For the rest of the afternoon, Dani refused to let herself dwell on the strange interlude with Ruben or the weird, incongruous combination she felt around him, a mix of nervous awareness and a soft, seductive peace.
She was too busy taking care of the Chihuahua with abdominal distress, a black Lab who needed some porcupine quills pulled, Cecil the traumatized lop bunny and three Maine coons in need of checkups.
By the time she showed out her last patient and his human, she was exhausted. She finished her paperwork, grabbed her bag, put on her coat against the December chill and walked out to the waiting area to say goodbye to Gloria.
“That was a crazy afternoon. Thank you for helping everything to run smoothly. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
“You’re welcome.” Gloria reached to shut down her computer for the evening, then returned a couple of files to the drawer to clear off her desk.
“Good thing you found time for a lunch break in there,” she said. “By the way, I didn’t realize you and Dr. Morales’s son were such good friends.”
There was a slight question on the end of her words, as if Gloria were trying to ascertain just how friendly the two were.
“We live next door to each other. It’s impossible to avoid each other in a town as small as Haven Point.”
“I suppose that’s true.” She paused. “He’s a good guy, Dr. Capelli.”
“I agree,” she said, not liking Gloria’s tone or her own defensive reaction to it. Why was it any of Gloria’s business if Dani was friends with Dr. Morales’s son?
“He’s always been a hard worker, even when he was a kid who would come around here to make extra spending money. I thought maybe he would become a veterinarian like his dad, he was that good with the animals, but he had other ideas I guess.”
“Kids often do.”
“He’s a good guy,” she repeated. “I sure would hate to see him get hurt.”
Was Gloria warning her away from Ruben? The idea would have been laughable if it wasn’t so astonishing.
“Are you saying you think I would hurt him? Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you’ll decide things aren’t working out for you here and you need to go back to the East Coast.”
Did Gloria believe what she said, that things weren’t working out here for Dani? All her doubts and insecurities seemed to crowd through her psyche, all the voices that told her she was better off staying a waitress instead of thinking she could ever build a solid future for her daughters doing something she loved.
“I appreciate the advice. I’ll keep it in mind,” she said stiffly.
She had thought Gloria liked her. The woman had been kind to her and was always more than patient with the girls. It hurt to know she questioned Dani’s staying power.
“You should be relieved to know, then,” she said, still in that tight voice, “that I’m not dating the man and I have no intention of changing that. Put your mind at ease. We’re friends who happened to have lunch together today, that’s all.”
At her tone, Gloria looked regretful. “That didn’t come out the way I meant. Sometimes my mouth blabs things before I really think them through. I’ve just known Ruben since he was little and, I’ll admit, I’ve always thought he and my Jen would make a cute couple. I guess I was surprised when I saw you together earlier. Forget I said anything.”
“It’s forgotten.” Dani forced a smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Gloria. Have a good evening.”
“Do you have any fun plans?” the woman asked, obviously trying to make up for her tactlessness of earlier.
I’m going to hang out with Ruben. You got a problem with that?
She almost said the words but decided not to pour fuel on the fire. Some day her own smart-ass mouth was going to get her in trouble here in this town full of nice people who might not expect it from her.
“Homework, dinner, bed. That’s about it.”
“Well, give those cute girls of yours a hug from me. Good night.”
Dani tried not to dwell on Gloria’s concerns as she followed that outline for her evening and helped Mia get in her nightly reading practice and hounded Silver about her math worksheet, then threw together one of the girls’ favorites for dinner, her version of pasta e fagioli soup.
“When are we going? I can’t wait. I can’t wait,” Mia said as she dried the dinner dishes while Dani washed. “When Ruben gets here, can I be the one who takes the present to the door?”
Dani frowned down at her daughter. “Why are you asking again, honey? We have talked about this all evening. Silver is going to do it this first time and check out the situation at the Larkin house. She’s a really fast runner and should be able to figure out the best places to hide. After that, we can decide if she thinks you can do it.”
Mia was too excited about the evening ahead of them and didn’t appear dejected. “That’s okay. It will be fun to wait in the truck with Ruben.”
