Seduced by Moonlight (12 page)

D
anielle was excited. It was Thursday, the day her dad was supposed to arrive. She went through her day as if by rote, going through the motions but not really paying strict attention in any of her classes. Thank goodness there were no pop quizzes or she would have flunked them all.

Between her calculus class and her advanced chemistry class she was switching out her textbooks and notebooks at her locker in the hallway when Echo came up behind her and goosed her. Danielle elbowed him in the side.

“Ow!” Echo cried, hunching over in pain. “Girl, your skinny elbows are deadly weapons.”

Echo was six feet tall to Danielle's five-nine. He wore his natural black hair in a huge afro that made him look like a throwback to the seventies. His clothing, while clean, never fit him, but hung on his trim, muscular body. But then, Danielle mused, as she eyed him, it didn't matter because Echo looked good in anything. He had flawless brown skin with red undertones, a sexy mouth and eyes the color of burnt honey.

He leaned his square-jawed, clean-shaven face closer to her as she shut the locker door. “What's the matter?” he asked softly. “Having second thoughts about your dad coming to stay with you and your mom?”

“Nothing of the sort,” Danielle said. She put her chemistry book and notebook in the canvas bag she carried her school supplies in and tossed it over her shoulder. The hallway was filled with other students checking their lockers or hurrying to their next classes.

She and Echo were both in advanced chemistry so she knew when she turned and began walking in the direction of their classroom he would fall into step beside her, chatting all the while.

“You've been moody ever since you got back from Vail,” he observed, his gaze on her face. “Are you missing lover boy from D.C.?”

Danielle narrowed her eyes at him. “A lady does not kiss and tell.”

“He kissed you?” Echo asked, his voice squeaking.

Danielle looked straight ahead. “I didn't say.”

“I get the point, Danielle,” Echo said tightly. “You're not going to tell me. All right, but answer this one question for me. What does he have that I don't?”

“The nerve to try to kiss me,” Danielle answered.

Echo's relief was written all over his handsome face. “You didn't kiss him!”

“No, I didn't,” said Danielle angrily. “But you know what? I might just go ahead and kiss the next guy who tries.”

Echo, equally upset, cried, “Well, maybe I'll be the next guy who tries!”

Nose in the air, Danielle huffed and kept walking. She didn't even dignify his comment with a reply. Echo walked beside her, his prodigious brain calculating how he was going to wipe that smug look off her face.

“When a man loves a woman,” he said quietly, “he doesn't grab her and kiss her, he picks a special moment.”

This time Danielle stopped in her tracks and stared at him.

“I'm not some guy you met one night, I'm the guy who loves you, Danielle. And if it takes me a while to work up to a kiss, then so be it. I'm not just in this for the short term, but forever. You know how I was raised, my mom by herself. I saw how she struggled. And because of that I respect women. You're more to me than a quickie in the backseat of a car, or a grope in the locker room.”

He opened his arms to her and Danielle walked into them. As they embraced in the hallway the other kids walked around them. “I guess it's time to take this to the next level,” Echo said softly in her ear.

 

Charlie pulled the SUV to the curb at the Patterson home. After he turned off the engine he sat there, thinking. Why had he let Danielle talk him into staying with them until he found a place to live? He was not broke. He could afford to go to a hotel. Ever since he'd agreed to the arrangement he'd been second-guessing himself. Yes, he wanted to be close to Danielle. But he knew that Cherisse wasn't going to warm to his staying with them. No, they were not the sort of divorced couple who enjoyed insulting each other and wishing each other would suffer for eternity.

Cherisse had never forgiven him for his weakness, though. She blamed him for the divorce, as well she should. It was his gambling that put stress on their relationship. Cherisse, who had wanted to go to college and get her nursing degree while they were married, had been reduced to doing secretarial work to keep food on the table for Danielle because he owed loan sharks so much of his salary he could barely keep the roof over their heads. If he had refused to pay the loan sharks, they would have injured him so badly that he would not have been able to play football, his only money-making skill. It all became a vicious cycle. No wonder Cherisse had left him.

Today, though, he was free of the loan sharks. Not exactly free of the gambling fever. He would always be afflicted, but at least he had it somewhat under control as long as he made his Gamblers Anonymous meetings and remained vigilant at all times. No temptation whatsoever. Even a little bet between friends could trigger the fever and the next thing he knew he could be in Vegas playing craps, losing and
feeling
like crap!

It was a daily struggle, one that he gladly went through because he dearly wanted a new life.

He got out of the SUV. It was late afternoon. He knew Danielle was home from school by now, but he had neglected to ask her if her mother would be home when he arrived. Some part of him wanted to get the meeting with Cherisse over with. Another part wanted to postpone it for as long as possible.

He could take a lot of punishment, but the look of disappointment in Cherisse's eyes had always been able to do him in.

Just as well man-up, he thought as he walked onto the familiar porch. Looking around, he decided that not much had changed in the old neighborhood since his last visit. The yards were still well-kept, the streets busy with life—kids playing in them, somebody mowing his lawn, someone else washing her car, or the guy next door making minor repairs to his house or car. The neighbors were a multicultural lot: blacks, Hispanics, Asians and a few whites. It was a nice neighborhood.

