better."
Daniel flushed. "I didn't mean—"
"Jared calls her the preacher-lady." Jared Walker, Sam's teenage buddy in the Reach-out program, hadn't known what to make of Carla either. He'd been afraid to trust her simple goodness.
"Carla doesn't see her love that way."
"You've changed," Daniel said.
"For the better?"
"Definitely."
Sam's smile was full of tenderness. "I have Carla to thank for that."
"How do you know when it's right?" Daniel blurted out.
Sam didn't have to think about it. The answer came as easily as loving Carla did. "It's wanting to be with her all the time. It's knowing that you can't live without her and if you tried, you'd end up wishing you hadn't."
"You got it bad, buddy," Daniel said. Another time there would have been amusement, perhaps even a hint of derision in his voice. But now he felt only pleasure that his friend had found happiness. Pleasure mixed with envy.
Lately, he'd become aware of the holes in his life. Gaps he hadn't even been aware of. Maybe it was being around Sam and Carla and seeing the love they shared. Maybe it was getting older. Maybe it was knowing his future was linked with that of the country and wanting a help-meet to share it with him. Heck, maybe it was a lot of things.
Like a red-haired woman with golden eyes that always seemed to be laughing at him.
He'd been surprised at how right she'd felt in his arms. He'd expected her to feel good, and he hadn't been disappointed. What he hadn't expected was the rightness, the sense of having found something he'd spent all his life looking for.
"What're you going to do about her?" Sam asked.
"I'm going to marry her."
The words were out before he knew what he'd been about to say.
Sam didn't appear surprised. Well, Daniel reflected, his friend had always known what he was thinking before he became aware of it himself. Fifteen years hadn't changed that.
"Have you told Eve yet?" Sam asked. To his credit, there was only a touch of humor in his voice.
"No. I don'
t think she'll have me." The idea was hard to swallow, much less to voice aloud.
"I take it you have a plan to change her mind."
"I'm working on it," Daniel said. "I'm working on it."
He could be patient. He would give her the space she needed. A week, he promised himself. Surely, he could stay away for a week.
And then he would storm the barrier she had erected around her heart. He'd stage an old-fashioned siege. For the first time since Eve had given him his walking papers, Daniel smiled.
His Scottish grandfather would have been proud of him.
* * * *
Sam plucked a still-warm cookie from the plate Carla set in front of him. He finished it in two bites and washed it down with a glass of milk. "Daniel and I had a meeting this afternoon. He's got some ideas for funding more shelters that he wanted to go over with me."
Carla looked up from where she was removing another pan of cookies from the oven. "I've never known him to stay in town this long before."
"The senate's in recess. He's decided to stay here and do a little grass roots campaigning for the next election."
"Maybe there's something else keeping him here. Or someone."
Sam didn't bother asking her how she knew. Carla had an intuition about people that still amazed him.
She popped another cookie into his mouth.
"Eve told him to take a hike," he mumbled around the cookie. He swallowed. "I've never known Daniel to fail at anything. In college, he decided to play football. There were guys who were bigger and faster than he was, but he kept at it until he made the team."
Carla loosened the cookies from the pan and slid them onto a waiting plate. "Maybe he's met his match this time."
"Maybe. But my money's still on Daniel."
Sam looked at his wife and knew it could happen to anyone. At anytime. Hadn't he sworn he'd never marry? Carla had him tied up in knots within days of their first meeting. Heck, she even had his parents and him getting along these days. He knew how easily a woman—the right woman—could make a man forget everything, everything but the love.
"Daniel loves her."
"I think Eve loves him." She shook her head in answer to his unspoken question. "She hasn't said anything. They love each other. It may not be enough."
Sam looked at his wife in surprise. He'd never heard Carla doubt the power of love, never believed she'd even questioned its strength. Now she was saying it might not be enough for two people he cared very much for.
"Eve hasn't talked much about her past, only enough to let me know she'll never go back to Washington."
"Never is a long time."
"She tried to make a home there, stayed for as long as she could. For her father's sake. When she couldn't take it any longer, she came here."
"What about Daniel? Don't his feelings count?"
"I think they count more than even he knows. She won't ask him to choose between her and his career."
Sam thought about the woman he'd come to know during the past months and knew Carla was right. Eve wouldn't ask Daniel to make a choice. He wondered what Daniel, given the chance, would choose.
Carla reached for him. Automatically, he closed his hand around hers. He'd do anything for this woman. He wondered if Daniel felt the same for the woman he'd chosen as his own.
"Daniel's in love with her," he said again.
"What about Eve? Doesn't she have any say in the matter?"
"Did you?"
Her smile was answer in itself. Both knew they'd had no choice in loving the other. Both knew they'd have it no other way.
A whimper sounded over the nursery monitor. Carla started to the stairs when Sam stopped her. "Let me get him."
He returned a few minutes later and handed Zach to her. "Here he is. Clean, dry, and hungry…not necessarily in that order."
Zach began rooting around. Carla settled in the rocking chair she'd placed in the kitchen and prepared to nurse him.
Sam felt tears sting his eyes. Watching her feed their son was one of the most beautiful experiences of his life. The intimacy of the act made it all the more precious.