Dani wished she could agree. Instead, her stomach was in knots, worrying about spending even a few moments in a vehicle with the man, especially with this soft, tensile connection that seemed to have formed between them when she wasn’t looking.
Gloria’s words kept ringing through her head. He’s a good guy. I sure would hate to see him get hurt.
Gloria’s unspoken message was that Dani was not the right kind of woman for him. She couldn’t agree more. Both of them knew Dani was not the sort of woman who could make someone like Ruben happy.
She had no room in her life for any man right now, but especially a man who was a complete mismatch for her. Ruben was an officer of the law, for crying out loud. A squeaky-clean, make-the-world-a-better-place kind of man.
The moment he found out about Tommy, about his life of misdeeds and the chaos he had left in his wake and especially his last terrible acts, he wouldn’t want anything to do with Dani or her girls.
There was a chance he already knew. She had told Frank right after it happened. She hadn’t felt right about keeping something like that from the kindly veterinarian, even knowing it might ruin the opportunity for her.
Frank had assured her none of that mattered to him, which had only endeared the man more to her. She didn’t think he would have told his son, but she couldn’t be completely sure.
If he knew, would Ruben have been so kind and understanding to her and her girls?
Headlights suddenly flashed in her driveway before she could come up with an answer to that. He was about fifteen minutes late, which seemed unusual for him.
Nerves fluttered through her and Mia’s sudden squeal didn’t help matters any.
“He’s here! He’s here!”
“Why do you always have to repeat everything you say?” Silver groused. “Do you think we didn’t hear you the first time or something?”
“Enough, Sil. Will you just try to stow the attitude for five minutes tonight? I’ll remind you, we’re doing all of this because of you.”
Silver slumped back into her chair, her mouth in a tight line. Dani wanted to think her words had some impact on her daughter, but she doubted it.
Had she been so difficult when she was thirteen? She didn’t think so. Of course, that had been during the three relatively peaceful years she had lived with Betsy in that big brownstone in Flushing.
Though the woman had taken in three other girls around Dani’s age, they each had their own rooms, a rarity during her years in the system. That big house by far had been the most comfortable of her placements and she had been on her best behavior during those years, until Betsy became ill and could no longer care for her charges.
All in all, thirteen had been a pretty good year. Maybe that’s one of the reasons she had so little patience with her daughter at the same age, who had so much more than Dani had.
She didn’t have time to dwell on the past, especially not when the doorbell rang out through her house and Mia raced to it, her features glowing. At least one of them was excited about the prospect of a little holiday mischief.
“Hi, Deputy Morales” Dani heard her say cheerfully.
“Hey, Miss Mia,” he answered.
Something was wrong. Even before she walked into the foyer to see his face, she could tell by the tone of his voice.
Seeing him only confirmed her suspicion. This afternoon when he had left her at lunchtime he had seemed cheerful, happy, his smile easy and warm. Now there was a closed-in quality to him, a tightness around his eyes and a deep sadness that seemed to have settled over him.
What was wrong? What had put that sudden bleak look in his eyes? It was all she could do to keep from asking and she had to fight the urge to place a comforting hand on his arm.
“Are you ready to go?” he asked.
“Yep.” Mia beamed at him. “I can’t wait!”
He didn’t smile back. “Silver? Still up for this?”
Dani waited apprehensively for her teenager to make some sarcastic comment. Not now, Silver, she wanted to say.
To her vast relief, Sil was uncharacteristically subdued, almost as if she had picked up on Ruben’s unspoken turmoil as well.
“I just need to put on my coat,” her daughter said.
“Make sure it’s a black or dark blue one, if possible. That will make it easier to hide in the bushes or behind trees, if you have to.”
“I can’t believe a sheriff’s deputy is telling me to wear dark clothing, the better to skulk around the neighborhood. What is the world coming to?”
This earned Silver a small smile, but it contained none of his usual warmth.
What was wrong? And how disconcerting, to realize how very dependent she was becoming on that smile and his usual cheery good humor. She was coming to crave it just as much as she yearned for a good plate of her favorite lasagna from Il Bambino’s in Queens.
