The Girl Most Likely To...

by Dorien Kelly

  “This place is wonderful, Cal. It’s warm and happy—a real home.”

  He lifted the velvet wrap from her shoulders and draped it over the back of a chair. “I want you to spend the night with me tonight. Here.”

  “But Mitch will be home sooner or later, and—”

  He smiled. “Sweetheart, Mitch knew about us before I had it figured out.”

  She looked so puzzled that he knew she hadn’t gotten there yet herself. He also knew that she’d have to work this out on her own, and in her own time. That was one of the things he loved most about her. There was no leading Dana Devine anywhere she didn’t choose to go.

  He held out his hand to her. “Will you come upstairs with me, now?”

  She hesitated, and Cal’s heart seemed to suspend between beats. Nothing in his life had ever mattered so much.

  Then she placed her hand in his.

  Cal smiled as his life reshaped itself into something marvelous and exciting. He could wait, he thought as he led her up the broad oak stairs.

  He could wait to tell her that for every night as long as they lived, he wanted to lead her up this staircase and make love to her.

  He could wait, but not much longer.

  13

  DANA WOKE to the music of birds singing, more birds than she ever heard in town. Their songs were joyous, demanding, all the things Cal had been with her last night. She stayed snuggled on her stomach with her eyes closed, not yet ready to admit that morning had arrived. Seeking Cal, she reached out one hand, but found she was alone in their warm nest of flannel sheets.

  “Good morning,” she heard him say.

  She opened her eyes, rolled onto her back and returned his greeting. “Good morning.”

  He had already showered and dressed. In one hand he held her dress. His other hand was behind his back.

  “Sleep well?” he asked.

  There was something so intimate about his smile. That same something had been there when they made love last night.

  Love.

  Dana drew in a slow breath as the world around her grew brighter.

  Love. She’d never felt it before. Not like this, anyway, which was the only excuse she could come up with for not accepting it sooner.

  “I found your dress, but I can’t seem to find anything that went under it, other than these.” He brought his other hand around and held up two sheer, thigh-high black stockings with their matching lace garters.

  “That’s because there wasn’t anything much.”

  His eyebrows rose. “You mean I got you undressed last night and somehow missed that?”

  Dana laughed. “You must have been distracted,” she said as she drew back the covers.

  Cal’s answering smile was slow and sexy.

  “You have a way of doing that to me.” He draped the long dress over the bed’s carved wooden footboard and dropped the stockings back on the floor. As he looked at her, she knew he wanted her, but it was there again, that special spark…that love.

  He climbed back into bed, and she twined her arms around his neck and kissed him with the love she felt, but still feared to voice.

  “I don’t know what you’re going to wear down to breakfast,” he said while caressing the line of her jaw with his thumbs. “That is, assuming we’re left with the strength to eat.”

  Dana did her best to make sure they were good and tired.

  ONCE MORNING had officially arrived, they decided that the underwear issue was unresolvable. After they showered together, Dana ended up going downstairs in one of Cal’s T-shirts, which was almost as long as a dress on her. Over that, she wore a bathrobe she was willing to bet had hung in his closet since he’d received it as a gift from a distant relative. Anyone who knew him could see that Cal wasn’t a bathrobe kind of man.

  Dana busied herself with the coffeemaker so she didn’t have to deal with Mitch, who was sitting at the kitchen table grinning like a fool.

  “Something funny?” she heard Cal ask his brother.

  “Can’t a guy just be happy?” Mitch asked.

  “Why don’t you go be happy on the job?”

  “Not even a cup of coffee?”

  Cal slapped a couple of dollars down on the table. “My treat. Now get lost, you’re making Dana edgy.”

  On his way out the door, Mitch stopped long enough to plant a kiss on Dana’s cheek. “See you, Sis,” he said.

  Sis?

  She shot a confused look Cal’s way, but he seemed suddenly enthralled by something in the fridge. Maybe Brewers were just squirrelly in the morning.

  The phone rang. Cal picked it up while muttering something about Hallie being the next to gloat. “Hello?”

  He looked kind of surprised by whoever was on the other end. After a long silence, he said, “I’ll let her know, and I promise it won’t happen again.”

  After he hung up, he came and wrapped his arms around Dana. She leaned into his strength, loving the way they fit together so perfectly.

  “That was Olivia Hawkins and Mr. V,” he said.

  “They wanted you to know that if you stay out all night, you’re expected to call home.”

  Dana smiled.

  “And Olivia wants you to help her pick out a wedding dress.”

  “Really?”

  Cal laughed, but she didn’t blame him. She’d squealed like teenager being asked to the prom.

  “How utterly cool,” she said with more maturity…but not much. Life could get no better than this.

  CAL DROPPED DANA at home and then decided to put in a few hours at the station catching up on paperwork and preparing for his final interview with the town council. He hadn’t been working more than an hour when the phone rang.

  In response to his greeting he got, “Mike Henderson has messed with my life for the very last time.”

