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The pop of her hand against his cheek reverberated through the silent office for long seconds after the act.
Stephanie, leaning across her desk, stared as the red imprint formed on her son’s face. Tears welled in his shocked, disbelieving eyes. He’d never been struck in his life, other than his fight with Clyde. She couldn’t believe it herself. She’d never hit another person.
Doogie leapt to his feet and turned from her, his hands balled into fists. He made a loop of his arms against the wall and hid his face inside it. For all his lanky height, he looked like what he was—a kid who was in trouble, young and vulnerable, scared, defiant and sorry, all at the same time.
Stephanie straightened slowly, feeling as old and wicked as the witch from Snow White. She sank into her chair as the tremors started, earthquakes of emotion that she couldn’t control. “Doogie, I’m sorry. It was wrong of me to strike you.”
He made a muffled sound, then turned and ran, crashing through the outside door and cutting across the parking lot in front of an elderly couple, nearly knocking them down as he fled the place.
Stephanie stood, her mind in a whirl. She clenched a hand over her stomach and felt totally helpless in dealing with her son. She was aware of the disapproving glances from the couple as she stared outside. She nodded apologetically to them and closed the door.
For a moment she thought she was going to be sick. The tinkle of chimes at the front door reminded her she had a full afternoon of work ahead and Pat hadn’t had lunch yet.
Worried, her heart aching, she went to the front. “Ready for a lunch break?” she asked with forced cheer.
“Starved,” Pat affirmed. “Everything okay with the kid?” She’d known Doogie since birth, had, in fact, babysat with him when she’d still been a girl in school.
“No. Did he say anything to you?”
Pat shook her head, her smile sympathetic. “I saw Nick Dorelli drop him off at the door. I knew he must be in trouble.” She hesitated. “Don’t be too hard on him. All kids go through a stage, well, you know…” She grabbed her purse, tilted her head in the direction of two teenage girls going over the racks of earrings on a carousel, and left.
Stephanie straightened a shelf of cotton sweaters, then surveyed the small shop. The Glass Slipper looked smart, up-to-the-minute and friendly. She’d picked the muted gray-green of sage and the soft yellows and red of the local clay for a theme. Pedestals of black Colorado granite held inexpensive urns that looked priceless. Scarves and costume jewelry were casually draped over the clay pieces.
The ordered disarray didn’t comfort her today. She sighed and rubbed her forehead where a headache was making itself known. Anger and embarrassment with her son roiled in her. She felt incompetent as a parent. Maybe she was.
Giggles from the two girls brought her back to the business at hand. She dredged up a smile. “Those look lovely on you,” she said to one who’d put on a pair of earrings from the rack. “Do you want them wrapped or are you going to wear them?”
“I’ll wear them.” The girls paid and left, talking and giggling about a boy one of them liked.
Once she’d been that carefree, but not since the summer she’d graduated and her mother had divorced her father and moved to Santa Fe, leaving them behind, Stephanie reflected.
She’d started her first year at the community college while Nick went east to a big university. In January her father had gone hunting and died in an avalanche.
Clay Bolt had been the deputy who’d come to tell her. He’d been with her when they dug her father out. He’d gone to the morgue with her. He’d stayed at the house until her mother arrived. After the funeral, Stephanie had lived there alone.
Nick had come home at spring vacation and seen Clay with her on the porch, the deputy’s arms around her to comfort her at a low moment in her life. Nick had accused her of betraying him.
She’d been astounded, then furious that he didn’t trust her, when she’d trusted him at his Ivy League school with all those debutantes hanging around. After he’d stormed out, she’d waited for him to come back to apologize, but he hadn’t. Not one call, one letter. She’d stubbornly resisted the need to contact him.
Until Clay’s death, she’d thought nothing could have been worse than that bleak period. The following year had been the loneliest of her life. Clay had become her closest friend. Months later, accepting that it was over between her and Nick, she’d dated the handsome deputy. They’d married a year after that.
Her husband had been even-tempered, a man who liked working with his hands, either on the house or on the various vehicles they’d had. The marriage had had its off moments, but mostly it had been good.
