DANIEL'S GIRL: ROMANCING AN OLDER MAN (4 page)

Nikki had contrasting feelings as
Daniel sat in the chair in front of her, placed their drink orders, and then
put on his reading glasses to peruse the menu.
 
She felt special to be on a date with a man like him.
 
He was a hot commodity, the look on those
females faces, who were all giving him some serious appraisals, told her
so.
 
But she also felt a little
guilty.
 
This was supposed to be all
about the Newsome boys.
 
She had told
Miss Newsome about this date, and she was overjoyed with hopefulness.
 
Would this former judge really be the one to
finally help them?
 
That was what was
foremost on Miss Newsome’s mind, and should have been on her mind.
 

But it wasn’t.
 
She was, in truth, a little smitten with
Daniel Crane.
 
Nobody would believe
it.
 
Nursemaid Nikki was her nickname at
Brannon, mainly because she didn’t take any guff from those boys.
 
But also because she never showed the least
interest either.
 
But now she was not
only showing interest, but at the risk of harming the only hope Miss Newsome
had.
 
She took a deep breath.
 
Focus,
Nikki, Focus
, she inwardly urged.
 

“This is nice,” she said as she looked
around at the beautiful surroundings.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Daniel said,
looking up from the menu.
 
Oh, that red
against her brown skin.
 
Lovely, he
thought.
 
“You haven’t opened your menu.”

“Oh. No.
 
Not yet.”
 
She’d been too busy thinking to think about food.

“They have an excellent lobster
pescatore I want you to try.”

“Is it that good?”

“It’s rich, but it’s exquisite.
 
You’re get a full lobster, you get crabmeat,
you get shrimp and calamari, all on a bed of pasta.”

Nikki smiled.
 
That sounded like a lot of food, but food was
the last thing on her mind.
 
“That could
work,” she said.
 
“If Val was here he would
devour it.
 
He likes food period.”

That reminded Daniel.
 
“So Val, he’s your best friend?”

“My absolute best friend, that’s
right.”

“And what he’s . . . he’s gay, right?”

Nikki smiled, and then laughed.
 
“Yes, he’s gay.”

Daniel smiled too.
 
“Just checking,” he said.

“What you thought he was my boyfriend
or something?”

“No, not that.”
 
Then Daniel looked at her. “Are you dating
somebody right now?
 
Not that it’s any of
my business.”

“No, I’m not dating,” Nikki said.
 
She wanted to ask him the same question, but
couldn’t find the courage.

The waiter arrived with their drinks,
took their dinner orders, and left.
 
Daniel’s smartphone buzzed.
 
He
checked the text message.
 

Nikki knew it was now or never.
 
Bring up the Newsome boys now before their
conversation got too far afield.
 
So she
got down to it.
 
“The thing is,” she
said, “the trial is in less than a month.
 
Do you think, Mr. Crane, that if we can manage to get an attorney on the
case that he’ll be able to get some kind of delay?”

“It’s possible,” Daniel finally said,
as he was still reading his text.
 
Then
he finished and put his phone away.
 
“Depends on the attorney and if that attorney feels a continuance is
needed.”

“But why wouldn’t he feel that way,
Mr. Crane?
 
He’ll need to get prepared
and to interview witnesses.”

“Everything depends on the case,
Nikki.
 
And by the way, stop calling me
Mr. Crane.
 
It’s Daniel.
 
I feel old enough.”

Nikki smiled.
 
“You aren’t old,” she said.
 
And then realized she didn’t know his age at
all.
 
“Are you?”

Daniel laughed.
 
“I ought to put you over my knee for that
alone, young lady.
 
I ought to also ask
you how old I look.
 
That’ll really get you
in trouble.”
 
Nikki smiled.
 
“But in answer to your question, it depends
on what you call old.
 
I’m much older
than you are.
 
I’d put your age around
nineteen, twenty---”

“I’m twenty.”

“Well I’m not twenty, and haven’t been
twenty for fifteen years.”

Nikki nodded.
 
Thirty-five wasn’t exactly old to her.
 
It wasn’t young to her, either, but it wasn’t
exactly old.

“But yes, the attorney may feel that a
delay is absolutely necessary,” he said, “or he may feel a delay would only
hurt the situation more.
 
It depends on
the evidence, it depends on the case.”

“You were a judge,” Nikki said.
 
“Do you think you could look at the
evidence?”

“Only if I have ten more brains,”
Daniel said with all honesty.
 
Then he
saw that look of disappointment in her eyes.
 
“I’m swamped already, honey,” he added.

“No, I understand,” Nikki said,
although he knew she didn’t.

“Why aren’t you a judge anymore?” she
asked him.

He exhaled and leaned forward.
 
“I resigned,” he said.

“You resigned?
 
Why?” Nikki knew she was asking more than he
probably wanted to reveal, but the reporter in her had a need to know.

Daniel hesitated.
 
It was still a sore spot with him.
 
“I was going through a messy divorce at the
time.
 
A very messy divorce.
 
And my wife at the time was making
allegations in her bid to destroy me.
 
Allegations that I was unfit for office.”

Nikki stared at him.
 
“Unfit how?” she asked.

Daniel was surprised that Nikki would
ask such a personal question, but it was also refreshing that she would.
 
