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“And you—” Birdie pointed to Rick “—take my niece over to the studio and discuss business. When you two come to a decision, I’ll sign whatever papers are necessary and write out a check.”
When Rick and Lori Lee didn’t respond, just glanced awkwardly at each other, Birdie shooed them with a wave of her hand. “Go on, now. Darcie and I will be over to the studio by the time the beginners’ class starts.”
“We can discuss things here, if you prefer,” Rick told Lori Lee, sensing her reluctance to go to the studio alone with him.
“No, we’ll leave and pacify Aunt Birdie. She loves to fill children’s heads with all kinds of nonsensical stories while she gives them a grand tour. And kids usually love looking at all our costumes and supplies.”
“I’ll bet y’all do a booming business around Halloween.” Rick surveyed the shop, noticing the wide variety of items, everything from ballet slippers and majorette boots to magic wands and drum major batons.
“We do a good business year-round,” Lori Lee told him. “We supply all our twirlers, the Deshler band and majorettes and several of the dance studios, as well as a little theater group.”
“Sounds like you’re doing all right.” Rick wondered just how much Lori Lee depended on her two jobs for an income. She’d been born into an upper middle class family, and he’d heard that not only had she inherited money from her maternal grandparents, but that her aunt was filthy rich.
“I make a good living,” Lori Lee said. “Come on. While you explain what I need to know about your installing the new heat and air system, I’ll show you around my studio and give you an idea of what all is involved in your daughter—in Darcie—taking lessons.”
Rick followed Lori Lee out of the Sparkle and Shine shop to the studio in the adjacent building. He watched the way she walked, a seductive hip-swaying come-on that she wasn’t even aware of. He’d known a lot of women in his thirty-three years, but he’d never known anyone as beautiful as Lori Lee Guy. How the hell had a woman like her remained single so long after her divorce? Had her ex-husband done such a number on her that he had scared her off marriage forever?
“Come on in,” she said, unlocking the door.
The moment he stepped inside, Rick felt the warmth. Puzzled at first, he surveyed the studio and discovered that she’d strategically placed small electric heaters around the room.
“I’m going to hold classes down here until the new heating system is put it,” she said. “I’ve closed off the upstairs temporarily. I simply can’t postpone any more classes. We’re going to Gadsden next weekend for a competition.”
Rick reached inside his jacket and pulled out the estimate. He’d worked it up around midnight last night, after he returned from the garage he rented on a monthly basis so he’d have a place to restore Powell Goodman’s ’Vette.
“Here’s the estimate. The price covers everything.” He handed her the papers. “Look it over and let me know if you have any questions.”
. “Let’s sit down.” She nodded toward the lounge area. “Would you like some coffee? I can put some on.”
“Don’t go to any trouble for me.”
“No, no trouble. I usually have a pot waiting for the mothers who like to stay and chat while their daughters are in class.”
She glanced over the estimate quickly, noting every detail and deciding immediately that the cost seemed reasonable.
“I noticed that several of Tuscumbia’s best families have their daughters in your classes.” Rick stuffed his hands in his pockets, then lifted his heels off the floor repeatedly as he craned his neck backward and glanced around the studio. “I want Darcie to be accepted.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t want who I am or who I was to... Well, you know what I’m trying to say. I never fit in. I was always an outsider. I don’t want that for my little girl.”
The way he said my little girl hit a sympathetic cord inside Lori Lee. No matter what his sins were—past and present—it was obvious that Rick loved his daughter.
“I can’t promise you that having Darcie enrolled here at Dixie Twirlers will ensure her popularity, but...well, I’ll certainly do what I can to see that she fits in and feels a part of everything we do.” Lori Lee tossed the estimate on the sofa, then busied herself preparing the coffee machine.
“She’s all excited about taking lessons,” Rick said. “She’s a little shy and I was afraid she might feel uncomfortable around a group of kids she doesn’t know, but she’s been jumping for joy ever since I mentioned it to her.”
“I’ll start her out in the beginners’ class,” Lori Lee explained. “She’ll need two batons. One for class and one for competition. We sell them next door at Sparkle and Shine.”
Rick grinned, his sexy, captivating smile that turned Lori Lee’s stomach inside out. Why couldn’t Powell’s smile do that to her? Or Jimmy’s? Why was it that no one had ever affected her the way Rick did?