She sighed shakily. Always, always, she would regret that stupid quarrel before he’d gone off to work. He’d stopped at the convenience store to pick up a pack of gum because he’d quit smoking and had run into a robbery in progress.
Sometimes she felt as if her life had ended that day, too. But she’d had a child to care for, and that alone was enough to make her go on.
The death had changed Doogie, though. He’d become quieter and harder to handle; difficult where once he’d been easygoing and good-humored; moody where once he’d been mischievous and given to joking.
If only she had a man who could talk to Doogie like a father. Doogie had adored Clay. The two males had been close.
She stewed over the situation the rest of the afternoon. When the store closed at five and Doogie hadn’t returned, she paced the tiny office, unsure what to do.
The mayor’s wife, who was also her partner in the store, breezed in. “Hi. How’s it going?”
“Hi, Amy. Fine. It was slow this afternoon.”
“Everyone’s waiting for the Summer Madness sales to start. Did all our merchandise come in?”
“Not yet, but I’m expecting it Monday.”
She and Amy had opened the store four years ago. And she and Clay had quarreled about it ever since. He had liked his wife at home, not in town until all hours, as he put it. Actually the store was open late only on Friday night.
“Good.” Amy picked up a package under the counter. “Pat said my new outfit was in. You should get yourself one of these silk gown and peignoir sets,” she advised. “You never know when you might want to seduce a man. That’s what I’m going to do to the mayor tonight” Laughing, she took her package and said good-night.
Stephanie’s smile dried up as soon as the door closed. She hadn’t thought of seducing a man in a long time. That was way down on her list of priorities. Right now, she was a parent with a missing child. After another half hour, she gave up her troubled vigil and picked up the phone. She called the dispatcher and asked for Deputy Dorelli.
Chapter Two
Ten minutes later, Stephanie stood at the barred window and watched as Nick stepped down from the cruiser and crossed the parking lot. He walked with the easy assurance of a man who knew his world and was secure in it.
Gone was the young man she’d once known. He hadn’t been that person in years, but it wasn’t until last Christmas, under a sprig of mistletoe, that she’d fully realized it.
That kiss had shaken her. It had stirred passion and longing and memories of the past that she hadn’t allowed herself to consider in years. With it had come the startling realization that she was still a woman and she still had a heart full of dreams. She blinked as unexpected tears stung her eyes.
Nick entered without knocking and got right to the point. “What’s wrong?”
For the wildest second, she thought of being enfolded in his comforting embrace. She forced her mind back to the real world. “It’s Doogie. He and I…we quarreled …about the video.” She couldn’t bring herself to call the problem by its name. “He ran off—”
“What time was that?”
“Noon. I haven’t seen him since. I thought he would come back to the shop when he calmed down.” She pressed her lips together as worry ate at her.
Nick shrugged, his expression calm. “He’s probably too ashamed to face you.”
She blurted out the rest of it. “I slapped him. I never have before. I…it just happened. Oh, Nick, if you’d seen his face. He was so upset.”
“Easy, Steph,” he said in a quiet tone.
Once she’d loved his voice with its deep cadence that could be soothing or exciting, according to the circumstances. Once just the sound of it over the phone had made her heart pound.
His gaze caught and held hers. Instead of their opaque darkness, she sensed emotions in him that she hadn’t been aware of in a long time. She also saw the wariness.
“Did you call the ranch and see if he maybe hitched a ride home? That would be my bet on where he is,” he said with a businesslike brevity.
“I’ve called every half hour. This isn’t like him. He’s always been—” A sob caught in her throat.
“Easy,” he said again in his patient-cop mode. “Stay put. I’ll cruise around and see if I can find him.”
“I can help. I’ll look….” She tried to think where a twelve-year-old would go. “He wouldn’t go to Clyde’s, would he?” She looked at Nick for his opinion.
“He might. Have you tried there?”
She shook her head, already reaching for the phone. The call revealed that Clyde was spending the night with a friend and his mother hadn’t seen Doogie in a week.
“Not there,” she said in a croak, hanging up. The sky seemed darker when she gazed out the window, hoping to see the lanky figure of her son coming back. “The sun is setting.”