She looked up, a tender smile touching her mouth. "It scares me sometimes how much I love you. How much I need you."
"However much you need me, I need you even more." The words were nothing less than the truth. His life would be empty without Carla and now Zach.
Sam found himself hoping Daniel could find the same happiness. He knew his friend was looking for something. He'd sensed the same searching for something missing in Daniel that he'd felt when he'd first met Carla.
He gathered her to him and found her lips. Thoughts about Eve and Daniel fled as he lost himself in the wonder that was Carla.
Chapter Six
Her feet hurt. For the first time since she'd opened her shop, Eve looked forward to the end of the day. She curbed her impatience and pasted a pleasant smile on her face as she waited while a customer waffled between a set of placemats and a tablecloth.
When the placemats were decided upon, Eve boxed them, rang up the sale, and begged the lady to return soon. She prayed her words didn't sound as false as they felt.
Normally, she enjoyed the people who visited her shop. Wasn't that why she was in business? Because she liked people and wanted to be around them. So what was her problem now?
She didn't have to look far for the answer to her impatience.
Daniel.
Despite her resolve to put him out of her mind, he'd persisted in invading her thoughts and infecting her dreams. Her customary determination had failed her.
She missed him. The admission left her shaken. When had she gotten to the point where she needed a man—not just any man but a very special one—to make her day complete?
Well, she wasn't going to put up with it. She'd turned down an invitation earlier in the week for a party tonight. Her host had told her to drop by if she changed her mind. She headed to her room, pulled a dress from her closet, and started to get ready.
* * * *
Daniel was not a creature of impulse. On the contrary, he relished discipline, method, and order. They were the hallmarks by which he lived his life.
Tonight, though, something prompted him to ignore the habits of a lifetime and go with impulse. He'd promised himself he'd give Eve a week. It had taken every ounce of self-control he could muster to stay away from her for six days, but he'd managed it.
Now he was going to forget his promise and go to her. If she were half as miserable as he was, he'd be satisfied. The honest corner of his brain called him a liar. He wouldn't be satisfied until she admitted her feelings for him.
He knew she wasn't indifferent. He knew she cared. He was pretty sure she was halfway in love with him. All she needed was to reach the same conclusion that he had: that they were meant for each other. No one appeared to answer the door when he jabbed on the bell. He settled on the porch swing and prepared to wait. He was still waiting when dusk had given way to night and stars studded the sky.
He consoled himself with the thought that waiting was the easy part. Convincing Eve to give him—to give them—a chance was going to be much harder. When a car door slammed, he started from the slight doze he'd fallen into. He looked up in time to see Eve climb out of a flashy sports car. A street
light caught her in its glare, silhouetting her against the night.
Red.
Her dress was brilliantly, brazenly, boldly red.
She dispelled any remains of the old-fashioned notion that redheads shouldn't wear red. The dress glittered. It sparkled.
It shimmered.
But no more so than the woman inside it.
Her hair caught in a cascade of curls, it rippled down her back in wave upon wave of copper and bronze, gold and mahogany, ginger and chestnut. Haloed beneath the streetlight, the colors shifted as she moved.
He stood, transfixed, and simply stared, forgetting that he'd been waiting by her front door for the better part of two hours, forgetting
about his cold hands and colder feet, forgetting everything but the woman who had occupied his thoughts for the last weeks.
The breath whooshed from him as if he'd been felled by a blow. Each time he saw her, it was like seeing her for the first time all over again. Sure, he was struck by her beauty. What man wouldn't be? But it was more than that.
Looks aside, she radiated an energy, enthusiasm, and eagerness for life. Her very essence was one of joy. At times, he sensed an almost desperate desire in her to cram every moment full of living.
Was it because of what had happened to her mother? Of course, it was, he answered his own question.
She waved goodbye to the carload of people who had dropped her off, her laughter floating back to him. She'd obviously been out partying. Jealousy tightened his lips as he saw her bend to kiss the driver goodbye. Less than a week since she'd dismissed him and she was already seeing someone else.
She turned, saw him, and froze. When she started toward him, he couldn't wait. He closed the remaining distance between them with three long strides and took her in his arms. "I couldn't stay away," he said at last.
Because she felt the same way, because she was so glad to see him, because she would have gone to him if he hadn't come to her, she walked into his arms. His strong arms. His gentle arms. His welcoming arms.
He rocked them both back and forth. She held on. For this moment, the past was gone, the future only a shadow. All that mattered was now.
He drew a fistful of hair to his nose. It smelled fresh and clean and slightly exotic, like one of the pots of potpourri she had scattered about her shop.
Eve pressed her face against his shoulder. He smelled of good, clean male. She clung tighter.
When they could bear to let each other go, she fumbled in her purse for her key. Her fingers were clumsy. Laughing, crying, she dumped the contents out on the porch. The keys gleamed under the porch light.
Daniel bent to help scoop things back into her purse, his fingers colliding with hers. Heat raced from his hand to her own. She handed the keys to him, not trusting her own reactions.
He opened the door. Warmth greeted them. Chilled hands chafed chilled hands. Hungry lips met hungry lips. Soft sighs echoed soft sighs.
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