Authors: Mariah Stewart
He rested his head on her shoulder for a moment, then turned them both so that they were side by side, Dallas resting against him. He held her to him, one hand running up and down her arm, for a long, quiet time. There was so much to be said, and yet no words would come. She told herself to be content to be there with him in a way she never dreamed she’d ever be again, to take what they’d been given and not risk breaking the spell by speaking.
Determined to savor every second, she closed her eyes, and let herself drift away with him. The memories were there, and she remembered the sweetness of the first time as well as the bittersweet of the last time—but none of the memories were quite as good as this time. No matter what the future would bring, tonight was magic, and she was going to make it last.
Dallas wasn’t sure what time of day or night it was when she first woke, but she thought it might still be dark out. She opened her eyes and found, not Grant, but a large dog looming over her. She remembered where she was and who the rottweiler belonged to right before she opened her mouth to scream.
“You are one scary-looking dog,” she muttered.
At some point during the night, Grant had tossed a sheet over them, and there was a pillow under her head, though she didn’t remember how it got there, and Grant was nowhere to be seen. The dog sniffed at her shoulder, then nuzzled her arm.
“All right, Schultz.” She yawned and reached out to pet the dog’s head. “Good morning to you, too.”
“Are you a must-have-coffee-first-thing person, or do you prefer breakfast first?” Grant came into the room, already dressed for his day, and leaned down to kiss her.
“What time is it?” she asked. “How long have you been up?”
“I believe I had the first question this morning, Ms.
MacGregor. You must answer before you get to ask, and you may only ask one at a time.” He kissed her again, then sat down on the edge of the sofa cushion.
“Coffee first. So now you have to answer. What time, and how long …”
“Five thirty and for about thirty minutes.”
“Shit. I spent the night.”
“So you did.”
“I need to get home.” She pulled the sheet up as far as her chin, and sat up. “Why are you up and I’m not? Why didn’t you wake me?”
“The dogs are early risers and I heard them shuffling about in the kitchen. I didn’t think there was a reason to wake you, so I thought I’d let you have a few extra minutes. Why don’t you get dressed and come into the kitchen and I’ll have your coffee ready. I need to go find Mamie. She sometimes forgets where she lives, and I don’t like her to roam too far.”
“Deal. If you have to look for her, I’ll help.”
Dallas sat up, and with the sheet still wrapped around her, set about the task of finding her clothes. When she’d gathered up everything that she’d worn the night before, she made her way to the powder room at the back of the house. Through the partially opened window she could hear Grant calling his dog. She dressed quickly in case he needed her to help, but just as she pulled the dress over her head, she heard him crooning, “Good girl, Mamie. Good girl. Come on in now, girl …”
With her fingers, Dallas smoothed her hair as best she could, then slipped her feet into her sandals and went into the kitchen, where Grant was pouring coffee into two cups.
“No matching china,” he said without turning around. “Krista kept that. I keep meaning to go out and buy something, but I just never seem to get to it.”
“It isn’t a priority,” she told him. She slipped her arms around his waist from behind. “You’ve got your priorities just right. Your daughter, your clinic, your dogs …”
“And you?” he asked softly. “Do you fit in there somewhere?”
“Let’s not go there this morning.” She rested her head against his back. “Let’s just be so happy for what we have right now.”
“Are you happy this morning?”
“I am.” She smiled. “Are you?”
He nodded.
“Good, then,” she told him. “Let’s just leave it there for now.”
“All right.” He turned in her arms and handed her a cup of coffee. “Leaving it there, handing off the morning brew.”
“Thank you.” She took a sip. “It’s really good.”
“Don’t tell Carlo, but I’m thinking of opening my own coffee spot. I’m thinking I’ll call it Cuppachino Too. Or T-w-o, I can’t decide which.”
“Either would probably get you sued,” she noted.
“Good point. Maybe I’ll stick with the clinic for a while.”
“That might be best.” She leaned against the counter and glanced at the clock. “What time do your employees start arriving?”