“She claimed that I was a cheater and a liar
who couldn’t be trusted to pass judgment on anyone when, in fact, she was the cheater
and the liar who I wouldn’t trust as far as I could spit.”
 
The venom that came out of his mouth after
saying that wasn’t lost on Nikki.

“Where’s your wife now?”

“My
ex
-wife.
 
Please don’t make
any mistake about her or anybody else ever being any wife of mine.
 
She lives in France now.
 
I met her in France and she moved back
there.”

“I take it you guys don’t keep in
touch?”

“I’d rather eat nails,” he said, and
Nikki laughed.
 
“Does that answer your
question?” he asked with a smile.

Nikki nodded.
 
“Oh, yeah, that answers it.”

“But anyway,” Daniel said, frowning,
“none of it mattered in the long run.
 
We
divorced, she moved back to France, and this job offer came along for me.
 
I felt I needed a change, the scars of that
hellish time were still there, so I decided to leave Philly altogether and
start over.”

“You left Philadelphia, but you left
the legal profession too?”

Daniel nodded.
 
“Before it left me, yes.”
 
Then he sat erect.
 
“But anyway,” he said, “how did you meet,
Miss Newsome?”

Nikki was still digesting what he
said.
 
What did he mean that he left the
legal profession before it left him?
 
It
almost sounded if he was in danger of being removed from his judgeship or
something.
 
Then she smiled.
 
She’d already Googled him earlier.
 
They mentioned that he was divorced, but
there was never a mention of any scandal associated with his name.
 

“We met on a street corner,” she
said.
 
When Daniel gave her an odd look,
she immediately clarified.
 
“Not on
that
corner,” she said, and Daniel laughed.

“She was all alone passing out flyers,
just like we were doing today. Only this was a little over a month ago.
 
Most people wouldn’t take the flyer from her,
forget giving any donation or anything.
 
Then I came along.
 
I didn’t have
any money to give her, either, but I had some time.
 
So I took half of her flyers and got to
work.
 
And I’ve been helping her ever
since.”

“So you never met her sons?”

“I met them later on, yeah.”

“Your impression?”

Nikki hunched her small shoulder.
 
“They looked like two lost kids, I don’t
know.
 
But I’d bet Jeffrey Dahmer looked
lost too.
 
So I don’t put a whole lot of
stock in that.
 
I don’t know, is the truth
of it.
 
They say they’re innocent.
 
The cops say they aren’t.
 
I don’t know. I pray they are, for Miss
Newsome’s sake.”

“She really believes in her sons?”

“She really does.”

“And you believe in her?” Daniel asked
her.

Nikki thought about this.
 
“I don’t know if I believe in anybody,” she
said.

Daniel was surprised by that
response.
 
And he needed to know
more.
 
What was it about this young lady
that interested him so?
 
Was it just a
physical thing?
 
He’d seen beautiful
girls before, he saw them every day on the job, but he wasn’t asking any of
them out on dates.
 
What was it about
Nikki?

“Were you born here in Wakefield?” he
asked her.

“Born and raised, yes, sir,” she said.

“Your parents still here?”

“Nope.
 
At least I don’t think they are.”
 
She saw that odd look on Daniel’s face.
 
“I was raised by my grandmother,” she said.
 
“My parents had substance abuse problems.
 
So my Granny took me when I was a baby.”

“Thank God for Grandma,” Daniel said.

“Yes, thank God.”

“Is she the reason why you went to
college here?”

Nikki shook her head.
 
“She died when I was fourteen.”

Daniel was about to sip his
drink.
 
When he heard that number, he sat
his glass back down.
  
“Fourteen?” he
asked.
 
“Well what did you do then?”
 

Nikki was surprised at his
concern.
 
But he was definitely showing
concern.
 
“I went from Foster Home to
Foster Home for a little while, until I was sixteen.
 
Then I kind of did my own thing.”

“Why were you going from Foster Home
to Foster Home?”

Nikki paused.
 
The memories were still there.
 
“Every time I settled in somewhere, I would
be accused of trying to seduce somebody’s husband or boyfriend or son or uncle
or somebody.
 
When it was the other way
around.
 
But they never listened to
me.
 
I was the problem. I was the one who
had to go.
 
By the time I turned sixteen,
they didn’t have to kick me out.
 
I
kicked myself out, and never returned.”

Daniel stared at Nikki.

“I worked at McDonalds and Burger
King, places like that, saved my money, and then got me a room in a boarding
house.
 
Then I met Val, who was kind of
bumming it too.
 
So we moved in together,
finished school together, and then went on to college together.
 
Eventually we were able to get us a better
place to live together.”

“Thank God for Val,” he said.

“Oh, I do.
 
Without him I would have felt like I was all
alone in this world.
 
He gets on my last
nerve, don’t get me wrong,” she said with a chuckle.
 
“But only in a good way.”

And it was at that very moment,
listening to Nikki talk about her life, and how she helped an old woman just
because the woman needed help, and how she sucked it up and made the best of
her circumstances, made him realize why she was the one who got his
attention.
 
He no longer felt that he
could look at her as merely an object of his desire.
 
There was too much to her for him to ever see
her as just an object of his anything.
 
She was a survivor.
 
A strong,
young, remarkable survivor.
 
She was
making her way in this world despite the odds.
 
And he wasn’t about to let his dick, or any other part of him, get in
the way of her progress.