“You tell me what she needs and I’ll be sure she has it.” Rick couldn’t afford the lessons, let alone anything extra. Every dime he made, that he didn’t spend on Darcie, went into savings. That’s why he didn’t have any decent clothes, still wore a fifteen-year-old leather jacket and worn-out boots and went months between haircuts.
“I think Darcie’s a lucky little girl to have a father like you.” Lori Lee kept her back to Rick as she removed two mugs from the wall rack. “And the strange thing about it is that I never pictured you as a father. You were always too wild and free.”
“Darcie wasn’t planned,” Rick admitted. “She was an accident. I got April pregnant, so I married her for the kid’s sake. We stayed married less than a year.” Rick slumped down in a cushioned Windsor chair to the left of the sofa. “Believe me, Lori Lee, my daughter isn’t so lucky. April was a lousy mother and I was an absentee father who saw Darcie about once a month. I sent support checks, but April blew them on liquor and good times for herself.”
“You don’t have to tell me any of this. It’s none of my business.” Lori Lee wasn’t sure she wanted to share confidences with Rick. Doing so made their relationship more personal, and that was the last thing she wanted.
“If you’re going to help Darcie, you need to know that until we moved to Tuscumbia last summer she hadn’t had much of a life.”
“What happened to your wife? Your ex-wife?” Lori Lee poured coffee into two mugs, seasoned hers to taste and lifted the mugs off the table.
“April was killed in a car wreck two years ago.” Rick accepted the coffee when Lori Lee offered it to him. Her hand grazed his. He looked up into her startled blue eyes and realized that on some level she was afraid of him.
He set his mug down on the coffee table, and when Lori Lee sat down across from him, he reached out to touch her reassuringly. Grasping her mug with both hands, she scooted back on the sofa.
. “I decided to bring Darcie home to Tuscumbia because I knew it would be the only way she’d ever have a normal life.” Rick lifted the mug off the table and to his lips. He took several sips. “I used my life savings to buy half-ownership in Bobo Lewis’s business, and I’m hoping to buy him out when he retires. I’m trying to be an upstanding citizen, for Darcie’s sake. And one of these days, I’d like to find a nice woman, get married and give Darcie a real mother and a bunch of brothers and sisters.”
I don’t care, Lori Lee wanted to scream. I do not care! Why should it matter to me that Rick Warrick wants a houseful of kids? He doesn’t mean a thing to me. His dreams aren’t important to me.
“Is something wrong?” he asked. “You’re awfully quiet, and you’ve got a strange look on your face.”
“No, nothing’s wrong. I’m fine,” she lied. “I think you have some very worthwhile plans and I wish you the very best luck in...well, in buying out Bobo and in finding Darcie a new mother.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Rick said. “My sister Eve’s been setting up some dates for me, but nothing’s panned out yet. And I got a few dates on my own, but unfortunately they weren’t good mother material, if you know what I mean?”
Rick chuckled like a naughty little boy, and something inside Lori Lee wanted to slap his face. He was such a chauvinist, but then, he always had been. She supposed one of his many fascinations for the female sex was his blatant, unrepentant macho attitude. Why was it that women were intrigued by bad boys? Even she harbored a secret fantasy that she was the only woman on earth capable of taming Rick Warrick, of turning her own bad boy into a model husband and father.
But Rick wanted more children.
Lori Lee tried to smile, but the effort failed miserably. Instead she sipped her coffee, picked up the estimate folder and pretended to thoroughly inspect every page.
Rick knew he’d put his foot in his mouth when he’d mentioned “those kind of women.” He supposed he’d always considered bad girls the only kind of girls a bad boy like him deserved. He had to admit that bad girls were a lot more fun if all a guy wanted was a good time.
He’d tried to work up some enthusiasm over the women Eve found for him to date, but not even a hungry good-night kiss had gotten his motor running. Maybe nice girls just didn’t turn him on.
No, that wasn’t exactly true. There was one nice girl who’d always given him a hard-on just looking at her, and she still did. Rick squirmed uncomfortably in the chair. What the hell was he supposed to do now? He was sitting there, getting harder every minute, in a studio that would soon be filled with a bunch of tiny tots, one of which was his own daughter.
He had to get his mind off his favorite fantasy—making love to Lori Lee. He knew he wasn’t good enough for her, that she’d never even date him let alone consider marrying him. But since his return to Tuscumbia, he had found himself daydreaming about making love to Lori Lee, then making her his wife and the mother of his child.