She had a horrible thought that left her cold. Had he somehow found out about Tommy? Had he gone back to the sheriff’s department and put in a little research?
They didn’t have the same name anymore so connecting the dots wouldn’t be easy but it wouldn’t be impossible.
There was also the chance he might have asked his father. Would Dr. Morales keep her secrets? She wanted to think so but couldn’t be sure.
No. She gave him a closer look. Something told her his strange mood had nothing to do with her or her girls.
“You’ll be skulking around this time for a good cause,” he reminded Silver. “I wouldn’t ask otherwise.”
“What about us?” Mia asked. “Do we need dark clothes, too?”
His heavy mood seemed to lift a little as he smiled down at her youngest daughter. “You should be fine just the way you are.”
“Good. I only have one winter coat, and it’s this one.”
She twirled around to show off the pink-and-purple coat she adored.
“It’s very nice,” Ruben said.
“Here, kiddo. Let’s get your hat.” Dani helped Mia put on the matching purple-and-pink beanie a friend back in Boston had knitted for her.
“I think we’re ready now,” Dani said after Silver joined them and Dani had the chance to put on her own coat.
“Great.” He mustered a smile that again didn’t quite reach his eyes.
What had happened?
“I’ve got tonight’s gift in the truck already. It should be easy this time. The first few deliveries, the family won’t be expecting you. After about the third night, they’ll be on the lookout. Once, we delivered Secret Santa to a family that had six kids. They staked out the yard one night, trying to catch Mateo making the delivery. Fortunately he was a star on the track team and they could never see him.”
“Silver is superfast, too,” Mia said. “You should see how fast she runs. I can’t even keep up with her. Neither can Mama.”
“That’s good.” Ruben’s smile seemed a little more genuine.
“You sure you’re ready?” he asked Silver.
“As I’ll ever be,” she answered. To Dani’s relief, she actually did look excited—from the anonymous gift-giving or from the risk involved, Dani didn’t know but she supposed it didn’t really matter.
“We’ll use my pickup tonight since it’s dark and unobtrusive,” Ruben said. “But after a few days, we may want to switch things up, just to keep them guessing, in case somebody notices a strange vehicle in the neighborhood.”
“Good heavens,” Dani exclaimed. “I never realized this was more complicated than making a ransom drop.”
“It can be, but the Morales family has had lots of experience, so you’re in good hands.”
The shiver rippling down her spine was due to the falling snow as they walked outside, not because her imagination was suddenly busy going off in all kinds of inappropriate directions.
After the previous unseasonably mild weekend, a storm system had moved in. Though it had only dropped a few inches, the snow was falling steadily, the kind of storm that could lay down a heavy blanket in only a few hours.
“Look how pretty the snow is, Mama.” Mia lifted her face to the snow as she always did and held her tongue out to catch a snowflake.
“You’re such a goon,” Silver said, though it was said with more affection than malice.
“You are,” Mia retorted.
“You both are. Get in Ruben’s truck and let’s do this,” Dani said.
The girls climbed into the back row of his king cab again and Dani slid into the front seat. The vehicle smelled of him, that indefinable woodsy, sexy, masculine smell that did such ridiculous things to her insides and made her want to lean her head against the leather and inhale for a few hours.
“I guess you know where the Larkin girls live,” Ruben said as he backed out of the driveway.
“I’ve been there a few times,” Silver said.
Something had happened between Silver and the girls. Until a few weeks ago, the twins, Emma and Ella, had been among Silver’s small circle of friends in town. Now whenever their names were mentioned, Silver behaved oddly, with a fine-edged tension Dani couldn’t quite understand.
Ruben didn’t appear to notice anything unusual. “Great. I’ll drop you off at the end of their street and then pull down the road a little bit, where I’m out of view from their house. All you have to do is knock on the door or ring the doorbell—your choice—then hide around the side of their house or behind their shrubs until they answer. After they pick up the gift and go back inside, you can slip away and make your way around the corner to find us. You good with that?”
“I think I can handle it,” she said drily.
“I have no doubt at all. I really appreciate your help with this. I’m getting a little too old to be hiding in the bushes and, as you put it, skulking around the neighborhood. If they’re not home, by the way, just leave it.”