“Most of the time, Janelle gets in around eight, Mimi rolls in at nine.”
“I should probably go.” She nibbled on her bottom lip pensively. “I hope no one was looking for me last night.”
“If your son got up in the middle of the night and you weren’t there, what would he do?”
“If he needed something, he’d go to Berry. But Cody never wakes up once he’s asleep unless he’s sick. At home, we have Elena, who lives with us and takes care of Cody when I’m away, so it isn’t as if he’d panic that I wasn’t there. On the other hand, if Berry missed me, she’d assume I’m still here with you and she’ll be wearing a very self-satisfied smile when I get home.”
“Why’s that?”
“Are you kidding? The woman thinks you walk on water. She adores you. She’d like nothing more than for me to—” She caught herself. “For me to spend more time with you.”
“That Berry, she’s a wise, wise woman. I say, let’s make the old girl happy.”
Dallas finished her coffee without comment, and rinsed out her cup. “I should go. I don’t think it would be smart for me to let people see me leaving here.”
“Are you embarrassed that you spent the night here?”
She shook her head. “Of course not. Not at all. But all these years, all the time Emilio was doing what he was doing, there has never been any gossip about me, because I never gave anyone anything to talk about. I don’t want talk to start now. I have a good reputation and a son to protect. You have a daughter, and a reputation of your own.”
“I understand.” He nodded. “Come on, I’ll walk you out to your car.”
He kissed her good-bye inside the front door before he opened it. “Just so I know, Dallas. Are we going to pretend that this never happened? Or are we going to have to wipe this from the slate along with the past?”
“I suppose I set myself up for that.” She leaned back against the door and sighed. “There’s no wiping the slate, Grant. You were right. What was between us was very special. It still is, even after all these years. So maybe you’re right, maybe it’s always going to be there. But where we go from here …” She shrugged. “Neither of us can answer that right now. So let’s be grateful that we had last night, and let’s let the rest of the summer unfold as it will. Sometimes things are best left on their own.”
“I won’t back away from this, Dallas.” He tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
“Neither will I. I just don’t want to put a name on it or stare too long at it or think too hard about what happened last night. It’s been a long time since we were together, and a lot of things have happened in both our lives during that time. I don’t want either of us to think this is something that maybe it isn’t.”
“Something like what?”
“Maybe something driven by sentiment, I don’t know.”
“I do know, Dallas, and that’s not it.”
“Maybe you’re right. But let’s give ourselves time to find out.”
He nodded, kissed her one last time, unlocked the front door, and along with the dogs, walked her out to her car.
* * *
Grant stood in the drive and waved one last time, then watched her car disappear around the corner. Down on the street, the last bits of early morning fog had yet to burn off, and tufts of mist scattered as cars drove through them. He called the dogs to him and went back into the house.
He paused to straighten the sofa cushions and to fold the sheet Dallas had left over the arm, then took it and the pillow upstairs. When he came back down, he picked up the wineglasses and the half-empty bottle of champagne, and took them into the kitchen and placed the glasses on the counter. He poured the rest of the champagne into the sink muttering, “Pity,” then placed the bottle in the recycling bin. He added the glasses and her coffee cup to the dishwasher and closed it, then poured himself another cup.
He’d wanted to say,
Just give me the rest of the summer, Dallas. Just one more summer and I won’t ask for more than that …
but the words had stuck in his throat. Besides, he knew that last part was a lie. How could he say he wouldn’t ask for more when he knew he wasn’t going to be satisfied with just one more month of having her in his life again?
On the one hand, he could kick himself for letting last night happen. On the other, he couldn’t believe that it
had
happened, it had been that unbelievably good between them, that right, that natural. It had been just as he’d remembered, only better. Magical. Every single minute of last night had been magical. Just as it had always been.
He looked at the calendar and counted the days until September 7, and knew there wasn’t time enough.
There’d never be time enough, not when he knew as sure as the sun was rising over the Bay that she’d be leaving him, just as she’d left him before, and who knew how long it would be before she’d be back, if ever?
