2

SHE SURE DIDN’T LOOK like any librarian David had ever seen. Not that he spent much of his time hanging out in libraries. He’d never had the time or the inclination.

His job as an arson investigator had consumed his life for the past few years. Investigating fires that had often resulted in families losing their dreams or even their lives was enough to turn even a starry-eyed optimist into a cynic, and David had never been starry-eyed or an optimist. Not since his parents had been killed in a car crash when he’d been a kid.

His parents had been dreamers. His dad cashed in his life insurance policy on a get-rich-quick scheme, leaving nothing but debts. He knew that his grandparents had faced many financial and emotional hardships, although they never said or hinted that he was a burden to them.

Ever since David had been a kid, he’d been hardworking and practical, scoffing at the other kids’ grandiose dreams of being a basketball star or rock singer. When he’d heard a fire chief give a speech at his school’s career day presentation, he’d known that he’d found his line of work. After college he’d started out as a firefighter and then moved up in the ranks until he was transferred to the arson investigation division.

His cynical outlook had increased with every year he’d worked. What was the point of even having dreams when they could go up in a puff of smoke? When they could blind you to the reality of life, the way they’d blinded his father, leaving him and his grandparents to pick up the charred pieces afterwards? Over the years too many bad things had happened to good people for David to believe in much of anything anymore.

He’d taken this leave of absence at his boss’s request, to get a better perspective on things and to use the vacation time that had been piling up for the past eight years.

Problem was, the thought of doing nothing drove him up a wall. He wasn’t the type to sit around contemplating his navel and pondering why the Cubs hadn’t won a pennant in his lifetime.

So he’d planned on spending some time making sure his grandmother was set up for her retirement. She was his only family, and he felt badly that he hadn’t spent much time with her lately, but he was here now and he wasn’t about to let someone take advantage of her sweet disposition. His instincts told him that Anastasia was definitely a bad influence on his grandmother, a woman who hadn’t changed banks or hairdressers in umpteen decades. Buying a rundown building with the crazy idea of opening an icecream shop was totally out of character for her.

But not for the wild woman who’d threatened him with a can of shaving cream. He had a feeling this sort of thing was just in a day’s work for her. He suspected she’d played a major role in his grandmother’s totally uncharacteristic act of blowing her retirement nest egg. As his grandmother herself had admitted a few minutes ago, she didn’t have that many friends, so there weren’t many people who would have that kind of influence over her.

He gave the librarian another look, a male-to-female one this time. She wore confidence like a championship ring. Only a confident woman would get away with an outfit like the one she had on. The yellow sleeveless dress was long enough to brush the tops of her orange gym shoes, but she made it look sexy. For some reason, the dress made him think of sultry summer nights, cool lemonade and stolen kisses.

Her long brown hair was gathered up into a ponytail, accentuating her unusual golden eyes. She was tall, probably five-eight, which meant the top of her head came to just beneath his chin. Not that he saw himself getting that close to her. She had the attitude of a woman who was used to getting her own way. She was beautiful, but definitely not his type. And he didn’t trust her.

David tried to keep blatant suspicion out of his voice as he said, “So, Anastasia, you’re here as a buddy to help my grandmother fix up this place, is that it?”

“Actually, I live here. Well, not down here in the storefront, obviously,” she added, her ponytail bouncing like a teenager’s as she turned her head. “I meant that I live in one of the apartments upstairs.”

“That’s handy,” he noted mockingly. So, his instincts had been on the mark. “And I suppose you were the one who recommended that my grandmother buy this…” He was going to say “broken-down dump,” before deciding that might not be the best thing to do. “This old building.”

Claire answered on Anastasia’s behalf. “When Anastasia told me she’d found the perfect place for my ice-cream parlor, I couldn’t believe it at first.”

“I don’t blame you,” David murmured, deciding then and there he wouldn’t believe anything Anastasia said without checking it out for himself first. The little con artist had probably talked his grandmother into buying this building in order to get her as a landlady, for one thing. How handy to have a landlady who was also a close friend, someone who wouldn’t mind if you were a little late on your rent, or even if you didn’t pay your rent at all. “What else have you been doing for my grandmother, Anastasia?”

“I went with her to the real-estate closing this morning.”

