The Fireman's Christmas Page 7

  "I've got to go," she said as she started to collect her plate and coffee.

  Danny half rose from his chair. "Leave it. I'll get it."

  "Okay." Tessa tucked her dark green polo shirt more firmly into her khaki shorts.

  "I like the uniform," Danny said. He pointed to the patch over her breast. "That's the name of your company, Living Lifestyles?"

  "Well, the company's only me, but I didn't want to be Tessa's Plants or something cutesy like that."

  "Well, it sure sounds interesting. I thought you'd have a rough, tough, weed-killer sort of name."

  Tessa put her hands on her hips. "Are you making fun of me?"

  "No. Just commenting."

  "I don't think about gardening that way. I'm into living, not annihilating." She arched her brow. "Look, Danny, as much fun as it is, I don't have time to debate my company's name with you. I have to be at the Sherbournes' house by seven forty-five or she goes ballistic."

  "Is that client still giving you some trouble about the kids' damage?"

  "Not since I gave her that break on price and offered more free services to help pay for her damaged vase. But I don't want to push my luck, since a referral to her friends could bring me some more business."

  Danny nodded. "Well, have a good day."

  Tessa backed up to the hallway. "I should be back by eight tonight. Then we need to talk about a couple of other personal things, okay?"

  Danny's heart jerked at that comment. "Personal? Such as?"

  "I'm sorry, but I can't go into it now. I'm late." With a brief wave, Tessa disappeared, leaving Danny to stare after her.

  He took another sip of coffee. "I wonder what she meant by personal?"

  His mind leaped in all directions as he considered the possibilities of those words. Now if his day went smoothly, and there was no reason it shouldn't, he'd make sure he was showered, shaved, relaxed and ready to talk about anything she wanted to talk about, before he steered the conversation into a few of those directions that were beginning to occur to him every time he looked at her.

  * * *

  THAT EVENING DANNY SAT in the porch swing, with Josie beside him talking a mile a minute while he dotted antiseptic on her knees and reflected on his "smoothly running day." What a vain hope that had been. He dragged his attention back to Josie, who hadn't taken a breath since she'd joined him on the porch.

  "You know what they said then? Then they said—we told you no girls allowed."

  "That's when you and Emma decided to take the camp, eh?"

  Josie nodded so hard her hair bounced. "We got some sticks and started beating the bushes and thumping the ground—"

  "To scare the boys?"

  "Then I fell in the hole…and I thought I'd never get out, 'cause I couldn't reach above my head 'cause it was too deep, and it was all covered over with sticks, then Kyle and Kevin leaned over and yelled—"

  "No girls allowed?"

  "They said it served me right for falling in their girl trap and they had them everywhere and if I ever tres—tres—"

  "Trespassed?"

  Josie nodded. "Yeah, then they'd leave me there until my skin dropped off and my bones were white, but I'd have long hair 'cause it would keep growing…."

  Danny gave her a fascinated look. "It would?"

  That's all it took to keep Josie going for another five minutes. At the end of which Danny had capped the bottle of disinfectant and slapped some colored Band-Aids on her knees. He'd been really tempted to put a few over Josie's lips at the same time just to get a moment of peace.

  "So…do you think even boy ghosts have long hair, huh? Do you, huh?"

  Before he could answer, Josie continued her monologue. Danny ran his hand around the back of his neck. His muscles felt like iron and his temples throbbed. God, how does her mother listen to this child all day long? Not that Josie wasn't a good kid…she was just exhausting. He wanted to lean back and take a nap. Maybe if he just nodded at the right moments she wouldn't notice.

  "Hi, Mom," Josie yelled, her voice echoing off the porch ceiling.

  That's when Danny's head really exploded. Who would have thought babysitting six kids would be so exhausting? After all, he already had four. Two more should have slipped in with no problems whatsoever. It hadn't worked out that way, though. He swiveled to squint at Tessa coming up the walk at a brisk pace. From her swinging stride and broad smile she'd obviously had a better day than he had.

  Josie jumped off the swing and raced to the steps in time to throw herself against her mother and hug her around the waist. Tessa tilted Josie's face and kissed her nose. "Hey, jelly face, did you have a good day?"

  "We had peanut butter and jelly for dinner, with malted milks. That's Danny's favorite."

  Tessa looked over at Danny. "That sounds nutritious."

  Danny groaned at her censorious look, then tried to defend himself. "Well, I'd intended to have hamburgers, macaroni and vegetables, but by the end of the day…"

  By the end of the day he'd wanted to kill the whole damn bunch of them, including the dog! He'd had only enough energy to slap down some bread, the almost empty peanut-butter jar and a crock of jelly and tell them to help themselves.

  Tessa grinned as she looked him over. "Aren't you the one who told me this would be a piece of cake?"

  Danny sat up a bit straighter, trying to ignore his stained T-shirt, old torn jeans and holey gym shoes, remembering how he'd intended to wow Tessa with his charm when she got back. Unobtrusively he tried to push his hair back from his forehead, surprised when his hand seemed to stick.

  "Yuck, you've got peanut butter in your hair," Josie said as she glanced over at him and giggled. "Now it's sticking up. You look like a porcupine."

