Sooner or Later (21 page)

He watched, fascinated, as it rippled back over her shoulders, glossy as a roan pony’s. Her skin was translucent in the candlelight and, as she looked at him, her opal eyes reflected the flames.

Pouring coffee, she handed him a mug. “Did we settle the sugar question?” She was smiling now, relaxed.

“I don’t remember, but no sugar, thanks.”

The music was Billie Holiday, gentle, her voice filled with pathos; and the room smelled of peach potpourri and Ellie’s perfume, and good coffee. Looking at her, Dan couldn’t think of anywhere else he would rather be.

“It’s your turn now.” Ellie sipped her coffee, glancing up at him over the rim of the mug. “I poured my heart—and my murky past—out to you the other night. Now I want to hear about you.”

“Warts and all?”

“Warts and all.”

“My life hasn’t been as exciting as yours. In fact it was pretty ordinary, until I stopped the bullet. Dad was a firefighter. I loved it when I was a kid, the excitement of it, seeing him there at the firehouse with all the other guys in their helmets and slickers. The day they let me climb on the fire engine was the biggest thrill of my young life. Of course, it didn’t occur to me it was dangerous, not until I was seven and Dad ended up in the hospital with third-degree burns. Still, he survived and went on to become fire chief. We were so proud of him.”

“We?” She raised her brows, inquiringly.

“Mom, my sister and I. Mom taught third grade, and Aisling got a Ph.D. in psychology from Michigan. She practices now, in Chicago.”

“It’s a beautiful name, Aisling.” Ellie was fascinated, like a child with a bedtime story.

“She was named after Dad’s Irish mother. I went back to the old country with him, a few years ago, to search out his family and his roots.” Dan laughed, remembering. “Boy, I love that place. There’s nothing like the Irish for hospitality, everyone’s your friend. Either that or they’re a relative, or they know someone who lives in California. Anyway, there were more Cassidys that we could count, and all of them seemed to be related to us.

“We toured the countryside, staying at these little offbeat inns, half of them stuck in a time warp somewhere between 1900 and 1950. I remember rolling up late one night at a rambling old place in the wilds of County Cork. It was dark and raining, and in the middle of nowhere. I half expected to see the Hound of the Baskervilles galloping toward us across the peatbog. But the landlord had heard our car. He flung open the door and light streamed out. He was tall and thin as a reed with a wild mop of silver hair.

“‘Welcome, welcome,’ he cried. ‘I’D have the fire lit in your room in a jiffy. And Mary Kate will be preparing yer dinner. Will a bit of fresh duckling be acceptable t’ya tonight? I killed it meself, just this morning.’” Dan laughed, remembering. “I’d never heard more welcoming words.”

Ellie was laughing, too, at the picture he painted.

“Our host showed us up to our rooms and Mary Kate, who was as round as her husband was thin, with hair the color of Guinness, was already there, putting a match to the kindling under a lump of peat.”

He glanced wryly at Ellie. “Don’t let the idea of a
glowing peat fire fool you. That stuff just lurks there in the grate, smoldering sullenly and sending off smoke. Even standing with your backside up the chimney couldn’t get you warm.

“Anyhow, downstairs in the kitchen, the whiskey was flowing and the food was cooking, and the conversation, as always in Ireland, was nonstop. ‘I’ll be serving ya in the dining room,’ Mary Kate told us grandly. And was it ever grand! The place was cavernous and could have seated a hundred. It was freezing, and obviously hadn’t been used in a long time, but Mary Kate lit a couple of gloomy lamps and said, ‘I’ll just turn on a bit of music for you.’ It was April and the tape was Christmas carols. I guess that was the last time the dining room had been used.

“But you would have approved of the duck—golden and crisp on the outside, tender and juicy within, a mountain of colcannon to accompany it, and a bottle of Paddy’s whiskey planted on the table to wash it down. So there we sat, dining like Brian Boru, the king of Ireland himself, serenaded by ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’ in April, chatting to our hosts like old friends.”

His smiling eyes met Ellie’s. “And that’s Ireland for you,” he said. “It’s cold and rainy, but still the warmest country you’ll ever be proud to visit.”

Her arms were wrapped round her knees, and she was gazing eagerly at him, wanting more. “I can’t wait to go there.”