His headlights illuminated the snow falling thickly as he drove to his destination. The street was quiet. Everyone with any sense was tucked in at home by the fire, safe from the increasing intensity of the weather.
Through the windows, she could see Christmas trees glowing through the winter night and several houses had lights outlining their windows and following their rooflines.
Inside, she could see shadows moving behind closed curtains and blinds. She wasn’t a Peeping Tom but she did like to see houses all closed up against the night. It made her wonder about the people who lived inside. What they cooked for dinner, what they were watching on television, if they were laughing or having a party or playing video games.
When Silver was small, after Tommy went upstate the first time, Dani had left her with a babysitter in the evenings so she could go to night school after caring for her all day. She used to take the city bus to campus and back through a few quiet suburban neighborhoods.
She remembered coming home from class completely exhausted but with just enough energy to gaze at those houses and those closed curtains and the filtered blue light from the television screens. As she imagined people in their safe little cocoons, she would vow that she and Tommy would give their little Silvia a better childhood than their tiny fifth-floor walk-up apartment where they shared a bathroom with the apartment next door.
Through hard work and sacrifice and plenty of help along the way, she had come further than she’d ever dreamed. She was a veterinarian. They lived in a three-bedroom house on a beautiful mountain lake, something she couldn’t even have imagined back then, when she had never been quite sure if she would have enough to feed her little girl.
Things weren’t perfect. She would be the first one to admit that. She could be abrupt with the girls, more impatient than she wanted to be. But they knew, above all else, that their mother loved them.
She remembered hearing once that a person had two chances to be part of a good parent-child relationship, once when they were children and once when they were parents. She had missed out on the first chance for a big portion of her childhood after her mother died, but she was doing her very best to make sure the second phase was filled with joy.
An important element of that was teaching her daughters to care about others, and participating in this little Christmas tradition with Ruben would help in that department.
“Here we are.” He pulled to the side of the road in front of a vacant lot in a place where his pickup would not attract undue attention. From the console, he pulled out a small, neatly wrapped box and handed it to Silver in the back seat.
“Cute. Did you wrap it yourself?” she asked, with only a hint of sarcasm in her voice.
“My mom did this one, actually. She’s done most of the prep work of buying and wrapping the gifts, since she knows her sons probably won’t get to it.”
Silver paused there, her glove on the door handle.
She was nervous, Dani realized.
“Nothing to worry about.” Ruben gave a reassuring smile, picking up on Silver’s apprehension, too. “Just go to the door, set the present down, ring the bell and run like he—, um, heck.”
“Got it.” Silver pushed open the door and stepped out into the snow.
Bundled in her dark coat, hat and the tightly wrapped scarf Dani had handed her before they left the house, Silver was all but unrecognizable, a blob of wool and down and GoreTex as she trudged to the corner and then out of sight.
“She’s a good kid,” Ruben said, watching after her.
His words warmed her far more than the heater of his pickup could. People couldn’t always see past Silver’s purple hair and attitude.
“She is,” Dani murmured.
“I wish I could go with her.” Mia’s sigh from the back seat was deep and heartfelt.
Ruben turned around to smile at her. “Another night, okay? We’ll make it happen for you.”
“Promise?”
“Yes. Now, I’m going to turn off the engine and the lights so we don’t look so suspicious sitting here. Are you okay with that?” he asked Dani. “It’s only for a moment.”
“We’ll be fine, won’t we, Mia?”
“I’m not cold one bit,” she declared.
Ruben turned the key, plunging them into darkness and quiet. Outside, the snow fluttered down onto the landscape.
“This is fun,” Mia said.
Ruben didn’t answer and Dani frowned as he gazed out the windshield at the snow that began to pile up quickly.
“What’s wrong?” she murmured softly. Something about the intimacy of the cab here in the dark gave her the courage to ask him. She didn’t want anything that might tighten the growing bond between them, but she couldn’t bear that he was obviously upset about something.
“What makes you think something is wrong?”
Though she felt stupid for presuming she knew the man, she wanted to think she had gained a little insight into him, especially over the last week or so.
