by Alana Lorens
“No,” Hope said, with a practiced pout. “Mom can’t seem to find the time to go.”
“Well, that won’t do,” he said. “You live in one of the biggest football towns in America, and you haven’t even gone to a game?” He turned to Suzanne. “How can you let that happen, Mom?”
“I—We haven’t, I mean…” She felt like she’d stepped off a pier into icy water. Hope and Riviera both watched her with cat-like expressions, finding it amusing for their usually-incisive mother to be tongue-tied.
“I’ll keep that in mind then. For down the road.” His eyes twinkling with mischief, he finished his coffee.
“Do you have kids?” Riviera asked.
“Riv, calm down,” Suzanne said, uncomfortable her daughter was being so forward.
“It’s fine, Suzanne. I’ve got nothing to hide.” He nodded reassurance. “I don’t have children. I’ve never been married.”
“Pets?”
He shook his head. “I’d like to have a dog, but with my work schedule, I’m not there often enough to be fair to a dog.”
“We can’t have a dog.” Riviera sulked in Suzanne’s direction.
“No professional football? No dog? Clearly you are mistreated, my dear Riviera.” He smirked at Suzanne.
She felt a slow burn coming on, despite knowing that he was teasing her. Her gaze met his, and her fading amusement must have connected with him, because he stood up.
“I’ll let you all get to your work. It’s been wonderful meeting you girls.”
“Nice to meet you,” Hope said, with a mysterious smile.
“You’re much nicer than the cops—I mean police officers—on TV,” her sister offered.
“I’ll second that,” Suzanne said, getting to her feet as well. “Don’t forget your tools, Nick. Since you did demonstrate your Farmer John skills as promised.” She grinned at the matching confused looks on her daughters’ faces. “I’ll walk you out.”
She headed to the back porch, waiting for him to pick up his hoe and rake, then strolled slowly out to his truck.
“They’re great,” he said. “Bright, independent, charming. Everything I like about their mother.”
She shoved aside the wave of squirmy discomfort that insinuated itself on her conscience. “Thank you.” She leaned against the front fender as he put his tools into the truck bed. “Thanks for your help today, too.”
“It was my pleasure.” He rotated a sore shoulder. He had to get back to regular sessions at the gym. For sure. “I think.”
“We do make a good team,” she said.
His face lit with delight, and he went to add something, then bit it back. She wondered what he might have said. He pulled open the driver’s side door and started his engine, then climbed in. “I’ll call you,” he said.
“Please do.” She turned to face him, finding the door a fine barrier between them. Until he buzzed the window down.
“Have I earned a kiss goodbye at least?”
She glanced at the house, sure the girls were watching. Well, now they’d have something to talk about. She leaned forward and kissed him. Her intent was just to catch his lips, but he leaned into it, then reached out a hand to caress her shoulder, keeping her close. A little dizzy wave wiggled through her. She found she wanted to kiss him just as much as he seemed to want to kiss her. Maybe longer. Maybe more than just kissing.
It had been much too long since she’d been with a man.
He slowly let go, then smiled as he studied her face. “You take care.” He waved, then drove out the driveway. She stood, watching him go, arms crossed tight, half wishing the children hadn’t come home when they did.
When she went back inside, she could tell the girls had been confabbing. The guilty looks in stereo were carefully controlled by the time she picked up her coffee cup.
“So when did this happen?” Hope asked.
“Nothing ‘happened,’” Suzanne said. “He came to help with the yard work. And…and we went out.”
“You went out? With him?” Riviera demanded, eyes bright with fascination. “When? Friday? Last night? Did he spend the night?”
“No, he did not spend the night,” Suzanne said firmly. “We had dinner. Period.”
“He seems really nice, for a cop, anyway,” her youngest daughter said, finishing the last of her cookies. “Is he coming back?”
Suzanne chose to eye the clock in lieu of an answer. “I bet I know some girls who have things to do right now. Homework?”
Hope got to her feet. “I think I’d better head up.”
