Heartsong Cottage (17 page)

Daniel closed his eyes. “It's ugly and it's evil and it haunts me. I don't have the heart for it anymore. I can't search child porn sites for missing children one more time.”

“Oh, Daniel.” Shannon followed her instincts when she went to him and wrapped her arms around him, offering the comfort of a hug.

His arms encircled her, and he buried his face against her hair as he returned the embrace. “I'm sorry. What a mood killer. I shouldn't have brought it up.”

“Don't apologize.” She dropped her arms and stepped away. Speaking from the heart, she said, “I know what it's like to tote a burden around wishing you had someone with which to share it. You have heavy burdens to lift, Daniel. According to Celeste that's how you grow your angel wings. You can't grow feathers by lifting air.”

He let out a strained laugh. “Leave it to Celeste.”

“I'm glad you can speak to me about things that matter.”

“Music matters,” he insisted. “I don't know why I veered off in a different direction.”

“I suspect it's because you're not struggling with a major life decision about music. Sounds to me like you're at a crossroads, Daniel.”

At a crossroads, but with one important highway missing from his map.
Tell him. Do it now.

Shannon's mind started to spin. Maybe it was just the piece of information he needed to decide that he belonged here in Eternity Springs with her and with their baby. She imagined Daniel standing in the nursery and crooning a lullaby to the infant in his arms. They could be a family.

Is that what
you
want?

Panic rolled through her. How could she possibly know what she wanted? She'd spent time with the man on only a handful of occasions. She didn't know his religion, his politics, or even his favorite college football team!

Although in the big scheme of things, those things didn't matter, did they? What mattered were his viewpoints toward discipline and education and sports. Would he argue with Shannon's opinion about the dangers of peewee football? What did he think of Montessori and preschool Spanish? Would he support her efforts to raise a bilingual child?

To be perfectly honest, those things didn't matter, either. Character mattered. She already knew all she needed to know about Daniel Garrett's character. He would love their baby. He would protect their baby with his life. He wouldn't do anything to put their baby at risk.

That much, she could trust.

She thought about Celeste and her advice for aspiring angels. Angels fly by letting go.
Heaven help me. I'm going to do it.

She stepped back and lifted her head, seeking his gaze, but Daniel stood staring into the fire. “I don't know that ‘crossroads' is the right term,” he said, even as she opened her mouth to speak. “I can't do the job anymore, but I also don't think that I can walk away from it, either. How can I? They call me every day.”

Shannon waited a beat, knowing the moment was lost. “Who calls you?”

He lifted a fireplace tool and gave the fire a vicious poke. “Parents. Desperate parents who need an answer to a fundamental question: is their child still alive?”

The torment in his voice twisted her heart. “That must be so hard.”

“It's the worst. Invariably, by the time they've come to me they've exhausted all of their other resources. The FBI has no answers for them. Local law enforcement has started dodging their calls. It's a horrible thing to learn that your child has been murdered, but not knowing is a whole other plane of misery. As weird as it sounds, I know that I'm terribly lucky to have a grave that I can visit.”

“That's not weird. It's totally understandable.”

“It's why I can't walk away from parents who aren't as lucky as I am. That, and the possibility that the next missing child could be number five. What if there's a little guy out there just waiting to be found?”

“Daniel, you can't do that to yourself. You're not the only investigator out there looking for children.”

“You're right.” One corner of his mouth lifted in a bitter smile. “I sound like an egotistical jerk, don't I?”

“Not at all. You sound like a committed man.”

“Sometimes I think I need to be committed.” He raked his fingers through his hair, and then returned the poker to its stand. “I don't know why I went off on such a tangent. Please, let me change the subject before I totally ruin this evening.”

“You are not ruining the evening.” What he'd done was show her a side of himself that only made her like him more. Daniel Garrett had more heart than any man she'd ever met.