A hand closed on her shoulder. She resisted the urge to lay her cheek against it and soak up the warmth. He’d been like this after her father’s death—kind, considerate, concerned about her well-being.
“It won’t be dark for hours yet. Walk over to the school. He might be hanging around there. I’ll check with you in, say, half an hour?”
“All right.” After he left, she grabbed her purse and locked up. She walked as fast as she could to the school. There wasn’t a soul around. Even the janitor had gone for the day.
Tears balled in her throat. If he was hurt…if something happened…It would be her fault. She should have remained calm. That was a mother’s job, to be calm and guide her child on the right path.
She rushed along the nearly deserted Main Street, her thoughts going in every direction. One of them shocked her. If she and Nick had married, if Doogie was their son, she wondered how things might have been different.
Dear heavens…
Nick’s cruiser was in the parking lot when she arrived. She pressed a hand to her heart. Doogie was with him.
Too overcome to speak, she nodded, unlocked the office door and went inside. Doogie followed. He looked scared and defiant, but his eyes were worried and his mouth was pinched in at the corners.
Unexpected tears rolled down her face. She folded her arms on the cluttered desk surface and wept in silent misery.
After a minute, arms glided around her middle. She raised up and clasped Doogie to her breast. His tears fell with hers.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I’m sorry. Please, please don’t…”
She cupped his face in her hands. “You must promise me never, never to do anything like that again. Promise.”
“I won’t. Never. Honest.”
She hugged him to her, fear eating holes in her stomach. She must be raising him wrong for this to happen, but she didn’t know how she could do better. She needed advice, someone who understood boys and could talk to Doogie.
A picture of Nick, his keen gaze peering all the way to her soul, came to her. Her breath caught in her throat. Not him.
At Christmas, he’d been cynical and hard when he’d taunted her about being the grieving widow. This after he’d kissed her nearly mindless. She’d been furious…and excited and totally confused.
Her son stirred in her arms. She released him and grabbed a tissue for each of them. He wiped his eyes and blew his nose, then moved away from her.
She didn’t try to hold him. There was something older and infinitely sadder in the depths of her son’s eyes, as if a part of his childhood had been ripped away from him in the hours he’d been gone. It hurt her.
“Where did you go?”
“Nowhere, just walked around.” His voice cracked. “Then I tried to thumb a ride home.”
Just as Nick had thought he would.
“I have to thank Deputy Dorelli,” she said, recalling they’d left him in the parking lot.
When she went out, the cruiser was gone. He’d brought her son back, then thoughtfully left them alone. She stood in the last warm rays of sunlight, not sure what she felt.
Since Christmas, something had changed between her and Nick. He made her uneasy with his unrelenting gaze, as if he’d weighed her worth and she came up a full pound short.
She drew a shaky breath and turned to her son. “Let’s go home, shall we?”
“Yeah, we’ve got to check the stock.”
“Right. ’On a ranch, the chores are never done—’”
“’Just caught up for the moment,’” Doogie finished the often-quoted lecture from his father.
Later, thinking over the long day, Stephanie decided she’d overreacted. She inhaled the sage-scented air. Her son was in bed, she had a successful business, all was right with her world.
So why did she feel so miserable?
Stephanie dropped the day’s receipts into the after-hours depository at the bank with a weary sigh. The Summer Madness sale was over, thank heavens. For six days, from Monday until one o’clock today, they’d been swamped by customers. She and Pat and Amy had put in long hours this week.
Not that she was complaining. They’d moved a lot of merchandise. The new line of jewelry they’d decided to try had done very well. She’d already ordered more of it.
Stopping by her car, she viewed the Saturday traffic, which was light. She had to go to the grocery, but first she’d have lunch before going home to her recalcitrant son.
The week had been a terrible one. They’d hardly spoken to each other. He’d resented going to the sitter’s house, and she had missed having him at the shop. They could certainly have used his help. However, she had to stick to her guns.
To have rescinded his punishment would have meant she could be maneuvered into changing her mind or that she didn’t think shoplifting a serious offense. He might have gotten the idea he could do as he darned well pleased.
But it had been a hard week. He didn’t speak unless spoken to, and then, as briefly as possible. She’d left him at the ranch doing chores that morning.