David cursed silently. So the closing had only been a few hours ago. Dammit! If his originally scheduled flight hadn’t been canceled because of bad weather, he would have gotten home early this morning and might have been able to stop his grandmother from this foolishness.

He had no doubt buying the building was a mistake. What kind of security was there in owning an ice-cream parlor? Let alone opening it in the fall. It didn’t take a genius to figure out the idea was a stupid one.

“As I said before, Gran, owning a business might sound like a fun thing to do, but the reality is something else again. There are so many issues to deal with—hiring help, doing bookkeeping, taxes.” He went on in detail for some time before ending with, “It really isn’t a practical proposition.”

“Sure it is. Anyone with the least bit of imagination could see that.”

It came as no surprise that the heated words came not from his grandmother but from Anastasia. A shaft of golden sunlight was shining on her from the front window, creating a halo around the tousled strands of her long brown hair. But there was nothing angelic about her appearance. She looked passionate and exotic. She looked like the type of woman to disrupt a man’s peace of mind and fill an old lady’s head with foolish ideas.

“How did you meet my grandmother?” he asked Anastasia.

“We met at the library where I work, along with a bunch of other mousy old librarians,” she added tartly.

David grimaced. So she wasn’t about to let him off the hook. Fine by him. She wasn’t exactly on the top of his hit parade at the moment, either.

“Your grandmother saved my neck,” she said with a fond look at Claire.

Which he translated to mean that his grandmother had probably lent her money. He might not know much about librarians, but he’d heard that they didn’t get paid much.

“Now, dear, don’t tell him that story,” Claire protested.

Bingo, David thought to himself. Something they didn’t want him to know, which meant it was something he needed to find out. “Why not? I’d love to hear how you saved her neck, Gran.”

“Well, it’s a little embarrassing.” Claire chuckled self-consciously. “You see, things are kind of tight at the library, what with the recent budget cuts and all. Anastasia often kiddingly says that being a librarian is like taking a vow of poverty.”

Unless you find a rich elderly friend you can con into buying the ramshackle building where you live, David cynically thought. Maybe she was in cahoots with the previous owners. No doubt Anastasia, the little con artist, had even more self-serving schemes in mind for his grandmother.

“So I volunteered for the storytelling hour,” Claire was saying. “That’s where we first met.”

“How did that save your neck?” David directed his question to Anastasia.

“Obviously you’ve never tried to read a story to twenty-five preschoolers,” she replied.

David shuddered at the very idea. His experience with very young kids was very limited. He was more accustomed to working with them when they were older, old enough to hit a home run in the Little League baseball games he helped out with.

“I actually had two sets of twins in the group who were particularly rambunctious,” Anastasia was saying, her smile a mixture of humor and horror. “They were running wild, making me wish I had ten more hands. I used to have an assistant to help out, but when she quit, her position wasn’t filled. Attrition, they call it. I call it shortsighted stupidity, but hey, don’t get me started on fiscal policy.”

“I won’t.” He doubted his views on monetary responsibility matched hers.

“Anyway, your grandmother, sweetie that she is, stepped in and prevented Terry the Terrible, one of the twins, from cutting my hair with a pair of scissors he’d somehow managed to confiscate. Claire is great with the kids. And she tells them the best stories.”

Claire was shaking her head as she smiled. “Not as good as Anastasia’s stories. She makes up her own, you know.”

I’ll bet she does, David thought.

“About a trio of fairy godmothers,” Claire added. “She even does some drawings to go with her story. I’ve told her she should submit them, that they’re good enough to be published.”

“So you really want to be a writer, Anastasia?”

“No. I’d really like to be independently wealthy so I could afford to be a writer,” she said with an impertinent grin.

I’ll bet you would. David was about to tell her that there was no way she’d get wealthy at his grandmother’s expense, when Claire distracted him by grabbing his arm and tugging him to one side of the storefront. “David, take a look at this marble countertop—” she ran her hand over it “—and the snowflake-patterned terrazzo floor. Isn’t it the cutest thing? This place really has tremendous potential. I was thinking that we need to open this room up, get rid of these extra strange little walls that chop the place up. I want to put the kitchen in the back.”

“Kitchen?” he repeated. “What do you need a kitchen for?”

“To make the ice cream.”

“Make it? I thought you were going to buy it.”

