DANIEL'S GIRL: ROMANCING AN OLDER MAN (13 page)

Luke smiled too and stared at
Nikki.
 
She was beautifully dressed, in a
gold and grey pair of pants, a yellow blouse that again he noticed illuminated
her beautiful brown skin and bright brown eyes.
 
And every time she smiled her cheeks lifted up.
 
An African princess, he thought, as he stared
at her.
 
And he suddenly had an urge to
know more.
 
“How long have you lived in
Wakefield?” he asked her.

“I was born and raised here.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“So you went to college here at
Brannon, and decided to stay here.
 
What,
you have sick parents that you have to stay around to take care of?”

“No,” Nikki said.
 
She wasn’t about to go that deep into her
personal life with him.
 
“I decided to
finish college and stay in town.”

“Now that’s a twist,” Luke said with a
smile.
 
“Most small town kids go away to
college and never look back.
 
Let alone
come back to live.
 
You stayed here for
college, graduated, and then decided to stay forever.
 
So you love this place that much?”

“Not really, no.”

Luke laughed.
 
He didn’t expect that answer.
 
“Okay.”

Nikki knew she needed to explain.
 
“It’s just that The Gazette was willing to
hire me right out of school, so I figured I would get some experience in a
community I knew, and then branch out into the big wide world.”

“Now that’s smart.
 
Most people our age aren’t patient enough to
think that logically.
 
So how long have
you been working for the Gazette?”

“Over two years now.”

He smiled.
 
“Damn girl.
 
That’s a long enough time, don’t you think?”

Nikki thought about Daniel.
 
She had every intention of going the normal,
never look back
route too.
 
Until she fell hard for Daniel, who wasn’t
about to leave Dreeson, and therefore not about to leave Wakefield.
 
Since she wasn’t about to leave
him
, she stayed.
 

“I get your point,” she said.
 
“And yes, two years is plenty of
experience.
 
And to be honest with you, I
had every intention of being long gone by now.
 
But . . .”

“Let me guess,” Luke said.
 
“But your husband is a hometown boy who wants
to stay put, so you decided to stay put too.
 
Something like that?”

“I don’t have a husband, but something
like that.”

Luke nodded.
 
A boyfriend then, he figured, but he saw that
to mean she was still fair game.
 
He
stood up.
 
“So you’re one of our roving
reporters?”

“That’s right.”

“Well I’m glad to know it,” he said as
he began walking back behind his desk.
 
“Just keep doing what you’re doing and we’ll get along fine.”

Nikki smiled.
 
She was pleasantly surprised.

And by the time she left Luke’s
office, he was pleasantly surprised too.
 
More than she would ever know.
 
Like many of the guys at college, he had his eyes on her big time.
 
There was something so refreshing and honest
about her.
 
So
innocent
.
 
But she didn’t
give him, or any of those college boys, the time of day.
 

He’d heard at the time that she had
her some sugar daddy somewhere, and therefore wasn’t about to waste her time on
“boys” like them, but he never knew that to be a fact.
 
And now it didn’t matter.
 
Because she wasn’t married.
 
Because whomever she was involved with didn’t
have the good sense to marry her and take her off the market. Which meant she
was going to be his for the taking.
 
Which meant this shitty-ass assignment in this shitty little town just
might turn out to be extremely interesting, after all.

Daniel lived in the most exclusive
neighborhood in Wakefield: Walden Woods.
 
He lived in a big, sprawling, two-story colonial forth from the corner
on Old Spanish Trail.
 
Nikki drove slowly
along the tree-lined streets of old-styled homes and mansions until she was
pulling into the circular driveway of Daniel’s home and parking her Lexus
behind his Jaguar.
 
Inside his four-car
garage were three additional vehicles, all three of which he almost never
drove: a classic ‘62 Mercedes 220SE Cabriolet, a classic ‘42 Jaguar XK120, and
a spanking brand new Ford F-150 pick-up truck.
 
It seemed like such a waste to Nikki, to have that many virtually unused
vehicles, but since he never asked her opinion on the subject of his car
collection, she never gave it.

Inside the home, Daniel was preparing
dinner in a pullover V-neck shirt and a pair of Levis. After a grueling day of
work he cherished his down time.
 
And
when he heard Nikki’s Lexus drive up, he felt even more relieved.
 
He especially cherished the time he could
spend with her.
 

He did a quick stir of his boiling
pasta and then sipped from the glass of wine he had on his center island.
 
