PERFECT (7 page)

Dylan tucked the
doll he held under an under arm and pulled her into the crook of his other arm
and squeezed. “I get it. My mom always said things happen for a reason, which
confused me as I got older and wiser, because she’s what most people refer to
as a free spirit and she believes in free will.”

Darcy laughed,
relishing his strength surrounding her. He was a stranger and he was comforting
her which was so darn sweet. The mixture of his musky-and-fresh-air scent
filled her nostrils and immediately all thoughts of Sweet Grass were gone in a
poof.

She turned her
face up to him and the impact of his magnetism almost buckled her knees. In
fact, if he weren’t holding onto her, she probably would’ve slumped to the
floor like a paper doll.

Their breaths
mingled. His concerned expression turned fervent. Her interest in him reflected
back at her in his rich eyes. Slowly his gaze dropped to her lips.

Her stomach
quivered. Was he going to kiss her? She rose up on her toes and was just about
to close her eyes when Dylan swallowed, dropped his arm from her shoulders and
stepped back.

“I ah... It must
be hard losing everything,” he said.

“Yes. Yes it is,”
she said, clearing her throat. What the hell happened? He was going to kiss
her. She wasn’t that naive. She had her share of first kisses. He was about to
kiss her good and damn if she didn’t want him to. She wrapped her arms around
the boxed doll, hoping to conceal her pounding heart. “So what else were you
thinking about buying the girls?”

“Look.” His
attention drew over her shoulder and he side-stepped. “Maybe this...” He
pointed between them. “…isn’t such a good idea after all.” He’d lowered his
voice.

“Why?”

“Excuse me.”

Darcy jumped not
realizing a woman entered the section of the store and they blocked the main
aisle. The older woman weighed next to nothing, even with her knee-high boots,
calf-length camel-hair coat and woolen cap with a fuzzy on top the size of a
navel orange and just as bright. She hadn’t set off the creak of the wooden
floor planks.

“Good morning,
Dylan,” she said with a cheery smile. “Shopping for the girls?”

“Yes, Mrs.
Farber.”

“Glad to see you
have some help. Everyone needs a little help. And a nice young man like
yourself should not be alone. You best get her some warmer boots or her toes
are going to freeze. You don’t want to be sick for the holidays. That’s no fun.
And the holidays should be fun.” Hazel eyes met Darcy’s. “Don’t you agree?”

“Yes, I do.”

The woman smiled
and then gave Dylan a brazen wink before moving further into the toy
department.

Dylan grabbed
Darcy’s elbow and steered her back into the side aisle. Once they were tucked
into a corner and he’d glanced over his shoulder, apparently checking no one
was nearby, before he looked down at her with sad puppy-dog eyes. “Look,” he
said with his free hand out as if he were holding her off. “Tom is my friend.”

“I know that.”

“What I mean, I’m
not the kind of guy who makes a move on a friend’s girlfriend.”

Darcy snorted.
“You think Tom and I are…”

Mrs. Farber,
holding a toy tommy-gun, peeked around the corner of the aisle, winked again
and then slowly drew back out of sight.

“Tom and I are not
friends.” She made air quote marks with her free hand. “We’re friends. That’s
all.”

“You’re not?” He
crossed his fingers.

“No. Why would you
think we were…” She scrunched her nose. “Involved?”

His face
brightened. “I don’t know. The way Tom talked about you. How happy you both
were to see each other. The way he hugged you last night when you walked in.
You’re staying at his house.” He lifted a finger with each point.

She stuffed her
fist on her hip. “If we were lovers, don’t you think he would’ve kissed me like
one?”

Dylan’s eyes
widened, obviously recalling that Tom had not kissed her like a lover would,
especially one who hadn’t seen her in a year. “He didn’t, did he?”

She trapped her
chuckle by biting her lip and shook her head. “No. He didn’t.”

“This is a good
thing.” Dylan grinned.

“So, now that I
know you’re not married and you know Tom and I are not Tom and I, why don’t we
look for those gifts for the girls? And maybe later, we’ll talk about what
almost happened here.”