A truck, one of those sports utility vehicles that the sheriff’s department used, turned the corner. She recognized the dark hair and wide shoulders even from a distance. She quickly climbed into her car and drove off.
She didn’t want Nick to see her standing on the sidewalk, unable to make up her mind about what to do on a Saturday afternoon and dreading the weekend. He would probably go to the Bear Tooth Saloon that evening. It was the local hangout for singles. She drove down the block, trying to decide what she wanted to eat.
She quietly sighed. She really was beat. She’d get her groceries and head home. She pulled into the parking lot at the only shopping mall located in the town and stopped. Her gaze fell on the new deli that had recently opened.
A sign in the window proclaimed the special of the day was a soup and salad combo. That sounded good.
The air-conditioning hit her with a pleasantly chilling blast when she went inside. It was unusually hot for June. She called a greeting to the waitress, who’d been two years behind her in school. “Hi, Peg. How’s it going?”
“Hi. We’re busy today. You alone?”
“Yes.”
The first person she spotted when Peg led her to a table was her nemesis. Nick was seated at a booth with an adorable blonde who leaned against his shoulder and gave him a kiss on the cheek while Stephanie watched, her eyes going wide.
He smiled and playfully tugged at a golden curl that brushed his chin. When he looked up, his eyes met hers.
She didn’t look away fast enough. He nodded a greeting, then glanced around at the restaurant. The place was full and a line was forming for tables. He gestured to the banquette opposite him and his dinner partner.
The waitress, who knew both of them, noticed the invitation. “Do you want to sit with Nick?” she asked. “That way you won’t be alone, and it’ll free up a table for someone else.”
Stephanie remembered a time when she’d been alone and had longed for his company. She’d faithfully waited for him, for all the good that had done her. Ah, well, she could stand his company for one meal, she decided grimly. “Okay.”
She followed the younger woman across the room and slipped into the seat opposite Nick and the cute blonde. “I don’t think I’ve met your date,” she said, her smile real this time.
“Nikki, meet Stephanie. Stephanie, this is my favorite niece, Nikki Carradine.”
The four-year-old dimpled into a charming smile. “I think you’re pretty,” she said to Stephanie. “I’ve got a boyfriend,” she confided. “His name is Zach. Do you have one?”
Stephanie felt a blush warm her ears. “Not at the present.”
“Uncle Nick doesn’t have a girlfriend,” she continued. “I was going to marry him, but Momma said I have to marry somebody my age. How old are you?”
“Nikki, it isn’t polite to ask a lady her age,” Nick chided with a gentle smile that did things to Stephanie’s heart.
“Why not?”
His brows drew together. “I’m not sure, but I think Nonna said it wasn’t done, and I always believed her.”
“I’m the same age as your uncle,” Stephanie told the pretty youngster, ignoring her escort.
“Do you have a little girl?”
“No. I have a twelve-year-old son.”
“Is he nice?”
“Most of the time.”
Nikki looked at her uncle with a question in her beautiful blue eyes. Stephanie remembered that her father, an attorney in Denver, had blond hair and blue eyes.
“A little old for you. Better stick with Zach. He’s in her Sunday School class,” Nick explained to Steph.
“But I’m not going to marry him,” Nikki declared.
Talk of marriage made Stephanie uncomfortable. She tried to avoid looking at Nick, all but impossible since he sat directly across the table from her. She was acutely aware of his dark chocolate eyes flashing from one person to another as he followed the conversation. He wore a slightly skewed, definitely sardonic, grin.
The waitress came for their order. When she left, there was an awkward lull in the conversation.
“How was the Summer Madness sale?” Nick asked.
“Fine. Busy.” She took a sip of water.
His foot brushed hers under the table. “Sorry.”
Tingles floated up her leg. “That’s okay.”
“Uncle Nick, I need to go potty,” Nikki announced.
“Sure thing, sport.” He stood and held out his hand to help his niece jump down from the banquette.
He wore a neatly pressed, long-sleeved white shirt, the cuffs rolled up a couple of turns, jeans with a sharp crease and dress boots. Since he lived in bachelor quarters in town, and she felt certain he didn’t iron his own things, she assumed he sent his clothes to the laundry.
