Heart Stealers

by Patricia McLinn

  “Naw. She didn’t want to disturb Daniel.”

  Through the door’s glass insert, Kendra spotted Fran and Marti sitting to one side with Matthew and Emily in their laps, all four of them listening to the music coming from the old, vaguely out-of-tune upright more often used for “Happy Birthday” or “Old McDonald.” Despite that – or maybe partly because of it – the music had a power and pathos that tightened her throat.

  The piano blocked her view of Daniel, so she saw only the top of his dark head.

  “You know the classics, Luke?” Ellyn asked.

  “Can’t say I know them. But Chopin... Somebody once told me she figured Chopin wanted to make you hear pain in beautiful music.”

  Kendra looked around, but Luke didn’t meet her eyes.

  Ellyn laid a hand on her arm. “I’ll take Matthew home with me, Kendra. You come by later if you want, or we’ll keep him overnight, whatever you need, okay?”

  “Okay. Thanks. Both of you.”

  Kendra inhaled, then eased the door open. The motion caught the attention of all four listeners. In a flash, Matthew slid off Fran’s lap and trundled toward her with a big grin. The others followed more sedately.

  “Dan’l,” Matthew announced, pointing a chubby finger toward the piano.

  She laid a finger across her lips, and wonder of wonders, Matthew obeyed as they all exited.

  The music never faltered.

  Letting the door swing silently closed again, Kendra scooched down to her son’s level.

  “Dan’l,” he repeated emphatically.

  “Yes, Daniel’s back.” That acknowledgment seemed to satisfy him. She concentrated on keeping her voice even and calm as she quickly told Matthew that he’d be going to the Sinclairs’ for dinner and maybe overnight.

  She had to admit this semblance of calm was for her own sake, not his. She probably could have sobbed out the news and it wouldn’t have fazed her son. The prospect of going to the Sinclairs, where Meg and even Ben catered to his every whim, thrilled Matthew.

  “I’ll be in my office upstairs for another hour doing paperwork if you need anything, Kendra.” Fran patted her on the shoulder before following Ellyn and Matthew down the hall.

  “We’d best get going, too, Marti,” Luke said to his employer, who still held her daughter’s hand.

  “Kendra –” She sounded worried.

  “It’s all right, Marti.”

  Marti nodded. “That boy’s got a lot of pain in him, but you can help him, Kendra.”

  If she’d had time, the change in Marti’s attitude might have astounded Kendra. Instead, she was too focused on the man at the piano to do more than file away the comment.

  In another minute the two adults and the little girl had disappeared up the stairs, and Kendra remained alone in the hallway with the haunting music seeping through the old walls.

  She quietly opened the door and stepped inside.

  Daniel sat on the battered wooden bench, slightly hunched, his eyes open but unfocused as his hands traveled the keyboard. Even from the distance she kept, the gaunt look his face had taken on shocked her. His jaw was darkened by stubble, the area under his eyes darkened by lack of sleep and his eyes themselves darkened by the same kind of pain she heard flowing through the music.

  He gave no sign of hearing her.

  She stood motionless, except for tears that slipped down silently and relentlessly. Luke was right about the pain in this beautiful music. And Marti was right about the pain in Daniel.

  But was Marti right that she could help ease it?

  And then the music stopped.

  “Kendra.” He still hadn’t looked around.

  “Yes.”

  “I scared everyone else off, huh?”

  “No.”

  “I started playing, and...”

  “It was beautiful.”

  He half turned toward her, and she saw his attempt at a grin. It fell far short. “Madame Romaine would be pleased someone thought so. Or maybe she wouldn’t. Not after all the times she gave me grief for not applying myself. She never thought I deserved to create anything beautiful, because I didn’t practice. Didn’t give it my all... like everything else in my life.”

  “Except flying.”

  He didn’t look as surprised as she felt that she’d chosen that example.

  “Except flying,” he agreed without inflection.