If he shared that particular fantasy with her, she’d probably laugh in his face and ask him just who he thought he was. What would she want with a guy like him when she could have her pick of successful, respectable men? Men like Jimmy Davison and Powell Goodman. How could he ever compete with men who could offer her everything?
The silence between them stretched into hour-long minutes. Lori Lee glanced at the wall clock. Any second now her students for the five-thirty class would come barreling through the front door.
“I, uh, I have to get ready for my class.” She stood, then handed him the estimate. “Everything looks fine to me. Show this to Aunt Birdie and she’ll write you a check. When can you start on the job?”
“We’re booked up until next Monday.” Standing, he shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and dragged the jacket down over the front of his jeans. “I’ll get my crew out here first thing Monday morning. About eight o’clock, if somebody can be here to let us in.”
“That’ll be fine. I’ll meet you here.” This was Thursday. She wouldn’t see him again until Monday. That gave her the entire weekend to get her hormones under control so she didn’t make a fool of herself around Rick. She had to keep reminding herself that he’d been bad news fifteen years ago, and he still was.
Darcie came flying threw the open door, Birdie waddling feistily behind her.
Jumping up and down beside her father, Darcie held up a shiny new baton. “Look what Aunt Birdie gave me. It’s my very own superstar baton.”
Willing his body to relax, Rick grinned and nodded his head. “Yeah, that’s some great-looking baton.” He glanced over at Birdie. “I’ll pay you for it, of course.”
“Nonsense,” Birdie said. “This was a gift for my new little friend. You can buy her the classic baton for competition.”
“Thanks, Miss Birdie.” Rick wondered if Birdie Pierpont had any idea how hard-pressed for cash he was and had taken pity on him. He hoped not. The one thing he hated most was pity.
“The other girls will be here shortly, Darcie,” Lori Lee said. “Would you like for me to give you your first lesson before they get here?”
“Oh, yes, Miss Lori Lee.” Gripping her baton tightly, Darcie stood at attention in front of her teacher. “What do I do first?”
“Come with me.” Lori Lee placed her hand on the child’s shoulder and led her to the center of the room. “Tell me, Darcie, do you know how to dip ice cream?”
“What?”
“Can you dip ice cream?” Lori Lee repeated. “You know, with an ice cream scoop.”
“Yes, I know how to do that. Why?”
“Because that’s what I want you to do with your baton.”
Darcie looked at Lori Lee, puzzlement in her stare. “You want me to dip ice cream with my baton?”
Lori Lee reached over and removed one of her batons from the wall rack where she displayed them. Gripping the wand in the middle, she delved it downward to the left, then lifted it and delved downward to the right.
“See what I did? I’m pretending my baton is a double ice cream scoop. On this side—” she dipped to the left “—is chocolate ice cream, and on this side—” she dipped to the right “—is vanilla ice cream.”
Darcie smiled and nodded her head. “I get it.” Watching again while Lori Lee demonstrated, Darcie scooped to the left, then to the right. “Look, Daddy, I’m scooping ice cream with my baton.”
“And doing a great job, sweetie.” His eyes met Lori Lee’s and for just an instant they shared the joy of Darcie’s triumphant happiness. “She catches on quick, doesn’t she, Miss Lori Lee?” Rick asked.
“She’s a natural. She’ll be moving up to Twinkle Toes in no time.” Lori Lee focused all her attention on Darcie. “Now, let me show you another exercise.”
Rick watched his daughter for several more minutes, then turned to Birdie and held out the estimate. “Lori Lee has okayed this, and I told her we can start work Monday morning. I won’t need any payment until the job’s done. It shouldn’t take more than one day, two at the most.”
Birdie waved the estimate away. “I don’t need to see the thing. Just put in whatever this old building needs to make it warm in the winter and cool in the summer.”
“I think we can manage that.”
“How much extra would you charge to make the job last an extra day or two?” Birdie cocked her head to one side, avoiding eye contact with Rick.
“Why would you want the project to—”
“To give you and Lori Lee a little more time together,” Birdie freely admitted. “It doesn’t look like y’all can think up any excuses on your own for seeing each other, so I thought I’d help out. After all, you’ve been in town five months and neither you nor Lori Lee had made a move to contact each other.”
“Miss Birdie, what are you saying? I can assure you that there’s nothing going on between your niece and me.”
