DANIEL'S GIRL: ROMANCING AN OLDER MAN (15 page)

“Heavy is not the word, Daniel.
 
By far our main competition now.
 
Big corporate boy, from Halliburton to
WorldCom, he’s run the gamut.
 
Which
means he knows the game.
 
Which means
we’ve got to retool our strategy.”

“I don’t have a strategy, Phillip.”

“But I do.
 
The way I figure it---”

“Not tonight,” Daniel said
firmly.
 
And Phillip, who assumed Daniel
was just stunned by the news, nodded his understanding.
 
But before Phillip could move on to his next
bit of juicy gossip, he noticed an interesting sight across the room.

“Well now,” he said.
 
“Who in the universe is that?”

Daniel turned and looked too.
 
Melanie Chandler, a tall black bombshell in a
long, sequined gown, was standing near the entranceway where she had managed to
catch the eye of most of the males in the room.
 
Even Daniel, who’d seen his share of great looking women, was impressed.

Phillip smiled.
 
“What a looker,” he said as he gawked.
 
And then, to his surprise, she was looking
their way.
 
He placed his hand on
Daniel’s shoulder, in case he was missing the obvious.
 
“She’s zeroing in on us,” he said excitedly.
 
“I’ll be damned if that chick’s checking us
out!
 
But you know what my old daddy
always told me?
 
He told me to always
strike while the iron is hot.”

“No shit,” Daniel said
sarcastically.
 
“He told you that?”

“Very funny.
 
I know I’m not the only human being who’s
heard that advice, but I’m the one who’s about to take it.
 
Let’s go check her out.
 
Let’s see if you’ve still got it, old man,
and if I can get it.”
 
Without seeing if
Daniel was following him or not, Phillip began to make a beeline for Melanie.

Daniel also found her attractive to be
sure, and he would have undoubtedly made a play for her if his responsibilities
weren’t what they were.
 
But they were
what they were.
 
That was why he,
instead, placed his drink on the bar counter and decided to take a stroll
alone, away from all temptation, out in the garden.

It began innocent enough.
 
It was an assignment near and dear to Luke
Finley’s heart.
 
A group of Fresh Air Now
(FAN) activists planned to enter the grounds of the Oxidare petroleum plant
near Fergus Falls and deface as much of the outer building as they possibly
could.
 
Luke, getting wind of it from his
connections with the group, assigned Nikki to tag along.
 
He chose her, he told her, because she was
the only reporter he’d trust with a story this important to him.
 
But he was clear about her role.
 
She was not to participate in the vandalism,
or even go onto the property.
 
She could
question the activists, whose organization the Gazette would not expose, but
that would be the extent of her involvement.

She knew it wasn’t the safest
assignment, and although she appreciated Luke’s vote of confidence, she also
knew she wouldn’t hear the last of it if Daniel found out.
 
But she was too intrigued by the sheer
audacity of the group to let a story like this one pass her by.

She sat in her Lexus outside the
barb-wired fence at Oxidare, and sipped coffee.
 
It was late, nine at night, and the cool night air kept her anxious to
get this over with.
 
The FAN members,
however, like many activist groups, were not slaves to punctuality and arrived
nearly half an hour late.
  
But they came
with wire cutters and paint brushes and every paint color imaginable.
 
They came ready to vandalize.

Nikki, in a pair of jeans and an
oversized jersey that Daniel once left at her house, grabbed her pen and pad
and hurried to the main entrance.
 
Luke
told her to ask for Lynn.
 
She did.
 
Lynn, a forty-something woman with long
blonde hair and fat cheeks, greeted her eagerly.

“Luke is a good man,” Lynn said as she
walked, her bulk making her breathe heavily and smell like sweat as she spouted
out orders to her colleagues.
 
Nikki,
though half the woman’s size, could barely keep up.
 
“I’m glad he’s at the Gazette now.
 
He’ll help us get the word out about these
polluters.
 
He’ll help us.”

“But why Oxidare,” Nikki asked as she
struggled to keep up, “and not some of the other, more egregious companies?”

“Because Oxidare is a
super-violator.
 
The others are at least
pretending to do a better job with their environmental records, but Oxidare
refuses to even attempt to make amends.”
 
She looked back at her fellow activists.
 
They were hard at work tearing through the fence that stood between them
and the beginning of their civil disobedience.
 
“That’s why we must result to drastic measures.”

“I understand that, Lynn.
 
But isn’t this also illegal measures?”

“The cause is greater than any
individual implication.
 
The message is
the point.
 
We’ve got to wake these
people up and the only way we know how is to make such a stink right on their
precious property until they’ll have no choice but to take the message
seriously.”

“And what exactly is your message?”

Lynn turned around again, to keep tabs
on her activists, but this time she seemed horrified by what she saw.
 
“Ah, man!” she screeched.

“What?”
 
Nikki asked nervously, turning around
too.
 
“What?”

“Abort!
 
Abort!” Lynn ordered the protestors and then
began waving them away from the scene.

And before Nikki could fully
understand what was really going on, the protestors began dropping their tools
and running as fast as their feet could take them.
 
Sirens immediately roared and police cars
began to surround them.
 
Nikki was
stunned, as she tried to keep up with the hurried protestors, but she was not
nearly as practiced as they were.
 
She
stumbled, not once, but twice, and on her last attempt was caught up in the
thick of the onslaught and her small body was knocked down.
 
She fell to the ground and fought like hell
to get back up, as those wonderful absconding activists, who would risk their
lives for fresher air and humpback whales, but would kill her to avoid arrest,
ran over her as if she were strategically placed as their escape mat.