  This time, Cal knew it was Dana. He also knew he was far too involved in her life to do his job properly. In fact, he needed the whole matter moved out of his control—both direct and indirect. He didn’t want to have the opportunity to wrap his hands around Henderson’s neck. After calling over to the county sheriff’s office for someone to meet him, he took off for Devine Secrets. He was barely inside the front door before Dana gripped him by the wrist and hauled him around to the back side of the reception desk.

  “Look at this!” She pointed to a pile of ashes, melted plastic and one spiral wire on the floor.

  “I’m looking. What is it?”

  “My appointment book.”

  After the scissors incident, Cal knew there was more mystery to what made a salon tick than a guy could grasp. He tread carefully, not wanting to upset her further.

  “Everything in the appointment book is on the computer, right?” He phrased it as a question, but he hoped like hell it was a statement.

  “Um…not exactly.”

  “How much less than exactly?”

  She used the back of her hand to wipe a tear from her face. The sight ate at Cal’s heart.

  “Like one-hundred percent less,” she said. “The computer died a couple of months ago. I meant to get a new one, but money kept getting tighter and tighter, and then I just kind of forgot about it.”

  Cal scrambled to grab hold of a reassuring thought. “At least he didn’t burn down the salon.”

  Another tear trekked down her cheek. “Lucky me. My life was in that book. It’s going to take me days to reconstruct my schedule, and I can’t leave the salon during open hours until I do.”

  Jim Caldwell, one of Cal’s buddies from the sheriff’s office, arrived. Cal sat next to Dana and held her hand as she told Jim about arriving at the salon and finding the back door jimmied open. Cal tried to keep out of the conversation and succeeded until the very end. He took Jim aside and told him the first place to go was to Mike Henderson’s. Odds were he wouldn’t have to go much farther.

  After Jim left, Cal asked Dana, “Do you have anything scheduled for this afternoon?”

  “No, other than some wailing and gnas
hing of the teeth, I’m fresh out of plans.”

  “No plans? That’s the first good news I’ve heard since I got here.”

  “Funny.”

  Except he wasn’t joking. He wanted to see her secure enough that she didn’t feel compelled to plot and plan for decades in advance. “Here’s what we’re doing. We’re going to Muskegon. First stop is to buy you a new computer—”

  “But I—”

  “After that, we’re picking up new locks and keys and a steel door for the back of this place. And tomorrow I’m calling someone to have a full security system installed.”

  Her hazel eyes narrowed. “I don’t want a security system. What’s the benefit of living in a small town if I have to lock up like it’s the big city? Besides, I refuse to be a coward.”

  “There’s one helluva difference between being a coward and showing some common sense.”

  “A stronger door is common sense. The rest is—”

  Part of Cal was pleased that she was feeling good enough to argue. The rest of him was fighting hard not to lose patience. “If you argue with me about this, I’m going to haul you back to the station and stick you in protective custody, got it?”

  She frowned. “Nice sentiment, but technically, I’m not sure you can do that.”

  Cal looked heavenward for guidance, but all he saw was some cherub his sister had painted on the ceiling smirking down at him. He glared at Dana, who clearly had her attitude set in “I can do it myself” mode.

  He blurted the first thing that came to mind. “I love you, dammit, but you’re making me crazy.”

  She didn’t have much to say after that. Then again, neither did he.

  MIKE HAD DISAPPEARED. Dana couldn’t decide whether she should be relieved that he was gone or worried that he was probably hiding while he planned another way to throw her life into turmoil.

  The personal protection order that Cal had prodded her into getting didn’t make her feel much better. Mike didn’t seem to have a whole lot of respect for paper, and that’s all it was.

  In the week since her planner had been reduced to ash, she had been trapped in the salon. She had reconstructed her schedule the best she could, based on her standing appointments and Trish’s planner, but there were too many gaps.

  The only redeeming event was having a new computer. With her Internet connection back, she filled those times when maybe she had a client coming in, but maybe not, with cyber shoe shopping.

  Cal came by daily, and they spent every night out at the farm. But for all those hours together, he hadn’t said another word about loving her. She really needed a declaration of love not given under duress—and without either a dammit or a crazy included—before she was going to feel safe in admitting her feelings.

  So as she waited, Dana shopped with an eye to remaking herself into a woman who could stand by a police chief’s side without driving him crazy. She bought quiet shoes…elegant shoes… Well, to her eyes, they were boring shoes, but they fit this new image she was sculpting. She also stripped the hot pink highlights out of her hair. Cal said he missed them, but she figured he was just being nice. She had been a tad depressed lately. Being a girl without a plan—or a planner—didn’t suit her any better than her new shoes.

  This evening, in an effort to cheer her up, Hallie had come over to the salon to help her paint two small occasional tables in a tiger theme for the Eden Room. One table was finished when they had run out of the deep orange hue.

  While Hallie ran back to her studio for more supplies, Dana had been amusing herself by painting names beneath various animals on the walls with a fine-haired brush. Cal was a lion, Hallie an antelope and Mike the snake, of course.

  She’d just started naming a flame-feathered parrot after Trish when she heard the front door chime.

  “That was fast,” she murmured. By the time she finished the h in Trish, Hallie still hadn’t appeared.

