Richard Dillon stood facing her, smiling. “Afternoon.”
“Did I leave something behind?”
“Not unless you count me.”
Her brows furrowed, and she pressed her lips together. “I don’t think I forgot you, exactly.”
“Can I come in?”
Cassie shrugged and then pulled the door all the way open with a nod.
“I didn’t mean to embarrass you today,” he told her as he passed through.
“Yes, you did.” Cassie closed the door. “You loved every minute of that.”
“You looked like you were having a pretty good time with it, too,” he pointed out.
She tilted one shoulder. “I have to admit, I haven’t had so much fun in a long while.”
“Well, that’s kind of why I’m here. The seniors have asked if we can include disco in the weekly dance lessons.”
“Disco!” she exclaimed as they entered the dining room. “Are you joking? The waltz, the rumba, and…the hustle?”
“That was my reaction at first,” he told her. “But then I realized there a lot of dances we can teach them that are line dances and not dependent upon a partner.”
“We?”
“I was hoping—”
“Sorry. But you could teach them. Oooh, like the bump! But a gentle version so no one breaks a hip.”
“Right. All they really need is a little exercise,” Richard remarked. “They were sure getting that today—and having a lot of fun while they were at it.”
“That’s so great,” she beamed. “Millicent won’t have a partner once I go back to Boston, so the line dances will work out really well for her.”
“When do you leave?”
“Just after the new year, I think. It’s sort of dependent on how fast the work around here goes.”
“And how’s that proceeding?”
“See for yourself.” She invited him, rolling her arm toward the kitchen.
Richard’s reaction was much the same as hers had been when she came in through the garage just a short while ago. “Is this the same room?”
“Isn’t it fantastic?” she exclaimed. “I’m so proud of what’s been accomplished in just two short days!”
“These are some pretty dramatic changes just to get the place ready for the real-estate market.”
“Yeah,” she said, standing back and observing the overall picture. “But it’s so beautiful. I guess I was just…inspired.”
“It sort of makes you want to cook a meal, doesn’t it?”
“You know, it does.”
“How about we do that then?”
“Today?”
“Sure. Do you have plans?”
“Well, not really. Aside from some painting I’d hoped to do.” She nodded toward the partially painted dining room wall, and Richard smiled.
“Why don’t we work on that first and then have dinner a little later. Deal?”
“You’re going to help me paint,” she stated in a flat, suspicious tone.
“Why not? You don’t think I can hold a paintbrush?”
“Oh, I’m sure you can hold one.”
“All right, you snippy little thing. You’re on. Let me show you how to paint a room.”
“Well, you can’t wear that,” she said, giving his impeccable navy blue linen shorts and light heather-gray shirt a quick once-over.
“A fashion critic, too?” he asked her.
“I mean, you’ll get paint all over you.”
“You just worry about yourself, young lady,” he challenged. “I’ll worry about me.”
Cassie excused herself and changed into gray sweat pants and a gray T-shirt with a large pink flower screened across the front. She stopped in the bathroom just long enough to pull up her hair into a high ponytail, and by the time she returned, Richard had already spread a drop cloth over the dining room table and chairs, taped a plastic tarp to the floorboards to cover the carpet, and poured paint into the tray. And he was dipping a roller for the second time.
“Cute,” he commented when he saw her, before quickly turning away. “We need music.”
Cassie flipped on the stereo in the living room. It was already tuned to The Joy FM, an exceptional local contemporary Christian station that she and Zan had discovered years back. The selection of music and the radio personalities were so unique, in fact, that they’d been supporting the station from up in Boston.
She and Richard hummed along with Mark Schultz as they tackled the task at hand. A little over an hour later, they set down their rollers and admired their surroundings. Cassie’s back and arms ached, and she toggled her neck from side to side until it cracked.
“It looks great.”
“I love it,” Cassie agreed, pressing both hands against her lower back and stretching. “But you know what it needs in here?” she said.
“A chair rail?”
Cassie turned her head slowly toward him and gawked. “Yyyes. How did you know I was going to say that?”
“Because it needs a chair rail. But you’re just fixing up the place enough to get it sold, right? You don’t want to sink too much cash into it.”
Cassie nodded her head and then suddenly noticed something very strange. Turning toward Richard, she stared him down.
“What?”
She sighed. “Look at me.”
“Okay.”
“What do you see?”
“A Café au Lait–dipped Cassie.”
“Right. I’ve got paint on my face and hands,” she said, extending them toward him. “It’s even in my hair.”
“You might want to grab a shower before dinner.”
“But you don’t have a drop on you.”
Richard glanced down at himself and then shrugged.
“How did you do that?” she demanded. “How did you not get a drop or splatter of paint on you? You’re wearing navy blue, for crying out loud. And you’re perfectly clean. Except for that dog hair, of course.”
Richard rubbed off the offending orange fluff, rolled it into a ball between his palms, and pushed it into one of the empty plastic bags tucked into the sack hanging on the back of the pantry door.
“I just think it’s strange, that’s all.”