“Instinct, I guess. You seem very different right now than you were at lunch. You’re upset about something.”
Did you find out about my ex-husband and what he did?
The words hovered on her tongue but she didn’t dare ask him.
He was quiet for a long moment, so long that she thought he wasn’t going to answer. Finally he gave her a searching look across the width of the pickup truck, then sighed.
“Let’s just say it’s been a long afternoon. This time of year can be tough on some people.”
“And tough on those charged with looking after us,” she answered.
“Unfortunately, that can be true.” He was quiet again, listening to Mia humming Christmas songs softly in the back seat, always happy to entertain herself.
“I don’t imagine you were all that thrilled about coming with us,” he said after a moment. “But I’m selfishly glad you did. I needed this tonight.”
“To sit in a cold pickup truck in the dark, waiting for my daughter to finish a knock-and-run?”
He smiled a little, and she wanted to think it was slightly more genuine. “That, yes, plus to have the chance to sit for a moment and think about some of the good things the holidays bring. The little kindnesses and the family time and the peace of a Lake Haven December night.” He paused. “Too many people find this time of year lonely and sad. It breaks my heart sometimes.”
Her own heart seemed to break a little and she wished that she could be the sort of woman who had the courage to hold him close and take away some of his pain, as he’d done for her the other night.
Gloria’s words seemed to ring in her ears. Ruben was a good, caring man who deserved far better than somebody with her kind of baggage.
“I’m sorry your afternoon was hard.” She didn’t have any other words that seemed adequate.
“Nothing like a Chihuahua with diarrhea.”
“Ew. Gross. You said diarrhea,” Mia piped up from the back seat, making both of them smile.
That intimacy swirled around them again, that sense that they were alone here in the dark.
“I have to admit, I’m a little sad to find out you have to deal with rough things over the holidays. I’d like to believe a place like this is immune to that kind of thing.”
“Believe me, Lake Haven County has its troubles, just like anywhere else. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have a job.”
“I suppose that’s true. It doesn’t make it any less sad.”
Before he could answer, the back door opened and Silver jumped in. “Okay, that was fun!”
Ruben chuckled. “Did you get caught?”
“Almost. All the lights were on inside and I could tell they were home, but I was like a freaking ninja. You should have seen me. I crawled up the front porch steps and stayed low so they couldn’t see me, then put the thingy down, rang the doorbell and took off as fast as I could around the side of the house. I thought for sure they were going to come looking for me, but then a minute later I heard the door close. After another minute or two, I peeked around the house and they had gone back inside.”
“Did they take the gift?” Dani asked, struck by how long it had been since she had seen this kind of enthusiasm and excitement from her daughter.
She wanted to lean across the pickup truck cab and plant a great big smooch on Ruben Morales’s cheek for giving her this little glimpse of the Silver she remembered from a few years earlier.
“Yeah. It wasn’t there anymore, at least. I waited a few more moments to make sure no one was going to come back out, then I sneaked away and hurried back here.”
“That sounds so fun!” Mia exclaimed. “I want to do it.”
“Maybe we could both go tomorrow night,” Silver said. “If I’m there with you, I can show you where to hide and wait for me while I go up to the door. You have to be fast.”
“I can be. I promise. I’ll run as fast as I can.”
“That sounds like a plan.” Ruben started up his pickup truck, turned the lights on and slowly drove back toward their houses. “From here on out, you’ll have to be more careful. They’ll be watching.”
“Maybe we should mix up the time we go, just so they’re not expecting us, watching for us.”
“I was going to suggest exactly that,” he said. “Let’s go about seven thirty tomorrow, if that’s not too late.”
“Works for me,” Silver said.
“The way this snow is coming down, you may have to run in boots.”
“No problem for me. I went to school in Boston. You don’t know snow until you’ve seen what we used to get.”
By the time they reached Dani’s house, another inch had fallen atop the two or three from earlier.
Ruben let them out and walked them up to the house. “Where’s your snow shovel? I can clear some of this away. We’re supposed to get a few more inches so you’ll need to clear it again in the morning but I can at least start things off and take care of what’s here now.”
“That’s totally not necessary. Silver and I can do it.”