The mayor’s garden was a nature
preserve, filled with seemingly every genus known to man, and topped off with a
glorious waterfall in the middle of the trail.
 
Daniel stood at the fountain’s rail, watching the water flip up and
over, up and over, and he started thinking about Nikki.
 
And about marriage.
 
Marriage was coming on his mind more and more
lately, although Nikki, to her credit, had never brought it up once.
 

But as he leaned with his elbows on
the rail, with his hands clasped, watching the waterfall, he couldn’t stop
thinking about it.
 
It was about time he
took that final step.
 
It wasn’t fair to
her to string her along all of these years without that kind of
commitment.
 
Marry her or let her
go.
 
What was he waiting for?
 
Yes, she was young.
 
But she was always going to be years younger
than he was.
 
Yes, he loved her.
 
And wanted her.
 
What then, he wondered, was his problem?
 
Then he exhaled.
 
Was he afraid that she would resent him
later, if he claimed her now?
 
Or, on an
even deeper level, was he afraid that he might ask her to marry him, and she
might turn him down?

 
“Nice view,” a voice said behind him and he
knew, even before he turned, that it was
her
.

“Hello,” he said as he turned and saw
his suspicion confirmed.
 
It was the
woman in the sparkling gown.

“Nice view, isn’t it?” she asked
again.

“Yes,” Daniel agreed.

She began moving, like a graceful
Giselle, toward him.
 
“Certainly less
cluttered out here.”

Daniel didn’t respond.
 
He was too preoccupied with her beauty.
 
She was even more attractive up close.
 
And those eyes, those big, bright eyes, were
radiant.

“I didn’t expect to encounter so many
people,” she said.
 
“But I guess when the
mayor throws a party, they will come.”

Daniel smiled.
 
The lull in the conversation was a natural
stoppage, as Daniel kept staring at her and she kept staring at the
waterfall.
 
But then she looked at him.
 
“I’m sorry,” she finally said and extended
her hand.
 
“I’m Melanie Chandler.”

Daniel shook the soft, feminine
hand.
 
“Daniel Crane.”

As she had expected, he didn’t
remember her at all.
 
All of that pain,
all of that heartache, and he didn’t remember her at all.
 
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Crane.
 
Or should I say Daniel?”

“You should.”

“And Melanie, please.”
 
Daniel nodded.
 
She was smooth as silk.
 
“A friend of Todd Bainbridge?” he asked her.

“Once or twice removed, yes,” Melanie
said and smiled.
 
“No, I just decided I
was going to treat myself tonight.
 
So a
friend of mine knew somebody who worked in the mayor’s office, who knew
somebody else and, here I am.”

“Treating yourself?”

“Right.”

“Surely you deserve better than this.”

Melanie laughed, a soft, extended
ha
laugh.
 
Then she leaned on the
waterfall’s railing and tilted forward, as if attempting to see the bottom of
the pool.
 
Daniel watched her perfectly
curved body lean over, her behind a tight, round monument to sexiness.
 
When she turned toward him, catching him
looking down at her, he pulled out an electronic cigarette.

“Have one?”

“No, thank-you.
 
I quit five years ago and don’t want to risk
it, even electronically.”

Daniel smiled.
 
“Good for you.”
 

“Not so good.
 
I gained twenty-five pounds in the bargain.”

Daniel glanced down at her.
 
“You wear it well.”

She laughed.
 
“You are too nice, Daniel Crane.
 
Thank-you.”

Daniel puffed on his electronic
cigarette that emitted water vapor rather than smoke.
 
When he looked back up Melanie was staring at
him, but only she was staring in such a hard, cold way that it made his skin
crawl.
 

“So,” she said quickly, realizing her
lapse, “with whom are you here?”

“Should I be here with someone?”

“I don’t know if you should.
 
You just look like you are.
 
I’d bet the farm there’s a Mrs. Crane lurking
about.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yes.
 
And I could see her now.
 
She’s
probably a wellspring of sophistication.
 
Easily the most beautiful woman in the room.”

Daniel thought about Nikki.
 
“And that would be Mrs. Crane?”

“Yes.
 
I’d bet the farm on it.”

“You’d lose that bet.”

“You mean there’s no Mrs. Crane, or
there is but she’s not the most beautiful woman in the room?”

“There’s no Mrs. Crane.”

“You mean you’re here alone?
 
Like me?”

Daniel smiled.
 
“That’s what it means.”

“Oh my.
 
That is surprising.
 
I’m not normally this lucky.”

Daniel took a slow drag on his
cigarette and stared at her.
 
She didn’t
come across as a flirt, she appeared too well schooled to be that easily found
out, but there was something going on there still.
 

Then Melanie smiled.
 
Just like that.
 
“Oh, that song,” she said as the live band
inside the mayor’s home could be heard playing the soft sound of Chuck
Mangione’s
Feel So Good
.
 
“I love
that song!”
 
She then closed her eyes and
began to sway her body as the slow rhythm of the flugelhorn increased.
 
Daniel puffed on his cigarette and looked at
her, at her high cheek bones, at her beautiful black skin, at her mammoth-sized
breasts.

When she opened her eyes, his eyes
moved back up to her face.
 
“You like
jazz?” he asked her.

“Oh, I adore it.
 
If you were to come to my apartment this very
minute I’d astound you with my collection.”

“I’d astound you more.”

“What?
 
You like jazz too?”

“Adore it.”

“Alright now.
 
Now we’re talking.
 
Let me guess.
 
Charlie Parker’s your favorite.
 
Right?”