His rational self told him that it would be better if he backed off, let go now, before things got any more complicated. Barring that, if he were wise, he’d make every effort to keep things casual between them. He could see her for dinner now and then, or stop out to see how Miss B was doing with the dogs, but no more nights like last night. In the long run, it probably would be better. But it wasn’t likely to play out that way.
He knew that anytime she wanted him, he’d be there for her, no questions asked. She’d always been his girl, and she always would be. Damn the consequences. It was just the way it was.
So much for the opinion of his rational self.
There’d be no backing off. No pretending that it didn’t matter. Hell, even she knew it mattered, and that admission on her part had buoyed his spirits and gotten his hopes high. He knew there was no way to make her stay, that there was every chance he’d crash and burn again at the end of the summer, but he didn’t care. There were some things in life that were worth the risk. If he ended up looking like a fool, well, he’d been there before and survived. The truth of the matter was that last night he’d felt complete, at peace, for the first time in a very long time.
He heard Janelle’s car and checked the time. There were dogs to be fed and exercised, and with Paige at
Steffie’s, he’d have double duty at both the shelter and the clinic this morning. He checked to make sure his own dogs had water and treats, then went out the back door to start his workday. With any luck, he’d be able to keep his feet on the ground and his head out of the clouds, but he wasn’t counting on it.
Why do I feel like a sixteen-year-old sneaking in after curfew?
Dallas drove slowly up the long drive to Berry’s house, and debated whether to go in through the front or the back door.
The back door, she reminded herself, was the farthest from Berry’s room and she could go up the back steps from the kitchen and slip into her room. Just like she used to do when she
was
sixteen and she
was
sneaking in after curfew. She parked the car and got out, closing the door as quietly as she could. She climbed the back steps and paused at the top to take in the always breathtaking view of the sun rising over the river, then into the house and up the back steps on tiptoes—
Ridiculous! I’ll be thirty-eight in a few weeks!
—straight to Cody’s room. Her son slept on his side, one arm looped around the dog that thus far had shown absolutely no interest in the dog bed that they’d bought for her.
“You know a good thing when you see it, don’t you, girl.” Dallas whispered and patted the dog’s head.
Dallas left the room as silently as she’d crept in. She
went into her bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed, but she knew it was futile to try to sleep. Already wide-awake, thanks to a strong cup of coffee at Grant’s and a tangle of conflicted feelings she wasn’t ready to sort out, she went into the shower, then dressed and went back downstairs as quietly as she’d gone up. She’d make a pot of coffee and go directly into the library to try to get some work done, her theory being that the more she focused on work, the less she’d try to analyze the night she’d spent in Grant’s bed. She’d just started to pour water into the coffeemaker when she heard the shuffle of slippered feet in the hall.
“My, my,” Berry said as she came into the kitchen. “Aren’t we the early bird today?”
Dallas tried to think of a quick and clever retort, but couldn’t manage either on so little sleep.
“Please don’t even try to pretend that you haven’t just gotten home. I wasn’t born yesterday, you know.” Berry swept past her and went to the refrigerator for half-and-half.
Dallas was still trying to come up with a cleverly vague retort, but she had nothing. She felt her face flush and went about making coffee.
“Cat got your tongue, dear?”
“I didn’t expect to … I hadn’t planned on … that is, I …”
Berry waved away her attempts to explain. “You don’t owe me any explanations. I know how these things go. Besides, you’re an adult.”
She was smiling smugly when she added, “So, was it as good as you remembered?”
“Berry!” Dallas scolded.
“Just making conversation.” Berry was still smiling.
“I imagine it was, or you wouldn’t have stayed the night.”
“You’re impossible,” Dallas muttered. “It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. It was supposed to be a friendly celebration, nothing more than that. I never expected—”
“Please, it’s your aunt Berry you’re talking to.”
Dallas measured coffee into the filter, then finished pouring in the water.
“I’m not trying to be coy,” she told Berry. “I really hadn’t thought that far ahead. Of course, in retrospect, maybe that was deliberate on my part.”