“Would you feel better if I had a spatter or two on me?”
“Kind of, yes.”
“All right,” he said, heading toward the paint tray, determination driving him.
“No!” she exclaimed. She rushed toward him and tugged him away from it by the arm, laughing. “Don’t! Richard, don’t!”
“Thank heaven,” he said. “I was worried you were actually going to let me do it.”
“You mean you would have?” she giggled.
“The truth?”
She nodded. “Of course.”
“No way!”
Chapter Five
2 ACROSS: Vital; stimulating
Richard’s head was not in the task. He’d washed a selection of the vegetables he found in the refrigerator and begun chopping them, but his thoughts were like a plume of smoke floating toward an air vent.
It wasn’t the fact that Cassie was in the shower just a few yards away from him that had his brain humming; it was more to the point that she was undoubtedly going to emerge with her hair smelling like cookies. He’d caught a whiff of it when they were in the car that first night on the way to Benny’s and then again that very day when she’d tromped all over him during the fox-trot. The vanilla shampoo she used should probably be outlawed.
He wasn’t able to find parchment paper anywhere in the pantry, so he used aluminum foil to create a sack around the vegetables and then gingerly added a beautiful salmon filet overtop of them. Adding some chicken broth and a few slices of orange, he then sealed the packet and placed it in the baking dish.
Twenty minutes. That would give him time to touch up those edges Cassie had missed around the baseboards before cleaning the brushes and tapping the lid into place on the paint can. Since fresh paint fumes didn’t mesh
well with Poached Salmon a la Richard, he decided to set the table outside on the deck. The collie followed him to inspect the choice.
“Good grief,” Cassie exclaimed when she emerged a half hour later and joined him on the deck, freshly showered and—naturally!—smelling like sugar cookies fresh from the oven. “You really know how to get things done.”
Her bangs feathered across her brow, and that beautiful silky hair looked slightly damp where it skimmed the slope of her freckled shoulders. He noticed perfect little cinnamon-frosted toes peeking out from the straps of simple leather sandals, and he tried not to stare at the silver ankle bracelet just an inch or two beneath the billowing hem of her colorful sundress, despite the fact that he wanted a closer look. He found himself brimming with curiosity about the charm dangling from it.
“I thought we’d have dinner on the deck to escape the fumes, if that’s all right with you.”
“Fine,” she nodded. “You found the filet?”
“I did. And you were right, it looks great.”
“Poaching it?”
“As we speak.”
“Water, iced tea, or pink lemonade?”
“Water, please,” he replied.
A gentle breeze wafted from the canal as the orange sun began to settle for the day. A boat floated down the river, and the hull was draped in bright Christmas lights. An enormous lighted wreath was displayed on the back.
“I have to get this recipe from you,” Cassie swooned. “This is just about the best salmon I’ve ever had. And I’m a big fan of salmon.”
“Mm, me too. All fish, really.”
“I also love a good shrimp cocktail,” she exclaimed. “Very cold, with a light horseradish sauce. It’s not an appetizer in my life; I can make a meal out of that.”
“We can pick some up at the fresh market,” he suggested. “Maybe next week.”
He thought she hesitated for a moment, and his stomach churned at the realization that he’d assumed too much. But then she smiled and nodded.
“Sounds good,” she said, and then she sipped from her glass of pink lemonade.
Richard looked away from her, focusing on the dog curled into a large sleeping ball at one end of the deck.
“What’s your dog’s name?”
“Sophie.”
She lifted her head at the mention, blinked twice, and then resumed her nap.
“She’s a nice dog.”
“She can be,” Cassie said with a chuckle. “And she can also be a terror.”
Richard glanced at the dog again. Hard to picture.
“Zan was on a golf day one Saturday in Tampa with some friends. They stopped afterward for lunch at this little hole-in-the-wall place they liked to go to, in one of those shopping centers. Also in that center was a Petco. Out front, a dog rescue group had about a dozen dogs that were up for adoption.”
“I see a surprise coming your way,” Richard commented.
“Oh yeah!” she replied, and her little nose wrinkled at the memory. “So he comes home and the dog beats him into the house, starts tearing through the place like she owned it. Which of course, right away, she did.”
Richard laughed. “All’s well that ends well, though, right?”
“Well, the road to the happy ending is littered with dog hair and nonstop barking. But the real happy ending is that she has a home after a pretty rough start in life, thanks to this local group called Lost Angels Animal Rescue. I really don’t know how those people do it.”
“I’ve heard of them,” he recalled. “My buddies and I have played in their golf tournament fund-raiser for the last couple of years. They seem to do good work.”
“It’s heartbreaking work,” she told him. “There are so many stray dogs and cats with terrible histories. That group is just dedicated to them. I don’t know if I could take it, but Zan and Debra would have enlisted in a heartbeat if we’d lived down here year-round.”
Richard nodded. “Your husband seems to have been a kind man,” he observed. “Having a heart for the downtrodden.”