He stepped to the record player and reset the needle. As the first haunting notes of “Unchained Melody” floated from the speakers, Shannon smiled. When he turned to her, held out his hand, and asked, “Dance with me?” she went a little gooey inside.

He held her close and they did more swaying than actual dancing in the small living room. When Daniel's voice crooned in her ear about needing her love, shivers ran up her spine. The rich, emotive timbre of his voice had her blinking back tears, and when the final note of the song died away, she laced her fingers behind his neck and thanked him with a kiss.

He hummed into her mouth. “Mmm…”

She sank against him a little harder, fell into the kiss more deeply. His lips tasted of mint and music and spun a sensuous spell around her as mesmerizing as northern lights—until the record changed and a rousing rendition of “Stars and Stripes Forever” startled them back to their senses. “What the heck? I didn't choose John Philip Sousa. I swear I didn't.”

He looked so appalled, so offended, that Shannon threw back her head and laughed. “You have something against the Red, White, and Blue, Garrett?”

“Not at all. The Boston Pops are my peeps. In June and July around Memorial Day and the Fourth. Not when I'm busy attempting my rusty moves on a beautiful woman.”

Not rusty. Not rusty at all. “Veteran's Day will be here before we know it.”

“Yeah … well…” He trailed his thumb down her cheek from temple to chin. “So will morning and I have to be up at a ridiculous hour. I'd better say good night.”

Shannon's heart dipped. She told herself she was glad that he was keeping the promise she'd read in his eyes earlier tonight, that he didn't assume that a dinner date meant she would sleep with him, especially considering their history. At the same time, she regretted that he didn't test her.
Face it, O'Toole. Where Daniel Garrett is concerned, you're easy.

She wondered why he needed to get up early, and asked the most obvious question. “Do you have a plane to catch in the morning?”

“No. I have a phone appointment with Linda's attorney.” He waited a beat, and then added, “My intention is to hang around town a while. I was planning to come the first week of November anyway, so I figure I might as well stay. Celeste gave me a steal of a deal on the cabin rental.”

“Oh. I thought—”

His lips twitched. “That you'd be rid of me?”

“No.” Then a rare spurt of candor had her admitting, “Well, yes.”

“You wanted to break our date, didn't you?”

“Yes.”

“I did, too.”

Now she was offended. “You did?”

“You confuse me, Shannon O'Toole. You are a friend of my friends, so a relationship with you would be complicated.”

And he doesn't know the half of it.

“I don't do complicated,” he continued, “but I can't seem to stay away from you.”

“I don't know whether to be insulted or flattered.”

“Good. It's only right that we both be confused. So, why did you want to break our date?”

The moment for telling him about the baby had passed, she decided. She went for lighthearted instead. “It's the chocolate thing.”

“What chocolate thing?”

“A shared love of chocolate is vital to a relationship, I believe.”

“Hey, you're the one who kept the Neapolitan in the freezer. Tell you what. You need to give me another chance. Are you busy Saturday night? Gabe Callahan's brothers will be in town, and they're clearing a hunk of land they recently purchased that adjoins their property out at Hummingbird Lake. I promised I'd help. They've promised the best barbecue ever eaten Saturday night. And something called a Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake. Want to come have dinner with me?”

“Oh, I love barbecue, but it's hard for me to get away from the pub on Saturday nights. I'd better skip.”

“Okay, then. I'll be out of town next week, but back the following week. I need a partner in the three-legged race that Saturday morning.”

“Planning to attend the school's Fall Festival fund-raiser, are you?”

“Holly Montgomery talked me into buying a small fortune in tickets. So, want to be my date?”

She did. Shannon realized that she well and truly did.

Pleasure sparkled in his eyes. “Great. You up to making a day of it? The festivities start at ten. How about I pick you up then?”

“I'll be ready.”

They exchanged cell phone numbers then she walked him to the door. “I had a lovely evening, Daniel. Thank you.”

“I did, too. Thank you, Shannon.” He leaned down and gave her a long, lingering good-night kiss, ending it with obvious reluctance. “I'm glad you didn't cancel.”

