DANIEL'S GIRL: ROMANCING AN OLDER MAN (18 page)

“Yes.
 
He’s good.”

“You mean in bed?”

“No!
 
I mean, he’s good there too.”

They both laughed.
 
Luke also ached inside.

“But he’s not like anybody I’ve ever
met, Luke.
 
He cares about me, not just
my body.
 
He wants me to be the best I
can be, that’s why he was upset at the hospital.
 
We’ve been together for four years now, and I
can honestly say there’s no other man I’ve ever respected more.
 
He’s one of the good guys.
 
He gives to the poor, he visits the sick, he
goes to church like every Sunday almost.”

“Yeah, he’s a great Christian
man.
 
A Christian man who won’t marry
you.”

This stung Nikki, as Luke knew it
would.
 
But she tried not to show
it.
 
“Who said I want to get married?”

“You do.”

“How can you say that?
 
You don’t know me like that.”

“I know your type, Nikki.
 
Yeah, you want to be a Sadie so bad you can
feel it.
 
But old man Crane won’t budge.”

“Stop calling him old.
 
He’s only thirty-nine.
 
Do you consider thirty-nine old?”

“Yeah, his ass old,” Luke said and
laughed.
 
When Nikki refused to join in,
he turned serious again.
 
“But after four
years why won’t his old ass marry you, Nikki?
 
That’s the question.”

“We decided early on that marriage
wasn’t in the cards for us.
 
He’s not the
marrying kind and he told me so when I first hooked up with him.
 
He’s a cautious man, what can I say?”

“Oh, yeah?
 
So that’s what it’s called now?”

Nikki looked at Luke.
 
“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Where I come from it’s not called
caution.
 
It’s called getting the milk
for free.”

Nikki shook her head.
 
“It’s not even like that.
 
He’s not using me, if that’s what you’re
implying.”

“Okay.”

“He’s not.”

“I said okay.”

Nikki gave up.
 
She wasn’t thinking about Luke.
 
Because it was complicated.
 
Daniel loved her.
 
She knew he loved her dearly.
 
But they still had issues they needed to work
out.
 
Tonight at the hospital proved
that.
 
And she wasn’t about to let the
likes of Luke Finley or anybody else rush her or shame her or dog her into
anything.
 
She wanted Daniel above any
other man, but he had to learn to respect her independence more, and she had to
stop centering her entire life around him.
 
They still had issues.
 
Neither
one of them, in Nikki’s opinion, were ready yet.

Once they made it out of the hospital,
the small parking lot was only half-full.
 
“Where’s your car?” she asked him.

“That BMW over there.”
 
They began heading in that direction.
 
“So,” Luke said, “you actually think an
elitist dude like Crane is good?”

“That’s right.”

“But in what way?”

“In every way, Luke.
 
You just don’t know him.”

“Damn right I don’t.
 
Don’t wanna know him either.
 
He’s just another Mitt Romney as far as I’m
concerned.
 
He’s just another fat cat
tight ass who doesn’t give a damn about the little people.”

Nikki smiled.
 
“But you do, right?
 
Mr. BMW?
 
You do?”

Luke had to smile at that.
 
“I care more than Crane does,” he said.
 
“I’ll bet you that much.
 
He doesn’t deserve you, Nikki.
 
That’s what I’m trying to say.”

He glanced at Nikki when he said
that.
 
And Nikki glanced at him.
 
He was a determined young man ready to sweep
her off her feet.
 
All she had to do was
let him.
 
Probably a good man who would
be good to her, and who wouldn’t dream of leaving her in a hospital just because
he didn’t agree with her.
 
But she loved
Daniel because of his high standards, not in spite of them.
 
And although Luke probably had a lot of good,
positive things going for him too, he was no Daniel Crane.

And Daniel Crane was staring at
them.
 
He was also in that parking lot,
on the car phone inside his Jaguar, watching them as they walked out of the
hospital.
 