  “And Taumaturgio.”

  He said nothing. And before she could probe his silence, he positioned his fingers for a chord, then, instead of pressing all the keys together, he played each note separately.

  “Being a father isn’t flying. What if I let Matthew down, like I let Madame Romaine down and –” His fingers curled against the keys. “– the others?”

  “I don’t know how you can say that, Daniel.” She moved beside the bench, pressing her hand against her side to keep from stroking his hair as she would to console Matthew. As she had done to Paulo Ayudor during the storm, though then the gesture had brought rather than given consolation. “Think of all the people you helped in Santa Estella. The children. That’s not –”

  “Helped? I let people down.”

  “How can you say –”

  “I flew in, dropped a few miracles with a flourish – showtime!” Even in profile she recognized his grimace. “But how many didn’t I help? Didn’t get to. Couldn’t get the right supplies. Didn’t have the time. So many... I failed. Had to fight the system. Tried for more, and lost it all. All those kids I can’t help now. How about them?”

  “Maybe it’s somebody else’s turn to help them,” she said gently. “Maybe you can’t do it all.”

  He shook his head. “It should be me.”

  He slid over on the bench, and she took the invitation to sit beside him. But he stared at his fingers spread on the piano keys.

  “All those years, I used to wonder... It didn’t add up. But on Santa Estella, it finally made sense.”

  “What made sense, Daniel?”

  “Why I got out. Why I didn’t die on the streets like so many other kids. Why the Delligattis came into my life. Why my life was the one changed – saved. I wasn’t any smarter or better than any of the rest of them. I stole the same things, told the same lies – It never made sense. But when I was helping those kids on Santa Estella, for the first time, I could see... Even the flying. Flying wasn’t just a gift, it was a tool.”

  His voice dropped lower and harsher. “But now I’m not doing that –”

  So he could no longer see any reason for his luck in escaping a hell that no child should be in.

  Don’t waste any sympathy on me. I was lucky. I saw thousands like me, all trying to stay alive. A lot of them didn’t make it.

  “It makes sense that the Delligattis rescued you. It makes all the sense in the world, because you’re you. You don’t have to earn that, Daniel.”

  He said nothing. Still didn’t look at her. His pressed two keys lightly, first one, then the other.

  “Daniel...”

  Before she had recognized the impulse, her fingers lightly skimmed the scar on his cheek. He went absolutely still as she traced the raised skin with the tip of her finger.

  How many scars did he carry inside? From a childhood she couldn’t even imagine. From years of trying almost single-handedly to right the wrongs of an entire country.

  And from her?

  Had she inflicted scars on him?

  I know what it’s like not knowing who your father was. Matthew deserves better than that. He needs better than father unknown. I can’t give him much... but by God, I can give him that.

  She hadn’t meant to add to Daniel’s scars. She’d meant only to protect Matthew... and, yes, herself.

  Or had she?

  Had she meant to punish him? To make him suffer as she had, first with the fear of not being able to find Paulo after the hurricane, then with the betrayal of realizing the name she’d called out in love belonged to a figment, and finally with the lonelines
s of having their child without him beside her.

  She had barely begun to withdraw her hand, when he clasped her wrist. For a suspended moment they remained like that.

  She could pull away. She should pull away.

  Instead, she turned to him, her knees against his right thigh, easing the stretch of her arm across her body. He bent his head, his dark lashes partially lowered, and kissed her fingertips. Warmth flared from where his lips touched, down her arm, into her chest, then deeper.

  His mouth dropped to her palm, a lingering contact that translated into a long, hot shiver down her backbone and pulses of sensation in her hardening nipples.

  Thought had fled, evaporated by the heat and sensation of his touch, and her own longing.

  He skimmed the heel of her hand, from under her little finger to the pad of her thumb. His callused thumbs dredged up the hem of her sleeve, exposing her forearm to her elbow. Again, he drew her arm up as he bent over it, kissing the tender skin there, then tracing a pattern with his tongue. The shivers deepened to shudders.

