Grace swallowed hard. She"d left the beach house happy, thinking she"d found Mr. Right and believing all things good would happen for them. But Danny had left the beach house worried about the potential bad. It was no wonder neither of them had seen the other"s perspective. They were at two ends of a very broad spectrum.
"I"m sorry, too. I was so happy I didn"t think things through. Had I known-"
Sarah pounded on her tray with a squeal. Grace grimaced. "I forgot to feed her."
Danny calmly rose. "I can get that."
Grace"s first instinct was to tell him to sit back down. Their discussion wasn"t really over. But wasn"t it? What else was there to say? He was sorry. She was sorry. But they couldn"t change the past. She didn"t want a relationship. He"d hurt her and she rightfully didn"t trust him. And he didn"t want a relationship. Otherwise he wouldn"t have promised not to kiss her again. There was nothing more to say. The discussion really was over.
"Do you remember how to make cereal?" Grace asked.
"The stuff in the box with a little milk, right?"
She nodded.
"I can handle it."
He strode into the kitchen and Grace took several long, steadying breaths.
His child had died.
She had always believed that nothing he could say would excuse the way he treated her when she told him she was pregnant.
But this did.
It didn"t mean she would trust her heart to him, but it did mean she could forgive him.
That night Grace had dinner nearly prepared when Danny arrived. She directed him upstairs to change while she fed Sarah some baby food and by the time Sarah had eaten, Danny returned wearing jeans and a T-shirt. He looked as relaxed as he had their night at the beach house. Confession, apparently, had done him a world of good.
Incredibly nervous, Grace fussed over the salads. Now that she knew about Danny"s son everything was different. She almost didn"t know how to treat him. His admissions had opened the door to their being friends, and being friendly would work the best for Sarah"s sake. But could two people with their chemistry really be friends?
While Grace brought their salads to the table, Danny took his seat.
"You know, we never have gotten around to discussing a lot of things about Sarah."
Glad for the neutral topic, Grace said, "Like what?"
"For one, child support."
"Since we"ll each have Sarah two weeks a month, I don"t think either one of us should be ent.i.tled to child support. So don"t even think of filing for any."
He laughed. "Very funny."
A tingle of accomplishment raced through her at his laughter, but she didn"t show any outward sign of her pleasure. Instead she shrugged casually. "Hey, I make a decent salary. How do I know it wasn"t your intention to file?"
"You never did tell me where you got a job."
"I work for a small accounting firm. Johnson and O"Hara."
"So you do okay financially?"
"Yeah." Grace smiled. "Actually they pay me double what your firm did."
He chuckled. "You got lucky."
"Yes, I did."
He glanced into the kitchen, then behind himself at the living room. "And you seem to know how to use your money wisely."
"I bought this house the day I got my first job."
"The night I was grilling, I remembered you told me about remodeling your house while we ate that Sunday night at the beach house." He smiled across the table at her, and Grace"s stomach flip-flopped. Lord, he was handsome. And nice. And considerate. And smart. And now she knew he wasn"t mean-spirited or selfish, but wounded. Life had hurt him and he needed somebody like her to make him laugh.
Oh G.o.d, she was in trouble!
"You did a good job on the remodel."
"My cousin did most of it." Shifting lettuce on her dish, Grace avoided looking at him. "I was the grunt. He would put something in place, tack it with a nail or two then give me the nail gun to finish."
"It looks great." He took another bite of salad.
But Grace was too nervous to eat. She couldn"t hate him anymore. But she couldn"t really like him, either.
Or could she?
By telling her about his son, he"d both explained his behavior and proved he trusted her.
But he"d also said she didn"t need to worry about him kissing her anymore.
Of course, he might have said that because she"d pushed him away the night before, reminding him that kissing only got them in trouble.
They finished their salads and Grace brought the roast beef, mashed potatoes and peas to the table. Unhappy with being ignored, Sarah pounded her teething ring on her high chair tray and screeched noisily.
"What"s the matter, Sarah Bear," Grace crooned, as she poured gravy onto her mashed potatoes. Sarah screeched again and Grace laughed. "Oh, you want to sit on somebody"s lap? Well, you can"t."
She glanced at Danny. "Unless your daddy wants to hold you?"
Danny said, "Sure, I"ll-"
But Grace stopped him. "No. You can"t hold a baby in front of a plate with gravy on it. You would be wearing the gravy in about twenty seconds."
"If you want to eat your dinner in peace, I could take her into the living room, then eat when you"re done."
He was so darned eager to please that Grace stared at him, drawing conclusions that made her heart tremble with hope. There was only one reason a man wanted to please a woman. He liked her. Which meant maybe Danny had only promised not to kiss her again because she"d stopped him, not because he didn"t want to kiss her anymore.
Or she could be drawing conclusions that had absolutely no basis in fact.
"I"m fine. I like having Sarah at the table. When I said you might want to hold her I was just teasing her."
"Oh, okay."
