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“Yeah. Me, too. And that was pretty incredible.”
His dimples flashed, illuminated by the yellow porch light. “I could fall for you real easy, Darcie Moretti. I know that sounds weird with you being pregnant and all.”
Steady, she cautioned herself. Don’t jump. “Good thing we’re both sensible adults. And good thing neither of us has time to devote to a relationship.”
He took a step closer. She took a step back. “Who says I don’t have time for a relationship?” Never mind that she was right. It bothered him that she was thinking for him again.
“Your daughter does. Every time she calls the hot line. She’s your number one concern, Flynn. And mine. I won’t lose another kid.”
“Another one?” Flynn asked. It was difficult to think straight with desire still raging through him like a wildfire. But Darcie’s tone flashed warning signals in his sluggish brain, making him uneasy. Even more upsetting was her including his daughter in that category of kids whom someone could lose. “Are you talking ‘lose’ as in dead?”
She looked away. “It happens sometimes.”
He touched her cheek, turned her face back to him. “What happened to you?” he asked softly. “Who did you lose?”
“My best friend in high school.”
Not so recent, he realized, relaxing now that he was fairly sure she wasn’t talking about her hot line and his daughter. “Want to talk about it?”
“Are you sure you’re ready to hear this?”
“Yes.” No. He had an idea that as a father her story would cause him nightmares. But he wanted to know what made Darcie Moretti tick. And this was something that affected her deeply.
“Tammy’s dad was pretty strict, more so than most, and he wasn’t one to budge when he felt strongly about something. He’d been raising Tammy by himself, then one day he went to Atlantic City and came back married. Turns out he’d been seeing the woman for a while, but he’d never said a word to anybody, not even Tammy. He just brought Glenda home and expected Tammy to accept her new stepmother.”
“And she didn’t?”
“No. From then on, she went out of her way to be a rebel. She was bullheaded—a lot like your Heather, but older. She got pregnant and panicked.”
Flynn flinched and Darcie realized she probably shouldn’t have mentioned Heather and “pregnant” in the same breath.
“All Tammy thought about was that her dad was going to kill her. So instead of facing him, she ran away.”
Darcie leaned a hip on the brick half wall that surrounded the porch, and plucked a couple of berries off a juniper bush. “I was the last person she called. I didn’t think she was serious about staying gone. She’d threatened so many times before. I told her I’d come meet her, and she got mad at me and said I’d probably just tell my mom and then my mom would call her stepmom.” She glanced back at Flynn. “You know how it is with parents or neighbors sticking together.”
Cold bit at her cheeks and her insides as though an arctic blizzard had suddenly swept the yard. She could still see Tammy’s laughing face, still vividly remember the horror and then the giggles when they’d wrestled over a swing in grade school and Darcie had ended up with a broken finger.
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