“I’m taking a shower.” Riviera gave a cheesy grin before disappearing around the corner, her footfalls sounding above them a few seconds later.
Suzanne poured another cup of coffee, considering the stack of work waiting in her office. “I need about six more hours in a day.”
“No, Mom, you need to relax sometimes and just have fun,” Hope said. The dark-haired teen pulled the refrigerator door open and inspected the contents. “We never have anything to eat.”
“Right. Cupboards are always bare. Try some fruit.”
Hope made a gagging sound, but she took a navel orange out of the bowl on the counter.
Suzanne considered her daughter’s comment. “You don’t think I have fun?”
She shrugged and returned to her seat at the table, knees pulled close and feet flat on the seat of the chair. “I know you enjoy your work, and all. But you don’t go out or have a boyfriend or anything like that.” Hope’s dark eyes, so like her father’s, approved of Suzanne. “I think it’s great. Nick. You. Going out.” She peeled back the thick skin, and both of them inhaled deeply as the first oils filled the air with a delicious scent.
“Give me a piece of that.” Hope handed her a piece and Suzanne added a small curl to her cup. Orange and coffee might seem an odd combination, but she loved it. Just like dark chocolate and orange. “So you like him?”
“Yeah, I do. He’s funny, and polite, and he loves football. Do you really think he’d take us to a Steelers game?”
“You can’t count on it, Hope.” As Hope started to protest, Suzanne shushed her. “Things change, faster than we ever expect sometimes. You never know what might happen. He may decide to move on at any time.”
“You mean like Dad.” Hope stared down at the table.
The pain inherent in her words grabbed at Suzanne’s heartstrings. She would do anything to make sure Hope’s heart wasn’t broken again, even if that meant denying herself Nick’s companionship. If it came to that. She hoped so much it didn’t.
Hope fiddled with the last sections of her orange, and Suzanne soaked in guilt for entering the sour note into the conversation. She did her best to turn it around. “On the other hand, he’s certainly the best prospect that’s come by for a long time,” she confessed with a tiny smile.
Hope smiled back, gathering her peels and throwing them in the compost bowl. She rinsed her hands and dried them on the deep green towel hanging on the front of the stove. “It’ll be all right, Mom,” she said, giving Suzanne a hug and kiss.
“I know it will.”
Suzanne followed Hope down the hall, continuing past the stairs to her office. The cheery flowers sprang to life when illuminated, adding to her sense of well-being. Under the roll-top, files awaited, and she finished reviewing the first before Riviera came down, well-scrubbed and smelling of fruity hair conditioner.
“Mom? Can you come look at my computer a minute?”
“What’s wrong? It won’t boot up?”
“No. Something else.” Riviera’s brow was furrowed under the thick blue towel in which she’d wrapped her hair. She chewed her lip, shifting her weight from hip to hip as she stood in front of the desk. This behavior wasn’t like her normally ebullient child. Something was wrong. Something bad.
“Sure.” Suzanne followed her youngest upstairs to her room, decorated in bright stripes of purple paint and color posters of assorted singing stars. The computer monitor displayed w
hat looked like email. “So what’s the problem, hon?”
“Look at that email.”
Suzanne slid into the soft chair with the purple cushion, squinting a little to read the purple letters against the green background that Riviera chose for her display. “How you see this thing is beyond me…” she muttered. “Is this from a friend of yours?”
As she read the text, she realized she needn’t have asked.
Hey gurl where u been hidin? i been lookin for u at ur school. When I find u, ur gonna be sorry for what ur momma done. Luv u! jonboy
Suzanne’s left hand climbed from her lap to cover her heart. “What is this?” she asked, horrified. “Who’s this ‘jonboy?’ Do you have any idea?” Anger shot through her like a hot current. Who would dare to threaten her child? Who would dare?
Her outraged reaction drove Riviera back almost against the wall. “I don’t know, Mom!” Tears started down her cheeks.