But once again, as he had been doing a lot
lately, he wondered where their relationship was really headed.
 
They’d been dating for four years now, and
his feelings for her, contrary to what he expected when they first got
together, was growing stronger, not weaker.
 

But the idea of marrying Nikki, when
she’d never even dated another man before, was unsettling to him.
 
He knew he should have given her the green
light to date other men long ago, so that she could be certain, after
experiencing men her own age, if he was the one she truly wanted.
 
But as their relationship evolved from a
sexual attraction to an emotional attachment, and then to love, he couldn’t do
it.
 
He wanted her for himself and
himself alone, and he kept it that way.
 
He even forbade her from seeing anybody else, insisting that they were
in a committed, monogamous relationship.
 
Now it was four years later and decisions, he knew, had to be made.
 
They couldn’t continue this way forever.
 
It wouldn’t be fair to Nikki.

At first he felt he was doing the
right thing.
 
When he first started
dating Nikki she was only twenty years old.
 
He was amazed he had allowed himself to date someone that young, but he
was smitten with her.
 
He took it slow on
purpose then, to give her time to grow up and decide if she really wanted to go
down a road with a man fifteen years her senior.
 
Although she seemed certain by week two, he thought
with a smile, he knew she was only impressed because he was such a cut above
those dorky college kids she’d been around.
 
So taking it slow in the beginning was understandable.
 
But four years of taking it slow, especially
since Nikki was no longer a kid and had developed into a magnificent woman, was
hard to continue to justify.

 
And in many ways he knew what he had to do.
 
Because the idea of not having Nikki in his
life was an impossibility at this stage.
 
That wasn’t going to happen.
 
He
would be worried sick about her, and about her well-being, if she wasn’t in his
life.
 
But the idea of marrying her, of
marrying anyone, was just as unsettling for Daniel.

As he removed the boiling pasta from
the burner to prepare it for tossing, the doorbell rang.
 
He wiped his hands on the dishcloth and made
his way up front.
 
She had a key, but
only used it when it was necessary.
 

When he glanced through his massive
living room window and saw her standing at his front door, he smiled.
 
She was the one he wanted.
 
And although it wasn’t always that way, he
was now completely devoted to her.
 
He
opened the door.

“You sure took your pretty time
getting here,” she said with a smile as she walked up to him.

He smiled too, wrapped his arms around
her, and kissed her with a long, lingering kiss on the lips.
 

“You smell great,” he said.

“You don’t smell like chop liver
yourself,” she replied as they stopped embracing.
 
“Pasta, but not chop liver.”

He laughed, slapped her on her tight
ass, and hurried back to his pasta.
 
“Close the door and come back here with me,” he said as he hurried.

Nikki smiled at the idea of a
domesticated Daniel Crane as she closed the door and walked further into a home
that looked almost antiseptically clean to her.
 
Like a showroom.
 
His furnishings
were all antique Victorian and seemingly untouched by human butts, and the
artwork that hung on the walls, from Renoir to little known Otto Gellen, only
enhanced the sterile feel.
 
What this
house needed was a woman, Nikki once joked to Daniel.
 
But Daniel, being Daniel, she thought, didn’t
even crack a smile.

“You heard me?” she asked as she
entered his kitchen.
 
“What’s for
dinner?”

“Pasta,” he said, as he placed his
pasta into a pan mixed with scallops and vegetables, and covered them for a
slow simmer.
 
“You already guessed it.”

“Whatever you’re cooking,” she said as
she sat up on the stool at the granite countertop of his center island, “I’ll
eat.
 
I’m just that hungry.”

After covering his pan, he walked over
to the island and poured her a glass of wine.
 
“How was your day?” he asked as he poured.

“It was great,” she said.
 
“But I guess you already knew that.”

Daniel smiled.

“Thanks for talking to Mr.
Poindexter.”

“That was no problem.”

“Except that they fired Mr. Paulson.”

This was news to Daniel.
 
He knew Herb would reinstate Nikki, but he
never realized at what cost.
 
“Did they?”

“Yeah,” she said, and he could see the
regret in her eyes.

“It’s not your fault, babe,” he
reassured her as he handed her the glass of wine.
 
“You did nothing wrong.”

“I know,” she said, accepting the
drink.
 
“That’s what Luke said too.
 
He’s our new editor.
 
But Paulson didn’t want to take me back, even
when Mr. Poindexter said he had to.
 
But
he wouldn’t relent.
 
He acted like it
would be against his principles to have me working at the Gazette.
 