“Then I’ll have to take you, one day,” he said, lightly.

“Mmmm.” Ellie deflected that carefully. “Tell me about your parents.”

His mouth set in a tight line and a look of sadness crossed his face. “Mom died four years ago, breast cancer. Dad was pretty well shaken up. He’d just retired, which made it even harder, but somehow he dragged his
life together. He moved out of the family home and into a small apartment. Started to play golf, played poker with his old buddies. I think he was happy, or maybe content is a better word. He died last year. With what I inherited from him, plus my own savings and disability pension, I was able to buy the vineyard.” He spread his hands, palms up. “And that’s about it. The story of my life.”

She wasn’t about to let him off so lightly. “So? Where did you go to college? Who are your friends? Have you ever been in love?” She gave him a teasing sideways glance, repeating his own questions to her. He threw back his head, laughing, showing those strong white teeth that had irritated her so the first time she’d run into him. He was, she thought, looking at his strong sun-browned throat rippling with laughter, the best thing that had happened to her since … oh, since she had learned how to bake bread.

“College was the University of California, Santa Barbara. I graduated
magna
with a degree in physics. My closest friend is an NYPD homicide detective, name of Pete Piatowsky. And yes, I have been in love.”

He was still laughing at her as he passed her his mug for a refill. She poured the coffee, handed it back to him. “Tell me about your wife?”

“That’s a very personal question.” He looked steadily at her, repeating her words this time.

“I know. But this is show-and-tell time.”

He took a sip of the coffee, thinking about Fran, remembering how he’d been so sick in love with her, he couldn’t think of anything else. He couldn’t breathe without her.

“God, we were so young.” He leaned toward her, elbows on his knees, his chin propped in his palms. The youthful pain was still there, in his eyes.

“We met in high school. She was the prettiest girl I’d
ever seen. Small, blond, an athlete and a cheerleader. The first time I met her, she arm-wrestled me to the ground. That girl had biceps of steel, though you’d never have known it, she was slender as a greyhound. Something just happened to my heart, it was somewhere in the pit of my stomach every time I saw her. I really knew what it meant to be ‘sick in love.’ No one was more surprised than me when she said she felt the same way.”

Ellie could just imagine them: the small, beautiful blond athlete and the tall, golden-bodied surfer. She thought, enviously, they must have looked great together.

“We were inseparable,” Dan said. “We did our homework together, ran track together, surfed together. She was the homecoming princess and I was proud to be her boyfriend. How to explain youthful passion?” He shook his head, still not understanding the strength of the emotion of first love. “We were nineteen when we married, and both in college. At opposite ends of the spectrum, though. I was science and she was phys ed. While I was up all night, studying, she was up at six in the morning to go running. Teenage love in a cramped, rented furnished apartment.”

He shrugged, looking at: Ellie. “How could it last? In a way, I found freedom, though. I ditched grad school and took off for New York, full of high ideals about working to protect the good and tracking down the bad, doing my bit out there on the streets.” He shrugged again. “Nothing in life is ever quite that black and white. But I was a good cop, I lived for it, and I guess in my own way, I was satisfied I was doing my bit.”

“Did you ever fall in love again?” Her voice was low, sweet, understanding.

“I did, but never again, like that….”He wanted to
add “until now,” but it was too soon, and she was too wary. Ellie was not ready for love.

She reached across and took his hand. “Thanks for telling me all that, Dan.”

“You think you know me now?”

Her eyes were serious as they met his. “Somehow, I think I’ve always known you,” she replied quietly.

He didn’t have to ask what she meant by that. He understood. They needed no preliminaries to know each other.

“It’s late.” He got to his feet, thinking longingly of the many-pillowed white-canopied bed upstairs, and Ellie in it. But it wasn’t the moment, wasn’t the time.

“I’m glad you came tonight.” She walked with him into the hallway that was just wide enough to accommodate two people, if they stood close enough together.

“I’m glad too.” Her scent enveloped him and a strand of her soft hair encountered his lips as he brought his mouth down on hers. He held her lightly for a second as their lips clung. He opened his eyes first. “Beautiful,” he said, looking at her.

“Mmm?”

“I could never think of the right word to describe you, but now I know. It’s beautiful.”