“Yes, I’m well aware that there isn’t. I just want to know why not.” Easing up beside Rick, Birdie slipped her fleshy arm around his waist. “You’re single. Lori Lee’s single. And it’s obvious to me that y’all have got the hots for each other.”
“You’re a plainspoken woman, aren’t you, Miss Birdie.”
“Call me Aunt Birdie.” She hugged him around the waist.
“Well, Aunt Birdie, tell me why you’d want your niece involved with a man like me? You know my reputation. I’m a bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks. I barely got out of high school and I’ve worked construction most of my life. What do I have to offer a woman like Lori Lee?”
“She’s been afraid to fall in love again since her divorce,” Birdie told him. “She’s bombarded by the attention of all these lackluster Romeos. What she needs is a real man for a change. Somebody who’ll stir her blood.” Birdie jabbed him in the center of his chest with her index finger. “That’s you. A woman would have to be dead for you not to stir her blood.”
Rick grinned. Damn, but he liked Lori Lee’s Aunt Birdie. She was his kind of woman. “Even if Lori Lee was interested in me, which she’s not, what makes you think I’d be interested in her?”
The front door burst open and three little girls came rushing in, one breathless mother following them. Lori Lee gathered them together and introduced them to Darcie.
“Your daughter is a lovely child,” Aunt Birdie told Rick.
“Yes, she is, but my daughter’s looks have nothing to do with the question I asked you.”
“I think maybe it does.” Birdie told him, then smiled at the harried young mother who approached them. “Hello, Mindy. How are you today?”
“Running around in circles as usual,” Mindy said. “Who’s this? A new twirler father?”
“Forgive my lack of manners.” Birdie patted Rick on the arm. “Mindy, this is Rick Warrick, Darcie’s father.” Birdie nodded toward the newcomer. “Rick, this is Mindy Jenkins. She’s the mother of the little brunette over there, and aunt to the redheaded twins.”
“Well, welcome to the twirling world,” Mindy said. “Just be prepared for your little girl to sleep, eat and bathe with her baton for the next few months.”
“Don’t you think Rick’s daughter is a living doll?” Birdie asked. “I was just about to tell Rick how much she reminds me of Lori Lee at that age. Do you see the resemblance, Mindy?”
Mindy stared at Darcie, then at Lori Lee. She smacked her lips. “Glory be, you’re right. I swear, they look enough alike to be mother and daughter.”
“Your wife must have been a very pretty blonde,” Birdie said. “I imagine she looked a lot like Lori Lee.”
Damn smart old woman, Rick thought. Was she psychic or something? Without actually accusing him of choosing a woman who had reminded him of Lori Lee, Birdie let Rick know she’d figured out just why he’d been attracted to his former wife.
“Yeah, she looked a bit like Lori Lee, but that’s where any similarity between the two ended.”
Rick had to admit that he had a weakness for blondes, especially blue-eyed blondes with pouty lips and hourglass figures. He supposed he’d looked for Lori Lee in every woman he’d been with since he’d left Tuscumbia fifteen years ago. He’d been with plenty of cheap imitations, Darcie’s mother being the closest thing he’d found to his fantasy woman. At least in the looks department. It hadn’t taken Rick long to discover April Denton was no lady. But then, it hadn’t mattered. He sure as hell had never been a gentleman.
Since the day he realized Darcie was really his, he’d thought back to when she’d been conceived, wondering why he’d been fool enough to have sex with a woman without using protection. He wasn’t usually that careless.
He could recall only one night that it could have happened. The first night he’d had sex with April. The night he’d taken April Denton to bed and made love to Lori Lee Guy.
Three
It was a slow day at the Sparkle and Shine shop, slower than usual for a Monday in January. A cold drizzle had set in a little after eleven, and Lori Lee could tell by the clinking taps on the awnings that the rain was mixed with sleet. She hoped the weather didn’t worsen and force her to cancel the afternoon and evening classes. All the competition groups needed this last week of practice before they performed in Gadsden on Saturday.
“Where are those tights with the pink and red hearts on them?” Aunt Birdie called from the storage room. “I wanted to plan our Valentine display for the window. I’ve got to find something to keep me busy. It doesn’t look like we’re going to have any customers.”
“Mondays are always slow,” Lori Lee said. “Besides, the weather’s getting nasty. And we sold out of those tights last year. I have some ordered and expect them in any day now.”
