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NASH INHALED DANIKA’S scent as she tapped the keyboard. The bathrooms had come equipped with soap, but Danika didn’t smell like the soap he’d found in his shower. He hadn’t seen her put any soap or perfume into the shopping cart.
He couldn’t isolate the aromas. Something fruity, something earthy. Whatever it was, it shouted Danika and was arousing as hell. He needed to concentrate. Nothing in the articles he’d looked at seemed worthy of the attacks. Her notes might provide more.
He watched her fingers move over the keys. Efficient fingers. He’d felt them running through his hair, stroking his face. Those had been sensual fingers.
His scone and berries hadn’t kept him fueled, and needing an excuse to put distance between himself and Danika, he strolled to the kitchen for a snack. “Want anything to eat?” he asked.
“Still full from the quiche.”
He came back crunching on an apple, standing over Danika as she transferred files.
“Too bad there isn’t a printer. It’s easier for me to see things when I can lay them all out, and this screen is so small,” she said.
“Grinch probably has one he’d let us use. I’ll see if he’s around.”
“I’ll get the number.” Danika shoved away from the table.
He put a hand on her shoulder, motioning her to sit. Damn, he was going out of his way for excuses to touch her. “Don’t bother. I have Grinch’s cell number in my phone.”
He caught Grinch between flight students. “Not a problem. I’ll be home around four. Drop by any time after that.”
Danika was studying a file she’d downloaded. “What if it wasn’t a published story?”
“You mean one you were still working on?” Nash set his phone on the table and looked at the screen. Names, notes, nothing comprehensible. To him, anyway. They seemed to make perfect sense to Danika. She scrolled, stopped, studied.
“Who else had access to these?” he asked.
“These? Nobody. I kept them at home, on my laptop. Mr. Gerard, the head honcho at the Gazette told me to turn in my notebooks, and all my work files. I gave them to my boss, Jorge Fernandez.”
“Would anyone know you had duplicates on your laptop?”
“They weren’t duplicates. These are my notes. Random thoughts. Bits and pieces. Bare bones. I transcribed everything into a more organized form at work. Article drafts. Those are the files I turned in.”
“These contain more information than someone would get from reading your published articles, don’t they?”
“Yes.”
“And your notebooks?” he asked.
“Records of who I talked to, dates, times. Very sketchy.” She frowned at him. “The notebooks weren’t locked up. Anyone who wanted to find them could have gone through my desk. Read them. Made copies.”
“Let me get this straight. You have notes nobody’s seen on your laptop. Notes you were supposed to turn over to the paper after you were fired.”
She raised her chin. “I was beyond angry. The meat of all these scattered bits and pieces was at work. They got the same information, but cleaner.”
“Not exactly the same, though. There must be things in these notes nobody at the paper has seen. Had you started writing your next article?”
“Not yet. I was at the information gathering stage, but my notebooks would have the names of people I interviewed, and what their roles were.”
She’d piqued his interest. “What was the article going to be about?”
“Endangered species in New Mexico, with an emphasis on ways people are ignoring the laws.”
“Sounds like another potential for controversy.”
“You’re telling me.” Her frustration was obvious. “Which was why I hoped it would get me into the news department. People don’t understand that if an animal or plant isn’t important to them, it can still have global repercussions if it’s wiped off the face of the earth. My boss told me to start preliminary research, run it by him, but I was trying to decide whether to focus on familiar animals, like wolves, cougars, or rabbits, or if I should dig into what would happen to the balance in the ecosystem if lesser known—and less charismatic—species like snails or fish disappeared.”
“Your boss is the only one who knew you were planning the story?”
“As far as I know. He might have run it by Mr. Gerard, but if the big boss didn’t want it in the paper, he’d have told Jorge, and Jorge would have told me.”
“You don’t think that triggered your being fired?”
“I don’t see why it would have. Jorge never told me to back off.” She gave a rueful sigh. “Maybe he thought it would keep me busy. Maybe I did suck at my job and deserved to be let go.”
Where had that self-doubt come from? Nash had seen nothing but positive energy from Danika. “I read your articles. You do not suck.”
“High praise, indeed,” she said with a smirk.