“Me, too.”

“I'm looking forward to the three-legged race.”

“Me, too. Safe travels, Daniel.”

“Maybe I'll see you around town before I leave.”

“Come by the pub.”

“I'll do that.”

She waited a beat, then said, “Well, good night.”

“Good night.” He gave her a quick, hard kiss and finally turned to go.

Shannon leaned back against the door as she shut it behind him. The phonograph made a clicking sound as the record changed. Moments later, Elvis began crooning “Can't Help Falling in Love,” and a little laugh escaped Shannon.

She could totally hear Celeste's cheery voice ringing through her mind, saying, “Coincidences are an angel's way of working anonymously.”

 

Chapter Eight

Daniel walked into the back room of Cam Murphy's sporting goods store, Refresh, on Wednesday night and announced, “Gentlemen, the master has arrived. Prepare yourselves for a good old-fashioned whuppin'.”

The nine faces that turned his way each wore an expression of scorn. “Well, if it isn't Mr. Big Talk,” Gabe Callahan said around the unlit cigar in his mouth.

“Yeah.” Cam flipped his Colorado Rockies baseball cap around backward. “I'm gonna love taking his money.”

Lucca Romano shuffled a deck of cards like a pro. “As I recall, last time Daniel joined us you lost everything but your shirt.”

“Actually, I won that, too. Remember? He had to go to the front of the store and take something off the rack.”

“I remember,” Zach Turner said as he used his college ring as a bottle opener to crack open a beer. “I was getting worried that he'd insist on trying to win it back. Didn't want to see Cam Murphy naked.”

“Nobody wants to see that.”

“That's right,” Cam said, plunging his hand into a bag of tortilla chips. “Because one glimpse at my package will give you all such an inferiority complex that you'll need treatment, and Eternity Springs doesn't have a psychologist.”

“No, it's because Sarah is sharp, and she'll notice when we all look at her with pity in our eyes.”

Cam showed lots of teeth before he chomped the chip. “Bite me.”

With that, poker night was officially off and running.

Daniel had played with the group on two previous occasions when his visits to town had coincided with the twice-monthly gathering. The group had grown in both size and popularity since his visit a year ago and tonight it had two separate games going. Daniel took the fifth seat at a table with Lucca Romano, Zach Turner, Mac Timberlake, and Jack Davenport. For the first hour, conversation revolved around the cards, cars, basketball, and college football. The second hour drifted toward more personal subjects—wives, kids, and jobs.

During the third hour, players began calling it quits for the evening. Seventy-three dollars up for the night, Daniel asked to be dealt out. As he rose from the table, he felt his cell phone vibrate. He checked the number and recognized the lab. He needed to take this call.

“Hello, Steve. Hold on a minute while I step outside.”

“Sure.”

He grabbed his jacket and slipped it on as he exited the store's back door into the crisp autumn night. Cam had turned the area behind his shop into what he called a test area for items that he sold. His wife referred to the spot as Cam's play yard. To Daniel's left, a basketball hoop hung above a rectangle of cement. To his right, a strip of artificial turf provided a putting green. Daniel turned left and headed for one of several folding chairs set along the perimeter of the court. “What do you have for me, Steve?”

“DNA matches, Daniel. You found the little girl.”

Daniel closed his eyes and released a heavy sigh. It was the news he'd expected, the devastatingly awful good news. “That's good. I'll let her parents know. Thanks for rushing this for me.”

“Glad to help, buddy. You know you can call on me any time.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it. I owe you.”

“Hey, I'm the one who owes you and you know it.”

When the lab director's fifteen-year-old niece had run off with a boyfriend, Daniel had called on his law enforcement connections to facilitate the hunt for her and the story had a happy ending. “How is Katie doing these days?”

“Great. Just great. She went to summer school and got caught up. Made the varsity cross-country squad this fall.”

“Good for her.”