“Well, I can’t find anything else to get into back here.” Emerging from the storage room, Birdie pulled a pack of cards out of her yellow smock pocket. “We could play a few games to pass the time.”
“You don’t want to play cards,” Lori Lee said. “You want to talk, to ask me a dozen questions about my date Saturday night.”
“I couldn’t care less about your Saturday night with Powell.” Birdie slipped the cards back in her pocket. “Even if you slept with him, I’d probably find the retelling as boring as you found the actual event.”
Lori Lee tried not to laugh, but several muffled giggles escaped. “I didn’t sleep with Powell.”
“I didn’t think you did.”
“We went to a play at the Ritz and had a late dinner at the Renaissance Tower.”
“That’s nice, dear.” Birdie walked over to the front door and looked outside. “It’s just a coming down, isn’t it? Good thing Rick and his crew are working inside.”
“I wondered how long it would take you to get around to talking about Rick.” Lori Lee walked over and placed her arm around her aunt’s shoulders. “I saw him this morning at the studio for all of about five minutes when I unlocked the door and let him and his crew in.”
“I think I’ll run next door and invite them to eat lunch with us. Lord knows I brought enough food for half a dozen people.” Birdie headed for the storage room. “I’ll need my coat and umbrella.”
“If you’re going to invite them all for lunch, just use the telephone,” Lori Lee suggested as she strolled around the shop, flicking imaginary specks of dust off the countertops. “And if Rick accepts, I hope y’all have a lovely lunch. Unfortunately, I won’t be here.”
“What do you mean, you won’t be here?”
“I mean I’ll go somewhere else for lunch. I will not allow you to play matchmaker for me with a man who is as unsuitable for me as I am for him.”
Birdie pivoted around slowly, then smiled broadly when she glanced at the front door. “You do whatever you want, sugar, but I’m going to issue my invitation in person.”
Lori Lee followed her aunt’s mesmerized stare, straight to the man approaching the front entrance. When the door opened, a blustery wind blew a gust of frozen rain into the shop as Rick Warrick entered. He shook the rain from his shaggy black hair and brushed icy droplets off his thick, corduroy work jacket. Lori Lee noticed the swirl of dark chest hair peeping over the top of his beige thermal undershirt.
“Good day, ladies.”
The sound of his deep, husky voice rippled along Lori Lee’s nerve endings like Mississippi sorghum poured over hot flapjacks.
“Well, hello, Rick,” Aunt Birdie said. “You boys taking a lunch break? Because if you are, Lori Lee and I would like to invite you to share lunch with us. I brought leftovers from my Sunday dinner.”
“Thank you, Miss Birdie—”
“Aunt Birdie.”
“Thank you, Aunt Birdie. I’m sure your leftovers will beat the heck out of my cold bologna sandwich.” Rick ran his fingers through his damp hair. “I’d be happy to accept your offer, if we can postpone eating for a bit.”
“Wonderful.” Birdie beamed, her eyelashes fluttered. “How long shall we wait? It’s nearly noon. I thought y’all took your lunch break at twelve.”
“We do, and my men are getting ready to eat right now. But before I join you ladies for lunch, I’d like y’all to come next door for a minute.”
“Is something wrong?” Lori Lee asked. “Have y’all run into a problem of some sort in removing the old heating system?”
“No, ma’am, not a problem, just an interesting development,” Rick said. “While we were tearing out the old heating unit, a part of the wooden wall behind it fell in. The boards were rotted clean through.”
“Was it some type of support wall?” Lori Lee went into the basement as seldom as possible. She hated the creepy feeling it gave her, as if she were inside a tomb. “Is there any danger of the upper level floor falling in?”
“No, nothing like that,” Rick assured her. “The wall served no purpose, really. I figure it was put up to close off part of the basement. We found something down there I thought you and Miss...Aunt Birdie might like to see.”
“Something in our basement?” Dimples creased Birdie’s fat cheeks. “Well, you go on over, sugar, and check it out. I’m afraid I can’t get up and down those rickety old stairs.” She smiled at Rick. “Just what have you found?”
“It looks like a bar,” Rick said. “And not just any bar. This sucker is a huge, ornately carved wooden bar, a good fifteen feet long.”
“Oh, my, yes.” Birdie clapped her hands together like a giddy child. “I’ve heard the rumors all my life, but I never realized that the old speakeasy was located in the basement of one of my buildings. Isn’t this exciting?”