As they got closer, he
exhaled.
 
“I’ll call you back,” he said
to the woman on the phone, said his goodbye, and hung up.
 
Then he got out of his car.

Nikki was the first to see him as he
began walking toward them.
 
And she was
as pleased as she was surprised.
 
But she
tried not to show either emotion.
 
“There’s Daniel,” she said to Luke.

Luke, stunned, looked where Nikki was
now looking.
 
And sure enough, Daniel
Crane was on his way.
 
Looking big and
rich in his imported suit.
 
Luke hated
the sight of him at that very moment.

“I thought you had gone,” Nikki said
as Daniel approached.

“I had,” he said.
 
“You’ve been released?”

“Yes,” she said.

Daniel placed his hand around Nikki’s
waist.
 
Luke knew he was marking his
territory.
 
He knew he was making clear
whose woman she was.

“Thanks for agreeing to give Nikki a
ride,” Daniel said to him.
 
“But I’m here
now.”
 
Then Daniel looked at Nikki.
 
“I’m parked over there,” he said to her.

Nikki looked at Luke and smiled.
 
“Thanks again,” she said as she began walking
away with Daniel.
 
“I’ll see you in the
morning.”

“It’s already morning, but sure
thing,” Luke said with a smile of his own, as if it was no big deal to him at
all.
 
Only it was a big deal.
 
A damn big deal.
 
He wanted her for himself.
 
He decided it just watching her with
Crane.
 
He wanted her.
 

But having her wasn’t going to be as
easy a task as he had thought.
 
Daniel
Crane was the competition, not some smooth Joe he calculated would take a look
at him and all of his attributes and easily leave the scene.
 
And Nikki thought the world of her precious
Daniel.
 
He could leave her at the
hospital, he could yell at her and neglect her, but he was still an angel in
her eyes.
 

Luke watched as Daniel kissed her while
they walked.
 
He watched as Crane’s hand
kept moving perilously close to her ass as they walked.
 
He watched as Crane placed her in his fancy
Jaguar, and then drove her straight to his bed.
 

Luke got in his BMW and slammed the
door.
 
He knew Daniel Crane was no
lightweight.
 
He knew he had a fight on
his hands.
 
But he also knew what he had
to do.
 
He not only had to convince Nikki
Graham that he was the best man for her, but he also had to bring Daniel Crane
back down to earth.
 
Nikki had him on a
pedestal so high his ass was above the clouds.
 
He could do no wrong in her eyes.
 
Luke had to change that.
 
He had
to figure out a way to knock that halo off of Daniel Crane’s head.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Nikki drove her
Lexus along busy Saint Germaine Parkway as if she didn’t know what a speed
limit meant.
 
Because she was late.
 
Because Daniel didn’t take her home last
night, but took her to his house.
 
And
then he had to take her to Fergus Falls this morning to pick up her car.
 

Last night
was still sketchy to her.
 
She remembered
what happened at Oxidare, and she remembered Daniel leaving and then picking
her up from the hospital.
 
She remembered
falling asleep in his car and then waking up to find that he didn’t take her
home.
 
As soon as they walked through his
front door, he lifted her into his arms, carried her onto his terrace, and sat
her on his lap.
 
And they sat on that
terrace, in his lounger, for hours.
 

She
remembered how she fell in and out of sleep as they relaxed and listened to the
sounds in the silence: to the whip and slush of the lake, to the birds, to the
songs of the cicadas. It was a cool Indiana night, but Daniel’s old bomber
jacket that Nikki wore, and the tuxedo jacket that Daniel wore, were enough to
keep them warm.
 
And relaxed as he held
her, and she held onto him.

They hadn’t
spoken a word since he picked her up from the hospital, and it took several
hours on that terrace before either of them even bothered to say a word.

It started
with Nikki.
 
She had awaken from one of
her naps to see that Daniel now had a drink in his hand.
 