He bent his head
closer to hers. “Are you sure you mean talk?” His voice dropped to a sexy timbre.

Ah man, the guy
was making her insides turn into warm jelly. “You are too cute.”

His warm breath
caressed her ear. “I think I’m in trouble.”

She turned her
head and smiled. “You might be.” She drew back and raised her brows. “But
before this—” She used his move of waggling a finger between them. “Goes any
further, let’s get the shopping out of the way.”

“Okay.” He ran his
tongue across his lips, which again, caused Darcy’s pulse to quicken. Dylan
extended an arm for her to pass by. “You’re sure you don’t mind?”

“Not at all.” She
turned on her heel and he nearly ran into her. She stepped back away from his
heat and tilted her head to look up at him. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll help
you and you help me.”

His expression
turned devilish. “With?”

She held up the
package of long underwear. “Pick something out for Tom. I don’t think he’s
really a plaid kind of guy.”

He chuckled. “I
wasn’t going to say anything, but no, those do not strike me as Tom. Well they
do. Tom always reminded me of Curly of the Three Stooges.”

“Oh, my God. Me
too.”

“Do you remember
the show where they went golfing?” He chuckled. “Curly wore plaid pants and a
ridiculous cap with this huge ball on top.”

“Maybe they do fit
him. I’m keeping them. He’ll wonder what I’m laughing at when he opens them. Of
course, I’ll tell him. He’ll get a kick out of it. He’s a good guy that way.
But, I want to get him something nice too. He’s a great friend and I want him
to know I appreciate him and all the time he spent listening to me over the
last week.”

Dylan nodded his
understanding. “Okay, let’s look around.” He grabbed her hand. “One more
thing.”

“What?” She asked,
looking up into twinkling eyes.

“Will you let me
buy you lunch?” His thumb brushed her skin, sending tingles up her arm.

“Only if you give
me a ride home later?” She smiled shyly.

“Deal.”

Mrs. Farber passed
by them and winked.

They both looked
at the fuzzy ball on her beanie and broke out in laughter.

Inside Armell’s
Country Kitchen, while a dozen townspeople did nothing to hide their interest
in them, Dylan sat across the solid oak table from Darcy, spilling his life’s
story. Well, at least, the story of his life over the past four months, since
Bob and Elizabeth left on assignment. Why? Because she had asked. Simple as that.

“That must have
been hard on the girls, watching their parents get on a plane without them, not
knowing when they’d be home again.”

Her hand covered
her heart, which caused his own heart to have a sappy reaction. Usually if a
woman he was with touched her breast in any manner, his thoughts went south of
his belt. But Darcy’s reaction to his nieces’ feelings kept his mind focused on
her.

He dug into the
steaming bowl of spicy chili, swallowed a spoonful and then swiped a paper
napkin across his mouth. “They were little soldiers, actually. Heads held high.
Stiff upper lips. I thought I was the wimp, until later.”

“What happened
later?” She broke off a bit of homemade raisin bread and popped the morsel into
her mouth.

He could watch her
eat for hours on end. She had this sexy way of pursing her lips and blowing
across her hot turkey rice soup and then letting her lips linger on the spoon a
second longer than necessary—suggestively. He shifted on his seat. How he
longed to feel those lips on him.

Putting his erotic
thoughts aside, Dylan dropped his napkin on the table next to his silverware.
“They were fine. Or so I thought. They didn’t say much the rest of the day and
during dinner, but when I went to tuck them in that night, the flood gates
opened. Katy broke first— when I started to walk out of the room— and then
Jillian started to cry as I was trying to comfort her sister.”

“Oh, no.” Darcy’s
brow pulled together and worry darkened her eyes to a deep forest green,
matching her sweater.

He wanted to reach
across the table and take her hand, but her right hand firmly held her spoon
and the left lay in her lap.

