Baby Steps
Karen Templeton

MILLS & BOON

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To Gail

for giving this couple another chance

to finally get together

(and for unfailingly knowing when I most

need a word of encouragement)

and to Charles

for loving this book

and wanting it to be the best it could be.

How blessed can a girl get?

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Epilogue

Coming Next Month

Chapter One

“You get back here, Cass Carter!”

Dana Malone zipped across the sales floor after her rapidly retreating partner, nearly landing on her butt when a crawling baby shot out in front of her from behind a St. Bernard-sized Elmo. Half a wobble and a shuffle later, she was back on track. “What do you mean, I have to do it—ouch!”

“Watch out for the new high chair,” the long-legged, denim-skirted blonde tossed back, cradling the tiny head jutting out from a Snugli strapped to her chest.

“Thanks,” Dana grumbled, rubbing her hip as she snaked her way through cribs and playpens, Little Tikes’ playhouses and far too many racks of gently used baby clothes. Her two partners—and their skinny little fannies—could navigate the jumbled sales floor with ease. For Dana, the space was a minefield. As was Cass’s request. “Have you lost your mind? I can’t pick the store’s new location by myself, Cass! What on earth do I know about real estate?”

“This is Albuquerque, for heaven’s sake,” Cass said as she slipped into the store’s pea-sized office. “Not Manhattan.” She shimmied past her desk, heaped with paperwork and piles of newly consigned clothes, then swiped a trio of original Cabbage Patch Kids dolls in mint condition from the rocker wedged into one corner. “How difficult can it be to choose one strip mall storefront over another? Here, take Jason for a moment, would you?”

The weight of the month-old infant—and the ache—barely had a chance to register before Cass, now settled into the rocker, reached again for the softly fussing infant. Dana allowed herself an extra second of stolen new-baby scent before relinquishing her charge, watching Cass attach baby to breast with a neutral expression. The baby now contentedly slurping away, her partner lifted amused blue green eyes to her. “C.J.’s already got several potential locations lined up. All you have to do is weed out the ones that won’t work.”

A trickle of perspiration made a run for it down Dana’s sternum, seeking haven in her cleavage. “I’d just assumed we’d all do this together.”

“I know, sweetie. But I’m pooped. And Blake’s on my case as it is about coming back to work so soon. Besides, between our lease being up next month and the store about to burst at the seams—”

“What about Mercy? Why can’t she do it?”

“Why can’t I do what?”

The third side of the Great Expectations triangle stood in the office doorway, sports car-red fingernails sparkling against a frilly little skirt Dana wouldn’t have been able to wear when she was twelve.

“Go property scouting,” Dana said. “You’d be much better at it than me.”

Meredes Zamora swiped a dark curl out of her face as she squeezed into the office. “I’m also much better at juggling five customers at a time. You get rattled with two.”

“I do not!”

Both ladies laughed.

“Okay, so maybe I do get a little flustered.”

“Honey,” Mercy said, not unkindly, “you start stuttering.”

“And dropping things,” Cass added.

“And—”

“Okay, okay! I get your point!”

It was true. Even after nearly five years, even though wallpaper books and Excel spreadsheets held no terror for her, Dana still tended to lose her composure under duress. Especially about making business decisions on her own—

“He’s expecting your call,” Cass said.

Dana suddenly felt like a bird being eyed by a pair of hungry cats. “Who is?”

“C.J.”

She sighed in tandem with the soft jangle of the bell over the front door. In a flounce of curls and a swish of that miniskirted fanny that had, Dana was sure, never felt the pinch of a girdle, Mercy pivoted back out to the sales floor, leaving Dana with the Duchess of Determination. She decided to ignore the feeling of dread curdling in her stomach as a slow, sly grin stretched across Cass’s naturally glossed mouth. “You’ve never seen C.J., have you?”

Curdled dread never lied. Especially when it came to Cass, who, now that her own love life was copacetic, had made fixing Dana’s woeful lack in that department her personal crusade.

Wiping her palms on the front of her skirt, Dana pivoted toward the door. “Mercy probably needs me out front—”

“No, she doesn’t. Sit.” Cass nodded toward the pile of clothes on her desk. “Those things need to be tagged anyway.”

Scowling, Dana plopped behind the desk, snatching a tiny pink jumper off the pile. “Twelve bucks?”

“Fifteen. Macy’s has them new for forty.” Cass shifted in her chair, making Jason’s hand fly about for a moment until his tiny fingers grasped her bunched up blouse. Envy pricked at Dana’s heart as Cass continued, more to the baby than to Dana, “C.J. is…mmm, how shall I put this…?” Zing went those eyes. “Magnificent.”

So she’d heard. Dana phh’d at her.

“As if it would kill you to spend the afternoon with the man with the bedroom, blue eyes.” Cass tugged her skirt back over her knee. “Butt’s not bad, either.”

Just what Dana needed in her life. Lethal eyes and taut buns. She scribbled the price on the tag, then jabbed the point of the ticket gun into the jumper, entertaining vaguely voodooesque thoughts. “I think that’s called sexual objectification.”

“Yeah. So?”

She grabbed the next item off the pile, a fuchsia jumpsuit with enormous purple flowers. “Twenty?”

“Sure. Sweetie, I nearly drooled over the guy myself when he helped me sell the house a few months ago. And don’t you dare tell Blake.”

Dana’s head snapped up. “Excuse me? You were seven months pregnant, recently widowed—”

Never mind that Cass’s second husband had been a dirtwad of the first order, but a friend has a duty to point out these things.

“—your ex-husband was hot to get back together, and you were salivating all over your Realtor?”

“Yeah, well, it was like having a close encounter with a chocolate marble cheesecake after a ten-year diet. Fortunately, since I’m not all that crazy about chocolate marble cheesecake, the temptation passed.”

Unfortunately, Dana had a real thing for chocolate marble cheesecake. Which Cass knew full well. As did Dana’s hips.

“This wouldn’t be you trying to fix me up, by any chance?”

“Perish the thought.”

Dana sighed, wrote out another price tag. “You forget. I had inside information.” She plopped the last garment on the “done” pile, then folded her hands in front of her on the desk. “C. J. Turner’s idea of intimacy is cozying up to his cell phone on his way to one appointment, making follow-up calls from another. The man is married to his business. Period.”