“Oh, honey.” Suzanne got up and took her crying daughter in her arms. “I’m not mad at you. I promise. I’m mad at whoever did this. That someone thinks it’s all right to terrorize little girls.”
Riviera mumbled against her shoulder. “I’m not a little girl.”
“You always will be to me, sweet.” She smoothed her daughter’s hair. “Why don’t you leave this computer alone and go down and get my laptop, okay? You’re not doing anything… inappropriate, are you?”
She looked up, a pout on her lips. “Mom.”
“Just asking.” Suzanne’s stomach swirled with light nausea as she looked at the monitor screen again. She had to preserve this evidence in some way. Just in case.
“But I’ve got all my messengers on this one, Mom. And I’m right in the middle of my Gaia game.”
Suzanne sat down at the computer desk once again, reading the message. She forwarded it to her own email, and also created a new folder on Riviera’s computer, where she saved the offending email. “All right. Maybe it won’t hurt to let you keep using this one. But if you get another email from this boy I want to know. Immediately.”
“All right, Mom.” Relieved, the girl waited impatiently for her mother to vacate the chair.
“I mean it.” Suzanne stood up and stepped back, crossing her arms. Riviera jumped back into the chair, opening a different browser window. As Suzanne stayed behind her, Riviera looked over her shoulder. “Mom. Privacy?”
“If you’re not doing anything you’re ashamed of, why can’t I watch?”
More firmly. “Mother. Please.”
Suzanne sighed. “All right. But be careful.”
Riviera practically shooed her out the door. Suzanne stared at the closed door between them for a long moment. How had they survived without the Internet back in her adolescence? The girls seemed to spend day and night in instant contact with hundreds, perhaps thousands of people. Talk about access to pervs…
Debating what exactly to do about the email, she wandered downstairs to her office. Her first instinct had been, of course, that it had been sent to her daughter because of something Greg Morgan had done. He could have ordered any of his minions to track Riv down. What was his son’s name? Not John.
The cyber world of teenagers was something open to threats, though, even discounting Greg Morgan. It could have been a child of any of her clients. It could have been some enemy of Riviera’s. It could have been any old mean girl from her school, playing a practical, if tasteless, joke.
Even if Riviera had correctly reported the email to her mother, she didn’t seem to be too alarmed by it. Maybe a lot of the kids spoofed each other like this. While the words constituted an overt threat, it would be extremely hard to identify who’d sent them. And maybe a waste of everyone’s time.
If Nick had been there, she likely would have asked him. She’d been pleased by their day together. She and Nick had been a good working team, and she liked the way he’d interacted with the girls. For the most part, he’d been comfortable as an old sweatshirt. She’d never thought she could feel like that in a man’s company again.
Nick might be different. They hadn’t known each other for long, but he appealed to her on a level deeper than consciousness. Somehow he reached her, connecting with her, not butting up against her but flowing around her, like water.
Whatever he was doing, it was working.
The realization scared her just a little. She wasn’t ready for a relationship. At least she didn’t think she was. No need to rush things, not at all. Nick Sansone was a nice man who knew how to use a garden rake. And had good taste in food. And knew just how to appeal to her daughters.
She could handle this herself. She wouldn’t bother him with it. It could have been Morgan, or it could have been someone else. It could have been someone just trying to prank one of the girls. No sense in jumping the gun and making Nick feel he was indispensable.
He wasn’t indispensable at all. No man was. Suzanne could take care of herself and her daughters. She’d just hold that information till the time was right. A dozen computer experts were available in the city. If she needed to track down who’d sent this threat to her home, she could hire any one of them.
If the culprit turned out to be Morgan, he’d find he had a mama grizzly on his back. And it would be the end of him.
Chapter Ten
Nick sensed Suzanne’s interest in him, rising below the surface of that carefully-maintained reserve she affected. Since her attraction complemented his, he knew he couldn’t possibly leave the progress of any potential relationship to fate. Fate had a way of dropping disasters when least expected. Better to take matters into his own hands.