Claire stared at him aghast. “Bite your tongue. Like I told you, my ice cream will be homemade. I’m even working on some special recipes. I found a soda-fountain book in with your grandfather’s things. It has some old classic recipes.”

“The Tune-In Sundae was one of my favorites,” Anastasia said. “You decorate a block of ice cream to make it look like an old-fashioned radio. The Third Degree was also intriguing, but that was more of an ice-cream soda.”

David wanted to give her the third degree and demand to know how she’d gotten herself so entwined in his grandmother’s life while his back was turned. Anastasia had even apparently read his grandfather’s soda-fountain book. David hadn’t known his grandfather owned such a thing. His grandfather had died when David graduated from college, and while he knew his grandmother missed her husband terribly, David had never suspected that her loneliness would drive her to such foolishness.

Running one hand through his hair in frustration, he frowned at his grandmother. “Why didn’t you talk to me before doing this?” he asked her once more.

Claire patted his hand. “I told you, dear…I didn’t want to bother you when you were so busy. How was that conference you attended, by the way?”

“The conference was fine and I’m not too busy for something major like this.”

“David is an arson investigator,” Claire proudly informed Anastasia.

“So you’ve said.” Unlike David, she remembered what Claire told her and the look she shot him informed him as much.

David ignored her. He wasn’t about to get sidetracked. “Purchasing real estate is a big responsibility, let alone trying to start up a new business. Do you know how many businesses fail their first year? A majority of them,” he answered for her. “And why an ice-cream parlor of all things?”

“Because your grandfather and I met in an icecream parlor where he was working as a soda jerk before the war. I’ll never forget the first time I saw him.” Her expression softened as her fingers caressed the smooth marble of the countertop. “He had such style and grace as he expertly tossed a scoop of ice cream over one shoulder to have it land in a metal banana-split dish. He had the best moves.”

Looking over his shoulder, David noticed Anastasia’s moves. Her sunshine-yellow dress clung to her hips with every step she took. She walked with a smooth sexy sway as she joined them.

“Everyone is entitled to a dream,” Anastasia said, challenging him.

“Is that so?” David retorted as if speaking to a half-wit. “And what about responsible behavior and financial security?”

“Your grandmother put together a thorough financial plan to decide how much capital she’d need for her business. She’s a smart woman. Can’t you see she’s doing something that makes her happy? Something that has deep personal meaning to her, bringing back memories of those early days with your grandfather. This is Claire’s dream.”

David was stung by Anastasia’s words and the implication that she knew his grandmother better than he did. “And what kind of world would it be if we all went chasing after wild dreams?”

“A better one,” Anastasia said tartly. “Think about that while I go upstairs and change into some work clothes.”

“WELL, THAT WENT WELL,” Hattie said as she hovered midair, her gossamer wings fluttering a mile a minute to keep her aloft. There wasn’t a place in the storefront clean enough for her to perch on. With her free hand, she attempted to keep her electric-blue pillbox hat in place. It matched her dress right down to the pearl accents. Hattie prided herself on her ability to accessorize.

“Went well?” Muriel repeated from the dusty marble countertop below. “How can you say that?” She shoved her fingers through her spiky white hair, which made her look like a disgruntled woodpecker, before stuffing her hands in the deep pockets of her khaki vest. “Just because no blood was spilled?”

“You’re such a fussbudget,” Hattie retorted.

“Right,” Muriel scoffed. “This coming from the flibbertigibbet in the family.”

“Girls.” Betty fixed them both with a reprimanding look as she began pacing along the countertop. She was wearing her I Yell Because I Care T-shirt, which meant she wasn’t in the mood to take any guff from anyone. “As I see it, we have a slight problem in that David thinks Anastasia is a con artist out to get his grandmother’s money, not to mention that he doesn’t believe in having dreams.”

“I doubt he believes in fairy godmothers, either,” Muriel interjected.

“It’s early going yet,” Betty said. “We just dropped by to check on the initial meeting and to make sure that Claire played her role as matchmaker. We don’t have much experience putting ideas into the heads of strangers, but I must say that I’m pleased with the results.”

“Are you sure that enlisting Claire’s help is a good idea?” Hattie asked uncertainly.

Betty shrugged. “What can it hurt?”

“Only the entire balance of the universe, that’s all,” Muriel glumly replied.