A moment of skeptical silence followed. “You got this from Trish, I take it?”

“Not that I know any details,” Dana said with a shrug. Her much younger cousin and she had never been close, despite Trish’s having lived with Dana’s parents for several years. She’d worked for C. J. Turner for six months before vanishing from the face of the earth, more than a year ago. Before the alien abduction, however, she had talked quite a bit about the apparently calendar-worthy Realtor. Professionally, she’d sung his praises, which was why Dana had recommended him to Cass when she’d needed an agent’s services. Personally, however, was something else again. “But I gathered the man hasn’t exactly listed himself on the Marriage Exchange.”

Cass gave her a pointed look from underneath feathery bangs. “So maybe he hasn’t met the right woman yet.”

“Boy, you are sleep-deprived.”

“Well, you never know. It could happen.”

“Yeah, and someday I might lose this extra thirty pounds I’ve been lugging around since junior high, but I’m not holdin’ my breath on that one, either.”

“You know, sweetie, just because Gil—”

“And you can stop right there,” Dana said softly before her partner could dredge up past history. She rose, grabbing the pile of newly marked clothes to cart out front. “I’ve already got one mother, Cass.”

“Sorry,” Cass said over the baby’s noisy suckling at her breast. “It’s just—”

“I am happy,” Dana said, cutting her off. “Most of the time, anyway. I’ve got a good life, great friends and I actually look forward to coming to work every day, which is a lot more than most people can say. But trust me, the minute I start buyin’ into all the ‘maybes’ and ‘it could happens,’ I’m screwed.”

Silence hovered between them for a few seconds, until, on a sigh that said far more than Dana wanted to know, Cass said, “C.J.’s card’s in my Rolodex.”

“Great,” Dana said, thinking, Why me, God? Why?

“You keep staring out the door like that, your eyeballs are gonna fall right outta your head.”

C.J. smiled, relishing the blast from the lobby’s overzealous air conditioner through his dress shirt, fresh out of the cleaner’s plastic this morning. “Haven’t you got phones to answer or something, Val?”

“You hear any ringing? I don’t hear any ringing, so I guess there aren’t any phones to answer.” The trim, fiftysomething platinum blonde waltzed from behind the granite reception desk to peer through silver-framed glasses out the double glass door at the gathering clouds. “You giving that cloud the evil eye so it’ll go away, or so it’ll come here?”

One hand stashed in his pants pocket, C.J. allowed a grin for both the storm outside and the Texas tempest beside him. Out over the West Mesa, lightning periodically forked in the ominous sky; in the past ten minutes, the thunder had gone from hesitant rumbling to something with a real kick to it. If it weren’t for this appointment, he’d be outside, arms raised to the sky, like some crazed prehistoric man communing with the gods. Ozone had an almost sexual effect on him, truth be told. Not that he was about to let Val in on that fact.

“Ah, c’mon, Val—can’t you feel the energy humming in the air?”

“Oh, Lord. Next thing I know, you’re gonna tell me you’re seeing auras around people’s heads—”

The phone rang, piercing the almost eerie hush cloaking the small office. Already cavelike with its thick, stone-colored carpeting and matching walls, the serene gray décor was relieved only by a series of vivid seriographs, the work of a local artist whose career C.J. had been following for years. Normally the place was hopping, especially when the three other agents he’d brought on board were around. But not only were they all out, even C.J.’s cell phone had been uncharacteristically silent for the past hour or so.

Unnerving, to say the least.

“I hear you, I hear you,” Val muttered, sweeping back around the desk, assuming her sweetness-and-light voice the instant she picked up the receiver. A wave of thunder tumbled across the city, accompanied by a lightning flash bright enough to make C.J. blink. Behind him, he heard a little shriek and the clatter of plastic as Val dropped the receiver into the cradle. Some twenty-odd years ago, an uncle or somebody had apparently been struck by lightning through the phone; nobody in her family had touched a telephone during an electrical storm since. Still, the quirk was a small enough price to pay for unflagging loyalty, mind-boggling efficiency and the occasional, well-deserved kick in the butt.

She was standing beside him again, her arms crossed over a sleeveless white blouse mercilessly tucked into navy pants, warily eyeing the blackening sky.

“Looks like you’re about to get your wish…oh, Lordy!” Another crack of thunder nearly sent her into the potted cactus by the door, just as a white VW Jetta with a few years on it pulled into the nearly empty lot. His three o’clock, no doubt, he thought with a tight grin.

Not that Cass Carter hadn’t given it the old college try, with her enthusiastic recital of Dana Malone’s virtues. Nor could he deny a certain idle curiosity about the person belonging to the warm Southern drawl on the other end of the line, when Dana herself had called to make an appointment. Still, if it hadn’t been for all the business Cass and Blake Carter had brought to the agency over the past few months, he would have gladly handed off this particular transaction to one of the other agents. He rarely handled rental deals these days, for one thing. And for another, God save him from well-intentioned women trying to fix him up.

His last…whatever…had been well over a year ago, a one-night stand that should have never happened. And he shouldered the blame for the whole fiasco, for a momentary, but monumental, lapse of good judgment that—thank God!—hadn’t turned out any worse than it had. By the skin of his teeth didn’t even begin to cover it. But the affair had brought into startlingly sharp focus exactly how pointless his standard operating procedure with women had become.

It would be disingenuous to pretend that female companionship had ever been a problem, even if C.J. hadn’t taken advantage of every opportunity that presented itself. At twenty, he’d considered it a gift; by thirty, somewhat of an embarrassment, albeit one he could definitely live with. Long-term relationships, however, had never been on the table. Not a problem with the career-focused women who were no more interested in marriage and family than he was, liaisons that inevitably self-destructed. But it was the gals for whom becoming a trophy wife was a career goal—the ones who saw his determination to remain single as a challenge, yes, but hardly an insurmountable one—that were beginning to get to him.

What he had here was a mondo case of bachelor burnout, a startling revelation if ever there was one. But far easier to avoid the mess to begin with than suffer through cleaning it up later—

The phone rang again; Val didn’t move. “What do you suppose is taking her so long to get out of her car?” she said, her voice knifing through his thoughts.