He saw the color rise in her face at the compliment. A real old-fashioned blush, he thought. She never ceased to surprise him.

“Thank you.” She pulled away from him and opened the door. “Good night, Danny Boy.”

“Good night, friend.” He waved as he walked back down the short brick path and opened the gate. “I’ll call you, tomorrow.”

Parked in the shadows across the street, Buck saw Dan lift his hand in farewell as he walked down the path, and
Ellie’s smile as she waved back. The clock on the dash said three-fifteen. He was sick with jealousy, enraged with her for deceiving him.
How could she? How dare she?

The light had been turned out in the bedroom, hours ago. Now it went on again. Gnawing nervously on his fingernails, he waited until he saw it go out again, before driving back to Sunset and his prisonlike studio apartment.

The following afternoon a large bouquet of flowers was delivered to the cafe. Plump, creamy peonies, paperwhite narcissi, and bronze lilies. Ellie buried her nose in them. They were all scented, all beautiful. Opening the accompanying note, she read it, smiling:

Thanks for the wonderful dinner, and a spectacular tarte tatin. Somehow, the colors and scents of these flowers reminded me of you.

They would have place of honor on her night table and she would call him later, to thank him. She couldn’t wait to see him again. Next Wednesday, dinner at his place this time.

T
HE FOLLOWING
W
EDNESDAY
, E
LLIE GLANCED WORRIEDLY
around the empty cafe. It was almost six o’clock and she should be on her way to Running Horse, but Jake hadn’t shown up yet.

“Are you sure you can manage without me?” she demanded, pacing.

Maya glanced up from the cash register. “Just go, woman, while you have the chance. Did you never hear that the art of being a successful executive is the ability to delegate?”

“I’m not an executive, I’m a cook. And a waitress, and anything else I need to be. Anyhow I can’t afford to delegate, I’d be out of business in a week.”

Leaving the cash register, Maya inspected Ellie’s simple blue sweater and skirt critically. “Mmm,” she said, circling round her. “Mmm, the blue’s good. A bit ‘missy’ but not bad, considering the rural location.”

“What d’you mean,
missy?”
Ellie said indignantly.

“It’s hardly
sexy”
Maya ran her hands through her
short blond hair, vamping. “It’s not going to knock his socks off”

“Maybe I prefer him with his socks on. Where
is
Jake?” She glanced anxiously at her watch. “He was supposed to be here at five-thirty.”

The first customers of the evening pushed through the door and automatically she grabbed menus and went to greet them. Maya sighed, she would never get out of here.

At Running Horse, Florita was in the kitchen cooking a Mexican feast. Dan stuck his head through the door, sniffing appreciatively. “I don’t know what it is, Florita, but it sure smells great.”

She smiled up at him. “You will like, Señor, and the señorita also.”

There was a chill in the evening air and Dan put a match to the kindling in the big river-rock fireplace, then threw on a couple of logs. He’d bought tuberoses and white lilies for the table, and their scent mingled pleasingly with the applewood and the delicious aroma of food. A Ben Webster album was on the stereo and a bottle of champagne chilled in an old galvanized tin pail nearby.

Pancho came running in from some adventure in the great outdoors, and flung himself on the rug in front of the fire, stretching luxuriously. The logs crackled, and soundbites of laughter came from the kitchen, where Florita was talking to her baby.

Dan thought, satisfied, it had come a long way from the Stephen King house of horror. Finally, it felt like home. All it needed was Ellie’s presence to complete it.

“So Jake didn’t show,” Maya said reasonably, at seven o’clock. “Don’t worry about it, I can cope.”

Ellie ran a hand distractedly through her hair, glancing round the crowded cafe. “I knew I shouldn’t have arranged this date. I’ve been taking too much time off lately.”

“Too much time off? I can count it on one ringer. Go on, Ellie, for God’s sakes, just go.”

Maya urged her toward the door, but Ellie shook her head. “I’ll just call and tell him I’m going to be late.”

Dan picked up the phone on the first ring. She could hear cool jazz/blues in the background and Pancho gave a token
wuff.
“I’m sorry, Dan, but the waiter didn’t show up, I’m going to be late.”

“Okay,” he said, smiling. “How late?”

“It’s a bit crowded now, I’ll try to leave in the next half hour. I could be with you by eight-thirty.”