“YOU MUST BE BRAVE,” Anastasia said. “You must gather your courage. Remember your heritage.”

The blue-eyed Himalayan cat she was speaking to just blinked at her from beneath the armchair it was cowering under.

“That mouse won’t hurt you. I put a fresh piece of cheese in the humane live trap this morning. I’m sure he’ll take the bait any moment and stop tormenting you. He’s just running around to bother you. You really shouldn’t let him get to you this way, Xena.”

Anastasia had hoped that giving the feline a warrior princess’s name would help her assertiveness problem, but so far no luck. She’d gotten the cat by default. Trevor, one of her former boyfriends, had given her the animal—dumped it on her, actually, saying he had no time for neurotic felines. Two days later, Anastasia had dumped Trevor but kept the cat.

“That mouse has no right bullying you,” she said. “You need to assert yourself. Don’t let him browbeat you, chase you under the chair this way.”

The same could be true of David, she thought. He had no right trying to bully Claire in an attempt to send her scurrying under the proverbial chair.

Anastasia’s view of him as a workaholic hardnose had been right on the money. The guy just didn’t get it. He wouldn’t know a dream from a hole in the ground.

Even so, she wasn’t about to stand by and let him bully his grandmother into giving up her dream. It was his own fault that he hadn’t been involved in Claire’s decision. She’d no doubt guessed that he’d try to squash her dream instead of nurturing it the way Anastasia had. He was clearly a doubting Thomas.

She’d seen the suspicion in his eyes, incredible though they might be. Such an intense blue. It was a shame they were wasted on such an obstinate jerk.

So why did she feel this little curl of interest unfurling within her?

“Maybe that’s lust, not interest,” she muttered as she kicked off her shoes on her way to the bedroom. Once there, she tugged her dress over her head and replaced it with an orange sleeveless blouse and a pair of painter’s white overalls. She liked her clothes colorful. She liked her surroundings the same way, and the brilliant blue and bright yellow color scheme in her bedroom certainly qualified.

There wasn’t one item in the room that was neutral or white. The walls were yellow, while the handwoven Indian rug on the floor was blue with golden stars and moons. Additional splashes of color were evident in the Tiffany-style lamp on the dresser and the framed Van Gogh poster on the wall.

As she tugged the shoulder straps of her overalls into place, she replayed David’s questions in her mind. He clearly didn’t like her and he was suspicious. His type usually was. They didn’t believe in random acts of kindness. If the car ahead of him on the Northwest Tollway paid his toll for him, he’d probably have it followed and investigated to find out what ulterior motive the driver had.

What had made him that way? Working as an arson investigator? Or losing his parents when he was young?

Why did she care?

It was those damn intense blue eyes. If only they’d been blah brown. And if only they hadn’t been teamed with those Black Irish good looks. She’d always been a sucker for them, ever since “Remington Steele” had first aired on TV.

The guys in her life had usually shared Remington’s devil-may-care attitude. They’d had big dreams, whether they’d come true or not. And okay, so they’d been somewhat immature and irresponsible, but that had been part of their charm. In the beginning.

Growing up with two bossy brothers, as the only girl in a set of triplets, had ensured that she hadn’t been attracted to the controlling intense type. David’s type.

Maybe he wouldn’t be around much. Maybe Claire was talking some sense into him at this very moment.

“I’M SO GLAD you agreed to help me fix up the place.” Claire glowed at David. “I don’t know anything about load-bearing walls and not being able to tear those down. You’re so clever, dear. But then, you did work on construction sites all those summers while you were in college.”

“That was years ago,” David reminded her.

“I’m sure it’s like riding a bike, something you don’t forget. And you are on leave now, right, dear? Six weeks, I believe you said.”

David nodded.

“Then it would be perfect timing. We could get a lot accomplished in the next six weeks.”

Not the least of which would be David’s finding out exactly what Anastasia was up to.

“And what about your building going condo?” Claire added. “Didn’t you tell me that you’d have to move soon? Have you had time to find another place yet? Because if not, the apartment on the third floor is vacant and you’d be welcome to stay here for as long as you like.”

“I might take you up on that.”

“Oh, I hope you do. It would be so nice to have you here. And I wouldn’t worry about leaving the place at night, not with you to look after things.”

“Yeah, defending the place with a can of shaving cream isn’t much of a crime deterrent,” David noted mockingly.