That was more like the Danika he’d spent time with. “They’re good. Even if they did suck, that wouldn’t explain the letters, the tires, or the fire.”
She gave another sigh. “So, other than you deciding I don’t suck as a reporter, have we made any headway?”
“Eliminating things is as important as finding them.” He had to agree, they weren’t much further along. “I can give these names to my company, see if they can do a deeper search than I can do with the public search engines. Do your notes contain any background searches you did on the people you interviewed? What about their associates, their lives away from their jobs?”
“Not much,” she said. “Maybe I do suck.”
“Stop it, Danika. Your articles are well-written and informative.”
“Yeah, but I wanted to be an investigative reporter. I liked the variety from working the Living section, and the things I learned researching hundreds of articles.” She smiled. “I’m a veritable font of trivia. But I haven’t investigated anything. My digging below the surface still wallows in the human interest category.”
“Would a hug help?” The words escaped as if a ventriloquist had put them in his mouth.
What on earth was he thinking? Not thinking, that’s what. The kiss, while it had been pleasurable—who was he kidding, it had been fantastic—was more of a get it out of our system kiss, not a budding relationship one.
He couldn’t rescind the offer. Danika stood and extended her arms. “Couldn’t hurt, I suppose.”
“A casual hug,” Nash warned. “Like you’d give someone you haven’t seen in a while.”
“I didn’t realize you could categorize hugs,” she said, dropping her arms.
Nash went along, trying to keep the mood light. “Sure. In addition to the good to see you hug, there’s the congratulations on a job well done hug, or the I’m sorry and won’t ever do it again hug.”
Or the oh, you poor thing hug, but Nash preferred to forget those. He’d had enough of them when he was twelve.
Danika tilted her head. “I never had those sorts of hugs growing up, except from my grandmother, but she wasn’t generous with them. She had her moods. I was too young to understand, but I think she was angry at my mother for deserting me, leaving her with a child to care for. We had good times, but there was a lot of tiptoeing around her on my part, trying not to get her upset.”
At least you had someone.
The hug apparently forgotten, Nash returned to Danika’s files. “I’ll save these to my cloud account as well, if you don’t mind.”
“Backing up backups is always good.”
Nash stood, tried to work the stiffness out of his leg. “I need to make a call. You can keep working if you want.”
“My eyes are crossing. I’ll fix us lunch.” She pushed the tablet aside. “Take your pain meds.”
He bristled. “I know how to take care of myself.”
“Knowing and doing are two separate things. For someone who insists on helping people who haven’t asked for it, you seem to be dead set against it working both ways.” She stomped to the kitchen.
He stomped to his bedroom.
He hit the speed dial for Mrs. Obut. She spoke before he asked his question.
“So good you called, Mr. Hanley. Your father. He’s in one of his states again. He’s been like this since I got here this morning. I’m afraid I had to medicate him.”
“You know best, Mrs. Obut. Don’t apologize. Do you think he’s okay at home?”
The silence answered his question. No matter how many times he’d dealt with it, Nash’s stomach knotted like a macramé hammock. “I’ll call the center, let them know to expect him. I’ll call the transport company, too. I’ll call Mrs. Lin, let her know.”
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Hanley.”
“It’s not your fault. If you’ll make sure he’s settled at the center, I’d appreciate it. Then enjoy a little time off.” Nash had tried getting home the first few times his father had regressed, but his presence had hurt more than helped. By now, Mrs. Lin and Mrs. Obut were his father’s familiar faces, not Nash.
His heart sinking, he disconnected and scrolled his contacts.
*****
DANIKA SURVEYED THE contents of the refrigerator. Nash might not listen to her when she mentioned his pain management—still a typical guy, despite that he’d confessed what he was dealing with. She could help by fixing meals appropriate to his dietary restrictions. Why should he have to eat partial portions because she didn’t know how to create the right meals? She fetched the tablet and settled in on an island chair while she researched.
The National Kidney Foundation’s site offered solutions and suggested recipes. Half the protein, twice the vegetables. She found a recipe for a modified chicken salad and set to work.
She assembled two sandwiches and called Nash for lunch. He trudged into the kitchen, sat, took a token bite, then pushed his plate aside.
