The Word of a Child (31 page)

It felt natural to walk out of the theater hand in hand.
Mariah momentarily panicked when Connor suggested going to his brother John's
for dessert and coffee, but then decided defiantly that she had nothing to be
nervous about.

"Why not?" she said. "If they really invited
us this late."

"They're grown-ups," he assured her.
"Sometimes they tuck the kids into bed and stay up until midnight."

Mariah laughed. "Okay. You can tell how often
I
stay up until midnight."

John McLean, the oldest brother and another member of the
Port Dare Police Department, owned a shingled cottage in Old Town. Dwarfed by the Victorian on the corner, it was more charming because it was cozy.

Connor parked in the driveway and led her via a brick
courtyard covered with an arbor to the back door, where he knocked.

The man who opened the door was instantly recognizable as
Connor's brother, although his eyes were vivid blue instead of gray and his
face plainer, more blunt-featured.

"Connor. Hey." He slapped his brother on the
shoulder in greeting before turning an exceptionally sweet smile on Mariah.
"You must be the famous Mariah Stavig. Come in."

"Famous?" she queried under her breath.

Connor pretended not to hear.

The moment she stepped into the back hall and saw the dining
room and living room opening ahead, the ceilings gracefully high, the
beautifully refinished woodwork and floors gleaming, she sighed with pleasure.
"I've always wanted a house like this."

"A woman with taste," Connor's brother said with
satisfaction.

The pretty, dark-haired woman who accepted the circle of his
arm smiled. "I married him for his house. Can't you tell?"

Mariah laughed. "I'd certainly understand! Hi. I'm
Mariah." She held out a hand, shaken all around.

Natalie McLean had baked an exquisite blueberry pie that she
offered with coffee. They ended up in the living room, settled on deep couches
and broad-armed chairs, the men's feet on the coffee table, eating and talking.
The two women hit it off from the first, finding common ground in their jobs,
friends, soccer and books.

"Why have we never met?" Natalie wondered.
"It sounds like we know so many of the same people."

"Chance." Beginning to feel a little drowsy, but
too contented to suggest leaving, Mariah found herself comfortably curled
beneath Connor's arm, casually outstretched on the back of the couch.
"Everything is chance."

John pounced on her half-frivolous explanation of life's
vagaries. "Now, you don't really believe that, do you?"

They ended up having an amiable argument about how much a
person could affect her fate, one Connor refereed with lazy amusement.

It was one o'clock before Connor and Mariah reluctantly
left. "I had a wonderful time. Thank you," she said at the door.

Natalie kissed her on the cheek. "I'm so glad you
came." She gave a sly glance at her brother-in-law. "Now we know why
Connor has been mooning over you."

"I haven't been that bad," he protested
halfheartedly.

"No, it's been very sweet," she told him.

He groaned and steered Mariah away from the doorstep.
"With family like that…"

"Who needs enemies?" she suggested.

Laughter followed them into the night.

He tugged her close to his side. "Something like
that."

How long had it been since she had walked hip-to-hip with a
man? Tucked under his arm, she felt petite and feminine, conscious of his hard
hip and thigh bumping her, of the scent of his aftershave, of his sheer size.

"You are very lucky," she told him, just a little
breathlessly. "I'm green with envy."

"Do you have brothers or sisters?" He opened the
passenger side door for her.

She regretted the moment when his arm dropped from her
shoulders and he stepped back. "One brother, ten years older," Mariah
said. "We were just too far apart in age, I think. He's an attorney in Portland. We see each other every couple of years, maybe."

"That's too bad." Connor closed the door after she
was in. Getting in behind the wheel, he continued, "We did our share of
fighting as kids, and Hugh and I sure as hell didn't like living together as
adults, but we're all close. Hugh and John are my best friends."

"I can tell," Mariah said. "You
are
lucky."

His teeth flashed with a grin as he started the engine.
"There you go. Chance again. If your mom had just gotten pregnant with you
sooner, you and your brother could have been best buds."

"If Mom had gotten pregnant, it would have been with a
different egg, and I wouldn't be me." She thought about that one. "Or
something. If I
was
me, I'd be ten years older than you, and we probably
wouldn't be here together now."

He hummed a few bars of mysterious music. "Chance
again," he intoned in a deep, Hitchcockian voice.

"And you didn't even take my side in there,"
Mariah complained, then gave a broad yawn. "Oh! I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Connor reached out and squeezed her
hand. "You've been up a lot of hours."

"Mmm," she agreed, sleepiness hitting her now, in
the dark car, as if the caffeine in the coffee had quit working from one second
to the next. "I worked today.
You
worked today," she remembered. "Did you catch your
flasher? You never said."

"No, but a mom called 911 to report me hanging around
near a bus stop watching the kids. A squad car rolled up behind me to check me
out."

"Oh, no!" Mariah pressed fingers to her mouth to
try to stifle her giggle. "How embarrassing!"

"Yup. I had to explain myself. Fortunately our guy
wasn't watching. He was busy exposing himself at a bus stop four blocks
away."

"Oh, dear. But so close? Is he sticking to a
neighborhood?"

"Yeah, he apparently is on foot. His, um, startled audience
reports that he dashes off and disappears up someone's driveway or down an
alley."