Twenty feet away, the car door finally opened, and out swung a pair of beautifully arched feet in a pair of strappy high-heeled sandals. C.J. watched with almost academic interest as the woman attached to the feet pulled herself out of the car, the wind catching her soft, billowing white skirt, teasing the hem up to mid-thigh. Her little shriek of alarm carried clear across the parking lot.

In spite of himself, C.J. smiled: he now knew she wore garterless stockings with white lace tops.

“Val? Would you mind checking to be sure all those property printouts for Great Expectations are on my desk?”

“Since I put them there, there’s no need to check. Cute little thing, isn’t she?”

She was that.

Assorted debris and crispy, yellowing cottonwood leaves whirlwinded through the parking lot, whipping at long, tea-colored hair swept up into a topknot, at long bangs softly framing a round face. He could see her grimace as she tried to yank the hair out of her eyes and mouth, hang on to her shoulder bag and hold down the recalcitrant skirt all at once. Huddled against the onslaught, she made a dash for the front door, the weightless fabric of her two-piece dress outlining a pleasant assortment of curves. She hit the sidewalk the precise moment the first fat raindrops splatted to earth; C.J. pushed open the door, only to have a gust of wind shove an armful of fragrant, soft female against his chest. His arms wrapped around her. So they wouldn’t fall over.

“Oh!”

Wide gray-green eyes met his, her skin flushed underneath that unruly mass of shiny hair, now adorned with several leaves and a Doublemint gum wrapper. Inexplicably, he thought of freshly laundered linens and gardens and cool evening breezes at the end of a hot, sultry day.

And, because some habits are simply harder to break than others, he also thought of the pleasant things one could do on freshly laundered linens with a woman who smelled like sunshine and fresh breezes and exotic flowers—

She shot backward as if stung, a full lower lip hanging slightly slack, glistening with some natural-colored lip goo that suited her fair skin to a tee.

C.J. smiled. “Dana Malone, I presume?”

“Oh!” she said a second time, then started madly plucking things out of her hair. Her hands full, she looked frantically around, as if trying to find someplace to stash the evidence before anyone noticed. Always the gracious hostess, Val brought her a small wastebasket. Dana gave a nervous little smile, wiggling her fingers for a second until the disintegrating leaves drifted into their plastic grave. “The wind…” she began as she dusted off her hands, tugged at the hem of her tunic. “A storm’s comin’…you were closer than I expected…oh.”

Her blush heightened, as did her Southern drawl. Mississippi, he guessed. Maybe Alabama. Someplace that brought to mind verandas and Spanish moss and ladies who still wore white gloves to church during the summer. She wiped her hand on her hip, those glistening lips twitching around a nervous smile. “I don’t usually make such spectacular entrances.”

“And it’s not every day lovely women throw themselves into my arms.”

“Oh, brother,” Val muttered behind him as a slightly indignant, “I did not throw myself anywhere, I was blown,” popped out of Dana’s mouth.

Val cackled. C.J. turned his gaze on his office manager.

“Don’t you have someplace to be, Val?”

“Probably,” the blonde said, her reply swallowed by a flash of lightning and a window-rattling clap of thunder, as the sky let loose with torrents of rain and marble-sized hail that bounced a foot off the ground.

Dana whipped around to face outside, her palms skimming her upper arms. “Oh, my goodness,” she breathed, radiating what C.J. could only describe as pure delight. “I sometimes forget how much I miss the rain!”

Don’t stare at the client, don’t stare at the— “So you’re not from New Mexico, either?”

She shook her head, her attention fixed on the horizon. “Alabama. But I’ve lived here since I was fourteen.” Now her eyes cut to his. “Did you say ‘either’?”

“South Carolina, here. Charleston.”

“Oh, I love Charleston! I haven’t been back in a while, but I remember it being such a pretty city—”

Val cleared her throat. They both turned to her.

“Those printouts are right where I said they were,” she said. “On your desk. For your appointment.” She paused, looking from one to the other. “Today.”

“Oh! Yes! I, um…” Dana lifted a hand to her hair, her face reddening again. “Do y’all have someplace I can pull myself back together?”

“Ladies’ is right around the corner,” Val supplied.

C.J. watched Dana glide away, her fanny twitching ever so slightly. Then he glanced over to catch Val squinting at him.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she said, her backless shoes slapping against her heels as she finally returned to her station. But when he passed her on the way back to his office to get the printouts, he thought he heard her mumble something about there being hope for him yet, and he almost laughed.

But not because he found her comment amusing in the slightest.

Dana squelched a yelp when she flipped on the light in the mushroom-colored restroom and caught a load of her reflection. Not that her heart rate could possibly go any higher than it already was after catching her first glance of C.J.

Those eyes…

That mouth…

Wow.

“Cass Carter,” Dana muttered, sinking onto a stool in front of the mirror, “you are so dead.” She shook her head, which sent the last few hairpins pinging off the marble countertop, her tangled hair whooshing to her shoulders. Then, with a small, pitiful moan, she dropped her head into her hands.

The man went way beyond chocolate marble cheesecake. Heck, he went way beyond any dessert yet known to man. Or woman. He was…was…

In a class all to himself, is what. Who knew people could actually look that good without airbrushing?

Well, this musing was fun and all, but it wasn’t getting her fixed up. She plucked out another leaf and a crumpled straw wrapper, then dug her brush out of her purse to beat it all back into submission again. Dana stood and bent over at the waist, brushing the dust and grit out of her hair. Maybe the blood would rush back to her head, reestablish some semblance of intelligent thought processes. Grabbing the slippery mass with both hands, she twisted it into a rope, then coiled it on top of her head, standing back up so quickly she got dizzy.

So she sat down again, clamping the coiled hair on top of her head while she rummaged through her bag for the loose hairpins she was forever finding and dropping into the leather abyss.

Wow.

So much for the blood to the head theory.

After the kind of sigh she hadn’t let out since Davey Luken’s clumsy kiss in the seventh grade, she jammed a half-dozen pins into the base of the topknot, finger-fluffed her bangs. Yeah, well, Dana hadn’t dated as much she had, as long as she had, not to gain an insight or two along the way. Because for all C. J. Turner’s Southern charm and suaveness and brain-fritzing masculinity, he also positively buzzed with I-am-so-not-into-commitment vibes. Must’ve driven Trish right around the bend.