“Oh, you mustn’t mind Anastasia. She was just trying to help me.”

“I know what she was trying to do,” David said. And he knew what he had to do to combat it. Move in and look out for his grandmother’s interests.

“IS HE GONE?” Anastasia asked as she entered the storefront to find Claire alone.

“For now. I’m sorry David called you mousy,” Claire apologized.

“Hey, I’ve been called much worse. He’ll soon discover how wrong he was. About a lot of things.”

Claire nodded. “I love him dearly, but he does tend to be a mite…”

“Bossy, judgmental, impossible?”

“I was going to say serious.”

“That would have been my next guess.” Anastasia grinned.

“He just needs someone to teach him how to loosen up,” Claire said wistfully. “Someone who could help him understand the appeal of having dreams. And I know just the woman for the job.”

There was no mistaking Claire’s hopeful look in Anastasia’s direction.

“Who, me? Oh no you don’t” Anastasia shook her head so vehemently her ponytail slapped against her cheeks.

“You’d be the perfect person to teach David how to dream…and how to have some fun in life. I’ve never met anyone so full of a zest for life as you.”

“I’ve got that zest because I don’t hang around with serious guys like David who suck all the fun out of life.” Seeing Claire’s crestfallen expression made her feel badly. “I’m sorry. I know he’s your grandson and you love him, but…”

“You’re probably right, dear.” Now it was Anastasia’s turn to be on the receiving end of Claire’s hand-patting. “I doubt that even you could manage to turn David around. You’re good, but not that good.”

“Now wait a minute.” Anastasia didn’t take kindly to hearing that. “I most certainly am that good. I could make him see the light—”

“And that would make him so much better to have around,” Claire interjected. “Do you really want him reprimanding us for the next few weeks while he’s helping us fix up the place, or would you rather bring him around to our way of thinking?”

“Wait a second. What’s this about him helping us?”

“David has agreed to do some of the renovation work to help me save on expenses. And he’s moving into the vacant apartment on the third floor.”

“So he’s going to be underfoot for a while.” Anastasia paused to review her options. “In that case, I suppose it would be in our best interest to convert him to our way of thinking. Besides, it’s not like I don’t have experience with his type. My brother Jason was bossy and overbearing. I’ve knocked most of it out of him, though. Figuratively speaking, of course. A majority of the time it did not require bodily blows. But your grandson is much more…” How could she put it? Earthy? Her brother was good-looking. Heck, he’d been named Chicago’s Sexiest Bachelor earlier in the year. But David was more than just handsome. He exuded raw masculinity the way an oven generated heat.

“He’s much more what, dear?”

“Much more of a challenge,” she substituted. “Not that I’m not intrigued by a challenge, because I am.” She imagined herself making the bossy David see the light, showing him the errors of his ways.

Claire had a point It would make the next few weeks much easier if he was with them instead of against them. And the fastest way to do that was to show him the value of having dreams and having fun.

“Tell me,” Anastasia asked. “What does David do to have fun?”

“He works.”

She sighed.. “That’s what I was afraid of. Okay, Claire, you’ve got a deal. I’ll try and whip David into shape for you.”

CRASH! The noise woke Anastasia from a sound sleep. Sitting upright in bed, she turned on the lamp and shot a bleary-eyed gaze at her Wallace and Gromit alarm clock. The British cartoon characters usually made her smile, but all she noted now was that it was almost two in the morning. The crashing sound seemed to have come from directly outside her front door.

Deciding it was better to fear the noise you knew rather than the one you didn’t, she slid out of bed and tiptoed from her bedroom across the living room to her front door, turning on another light as she went along. She put her nose to her door, and cautiously peered out the peephole.

All she could see was a denim-clad rear end—a masculine rear end, most definitely. And a rather nicely formed one at that.

Then she saw the rest of the man as he straightened and shot a wary look over his shoulder at her door. It was David.

For two days she’d been waiting for him to finish packing up his stuff and finally show his face, and his rather nice bottom, here. She’d begun to wonder if he hadn’t decided to back out of his agreement with his grandmother.

But now he’d shown up with a bang, or rather a crash and several inventive curses.

Making the most of the moment, she opened her door and, putting one hand on her hip à la Mae West, drawled, “Welcome to the neighborhood, big boy.”