“I was beside
myself, to be honest. I had two little girls crying their eyes red until they
looked like dwarf-sized demons and I had no idea how to get them to calm down.
The pain they felt was something I never had to handle.” He stared down at the
kidney beans and chunks of hamburger, suddenly not feeling a bit hungry.

Darcy leaned
forward and tilted her head slightly, watching him. “What did you do?”

He slumped against
the back of his captain chair, propped his elbows on the arm rests, and cleared
his throat. “I held them,” he said without a twinge of embarrassment. “I fell
asleep holding them and didn’t wake until the sun hit me in the face the next
morning. After that, we sort of fell into a routine.”

“Ah. That’s so
sweet. You’re a kind man, Dylan.”

He dropped his
gaze, knowing heat colored his cheeks above his noon shadow of whiskers. “I did
what anyone would do.”

“A woman maybe,
but a man. Not all. Most men would’ve told them to suck it up in not so nice
terms and closed the door, leaving them to cry themselves to sleep.”

He saw her jaw
tighten as she stabbed her spoon into her soup. “It sounds like you have
firsthand experience.

The muscles of
Darcy’s neck above her pale scarf constricted and relaxed. “Not me. My brother,
Jacob’s, children. He and his wife, Rebecca, have two boys and a girl, ages
eight, ten and thirteen. They live in Atlanta, so I don’t get to see the kids
as much as I’d like.” She tapped her spoon on the side of the bowl and placed
it on the saucer underneath. “Jacob is not a nurturing man. He takes after my
father, or so I’m told. My father died in a private plane crash while traveling
home from a business trip. He was the pilot. I was three when it happened.”

Dylan’s jaw
dropped. He never knew someone who had lost a parent that way. “I’m sorry.”

She gave him a
weak smile. “I have very faint recollections of my father and I’m sure the
memories have been embellished by what I’ve overheard over the years.”

Armell walked up
to the table, carrying a coffee pot, breaking the tense moment. “Can I freshen
up your coffee again, Mr. Kincaid? Miss?”

“Witherspoon,”
Darcy replied with a smile.

“Nice to meet you,
Miss Witherspoon.”

“Okay. Now you
know her name, Armell. She’s an old friend of Tom Angleman’s. I’m showing her
around town while Tom is at work. The coffee?” Dylan said loud enough for
everyone to hear, holding out his cup.

“Good to know who
is who,” The dinette owner stated with amusement glistening in her eyes. “Don’t
you think?”

“Your soup is
delicious,” Darcy said.

Armell thanked
Darcy with a smile while topping off her coffee. “By the way, Dylan. I was
wondering if you were going to take Bob’s place and act as our Sunday-school
Santa and hand out the Christmas gifts? You know Bob has his own suit. I’m sure
if you ask him or Lizzy, they’ll tell you where he has it stored.” She dropped
their bill on the table and slid it toward him.

How did Bob do all
he did? Dylan thought. Husband, father, sitting on the town council,
volunteering at the church—he couldn’t let the town down in Bob’s absence. “I
can do that. I’ll be there with the girls anyway. Thanks for asking me.” He
added finding the Santa suit to his list of things to do.

“I knew we could
count on you like we count on Bob.” She headed off toward the other customers
with a prance in her step, probably to check if they all heard what had been
said.

“The locals are
curious,” Darcy smiled over her cup at him. “I take it you don’t bring many women
here for lunch.”

“No. Nor dinner.”
He sat his cup down, propped an arm on the table, and refocused on the woman
across from him. “So where were we? How about your mother? What is she like?”

“Mom is like me.
Easy going. She remarried when I was in my freshman year of college, to a nice
guy. They in the South of France.” She drew in a breath. “Jacob doesn’t like
our step-father, but it’s Mom who has to, right?”

“I’d say so.”

“Jacob’s a high
power corporate attorney who is a total dual master.”

“A what?” He’d
never heard the term.

“A dual master.
It’s term my aunt used for someone who multi-tasks. With Jacob, every meal has
an agenda. Every second of his day serves two purposes, one being him.”