  A nearly comatose instinct for self-preservation jerked her muscles into action, trying to capture her elbow from him and tuck it against her side.

  But that solitary instinct hadn’t figured on the way the back of his fingers, still wrapped around her arm, would brush against her breast, grazing her hardened nipple with a softness that sent a new jolt along all her nerve-endings.

  And those muscles hadn’t figured on the way he would follow her retreat, so his face came near enough to hers that a sway of motion by either one of them would bring their mouths together.

  They held there an instant, so close she could see in his eyes, along with a reflection of herself, his memories of their kisses. Or were they her memories?

  His grip on her arm eased – she’d been unaware how tight it was until he loosened it – and he backed away slightly. It was enough.

  She withdrew her hand, her arm and herself.

  “I am sorry, Kendra, I didn’t intend to make you sad. And I didn’t intend –”

  “It’s all right, Daniel.” She dredged up a smile. “No harm done.”

  Would there have been harm done if he had kissed her lips? If they had kissed each other? Harm to what? Or who?

  She rushed past her own questions with words.

  “And I’m the one who’s sorry. Sorry I didn’t understand three years ago what you were doing, didn’t try to help instead of trying to hunt down Taumaturgio. Maybe if I’d known – if I’d understood – I could have done more, stayed in Santa Estella after the storm –”

  “No. I’m glad you came here. I’m glad you brought Matthew here. Whenever I think of you leaving Santa Estella, I’m grateful.”

  “Daniel, now you have to leave Santa Estella behind, too.”

  “I don’t have much choice.” He seemed to make an effort to shake off his mood. “I can’t got back to Santa Estella now without being as reckless as you’re always accusing me of being.”

  “Good.” She achieved a fair approximation of brisk approval. “You did so much, gave so much. Now someone else has to carry that burden for a while. For you, it’s over.”

  His half smile disappeared.

  “Sometimes a war’s over, but not ended. Not inside.”

  Chapter Nine

  She took him back to her house.

  Even the next morning she couldn’t quite believe that.

  Not that anything happened.

  The church custodian had clattered into the co-op room with buckets and vacuum, paying them no heed and breaking the spell of confidences. Before she could blink, Daniel’s armor was in place and he’d disappeared behind a sardonic grin.

  “I really know how to show a girl a good time, don’t I?” He gave the piano keys a jazzy flourish, then stood.

  It would have been a more effective gesture if he hadn’t swayed.

  “When did you last eat?”

  “Eat?” he repeated distractedly. Apparently he was pouring most of his will into standing.

  “Eat. Food. Did you have lunch?”

  “No. Tight connection in Denver.”

  “Breakfast?”

  “No time. Had to get to the airport.”

  “Dinner last night?”

  He frowned, then gave her that twisted grin. “Wasn’t much hungry then.”

  She clucked her tongue at him the way she would at Matthew. “C’mon. We’re going to get you something to eat. And some rest.”

  “I’ll take you to dinner.”

  “Not tonight you won’t. I already have steaks out, and I’m not going to waste them.”

  Two steaks, which she’d defiantly vowed to cook at one time, to prove to Luke how wrong he’d been. And now he’d be right. Good thing he’d never know.

  Daniel must have been weak because he didn’t argue. So she’d driven him to her house, leaving his car in the parking lot.

  She’d cooked the steaks – meant to be her dinner and three days’ lunches – added a green salad, beans and baked potato. He ate every bit on his plate, and said little. She’d felt no need for conversation, either.

  She’d suggested he go sit on the couch while she finished the minimal clean-up, and he complied. She discovered him with his head back against the top of the couch, sound asleep.

  Just like his son. Feed him and he’s out like a light.

  Her smile faded as she remembered the day after his arrival, when he’d watched her put Matthew down for his nap. The haunted expression he hadn’t been able to mask after looking at pictures of Matthew’s babyhood had been back today. Now she understood more about the ghosts that populated that look.