Danika had tasted the salad before making the sandwiches, and it seemed better than passable. She took a bite, trying it again. Seemed fine. “Something wrong?” she asked.
“No, it’s good. I’m not hungry.”
“It’s an approved low-protein recipe,” she said.
He took another bite, chewing slowly. Way too slowly. As if that single bite had to last him all day. She finished half her sandwich, but Nash hadn’t touched his.
“Talk to me,” she said. “Your phone call. Bad news?”
Nash pushed his hair behind his ears. “Nothing I can’t deal with.”
She got up, moved behind him and rested her hands on his shoulders, gently kneading the iron bands of his muscles. “I don’t doubt it. But if you tell me, it might make the dealing easier. I’m on your side.”
“I don’t like talking about it.”
She continued to massage his neck, feeling the bands loosen. “That’s obvious. I’m saying share. Please.”
He exhaled a shuddering breath. “It’s complicated.”
“It usually is.”
“I don’t know where to start.”
“Start anywhere.”
Another shaky breath. “After my mom died, my father fell apart. I mean, totally. He basically stopped functioning. Retreated into a world where nothing bad had happened. Waiting for my mother to walk through the door. I was twelve. I had no clue what to do.”
“Didn’t he get help? There had to be all sorts of support after the attack.”
“Help only works when you accept it. My father insisted nothing had happened. He tried going about life as usual, but he sank deeper and deeper into depression and denial. I had to cook for him, make sure he had clean clothes to wear. Tell him to shower. Shave. We’d totally reversed roles.”
Danika had no words. She couldn’t imagine a twelve-year-old being thrust into adulthood overnight.
“Long story short,” Nash went on, “I went downhill, too. I went to school, because that was a routine my father understood, and it was my normal routine. I wasn’t the only kid who’d lost someone in the attack, but instead of helping, being around them made it impossible to forget. After one social worker showed up and wanted to take me away, I knew I couldn’t let that happen. Who would take care of my father if I was in a foster home? I got pretty good at faking them out if they showed up. Eventually, they left me alone. They had plenty of other cases to deal with.”
“That’s ... terrible ...” Danika whispered.
“Yeah, it sucked. I ended up panhandling, stealing food, whatever it took. I learned to forge my father’s signature for Mom’s life insurance, school reports, anything he was supposed to sign.” He pulled away from her touch.
“What I couldn’t keep him from doing was letting charlatans who promised they would reunite him with Mom steal his money. Thank God for online banking. At least I could move money into an account Dad didn’t know about, so we weren’t penniless.”
“Nash, I—”
“Don’t give me your pity. I came out of it okay.”
“I wasn’t pitying you. More like empathizing. I know what it’s like to not have a parent, even when you technically do have a parent. My problems were nothing compared to yours. From what you said earlier, I take it your father is alive.”
“And living in a world of his making. I finally trusted my high school football coach—playing football let me work out my frustrations—and he helped me find a mental health center where my father could be cared for. Those institutions aren’t cheap, and they ate up most of our savings, so I was back on the streets.”
Nash moved Danika’s hands away and turned to face her. “Coach was great about stepping in on my behalf when the cops picked me up, but working minimum wage jobs open to high schoolers didn’t pay enough, so after a couple months, I’d end up on the wrong side of the law again. Coach also suggested—vehemently—that I join the army, because by then, it was either that or jail.
“For the last ten years, my father’s been in and out of the center. He has caregivers when he’s home. When I called before, to see how he was doing, the answer was not good, so I’ve had to arrange for him to go back to the center.”
Danika pictured him as a twelve-year-old, shoved into adulthood long before he was ready. She extended her arms. “Would you like a hug? You pick what kind.”
Nash’s lips twitched. “Yes, and a just being there hug would be fine.”
He stood, turned, and she wrapped him in a gentle embrace, afraid he might shatter if she squeezed too hard. She hoped it was enough.
He clearly didn’t want to be coddled, pitied, or fawned over, so she backed away, letting her fingers trace down his arms until she held both his hands in hers. She looked him in the eyes—which seemed less haunted—and gave him a squeeze. “How about finishing your sandwich now?”
He smiled, sat, and ate.
That’s why he has to help people.