She couldn't help giggling again. "He's a walker."

With the help of a streetlight, she saw the wryness of his
glance. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"Home sweet home," he observed a minute later,
slowing to ease over a speed bump at the entrance to her condominium parking
lot.

"Your brother's house looks a whole lot homier."

"Yeah, his place has spoiled me," Connor agreed.
"Every time I spend the evening there, I wonder why I don't buy a
house."

"Money?"

"I could afford it." He pulled into an empty slot
in front of her building. "Just haven't acted yet. Maybe buying a house
just for yourself isn't as much fun." Turning off the engine, he reached
for his seat belt catch. "I'll walk you up. Make sure there are no bad
guys lurking."

"In raincoats."

"Yeah, wouldn't want you shocked."

On her doorstep he waited while she unlocked, then kissed
her gently, sensuously, a taste more than a demand. She had agonized over the
eternal questions:
What if
he wants to come in? Am I ready?
Mariah
had shocked herself with the knowledge that she was. But tonight he didn't ask,
and she was too sleepy to do more than stand passively, clutching the lapels of
his coat and enjoy being kissed.

Her eyes were still closed when he lifted his head, turned
her with a firm hand and gave her a nudge over the doorstep.

"Lock up. Sleep tight." He sounded rueful and
faintly amused. "Noon tomorrow?"

"If you're not tired of me yet."

He might have said, "Never." Mariah wasn't sure,
because he spoke so quietly at the same time as he was pulling the door shut,
leaving him on one side and her on the other.

She went straight to bed and fell asleep reliving the kiss
and smiling.

Never.

Ten o'clock was the latest she remembered sleeping since she
was in college. She raced through breakfast, a shower and some
housekeeping—just so Zofie, and perhaps Simon, wouldn't wonder what she'd done
all weekend. At noon, she was ready, her heart lifting in anticipation when
Connor rang the doorbell.

In faded jeans that fit his lean hips snugly and a
sweatshirt that emphasized the bulk of his shoulders, he was incredibly sexy.
Even his short-cut hair was rumpled today, as if it were taking a day off from
the regimen of a cop.

"Good morning," she said shyly. "Or is it
afternoon?"

"We'll split the difference." His gaze seemed to
devour her. He kissed her briefly but thoroughly, sending her pulse racing.
"You're bright-eyed today."

"In contrast to last night?"

"You looked like you needed tucking in," he said
in a low rumble.

She wasn't quite confident enough to say, "Weren't you
tempted to do it?" But something knowing in his eyes made her suspect he
knew quite well what she was thinking.

A guide to antique stores listed twenty-three in Port Dare.
Over a dozen were within a three-block radius in Old Town, where
turn-of-the-century homes and carriage houses had been converted into retail
space, their small-paned windows the perfect showplace for rows of bottles in
pale purple and green and gold, their high-ceilinged rooms splendid for
displaying huge armoires and long, heavy mahogany tables and cupboards full of
old linens. Mariah loved prowling these stores, fingering beautifully refinished
woods and holding glass up to the light and coveting antique quilts with
thousands of tiny stitches.

"Will you be bored in half an hour?" she asked
Connor, when they entered the first store, their footsteps loud on the painted
boards of the front porch.

"I don't know. I've never been in one of these
places," he admitted. "No, that's a lie. There was an antique store
down on Fourth—I don't know if it's still there. Stacks of wrought-iron gates
leaning against the stone wall in front?"

"It's still there," she assured him.

"They were robbed some years ago. My case."

"Were antiques stolen? Or money?"

"Both, as I recall. Not the iron gates. Small stuff. I
remember some carved ivory figures that we did find in a pawnshop. Worth a hell
of a lot more than the thief ever guessed, I gathered." Inside the
cluttered first room, he stopped at an elegant cherry tea table with spooled
legs. "Hey. Now that's pretty."

"Mmm-hmm." Mariah winced at the price tag.
"Are we seriously looking for furniture for you?"

"Damn straight. I like this." He crouched to study
the legs and underside of the dainty table.

"Do you have a place for one this small? It's not quite
end-table size, too tall for a coffee table."

"It's the perfect height to go under one of my
windows." He straightened reluctantly. "I suppose I shouldn't buy the
first thing I see."

"No, just remember what you really liked. The odds are,
it'll still be here at the end of the day."

They had a wonderful time discussing the purpose of peculiar
objects, imagining life when women would have spent hours a day in front of the
spinning wheel or on their feet feeding the enormous, elaborately decorated
cast-iron cooking stoves. Connor studied old tools with interest, thumbed
through books and expressed a preference for simple American furniture with
clean lines, versus the more elaborate European imports.

He bought two glass-fronted bookcases for obscene amounts of
money that Mariah enjoyed vicariously spending. They went back for the pretty
little tea table and a gorgeous maple dresser with an attached beveled mirror.
The store owners all promised to deliver.

"I didn't buy anything," she realized at the end
of the day. They strolled up the sidewalk toward their starting point, where
they'd left the car. Closed signs were starting to appear in windows, and the
sidewalks were emptier than they'd been earlier. The gray sky was deepening
into dusk.