Only then did Dana burst out laughing as she realized what she’d felt, on her hip, a split second before she pulled out of C.J.’s arms. Heeheehee…she’d bet her entire collection of Victoria’s Secret knickers the man had not been amused by that little reflex reaction.

Although, come to think about it, it hadn’t been all that little.

Still chuckling, Dana stood again, tugging and hitching and flicking leaf pyuck off her bazooms, only to take a long, hard, honest gander at herself in the mirror. Generally speaking, she was okay with her body. For the most part, things curved in and out where they should, even if a few of the outs were a little farther “out” than average. But she’d long since learned to work with what she had, to spend a few extra bucks to have highlights put in her hair, to use makeup to emphasize her large gray green eyes, to wear clothes that made her feel feminine and good about herself. Dowdy, she didn’t do.

However, that didn’t mean she wasn’t a realist, or that while she knew any number of full-figured women—her mother included—in very happy relationships, neither did her father look anything like C. J. Turner. Nor had any of her former boyfriends. The odds of C.J. being interested in her in that way, even as a passing fancy, were slim.

Well, that certainly takes the pressure off, doesn’t it? she thought, giving those bodacious bazooms a quick, appreciative pat. If nothing else, they’d always have Paris. Or something.

She flicked off the light to the ladies’ room and walked out into the hall, chin up, chest out, feeling pretty and confident and…

“Ready to go?” C.J. said from the lobby, his model-bright smile lighting up those baby blues.

…seriously out of her depth.

“Sure am,” she said, smiling back, praying for all she was worth that she didn’t snag her heel on the Berber carpet and land flat on her equally bodacious fanny.

“Yes, that’ll be fine, I’ll see you then,” C.J. said into his cell phone, clapping it shut and slipping it back into his pants pocket. Not a single call between lunch and Dana’s appointment; since then, the damn thing had rung every five minutes. “Sorry about that,” he said. From the other side of the vacant storefront, she waved away his concern.

“At least this way,” she said, making a face at the bathroom, “I don’t feel guilty about takin’ up so much of your time.”

“It goes with the territory,” he said. “Take all the time you need.”

Her back to him, she lifted both hands in the air and waggled them as she click-clacked over the cement floor toward the stockroom.

Chuckling softly, C.J. decided he wasn’t quite sure what to make of Dana Malone. She exuded all the charm and femininity befitting her Southern upbringing, but none of the coyness. No eyelash fluttering, no feigned helplessness. On the contrary, her incessant fiddling with the printouts, the way she worried her bottom lip as they inspected each property, told him she was genuinely nervous about the position her partners had put her in. And becoming increasingly embarrassed—and ticked off—about being unable to make a decision.

The storm had lasted barely ten minutes, but leftover clouds prowled the sky, leaving the air muggy, the temperature still uncomfortably high. And, after a half-dozen properties, Dana was grumpy and irritable. Now, at number seven, C.J. stayed near the front, his arms folded across his chest as he leaned against a support pillar, watching her. Trying to parse the odd, undefined feeling that kicked up in his gut every time she looked at him.

“It’s okay, I suppose,” she finally said, her words literally and figuratively ringing hollow in the vast, unfurnished room. “It’s certainly big enough. And the double doors in back are great for deliveries….”

She looked to him, almost as if afraid to say it.

“But?” he patiently supplied.

Her shoulders rose with the force of her sigh. “But…there’s not much parking. And you can’t really see the front of the store from the street. I mean…” Annoyance streaked across her features as she fanned herself with the sheaf of printouts. “I suppose we really don’t need more than five or six spaces in front.” She crossed to the front window, her skirt swishing softly against her legs. “And this big window is not only perfect for display, it lets in lots of outside light for the play area Mercy wants to put in. Right now, the toddlers have the run of the shop, and we’re so afraid one of them is going to get hurt….”

He thought he heard her voice catch, that she turned a little too quickly toward the window. “And maybe that Mexican restaurant next door would pull in enough traffic to compensate for being on a side street….” Fingers tipped in a delicate shade of rose lifted to her temple, began a circular massage.

“So we’ll keep looking,” C.J. said mildly as he straightened up. “Next?”

A couple of the papers fell from her hand as she tried to shuffle them; he went to retrieve them for her, but she snatched them up before he had a chance, pointlessly pushing back a strand of hair that kept falling into her eyes. “Oh, um, this one near the Foothills might not be bad. Great square footage for the price, lots of families in the area…” Then her brow creased. “But I don’t know, maybe we should stick with something more centrally located…oh, shoot!”

“At the end of our rope, are we?”

“There’s an understatement…oh! What are you doing?” she asked as C.J. took her by the elbow, ushering her through the glass door.

“Break time. For both of us.”

“I don’t—”

“You’re making yourself nuts. Hell, you’re making me nuts. This is only a preliminary look-see, Dana. No one expects you to sign a contract today.”

“Good thing,” she said, her hand shooting up to shield her eyes from the glaring late afternoon sun as they walked back to his Mercedes, “since it’s all a blur.” He opened the car door for her; she didn’t protest. Once he’d slid in behind the wheel, she plonked her head back on the headrest and closed her eyes. “But what a weenie-brain,” she said on a sigh. “I can’t even eliminate the dogs.”

C.J. felt a smile tug at his mouth as he pulled out into traffic. “I can assure you I’ve met a fair number of people who’d qualify for that title, Dana. You’re definitely not one of them.”

She seemed to consider this for a moment, while her perfume sambaed around the car’s interior. Something high-end and familiar. But, on her, unique. “Thank you,” she said at last, her eyes still closed. “But I sure do feel like one.” Her eyes blinked open. “Why are we pulling in here?”

“Because it’s at least five-hundred degrees out, you’re obviously fried, and this joint makes the best ice-cream sodas in town. My treat.”

A pickup festooned with yapping mutts rumbled up the street behind them as a whole bunch of questions swarmed in Dana’s hazy gray-green eyes.

“You hate ice-cream sodas?” he asked.

A startled laugh burst from her throat. “No! I’m just…” She shook her head, dainty, dangly earrings bobbing on tiny earlobes that had gone a decided shade of pink. “But I think I’ll stick with Diet Coke.”