“My husband was a big Greek marshmallow. Funny and charming. And his charm wasn’t lost on any female, even the canine ones. Sophie adored him. And he had Millicent across the street completely wrapped around his little finger. She and every geriatric woman, and every dog from Boston to Holiday, for that matter, grieved when he died.”
Richard let out a laugh. “My wife was like that with cats. Wherever she went, cats…kittens…they just gravitated toward her. It was a little creepy, actually, except that she was so great with—”
He noticed the mist in her eyes just an instant before she turned away and looked out at the water, and Richard leaned forward and touched the top of Cassie’s hand.
“Can I ask you something personal?” he said, deciding to nudge the subject away from their lost partners.
“I’m not sure,” she replied with a sniff. “Give it a try.”
“What’s the charm on your ankle bracelet?”
Cassie smiled and then crossed one leg over the other, gathering the skirt in her hands just enough to display her ankle to him. Richard leaned in for a closer look at the black-and-white enamel crossword puzzle charm with a silver-tipped pencil stretched across it.
“Zan had a thing for words.”
Well, that didn’t really change the subject at all.
“He created puzzles and jumbles and word searches. Every year on our anniversary, he would make a crossword puzzle just for me, and one year he gave this to me along with it.”
“I’m a bit of a crossword puzzle geek myself,” Richard admitted.
Cassie nodded her head, serious for a moment. “I can picture that,” she told him, and then she grinned. “I can see you on a Sunday morning with your coffee and the paper and a very sharp pencil, laboring over the crossword. Or do you do your puzzles in ink just to be”—she shook both hands over her head—“a little crazy?”
He laughed, and then suddenly Richard could visualize those Sunday mornings, too. But in his portrayal, Cassie was there as well, sipping coffee and looking over his shoulder and shouting out the answer before he ever had the chance to come up with it.
He shook the image from his mind and then sank back against the chair. Just about the time he thought he might recover, Cassie stood up, leaned across the table, and stacked the plates, leaving an aromatic trace of sugar cookies lingering when she carried them inside.
“So what do you think of your new kitchen?” James asked her, standing in the doorway. He took a sip of coffee from a silver travel mug.
“It’s fantastic, isn’t it?” she exclaimed. “I really love it.”
She didn’t mention that it had already been christened by Richard when he made them the lovely salmon dinner the night before, but the recollection made her smile.
“I see you were feeling energetic,” he observed, nodding toward the fresh paint on the dining room walls.
“Oh. Yes. A friend came over last night, and we ended up finishing it.”
“I’ll hang the new lighting today, and you’ll have one more room complete.”
“Well, not exactly complete.” She treaded with care. “I was thinking, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, that a chair rail might be nice.”
James focused on the wall behind her, and she saw the light dawn in his dark eyes. “That would probably look pretty good.”
“Oh, good! If you’ll measure for me, I’ll go pick it up today.”
James produced a metal tape measure from his toolbox and, while he took the measurements, Cassie went to the desk for something to write on.
Her eye was drawn to the crystal “Surprise Yourself” box that was angled into the corner of the desktop, and she smiled.
Yesterday’s surprise had resulted in a wonderful day. She’d danced the hustle, spent time with Millicent, and enjoyed a fabulous salmon dinner with Richard Dillon—and all of it had started with an effort to “surprise” herself and be a companion to someone who was feeling lonel
y. She wondered what might be in store next, and she creaked open the lid and pulled out the front card.
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding” Proverbs 3:5.
She flipped the card over.
Do something today that you said you would never do!
Cassie shrugged and placed the card into the box, at the very back. She felt certain that she hadn’t actually said she would never buy a chair rail, but that was her plan for the day just the same. Once James provided the measurements, she tore off the sheet of paper on which she’d written them down and headed out the door.
Just as she was backing down the driveway, Cassie’s cell phone rang. She put the car into Park and flipped open the phone.
“Mom?”
“Debra! How are you, sweetheart?”
“Really good, Mom. I have some news.”
Cassie’s heart thumped hard several times. “What is it?”
“We’re going to have another baby!”
Tears sprang to Cassie’s eyes as her hand flew to cover her mouth. “My baby’s having another baby,” she crooned. “That is such wonderful news, honey. But I thought you guys decided not to have any more kids.”
“I guess God had other plans,” Debra said on a chuckle. “It was a complete surprise.”
“How far along are you?”
“About four months, can you believe that? I thought I just needed to cut back on the ice cream treats.”
“That’s so great. Hey…do you think you might have a girl this time?”
Debra laughed. “I don’t know. They didn’t tell me that.”
“Well, think pink, will you, sweetheart? I’d love a little granddaughter to round things out.”
“Okay,” she promised. “I’m on my way to pick up Jake from school. He’s got a sore throat, but I’m thinking pink right now, Mom.”
“Good! Give all your fellas my love.”
“I will, Mom. Talk to you soon.”
Cassie closed up her phone and tossed it on the seat beside her. With both hands on the steering wheel, she clamped her eyes shut and sent a prayer of thanks upward. When she opened her eyes, drops of tears cascaded down her face.
Love Finds You in Holiday, Florida Page 6