“I know you can, but you’ll be doing me a favor. After my afternoon, I could use some kind of physical outlet.”
She again wondered what had happened and wished she could ask him. If he could find a little release by clearing her driveway, she didn’t see how she could refuse.
“The shovel is in the garage. Silver, will you show Ruben where it is while I get Mia to bed? You can leave it on the porch when you’re done. And thank you. That’s one more way I’m in your debt.”
She was busy for the next twenty minutes with Mia’s bath and bedtime routine. By the time her lights were out and Silver was in the shower, Dani figured Ruben would have been long gone. When she looked out the window, however, she spotted him leaning on her shovel handle, gazing out at the lake and the mountains that gleamed in the pale moonlight filtering through the storm clouds.
He looked so very desolate. On impulse, she grabbed a mug from the cupboard, heated some water in the microwave and mixed in some of her favorite gourmet hot cocoa, threw on her coat and boots, and walked out into the night.
He looked over when she approached him and the anguish in his eyes tore at her heart. He quickly schooled his expression.
“What’s this?”
“Cocoa. It’s not much, but you look like a man who could use something sweet.”
She felt the chill from his ungloved hands as he took it from her. “Thanks. That’s very thoughtful of you, Doc.”
“You’re welcome.”
She thought about slipping back into the house but he had been extraordinarily kind to her the other night and she didn’t see how she could walk away and leave him to his distress.
“Do you want to talk about what happened after you left the clinic? Just so you know, I’m tougher than I look. I’ve probably heard worse.”
He gazed at her for a long moment, the steam from the cocoa curling between them. Finally he sighed. “I got a call about ten minutes after I left your clinic. I was there all afternoon and into the evening. A murder-suicide north of Shelter Springs.”
“Oh, no,” she murmured.
“It was an elderly couple in their eighties, both with health trouble. She had Alzheimer’s and he was in heart failure.”
“Did you know them?”
“Not really. They used to bring their little dogs to the clinic when I was a kid and I remembered seeing them. My folks would know them better than I did. That didn’t make it any easier. They had a daughter and she’s the one who found them.”
“Oh, poor thing.”
“Right. I guess Al was getting sicker and could no longer take care of his wife’s needs. He knew he was dying and he didn’t want to leave her alone to go into a nursing home when something happened to him. That was all written in a note to his daughter. He shot his bride of more than sixty years, then laid down beside her, grabbed her hand and killed himself. I was first on the scene after the daughter called 911. It was...rough.”
She ached at the raw, ragged edge to his voice.
“Oh, Ruben. I’m so sorry.”
She reached a hand out to touch his arm through the soft down of his jacket. Before she even made contact, he set the mug of cocoa on the ground and wrapped his arms tightly around her. He needed this, the comfort of human contact. It was a small thing she could do. She hugged him close, wishing she could absorb all the cold of his skin and return it with heat.
He shuddered a little against her, not from the cold, she realized, but from being able to lean on someone else for a moment.
Some part of her had always considered law enforcement the enemy. Dani knew that probably traced back to her childhood, to the time when her mother died and the authorities came to take her away. A police officer enlisted by child welfare had dragged her away from her apartment, screaming for her mother. From then on, she had equated the police with loss and pain and unfeeling bureaucracy.
Then later, after she hooked up with Tommy, his choices and lifestyle had meant that any police officer posed a potential threat.
She felt stupid to realize how wrong she had been. They were human beings, doing a job. Some skated through, yes, and wielded the power of their position like a billy club. Others, like Ruben, were caring, dedicated, passionate law enforcement officers.
She held him for a long time while the snowflakes spit from the sky and the wind blew off the lake.
When he pulled away, he looked adorably embarrassed. “Thank you. I guess I needed a little human contact.”
“There’s no shame in needing someone to hold you once in a while, Deputy Morales. Somebody wise once told me that.”
“Somebody should smack that know-it-all right in the mouth.”
“Good idea,” she murmured. Before she thought it through, she kissed him gently, intending only to offer comfort and solace. He seemed to catch his breath against her mouth and then he pulled her back into his arms and kissed her fiercely.