She looked over at him.
 
He was still in his white tux, and was still
looking delicious, she thought.
 
But he
looked tired too.
 

“Why did you
come back?” she asked what she had planned to ask him hours ago.

Daniel
readjusted her weight on his lap, so that his penis was more between her
legs.
 
“I came back to get you,” he
replied.

“I thought
you were upset with me.”

“I’m always
upset with you,” he said, causing Nikki to smile.
 
“So what’s so new about that?”

“Thanks for
coming back.”

“I see Mr.
Finley stayed for the duration.”

“Yeah, he
did.
 
But Luke is like that.
 
He really stands by his reporters.
 
He’s nothing like Joe Paulson was.”

She was
smitten, Daniel thought.
 
Not that it was
surprising to him.
 
After seeing the man
in person himself, Daniel fully understood the attraction.
 
Luke Finley’s good looks alone would have
been enough for some women, but he knew that would never be enough for
Nikki.
 
It was Luke’s kindness, his
loyalty to his staff, his treatment of Nikki that was turning her on.

Luke Finley,
based on all the intel Daniel’s people could pull on him, was the kind of man
who would play up his attributes.
 
And he
was only a couple years older than she was, and had attended the same
college?
 
He was, in truth, Daniel’s
worse nightmare: a smart, activist, great looking young man who seemed a
perfect fit for a smart, great looking young Nikki.
 
Daniel pulled her closer against him.

“I was so
shocked to see you in that parking lot,” Nikki said.

“I spoke
with your doctor.
 
He told me about what
time you were going to be released.”

The fact
that the doctor would have told Daniel anything about her personal business
didn’t surprise Nikki at all.
 
Wakefield
was an incestuous kind of town.
 
Daniel
Crane and Dreeson were names that carried a lot of weight.
 
Outsized weight, in Nikki’s opinion.

“So does the
fact that you came back to get me mean that you agree that I have a right to
protect my source?”

“Since your
source broke the law, no,” Daniel said plainly.
 
“I’ll never agree with that.”
 
Then he exhaled.
 
“But I
understand where you’re coming from.”

And then he
kissed her on the forehead, held her tighter against his body, and soon they
both fell asleep on the terrace.

Now she was
running late and running frantic.
 
And
even after parking on the street in front of the Gazette newspaper building,
and running like a mad woman up the stairs and through the entrance doors, she
was still nearly two hours late.
 
She
dropped her briefcase and keys onto her desk and hurried into Luke’s office,
ready to hear his wrath.
 
But he smiled
instead.

“Stop being
such a worrier, Nikki,” he said.
 
“Sit
down.”

“I overslept
big time,” she said as she sat in the chair beside his desk.
 
“It was nine o’clock when I woke up.
 
I said damn.
 
Luke is gonna kill me.”

“Was your
boyfriend late too?”

“Daniel?”
 
She hesitated.
 
Why would you ask about Daniel?”

“I just
thought he would have woke you up.”

Nikki didn’t
respond to that.

Luke threw
up his hands.
 
“My bad,” he said.
 
“I didn’t mean to be nosy.
 
Of course you don’t live with him.
 
You did say he was a saint, after all.
 
Nice suit.”

She didn’t
particularly like Luke’s jabs at Daniel, but she didn’t have the energy to
defend it.
 
She, instead, looked down, at
her black dress slacks and sleeveless vest, and her red suit coat to top it
off, and she looked back up at Luke.
 
“Thanks.”

“Do you make
your own clothes?”

Nikki
couldn’t help but laugh.
 
“Now that’s
funny.
 
No, sir, I do not.
 
I buy my own clothes.
 
What about you?
 
Make your own clothes?”

Luke
laughed.
 
“Oh, you’re good.
 
Quick.
 
I like that.”

“Well
anyway,” Nikki said as she slowly rose to her feet, “I’d better get to
work.
 
Again, I apologize for being
late.”