  He was a man haunted by his own expectations of himself. Expectations that he needed to rescue the world in order to deserve a place in it.

  She could wake him and send him home – wherever he lived now that he’d left the motel. She’d purposefully not looked at the papers he’d given her, including the one with his new address and phone number, before storing them in a drawer.

  Sending him home was probably the wisest thing to do. Safest.

  Then she remembered that she’d driven him here. She’d have to drive him back to the church, and hope he could drive himself the rest of the way. And that was if she could wake him at all.

  He’d needed food and sleep. She’d fed him. And now she could let him sleep.

  She retrieved a pillow and blanket from the closet, took his shoes off, then tried to swing him around to stretch out on the length of the couch with his head on the pillow. It wasn’t easy.

  His shoulders were too broad for her to get a good grip on from this angle of bending over him across the coach. And tugging on one didn’t work. He was solid – and heavy – muscle. She should have remembered that from the sensation of his weight above her, his strength beneath her when they –

  Inhaling sharply, she stood straight, shutting off the memory.

  But she couldn’t shut off her senses. Her hands still tingled with the warmth of his shoulders. And she couldn’t shut off her body’s reaction to either the memory or her senses.

  Heat pooled deep in her belly, leaving a shiver of awareness along her arms and a tightening in her breasts.

  Thank God he’s asleep.

  The scrap of grateful prayer reminded her of how exhausted he was. How badly he needed sleep – her reason for leaving him on her couch in the first place.

  She tugged again. Nothing.

  “Daniel, you are as stubborn asleep as you are awake.”

  He stirred and murmured something. It might have been her name.

  She couldn’t manhandle him into a comfortable position, but maybe – just maybe – she could talk him into it.

  She crouched, partly on the cushion, got as good a grip as she could with one arm on his shoulder and the other partly around his rib cage and put her mouth close to his ear.

  “Daniel... Daniel, come this way.”

  He grunted and turned toward her.

&nb
sp; “That’s it. A little more. Lie down, Daniel. Right here. That’s right,” she encouraged, as he started to tip toward her.

  Then, before she could react, he had wrapped his arms securely around her and dropped down to the cushions, taking her with him.

  “Daniel!”

  He didn’t stir and his breathing didn’t change. Twisting her head at an awkward angle to see his face, she realized he was deeply asleep.

  To consider the situation, she let her head drop to a more comfortable position, which happened to be where his neck met his shoulder.

  She’d landed on her side, her front plastered against his side by his hold.

  Even with the couch’s narrowness, she was comfortable. An almost familiar comfort, but a comfort with an underlying zing. His scent surrounded her as thoroughly as his arms did. The imprint of his hard, muscled body made itself felt from her head to her toes. Unpremeditated, her lips opened against the skin of his neck and she tasted the faintly salty musk she’d never forgotten.

  How strange. Her breathing came faster, her heartbeat definitely faster, yet a strange lassitude affected her muscles. Even the one between her ears. She should be thinking, not lying in Daniel Delligatti’s arms while he slept. And yet... it felt so... peaceful? No, there was too much physical awareness to call it peaceful.

  Maybe for a little while she could stay like this –

  No. No, she couldn’t.

  “Daniel. You have to let go,” she said sternly, trying to pull away from him, not caring if she woke him. She had to break his hold on her now.

  Using one hand to push against his torso, she picked up his arm from on top of her, then rolled free, ending on her knees on the floor.

  She was still breathing heavily as she spread the blanket over him, then sat abruptly in the easy chair across from the couch.

  She didn’t know how long she watched the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest, with nothing as coherent as a thought emerging from the tumbling chaos in her mind.

  Fragments of memories, of conversations, of people came to the surface, then disappeared again. Emotions of fear, sadness, anger, sorrow... yes, and desire and the triumph of surviving. They all combined, separated and rejoined.