He was glad Danielle had spent her formative years here.

He rang the bell and heard Danielle running to answer the door. He was ready for her when she opened the door and flew into his arms. Charlie hugged her tightly as a lump formed in his throat. She looked so much like her mother that it was spooky. The same long, thick, unruly black hair. The same nose, full-lipped mouth and short white teeth.

She was darker-skinned, like him, though, and she had his aggressiveness on the playing field. He'd been lucky enough to catch a few of her basketball games when she was younger and last year he'd seen her in a skiing competition.

In both sports she had displayed a single-minded kind of aggression on the playing field that had rivaled his.

“Dad!” she screamed. “You made it, finally!”

Charlie kissed her forehead and held her away from him so that he could look her in the eyes. “What do you mean ‘finally'? I arrived just when I said I would.”

Danielle wrinkled her nose and pointedly looked at the clock on the living room wall. Charlie was ten minutes later than he'd said he would be. “I hate to nitpick,” she told him, “but you're late.”

“That's right, you are, Charlie,” Jo said, entering the room.

She stood in the doorway with her hands on her hips, looking Charlie over. At thirty-eight, only a year older than Cherisse, he was still a fine-looking man. Dark-skinned and rakish-looking, what with that moustache of his and that shaved head. She supposed he'd gotten a receding hairline like his father, God rest his soul, and had decided to go ahead and start shaving his head. It looked good on him.

Danielle let go of her dad so he could give her grandmother a hug. Jo groaned with pleasure when he did. Peering up at him, she asked, “How was your trip? Everything go all right?”

“No problems,” said Charlie, moaning with pleasure. Miss Jo, as he called his mother-in-law—ex-mother-in-law—had always given the best hugs. And even after the divorce she had not taken sides and vilified him just for the sake of showing solidarity with her daughter. She had understood that no matter what Charlie had done, he was still Danielle's father. And a little girl needed to be able to believe in her father.

“Miss Jo,” he said, “you're as beautiful as ever.”

Jo didn't even try to deny it. “Honey, we Patterson women hold together nicely.” She let go of him and turned to Danielle. “Sweetie, help your dad get his belongings out of his car and then bring him to the kitchen for a little pick-me-up, he must be tired and hungry after all that driving.”

She went back to what she had been doing in the kitchen before Charlie's arrival.

Danielle regarded her dad. “You heard her. Put me to work.”

 

While taking a brief break in the employee lounge, Cherisse reread Harry's letter that had come in Tuesday's mail, for perhaps the fourth time that day:

“Whatcha doing?” Sonia asked as she walked into the lounge. Cherisse had been alone in the room, which was why she'd taken the letter out to read. She quickly folded it and slipped it into her smock's pocket. Harry's letters were for her eyes only.

She had told Sonia she had received a letter from him, though. “You caught me reading Harry's letter again,” she confessed.

Sonia laughed shortly as she joined Cherisse at her table. “It's about time you had a little romance in your life.”

“How're things with you and Ken?” Cherisse asked.

“Mmm,” Sonia mused, lips pursed and eyes full of mischief. “We're taking things slowly. It's the only way. We've been to dinner a few times and when you phoned Sunday evening he was at my place helping me paint the kitchen. I've worked the poor boy hard. Painting, vacuuming Mary's house, I'm wearing him down and then when he's too weak to resist, I'll jump his bones.”

“You find him attractive, then?”

“In a clean-cut, myopic-accountant kind of way,” Sonia joked. “You know nerds can be very sexy.”

“He's not a nerd.”

“Sure he is,” Sonia disagreed. “But behind those glasses are beautiful brown eyes and under those high-water pants is a pretty fit body.”

Cherisse laughed shortly. “And what do you find underneath all of that?”

“A lovely soul,” Sonia proclaimed. “I'm thirty-eight. I'm not looking for Prince Charming anymore. I'm looking for a HMW: Healthy Male Working.”

“The best kind of male,” Cherisse said wholeheartedly.

Sonia laughed again and got up. “Well, I need to go give a bath to a child who doesn't enjoy them. Pray for me.”

“Done,” said Cherisse.

 

Harry was going over business reports from his general manager in his suite's office. It was something to occupy his mind while he pondered the real question: was he going to make an offer on the resort in Montana? If he did that would mean his time would have to be divided between Colorado and Montana. But to his advantage if he went ahead with the deal it would mean he would no longer have to endlessly travel the country searching for the site of his second resort. Montana. He'd only visited the state twice and if it weren't the whitest state he'd ever been in—that honor went to Utah—it was definitely the most remote. The state was undoubtedly beautiful though, breathtakingly so.

Harry, who was in his robe after a shower following his evening workout, put down the sheet of paper he had been studying and picked up the letter from Cherisse that he'd gotten in this morning's mail.

He sighed. He could never have guessed the emotional impact of receiving a personal message from the hand of a woman he was attracted to. Her lovely cursive writing lent an air of sophistication to her words:

Harry smiled. His first letter had been chaste because he hadn't wanted to assume she would welcome something racier. His next would be a departure from the first.

Of course, he didn't plan to write it until after their date Saturday night. By then he would most assuredly have more ammunition for his pen and would be able to fire off a missive she would never forget.