A four-by-four roared past, spraying soggy gravel in its wake.

“It’s that woman thing, isn’t it?”

Her eyebrows lowered. “Excuse me?”

“Where you won’t eat in front of a guy. If at all.”

Her mouth twisted, her gaze slid away. “I think it’s kinda obvious I’m no anorexic.”

“Good to know. Because I’m here to tell you that not-eating business annoys the hell out of me. But hey—” he popped open his car door, then loosened his tie, having already given his jacket the heave-ho three properties ago “—if you really want a Diet Coke, knock yourself out.”

“Actually…” She hugged her purse to her middle, as if trying to shrink. “I can’t stand the stuff.”

“Then it’s settled.” He shoved open his door, then went around to open hers. “Maybe if you just chill for a bit, you’ll be able to think more clearly. Damn,” he muttered as his phone rang again. He grimaced at the number—a deal he’d been trying to close for nearly a month—then at her.

“Hey—” she said, as they both got out of the car “—you’ve got ice-cream sodas to pay for, far be it from me to hinder your earning capacity.” She glanced up at the sky. “Wonder if it’s going to rain again? It sure feels steamy, doesn’t it?”

It did. But somehow, he mused as he answered the phone, he doubted the humidity had anything to do with it.

Chapter Two

Dana would lay odds the diner probably hadn’t changed much in twenty years. At least. Formica soda fountain and booths, nondescript beige vinyl upholstery. It was clean, though, and light, and hummed with conversation, laughter, canned mariachi music. Despite the dearth of patrons this late in the afternoon, C.J. swore the tiny restaurant would be packed by six. Dana believed it. Although Albuquerque had more than its share of tony eateries, this was one of those unassuming little holes-in-the-wall the well-off liked to think they’d “discovered,” where the menu selections were few but the serving sizes generous, the food simple but excellent and the staff treated everyone like a lifelong friend.

And, if she’d been here with Mercy or Cass, she’d definitely be more relaxed. But sitting across from C.J., she was about as relaxed as Sallymae Perkins’s hair on prom night. Plus—to make matters worse—she also had to admit that none of the places they’d looked at was going to work.

“Sorry,” she said, her mouth screwed up as she poked at a lump of ice cream in the bottom of her collarbone-high glass, dolefully considering the wisdom of broiled chicken breasts and salad with lemon juice for the next three nights.

“Don’t apologize.” C.J. certainly seemed unfazed, slouched in the booth, the top two buttons undone on an Egyptian cotton shirt only a shade lighter than his eyes. Light brown hair sprinkled with gray shuddered in the breeze from a trio of lazily fwomping overhead fans, as his mouth tilted up in a half smile. A gentle smile. A tired smile, she thought, although she doubted he’d admit it. Especially since she was, in all likelihood, as least partly to blame. “That’s why we’re here.”

“But I took up half your afternoon—”

“Would you stop it?” he said gently. “That’s what the first rounds are for, to get a feel for what the client really wants.”

Lazy raindrops began to slash at the window by their booth, while, in the distance, thunder rumbled halfheartedly. What she really wanted, Dana thought with a stab, had nothing to do with anything C. J. Turner had to offer. Unfortunately. She speared the chunk of ice cream, popped it into her mouth.

“So why not just ask?” she asked over the whir of the milkshake mixer behind the counter, the high-pitched chatter of a bevy of kids three booths over.

“I did. And Cass gave me the basics.” One arm now snaked out along the top of the booth seat; he offered her another smile. “The rest she left to you…damn.”

A salesman’s smile, she told herself as he answered his phone with yet another apologetic glance across the table. Impersonal. No different from those he’d bestowed on everyone they’d met that afternoon, on everyone who’d called.

Then, out of the corner of her eye, she caught the sudden appearance of tiny, dimpled fingers hooking the edge of their table. Seconds later a mass of fudge-colored curls bobbed into view, over a set of matching, devilish eyes. Just as quickly, eyes and curls and pudgy fingers vanished, supplanted by a howl.

Dana was out of the booth and on her knees at once, hauling the sobbing baby onto her lap. About two years old, she guessed, smelling of chocolate sauce and baby shampoo.

“Oh, now, now,” she soothed as she struggled to her feet, bouncing the child on her hip, “you’re not hurt, are you?” Laughing, she glanced over at C.J., whose stony expression knocked the laughter right out of her.

“Enrique, you little devil!” A pretty young woman dashed back to their booth, taking the child from Dana’s arms. His wails immediately softened to lurching sniffles as he wound his plump little arms around his mother’s neck.

Dana crossed her own arms over the void left in the child’s wake, wondering why, after all this time, she’d yet to move past this point. In any case, the emptiness, in combination with the look on C.J.’s face, knocked her off an emotional ledge she hadn’t even known she was on. “He’s not hurt,” she assured the baby’s mother, struggling to banish from-out-of-nowhere tears.

The brunette rolled her eyes, then laughed. “He never is. But I’ve really got to get a leash for him! I turn my back for five seconds to wipe his brother’s nose, and he’s gone.” She jostled the child, more to comfort herself than the baby, Dana decided. “Scared me half to death. Yes, you did, you little terror! Oh, no!” She plucked a tiny hand from around her neck and inspected chocolate-coated fingers, then groaned. “I’m so sorry! He got chocolate on your pretty white dress! I’ll be happy to pay for the dry cleaning!”

Dana glanced down at the smudge over her left breast, then shrugged, figuring the young woman had better things to spend her money on than a dry-cleaning bill. Once assured a squirt of Shout would make it good as new, the woman whisked her son away, and Dana slid back into her seat across from C.J., only to realize, to her mortification, that she was still teetering on that emotional edge. Yeah, well, being surrounded by far too many reminders of all those things that were, or seemed to be, out of her reach, would do that to a person.

“Are you okay?” came the soft, genuinely concerned—for himself as well as her, Dana thought—voice across the table.

Looking at him was the last thing she wanted to do. But what choice did she have? She cleared her throat as discreetly as possible, then met his gaze. “Just tired, is all,” she said, but the cant of his eyebrows told her he didn’t buy it for a minute.

“That stain, though…”

She tried a smile, anything to remove the sudden wariness in his features. “Hey, you hear a kid cry, you don’t even think about getting dirty, you just want to make it all better.”