“Would you like me to take her?” Stephanie asked.
“Would you mind? I always stand outside the door, feeling like some kind of weirdo while I wait.” He grinned in that lopsided manner that had once seared right into her heart.
Nikki placed her hand trustfully in Stephanie’s. She chattered about her favorite things to eat while they wound their way to the back of the restaurant.
When Stephanie spoke to people she knew, they smiled at her and invariably glanced toward the booth where Nick sat. Heat seeped into her cheeks. In a small town, memories were long. The townsfolk would recall that she and Nick had once been inseparable. She’d thought they would one day be a family….
When she and Nikki returned to the table, she found Nick talking to a friend in the next booth about the soccer season and how it was going. He finished and stood to let his niece back into her seat.
“We can use another player on the team,” he mentioned. “Doogie might be interested. We practice three afternoons a week and play on Saturday afternoon over at the high school.”
“He can’t. Doogie is on restriction the rest of the month.” She spoke calmly in the face of Nick’s frowning perusal. “That’s another ten days.”
“Maybe later,” Nick put in easily.
“Is Doogie being punished?” Nikki wanted to know.
“Yes. He did something he wasn’t supposed to, and now he’s grounded.” She avoided Nick’s eyes.
Their order arrived, the house specialty burgers for Nick and his niece, a salad with a grilled chicken sandwich for her.
“Hmm, maybe we’d better put something over that pretty dress,” Nick mused. “We wouldn’t want to get mustard on it. How about my handkerchief?”
“Okay,” Nikki said agreeably. She let him tuck a white hankie under her chin. “This was my Easter dress.”
“It’s very nice,” Stephanie said.
“Mom and I saw the Easter Bunny at the store.” She clapped a hand over her mouth and giggled. “You know something? It wasn’t him. It was a man pretending to be the Easter Bunny.” With an indignant huff, she confided, “He had glasses. Everybody knows rabbits don’t need glasses. They eat lots of carrots.”
Nick and Stephanie laughed at the end of this charming tale, told with great earnestness and a precise knowledge of the Easter Bunny and his ways.
Stephanie’s laughter died when she found Nick’s narrowed gaze on her. Hungry eyes. Her breath strangled in her throat. She couldn’t breathe or think or tear her gaze away.
“Pass the ketchup, please,” Nikki said, breaking into the turbulent moment.
Nick glanced away from her and passed the bottle over. When he looked at Stephanie again, she went hazy with relief. She’d been mistaken in what he was thinking. He was utterly calm, as cool as shaved ice, the way he normally was…except for that one incident in Amy’s kitchen.
“It’s going to be a hot summer, it seems,” she said. “The news said the high temperatures last week set a new record.” A blush crawled up her neck. Brilliant conversation.
“Yeah, I heard the same on TV this morning. I hope it isn’t true. We don’t need that problem this summer.”
“Are you expecting others?”
“The highway will be resurfaced down to Denver next month. It’ll slow traffic. The tourists will get grouchy. There’ll be some fender benders because of it and probably some fist fights.” He gave a snort of laughter. “Business as usual.”
“Do we still have more crime in the summer than in the winter?” she asked. She missed knowing the details of life around her, she realized. Being a cop’s wife, she used to know everything that happened in the county.
“Yes, mostly vandalism. Some petty stealing. In cow country, you get rustling, but we haven’t had anything major in a couple of years. No murders or grand larceny.”
“Have there been any bank robberies?” Nikki asked.
“Not lately,” he said with a grin at her avid interest. “The last big thing was the break-in at the summer house where that diamond necklace was taken. That was a couple of years ago.” Nick saw Steph’s eyes darken and could have kicked himself. Clay had been killed during a robbery at a quick market right after that. “The county is pretty quiet.”
She ducked her head over her plate and ate busily. Nick sighed internally. He knew Steph had been horrified and embarrassed at her son’s brush with the law. There was no need to embarrass her further with talk of crime.
He cut Nikki’s hamburger into quarters, saw that she had ketchup for her fries, then added some to his own plate. Across from him, Stephanie ate without enthusiasm. If it had been left to her, he thought, she’d have chosen not to sit with him.