Determined to keep her perspective and keep things light and friendly, Grace turned to the high chair. "So, Miss Sarah, you stay where you are."
"What"s that thing your mother"s got you wearing?" Danny asked, pointing at the fuzzy swatch of material in the shape of a stuffed bear that had been sewn onto Sarah"s shirt.
"It"s a bear shirt."
Danny"s fork stopped halfway to his mouth and he gave Grace a confused look. "What?"
"A bear shirt." Grace laughed. "From the day she was born, my dad called her Sarah Boo Beara...then Sarah Bear. Because the name sort of took, my parents buy her all kinds of bear things." She angled her fork at the bear on Sarah"s shirt. "Push it."
"Push it?"
"The bear. Push it and see what happens."
Danny reached over and pushed the bear on Sarah"s shirt. It squeaked. Sarah grinned toothlessly.
Danny jumped as if somebody had bitten him. "Very funny."
"It makes Sarah laugh and some days that"s not merely a good thing. It"s a necessity."
"I remember."
Of course, he remembered. He"d had a son. Undoubtedly lots of things he did for Sarah or things Sarah did would bring back memories for him. If he needed anything from Grace it might not be a relationship as much as a friend to listen to him. Just listen.
"Would you like to talk about it?"
Danny shook his head. "Not really."
Okay. She"d read that wrong. She took a quiet breath, realizing she"d been off base about him a lot, and maybe the smart thing here would be to stop trying to guess what he thought and only believe what he said. Including that he wouldn"t be kissing her anymore. So she should stop romanticizing.
"If you ever do want to talk, I"m here."
"I know." He toyed with his fork then he glanced over at her with a wistful smile. "I sort of wonder what might have happened between us if I"d told you everything the morning after we"d slept together, as I had intended to."
Her heart thudded to a stop. "You were going to tell me?"
He nodded. "Instead the only thing I managed to get out was that I had to go away for a week." He paused, glancing down at the half-eaten food on his plate. "I really shouldn"t have slept with you that night. I was still raw, but fighting it, telling myself it was time to move on. And I made a mistake."
"You don"t get sole blame for that. I was the one who went down to the bar."
"Yeah, but I was the one who knew I wasn"t entirely healed from my son"s death and my divorce. The whole disaster was my fault."
"It takes two-"
"Grace, stop. Please."
His tone brooked no argument-as if she"d been pushing him to talk, when she hadn"t-and Grace bristled. Though he"d said he didn"t want to talk about this, he"d been the one to dip their toes into the conversation. Still, because it was his trouble, his life, they were discussing, he also had to be the one with the right to end it. "Okay."
He blew his breath out on a long sigh. "I"m not trying to hide things or run from things, but I just plain don"t want to remember anymore. I"m tired of the past and don"t like to remember it, let alone talk about it. I like living in the present."
"I can understand that."
"Good." He set his fork on his dish. "So do you want help with the dishes?"
She almost automatically said no, but stopped herself. Giving him something to do made life easier for both of them. "Sure."
He rose, gathering the plates. She lifted the meat platter and walked it to the refrigerator. The oppressive tension of the silence between them pressed on her chest. If the quiet was difficult for her, she couldn"t even imagine how hard it was on Danny. Knowing he didn"t want to think, to remember, she plunged them into the solace of chitchat.
"So what did you do at work today?"
Danny turned on the faucet to rinse their dishes. "The same old stuff. What did you do?"
"I"m in the process of reviewing the books for a company that wants to incorporate."
That caught his interest. "Oh, an IPO."
Grace winced at the excitement in his voice. "No, a small family business. The corporation will be privately held. The princ.i.p.als are basically doling out shares of stock to the family members who made the company successful, as a way to ensure ownership as well as appropriate distribution of profits."
"Ah."
"Not nearly as exciting as investing the fortunes of famous athletes, but it"s good work. Interesting."
"Have you begun to do any investing for yourself?"
His question triggered an unexpected memory of telling him she"d gone to work for his investment firm because she wanted to learn about investing to be rich. The heat of embarra.s.sment began to crawl up her neck. She"d meant what she said, but given everything that had happened between them, her enthusiastic p.r.o.nouncement had probably fed the fire of his suspicions about her.
They"d really made a mess of things that night.
She walked back to the dining room table and retrieved the mashed potato bowl. "I"m working on getting the house paid off. So I haven"t had a lot of spare cash."
"Since we"ll be splitting expenses for Sarah, you should have some extra money then, right?"
She shrugged. "Maybe."
"Grace, I want to pay my fair share. And I can be pretty stubborn. So no maybes or probablys or whatevers. Let"s really be honest about the money."
"Okay."
He stacked the dishes in the dishwasher. "Okay. So once we get everything straightened out I would like to open an account for you at Carson Services."
Grace laughed. "Right. Danny, even if I have spare cash from our sharing expenses for Sarah, I"m not sure I"ll have more than a hundred dollars a month or so."
"A hundred dollars a month is good."
"Oh, really? You"re going to open an investment account with a hundred dollars?"