He watched her for a long, hard moment, during which she could practically see the gears shifting in his thought. “You follow your instincts, in other words.”

“Well, yes, I suppose—”

“So why do you think your partners elected you to do the footwork?”

Nothing like a conversational right turn to obliterate self-pity. Dana blinked, then said, “I have no idea, actually. In fact, I tried to get out of it.”

“Because?”

She sighed, wadding her napkin into a ball. “Let’s just say decision making’s not my strong suit. Which I’m sure comes as no surprise.”

“And yet…” C.J. leaned forward, shoving his empty glass to one side so he could clasp his hands together, his eyes holding her fast. “Cass tells me you’re not only a financial whiz, but have a real flair for decorating kids’ rooms, as well.”

Another blush stole up her neck. “Well, yes, I suppose, but—”

“She also said if anyone could find Great Expectations’ next home, it would be you, because you wouldn’t make a decision until you were absolutely positive it was the right decision.”

He reached across the table, briefly touching her wrist. His fingers were cool, a little rough. And suddenly squarely back in front of him, leaving a mild, buzzing sensation in their place.

“Trust your instincts, Miss Malone. The same way you trust your instincts about how to handle children. It’s a gift. Be…be grateful for it. So…”

His posture shifted with his train of thought, giving her a chance to anticipate the next right turn. “Now I have a better idea of what to show you next time.” He shrugged. “No big deal.”

No big deal, her fanny. Never in all her born days had she met a man who could put her so much at ease and keep her so off-kilter at the same time.

“So,” C.J. said, “what day looks good for you to take another stab at this?”

Dana sucked on her empty spoon for a moment, squinting slightly at those lovely, keep-your-distance eyes. The spoon clanged against the inside of the glass when she dropped it in. She looked up, pasted on a smile.

“How’s Friday look?”

Grateful for an excuse to look away from that far too trenchant gaze, C.J. scrolled through his Palm Pilot, then nodded. “First thing in the morning looks good. Say…nine?”

“Perfect,” she said, then stood. “Is there a restroom here? I hope.”

“In back. Not ritzy, but it works.”

“That’s all I ask,” she said, then headed toward the back of the diner. No less than a half-dozen male heads turned to watch her progress.

“Hey, C.J.! How’s it goin’?”

With a smile for Felix, the diner’s owner, C.J. picked up the check the bulky man had dropped in front of him. “Oh, fine. This heat’s a killer, though.”

A chuckle rumbled from underneath Felix’s heavy, salt-and-pepper mustache. “I’m surprised you haven’t already melted, my friend. Maria’s already smacked me twice for staring!” He leaned close enough for C.J. to smell twenty years’ worth of sopapillas on his white apron. “These women who think we want them skinny, they got it all wrong, no? Give me a woman I’m not afraid is going to break, anytime.”

C.J. swallowed a smile. Felix’s wife certainly fit the bill there. He handed a ten to the grinning proprietor, told him to keep the change, then stood as Dana emerged from the restroom…and a vaguely familiar female voice said, “C.J.? What on earth are you doing here?” right behind him.

He turned to find himself face-to-face with an artfully streaked blonde in one of those short, shapeless dresses and a tennis visor, flanked on either side by miniature versions of herself, twin girls who could have been anywhere between three and seven.

He thought back. Five, he decided, had to be the cut-off.

“I thought that was you when I came in,” the woman said, perfect teeth flashing, the ends of her straight, gleaming hair skimming her shoulders. “We don’t live far, the girls love the milkshakes here.” The grin widened. “My goodness, it’s been way too long. How are you? You look terrific!”

“Um, you, too.” Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Dana’s approach, her raised eyebrows. “Well, well,” C.J. said, glancing at the little girls. “You’ve certainly been busy, haven’t you…?”

“Oh. Hello.” The blonde offered Dana a cool smile, and C.J. thought, I’m dead.

“Dana Malone, this is…”

“Cybill Sparks,” she mercifully supplied, assessing Dana as only a female who feels her territory threatened can. Never mind that he hadn’t even seen the woman—with whom he’d had a brief (and not particularly sweet, as he recalled) affair—in years. Or that she’d clearly moved on.

A weird blend of protectiveness and irritation spiked through C.J., even as Dana, her smile as gracious as Cybill’s was frozen, said, “C.J.’s my Realtor. We were just scouting out properties for my store.”

Which was apparently sufficient to silence Cybill’s Incoming Threat alarm. “Oh? What do you sell?” she asked, her smile more natural again. “Not women’s clothing, I presume?”

A moment passed. “No, a children’s store. Maybe you’ve heard of it?” Dana grinned for the twins, who had ducked behind their mother’s legs and were both smiling up at her with wide blue eyes. “Great Expectations?”

“Ohmigod, yes! I love that store! We’re in there all the time! With four sets of grandparents, the girls get far more clothes than they could ever wear. It’s so great having someplace to unload them. Especially since I can make a few bucks on the deal.” She laughed. “Although don’t tell any of the grands!”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Dana muttered, but Cybill’s attention had already slithered back to C.J. Her hand landed on his arm, her expression downright rapacious. “I’ve been meaning to call you for, gosh, ages.”

“To let me know you were married?” C.J. said lightly.

“No, silly, to let you know I’m divorced! My number’s the same, so give me a call sometime.” Another tooth flash. “With all those grandparents, it’s no trouble at all finding a sitter on short notice! Nice to meet you,” she tossed dismissively in Dana’s direction, then steered the children toward the counter.

Dana waited until they’d gotten outside to laugh.

“What’s so damned funny?” C.J. grumbled.

“You had no idea who she was, did you?”

“Of course I knew who she was,” he said, giving his lungs a second to adjust to the breath-sucking heat. “It was just her name that temporarily escaped me.”

“That is seriously pathetic.”

“Not nearly as pathetic as the way she threw herself at me,” he muttered.

“True. For a moment there I thought she was going to unhinge her jaws and swallow you whole. I take it she’s an old girlfriend?” she asked over his grunt.

“She’d like to think so. But I swear, the kids aren’t mine.”