Like I was some kind of unethical reporter or
something just because I questioned the mayor’s motives.”

“You and Joe Paulson never did click.”

“You’re right.
 
Paulson always felt like I was too young to
be working at a prestigious paper like the Gazette, and he never really
believed in me.
 
But dang.
 
He knew my work ethic.
 
I work harder than anybody else on staff and
he knew it.
 
But none of that ever
mattered to him.
 
I guess he figured
because you got Mr. Poindexter to hire me to begin with, I must be
illegitimate.
 
They all seem to think
that.
 
Even after I prove myself over and
over again.
 
So he was fired today.
 
But it’s just. . .”
 

A sadness came into Nikki’s big,
bright eyes.
 
Daniel stared into those
eyes.

“I’m sure that man has a family to
feed,” she continued, “and I just hate that it had to come to this.
 
I’m sure he never dreamed he’d wake up
yesterday morning and just because I got into it with the mayor, find himself
out of a job today.”
 
She looked up at
Daniel.
 
“Even though I know it’s his
fault and he should have just followed orders like he was supposed to do, I
still hate that it had to come to that.”

Daniel wanted to pull her into his
arms.
 
She was all heart, he
thought.
 
“Want me to see what I can do?”
he asked her.

Nikki looked at him hopefully.
 
“You actually think Mr. Poindexter will
reinstate him?”

“No.
 
But if you want me to ask, I can ask.”

He could tell Nikki was thinking hard
about this.
 
He was always taken by how
serious she took her responsibilities.
 

But then she shook her head.
 
“You’d better not,” she said.
 
“If he comes back I could become his prime
target.
 
He could sabotage me all kinds
of ways, from giving me stupid assignments to giving me impossible ones and
then declare I’m in over my head and shouldn’t be there myself.
 
I may end up the one without a job.”

Daniel nodded his head.
 
“I’m glad you understand that,” he said.
 
Then he pointed his glass of wine at
her.
 
“Don’t you ever feel sorry for a
man who hates your guts.
 
You hear me?
 
He got what he deserved.
 
You just continue to do your job and stay out
of those office politics.
 
Understand?”

“I understand,” Nikki said.
 
“Besides,” she added, “if Joe Paulson were to
come back then we’d lose Luke.”
 
Then she
smiled.
 
“I’d rather have Luke.”
 

Daniel gave the silence time to say
what else it needed to say.
 
And, as he
expected, Nikki spoke in the silence.
 
“We were in college together, believe it or not.”

Daniel studied her.
 
“You and the new editor?”

“Yeah, isn’t that weird?
 
I didn’t even recognize him, and still don’t,
but he recognized me.
 
He was the
assistant editor at one of Herb Poindexter’s newspapers in Indianapolis.
 
As soon as Mr. Poindexter fired Paulson, he
promoted Luke and told him to get to Wakefield as fast as he could get
here.
 
Luke said he took off.
 
And took over just like that.
 
And he’s just a couple of years older than I
am.”

Daniel sipped from his glass of wine
and continued to stare at her.

“And you know what’s the best thing
about him, Daniel?” she went on.

Daniel considered her.
 
“What babe?”
 

“He has no problem whatsoever with
what I said to Mayor Bainbridge.
 
None
whatsoever.
 
He said I was right to call
him out.
 
He said he would expect nothing
less from his reporters.
 
He’s really a
nice guy.”

She smiled when she said this, and
Daniel could see a little misty fondness in her expressive eyes.
 
And although Daniel sipped his wine and said
nothing, he took note of it.

And after dinner, while Nikki was
upstairs showering and Daniel was putting the dishes in the dishwasher, he
phoned the chief of security at Dreeson.
 
One of the perks of being in his position was his access to all Dreeson
had to offer.
 
He rarely ever used those
services for personal reasons, but this was one of those rare occasions.
 

“Run a check on a Luke Finley for me,
Jed,” he said into his cell phone’s speaker.
 
“Yes, Finley.
 
He’s the new editor
over at the Gazette.
 
Used to work for a
paper in Indianapolis.
 
One of Herb
Poindexter’s papers.
 
Right.
 
I want intel on his career, but I mainly want
the personal stuff.
 
Is he married, has
he ever been married, does he have a current girlfriend, is he a ladies
man.
 
Info of that nature.”
 
Info, Daniel decided not to mention, that
would give him some idea if this guy was merely a whiff from Nikki’s past, or
somebody he truly needed to worry about.