Over the next few weeks, he made several attempts to see her again. She turned down dinner, lunch, an afternoon walk along Mount Washington, even the offer of a morning cappuccino from her favorite chain coffee shop. Maybe he’d done something to offend her during that discussion with her children. He replayed the scene in his mind over and over, but couldn’t see where he might have erred. The girls were pretty damned spunky, and they seemed to like him. What had he done?
He’d waited too long to get that first “yes” out of her to give up now. He just had to be more clever. Something show-stopping—an offer she couldn’t refuse.
The perfect plan came to him, and he executed it immediately.
Fighting noisy mid-afternoon Friday traffic on Carson Street hadn’t been part of his calculations. Over the last decade, East Carson had become the trendy place for Pittsburghers to hang out, and particularly drink. It was rumored to have the longest stretch of pub crawl in the United States. Unfortunately, the narrow street hadn’t added any additional parking to accommodate its popularity. He cruised the length of the street several times, east and west, before he could slip his truck into a spot scarcely vacated by the car before him, almost close enough to tap bumpers.
With a deep breath, he tucked his keys into his brown leather jacket pocket, then picked up the cellophane-wrapped bouquet of daisies he’d bought at a florist downtown. A cool wind insinuated itself along the back of his collar. He shivered and pulled his jacket closer.
The daisies were pretty, but the real kicker was the envelope tucked inside.
Would she even bother to open it?
He thought she would. She seemed very thorough. She’d at least open it before discarding it. Then they’d see what happened.
A tug on the heavy glass door at the bottom of the steps let him in, and he took the stairs two at a time. Aspiration lifted him upward, a giddy smile on his lips. He managed to wrestle it away before he stepped inside her office.
The waiting room was like a hundred others he’d seen, perhaps made upscale by the plush brown print upholstering the chairs. A heavy-set woman sat at a computer, typing, only glancing up after she’d finished. Her pale pink suit fit awkwardly, pulling at the underarms. Her gaze went first to the bunch of flowers, then to his face.
He smiled, an expert at diplomacy with gatekeepers. His hand slid into his jacket pocket and came ou
t with his badge, which he flipped open for her to see. “Detective Nick Sansone to see Ms. Taylor.”
The woman’s lips flirted with a smile as she indicated the flowers. “Business or pleasure?
He chuckled. “Which will get her attention faster?”
With a conspiratorial grin, she lifted the telephone receiver and punched three numbers. “Suzanne, a police detective to see you. Something urgent.”
Perfect. He winked his approval.
The inner door flew open, and Suzanne came through it, breathless. “Is it—Oh. It’s you.”
“Very observant,” Nick said, enjoying the flow of expressions across Suzanne’s face. Alarm was usurped by surprise, which gave way to suspicion, and finally rolled over into a restrained pleasure.
“Lieutenant.” She glanced at her assistant, then back to him. “Won’t you come in?”
“Thank you.”
He grinned at the assistant to solidify his personal connection, then followed Suzanne into the office. He didn’t think he’d ever seen so many books in one place before, outside a library. Two walls were lined with them from floor to ceiling. The flowers in his hand felt awkward now, and he held them out to her.
“For you,” he said.
Her fingers tightened into a loose fist for a moment, then she reached out to take them. “Thank you.” She leaned the open end of the bunch toward her face, inhaling the slightly musty scent of the white flowers. “You came all the way out here to bring me these?”
“Clearly waiting for you to drop in on me hasn’t been fruitful.” He crossed to the window behind her, checking out the view toward the river. He’d make her turn around, keep her off balance. Old police trick. “This is very nice.”
“You can see what I’m dealing with,” she said, waving at her desk. “I’m buried this week.”
“All work and no play makes Suzanne a beautiful—but dull—girl,” he said, turning to look over his shoulder, adding a scolding look.
Her jaw tightened. She didn’t seem to have much patience with practiced flattery. “What brings you to the South Side?”
“Just that. I wanted to brighten your day.” He turned completely to face her, then looked at his watch. “But I can’t stay. I hope the day improves.”