She chuckled again, a sound he realized he enjoyed. Very much. He stole a glance at her profile as they walked to the car, thinking what a bundle of contradictions she was—self-deprecating one minute, completely comfortable with teasing him the next. About another woman’s putting the moves on him, no less.

He literally shook his head to clear it.

“So what happened?” Dana said as they got to the car and C.J. beeped it unlocked.

“Nothing, in the long run. Much to her chagrin.”

Once in the car, they clicked their seat belts in place almost simultaneously. “So tell me…” Dana briefly checked her makeup in the visor mirror, then turned to him, amusement glittering in her eyes. “Do women launch themselves at you on a regular basis?”

C.J. wasn’t sure which startled him more—the question itself or the ingenuousness underpinning it. He met Dana’s curious, open gaze and thought, There’s something different about this one, even as he said, “You do realize there’s no way I can answer that and keep either my dignity or your respect intact?”

“My…respect?”

He twisted the key in the ignition, backed out of the lot. “A Realtor who doesn’t have his clients’ respect isn’t going to get very far.”

“I see.” She faced front again, severing what he realized had been a gossamer-thin thread of connection, leaving him feeling both annoyed and relieved, which made no sense whatsoever. “Thanks,” she said, her voice definitely a shade darker than moments before. “For the soda, I mean. I needed that. And I promise not to be such a worrywart on Friday.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” he said lightly, wondering why her soft laugh in response sent a chill marching up his spine.

In combat boots.

Sometime later, Dana let herself into her parents’ Northeast Heights home, breathing in the pomander of swamp-cooled air, that night’s fried chicken and a brief whiff of fresh roses, at once comforting and disquieting in its immutability. Her pull here tonight was equally comforting, equally disquieting. Tonight, she needed home, even though, paradoxically, this was the one place guaranteed to remind her of those areas of her life currently running on empty.

She found her father first, molded to a leather recliner in the family room, a can of diet soda clutched in one thick-fingered hand, the baseball game on the movie-theater-sized TV screen reflected in his glasses.

“Hey, Daddy. Whatcha up to?”

Gene Malone jerked up his head and grinned, his thinning hair fanned out behind his head like a limp peacock’s tail. “Hey, there, baby!” he said over the announcer’s mellow drone. “What brings you around?”

Her father, a Sandia Labs retiree, was rounder, and balder, than he used to be, but the humor simmering behind his pea soup-colored eyes was the same as always. Dana bent over to kiss his forehead, then crackled onto the plastic-armored sofa beside the chair, staring at the TV. “Nothing much. Just hadn’t seen y’all in a bit.” Trying to keep from frowning, she studied his face. “How’re you feeling?”

“Never better.” A heart “episode” the year before had scared the willies out of them; unfortunately, she strongly suspected he wasn’t following his diet and exercise regimen as scrupulously as he should. Especially when he said, “You know, this eating more chicken and fish routine really seems to be helping. I haven’t felt this good in ages.”

Uh-huh. Somehow, she didn’t think fried chicken was what the doctor had in mind. “Glad to hear it, Daddy. Where’s Mama?”

“In the den, sewing. Leastways, that’s what she said she was gonna do.” The leather squeaked when he shifted. “You know Trish called?”

This was news. “No. When?”

“Day or so ago, I don’t remember.”

“She say where she was?”

“Have no idea. You’ll have to ask your mother.”

Wondering, and not for the first time, how two people could live together for so long and talk to each other so little, she left her father to cheer on whoever and headed toward the smallest bedroom—the one that had been Trish’s for nearly eight years—which they generously referred to as a den. In a sleeveless blouse and cotton pants, Faye Malone sat with her back to the door, as comfortably padded as the futon beside her. As usual, she was keeping up a running conversation with the sewing machine while she worked, pins stuck in her mouth, tufts of touched-up-every-three weeks auburn hair sticking out at odd angles where she’d tugged at it while trying to figure something out.

Heaven knew, having Faye for a mother had never been exactly easy, and not only because of the woman’s habit of walking out on anyone who didn’t agree with her. Or her nearly obsessive protectiveness when it came to family. All her life, Dana had variously loved and feared the woman whose scowl had been known to set people to rethinking opinions held dear from the cradle. Tonight, however, Dana envied her mother her single-mindedness.

And her strength.

“What’s that you’re making, Mama?” she asked, once Faye had removed the pins from her mouth.

Her mother jumped and pivoted simultaneously. “Lord, honey, you gave me a start,” she said, laughing, dropping the pins into an old saucer by the machine. “This? Oh, um…just a little something for Louise at church.” She cleared her throat. “Her daughter’s havin’ her first baby next month.”

Dana sat on the end of the futon that had replaced the old iron daybed, fingering the edge of the tiny royal blue and scarlet quilt. The vent over the door blasted too-cool air at the back of her neck, making her shudder. “Pretty,” she managed, trying to keep her voice light, to ignore the tension vibrating between them. Not to mention the unmistakable wistfulness in her mother’s voice, that she’d never get to watch her daughter grow big with a grandbaby.

“So…” Eager to change the subject, Dana clasped her hands, banging them against her knee. “Daddy said Trish called?”

“Oh, yes!” Her mother pulled off her glasses, tucking them into her shirt pocket. “I would’ve mentioned it, except there didn’t seem to be much point.”

“So she didn’t tell you where she was, I take it?”

“Not a word.”

“She say she was coming back?”

Her mother shook her head. “Although she had that funny little hitch in her voice, like when she’d done something wrong and was afraid we’d get mad at her? To this day, I don’t know what my sister was thinking, marrying that…creep. Man wasn’t worth the price of the marriage license. And cost Marla her own daughter.”

An observation made many times over the past dozen years. Dana’s aunt’s second marriage, to a man the family fondly referred to as The Cockroach, had had a disastrous effect on her already troubled daughter. After Trish’s third attempt at running away, and since Dana had been more or less on her own by then, Dana’s parents had offered to let the teen come live with them in Albuquerque. And on the surface, especially after Aunt Marla’s death a few years back, Trish had certainly seemed to be getting her life on track. She’d settled down enough to finish high school, gotten through community college, and had finally landed that job at Turner Realty. She’d even talked about becoming an agent herself, one day.

But threaded through Trish’s marginal successes ran not only a string of rotten relationships with men, but a chronic resistance to letting either Dana or her parents get close enough to help her. Other than the occasional call during the past year to let them know she was still alive, she’d cut herself off from the only family she had.