  “No fair taking a break without me,” she called, but no one answered. Fair was fair. Dana set aside her paintbrush, wiped her hands on the legs of her already paint-covered jeans, and walked toward the salon’s front room.

  “So did you pick up some chocolate? Hiding the good stuff on me?” she joked.

  Dana stopped in the doorway. Hallie hadn’t come in, but Mike had. He stood in front of her styling station, handling one of her pairs of scissors.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, trying to keep her voice level.

  He shrugged. “Checking things out.” He put the scissors down.

  So much for court orders. “You need to leave.”

  He sat instead, then propped his feet on the counter-top in front of him. Dana watched his face in the mirror. He’d switched off the charm. His eyes were dead cold.

  “You made a fool of me last week.”

  “You did that for yourself,” she shot back, then immediately regretted it. She tried for a conciliatory tone. “Mike, I don’t see any point in discussing this.”

  “Do you love him?”

  Dana didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Yes.”

  He stood, then swept his arm across the counter, sending cans and bottles flying. He was unsteady on his feet—not staggering, but not on an even keel, either.

  Dana knew she was in far over her head. She glanced toward the telephone. He followed the motion of her eyes. In three long steps he reached the phone and ripped the cord from the wall jack. “Think I’m going to make this easy on you after you trashed me in front of everyone who counts?”

  Now she was really scared.

  “I’m tired of working this hard. You were supposed to need me. You were supposed to come crawling back,” he shouted.

  He kicked over the manicure cart. The glass tray on the top shattered. Nail polish bottles rolled across the floor.

  How could she have ever thought she loved this man? Week by week, piece by piece, he had been working to destroy everything she’d fought to build. Dana didn’t pause to think. If she had, she wouldn’t have launched herself at his back. They both landed on the floor, sending one of the two reception chairs skidding into the front door.

  Ignoring the pain shooting through her left knee, she dragged in a breath. “How could you?” she cried. “How could you ruin my life like this?”

  Mike was already on his feet. He kicked the small magazine table. It shot past Dana and slammed into the chair. He yanked her upright. Hands gripping her shirt, he emphasized each of his words with a shake. “You threw me out.”

  She pulled backward, trying to free herself. “You were sleeping with another woman!” Dana locked her hands over his. “Just let me go.”

  “Not until you listen.”

  She bit his arm. Hard.

  He shoved her back to the floor. Dana pushed herself toward the door, looking for a quick escape, wondering where the hell Hallie was. Before she had a chance to get any closer, Mike grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her in front of the mirror.

  “Look at us. We’re perfect together. Perfect!”

  Dana stared at their reflection. She looked furious, an appearance in stark contrast to reality. She was more terrified than she’d ever been.

  Mike was a total stranger, not even a whisper of the party guy she’d married. He was gripped by something she couldn’t begin to understand.

  Dana recounted the facts slowly, carefully. “Mike, you slept with Suzanne. We got divorced. We’ll never be together.”

  He dug his fingers into her shoulders so hard she had to fight to hide her wince of pain.

  “Don’t you get it?” His voice was even louder now, maybe enough that someone would hear, she prayed. “She was just another mark. It didn’t mean anything.”

  The words were sharper than a blow. “A mark? Is that what I was, too?”

  He snorted. “You don’t have nearly enough money. You’re more of an addiction.”

  Dana thought back to those days in Chicago, especially those when Mike had said he was going to show up, but never did.
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  “She wasn’t the first time you cheated on me,” she said flatly.

  “None of them meant anything. You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved.”

  “Let go,” she said in as level a voice as she could pull together. “You’re hurting me.”

  Mike took a step back. “I’ve wasted weeks trying to make you see how much you need me. I’m the only one who can give you what you want.”

  “I think you mean I’m the only one who was blind enough to cater to you.”

  “No!” He picked up the stool she sat on while trimming hair and flung it at the mirror. The metal casters on the bottom of the stool hit like hammers. Dana instinctively ducked her head as the glass flew. Still, tiny shards cut into her.

  “You love me!” He was beyond reasoning, beyond anything Dana had ever dealt with.

  She started to scream, and when she did, she chose the one word that might gain a passerby’s attention: “Fire!”

  Over and over she shouted as Mike fought to clamp his hand over her mouth.

  He pinned her to the floor in the middle of the glass and brushes and hair products. Dana knew this was now about survival.

  “We’ll leave,” he said. “Don’t you see this is the way it has to be? We’ll move someplace else, start again….”

  Dana thought maybe she heard a siren in the distance. She kept fighting. Damned if she’d go down any other way. Her hand closed over a can.

  Please don’t let it be mousse.

  She inched her fingers forward and felt the small pump button of hairspray.

  Yes!

  She dragged the can toward her, gripped it and took aim for his eyes. When he let go of her to grab his face, she planted her knee where he most deserved it.

  His howl came at the same time as the sound of snapping wood and shattering glass. A deep voice—one she loved to the bottom of her soul—shouted, “Police! Don’t move.”

  Mike was too busy writhing on the floor to listen. Dana rolled to her knees and pulled herself to her feet.

  She touched her fingers to her forehead. They came away red with blood.