Sad, but, since her cousin had consistently rebuffed Dana’s attempts at being chummy, none of her concern. If Trish was out there somewhere, miserable and alone, she had no one to blame but herself.

“She asked about you,” she heard her mother say.

Dana started. “Me? Why?”

“Beats me.” Mama threaded a needle and moved to the futon, where she preferred to do her hand sewing. “I thought it was odd, too.” She fell into the cushion with an oof. “Although she did ask how you were getting on since…”

Her mother caught herself, her lips puckered in concentration as she stared at her sewing.

At the beginning, Mama had meant well enough, Dana supposed, doing her level best to take Dana’s mind off her situation. Tonight, though, Dana realized she’d lost patience with pretending. And with herself for allowing the silence to go on as long at it had.

“Go on, finish your sentence. Since I had my operation.”

Faye smoothed the quilt with trembling hands. “I’m sorry, honey. It just sort of slipped out.”

Dana sighed. “It’s been more than a year, Mama. Way past time for us to still be sidestepping the subject, don’t you think?”

“I…I just don’t want to make you feel bad, baby.”

Stomach wobbling, Dana snuggled up against her mother, inhaling her mingled scent of soap and sunscreen and cooking.

“I know that,” she said softly, fingering the tiny quilt. “But ignoring things doesn’t change them. Not that I’m not okay, most of the time, but…but there are definitely days when I feel cheated, when I get so angry I want to break something. And if I can’t unload to my own mother about it, who can I tell?”

“Oh, honey.” Faye dropped her handiwork; Dana let herself be drawn into her mother’s arms, suddenly exhausted from the strain of putting on a brave face, day after day after day. Whether it had been holding Cass’s baby, or the toddler in the diner, or even the strange mixture of kindness and wariness in C.J.’s eyes that had brought on the sudden and profound melancholy, she had no idea. But today, this minute, all she could see were the holes in her life. And with that thought came a great, unstoppable torrent of long held-back tears.

Why did the ordinary rites of passage that so many women took for granted—boyfriends, marriage, motherhood—seem to slip from her grasp like fine sand? In her teens and twenties, there had always been “later.” But watching relationship after relationship crash and burn—if they ever got off the ground to begin with—had a way of eroding a girl’s self-confidence. Not to mention her hopes.

Was it so wrong to want a family of her own, to ache for a pair of loving, strong arms around her in bed at night, to be the reason for someone’s smile? Was it foolish to want a little someone to stay up late wrapping Christmas presents for, to wonder if they’d ever get potty trained or be okay on their first day of school, to embarrass the heck out of by kissing them in public, to tuck in at night and read to?

Or was she just being selfish?

And her mother listened and rocked her and told her, no, she wasn’t being selfish at all, that someday she’d have her own family, a husband who’d cherish her, children to love. That she had so much to offer, she just had to be patient. Things happen for a reason, Mama said, even if we might not understand the particulars when we’re in the middle of it.

So what, exactly, Dana wondered over her mother’s murmurings, was the reason for C. J. Turner’s appearance in her life? To torment her with eyes she had no reason to believe would ever sparkle just for her, a pair of arms she’d never feel wrapped around her shoulders, a chest she’d never be able to lay her head against?

She sucked in a breath: What on earth was she going on about? She didn’t even know the man! Were nice guys so rare these days that simply being around one was enough to send her over the edge? Because even in the midst of her pityfest, she knew the meltdown had nothing to do with C.J. Not really. No, it was everything he represented.

All those things that, for whatever reason, always seemed to elude her.

But even the best crying jags eventually come to an end. Dana sat up, grabbed a tissue from the tole-painted box on the end table, and honked into it, after which her mother pulled her off the futon and led her to the kitchen. Yeah, yeah, the road to Jenny Craig was paved with comfort food, but there you are. And as she ate—fried chicken, coleslaw, potato salad—and as Amy Grant held forth from the clock radio on the counter, punctuated by the occasional war whoop from the family room, the conversation soon came back around to her cousin.

“So…” Dana wiped her fingers on a paper napkin, perking up considerably when her mother hauled a bowl of shimmering cherry Jell-O out of the fridge. “What was Trish asking about me? And is there whipped cream?”

The can of Reddi-wip plonked onto the table. “Just if you still lived alone, still worked at the store.” Mama scooped out two huge, quivering blobs into custard dishes. “I gave her your number, I hope that’s okay?”

“Sure. Not that she’d ever call me.” The first bite of Jell-O melted soothingly against her tongue, reminding her of the last dessert she’d eaten. As well as the lazy, sexy, South Carolina accent of the man who had bought it for her.

Her mother was giving her a pained look. So Dana smiled and said, “Speaking of the store, I started looking at possible sites for the new location today.”

“Well, it’s about time! A body can’t hardly breathe in that itty-bitty place y’all are in now. Find anything?”

Yeah. Trouble. “Not yet.”

“That’s okay, you will, honey. You just have to keep looking.”

A twinge of either aggravation or acid reflux spurted through Dana as she stared hard at her spoon. And how long, exactly, was she supposed to keep looking? She thought back to how she’d spent weeks searching for the perfect prom dress, finally finding one she absolutely loved in some little shop in the mall. Except…the neckline was too low. And it was red. With a full skirt. And all those sparklies…

So she’d kept looking. And looking. Until, by the time she finally realized that was the only dress she really wanted, it was gone. So she’d had to settle for something she hadn’t liked nearly as much because she’d dithered so long.

Because she’d believed herself unworthy of something so perfect.

She nearly choked on her Jell-O.

She was still doing it, wasn’t she? Refusing to even try something on because of some preconceived notion that it wouldn’t work. And maybe it wouldn’t, once she got it on (she stifled a snort at the double entrendre). God knew she’d left plenty of clothes hanging in dressing rooms over the years. But at least she owed it to herself to try, for crying out loud—

“Dana, honey? Why are you frowning so hard?”

Dana blinked herself back from la-la land and smiled for her mother, even as fried chicken and potato salad tumble dried in her stomach.

“Yes, I’m fine,” she said, thinking, Damn straight I have a lot to offer.

And absolutely nothing to lose.

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