  Danny watched Tessa trying to hold back a grin as she stopped Josie from running over to clean him up. He groaned. So much for his suave and debonair image.

  "Maybe you'd better get your things together and find your brother. We have to get home."

  "Okay." Josie waved at Danny and raced inside, banging the door behind her.

  Danny winced at the sound before making a supreme effort to smile. " Have a good day?"

  Tessa nodded, the glint in her eye very pronounced as she answered, "Mmm-hmm. Did you?"

  "Before or after Hurricane Kyle-Kevin-Emma-Alison-Eric-Josie hit?"

  Tessa laughed and threw herself onto the swing next to him. "That bad, huh?"

  Danny grinned. "Well, they just seemed to be everywhere at once—like ants. Ants with loud mouths."

  Tessa snorted. "Now you know what stay-at-home moms put up with every day."

  "Well, now I know what stay-at-home dads have to put up with, too." He wiped his hand on his jeans. "There's probably a good lesson in all of this. I'm just too whipped to figure out what it is."

  "I already told you." Tessa laughed. "Never have more kids than you have hands."

  Danny laughed, too. "I'm beginning to think you're right. I know I sure don't understand what's gotten into everyone today."

  Tessa set the porch swing moving with her foot. "What do you mean?"

  "Alison."

  "Ah, she told you about the room? That's what I—"

  With an accusing stare, Danny said, "Told me about it? No, I wouldn't say that. She informed me that she now had a new room. That you said she should have her own room and that she was too adult to sleep with her little sister anymore."

  Tessa stiffened at his tone. "I didn't exactly say that."

  "No? Then what did you say?"

  "I just agreed with her that she was old enough for her own room and that a house with so many extra rooms should be put to…" Tessa trailed off before hunching a shoulder. "I guess I should have talked with you first."

  "Oh, do you think so?" His voice dripped with sarcasm. "You might be right. Maybe you should have talked to me about my daughter before you rearranged my life. Especially since I specifically told her that we will discuss the loft after she's gotten settled into high school."


  "She didn't tell me that. She indicated you wouldn't talk to her about it." Tessa exhaled, trying to control her annoyance as she realized she'd just been duped by a savvy young manipulator. She'd have to be more alert from now on.

  Danny waved his hand. "Forget it. It's done. I'll cope, but my little girl is all alone up there on the third floor. She might as well be sleeping on the roof tonight," he muttered.

  Tessa struggled to contain a smile at his dramatic tone. "I'm sorry. I thought it might break the ice a bit if I were to help her. But remember I told you I needed to speak to you about something personal this morning."

  "You wanted to talk about Alison?"

  "Partly, but…What were you thinking I wanted to talk to you about?"

  "I don't know. Personal generally means something to do with me. You have something to do with me, so I thought you meant something to do with me and you." He groaned inside at the idiocy of that statement. This woman was already confusing the hell out of him.

  Tessa frowned. "You and me? You and me…personally, you mean? I do have something to discuss, but it's kind of hard to…Why are you looking at me like that?"

  Was she really that unaware that he found her attractive? A swift glance away and a flush on her cheeks reassured him that she was as conscious of this unexpected current between them as he was. His good humor suddenly restored, he decided to quit teasing her.

  "You could have warned me that I was expected to move furniture all day as part of my child-care duties."

  Attention diverted, Tessa exclaimed, "Oh no, you didn't move the furniture already? Now we'll have to pile it in the middle of the room to paint."

  "Who's painting? The loft doesn't need painting."

  Tessa eyed him as if he'd just beamed in from a lost planet. "No, not if you like that bilious shade of greenish-yellow that someone slapped on the walls."

  "I don't think it's so bad."

  "It looks as if a grasshopper spit on it."

  Danny squirmed. "It came like that. I just left it because—"

  "I know. Alison was too young for her own room. Well, she does need her own room now. She's a teenager."

  Danny shoved his hand in his hair again. "I still don't understand the big deal. My brothers and I slept in the same room."

  "Girls are different. Their own space is very important to them."

  "Why didn't she tell me that?" He sighed. "She used to confide in me."

  Tessa patted his hand. "Don't worry, she will again."

  "I don't think so. She's mad at me."

  "Why?"

  "I answered the phone."

  Tessa lifted an eyebrow. "So?"

  "It was for her, but I said she couldn't talk because she was folding her underwear."

  Tessa collapsed against the back of the seat and hid her face in her hands. Her voice was muffled as she gasped, "You didn't?"

  "Well, I didn't know it was a boy. His voice was so high-pitched—at least at the beginning it was—I thought it was a girlfriend." He ignored Tessa's gurgling sounds. "I mentioned the underwear, then said 'Rob who?'…then all hell broke loose! Alison flung herself down the stairs, grabbed the phone and told me she'd never speak to me again." He reached over and shook Tessa's shoulder. "It's not funny!"

  Tessa lifted her face, now streaming with tears. "I'm so sorry, but…" She couldn't say any more. Danny waited for her to get control of herself.

  "The damn kid's not even fourteen, which means I have six more years of her as a teenager. What am I going to do?"

  "Freeze her until she's twenty-one?" Tessa suggested.

  Danny laughed, his outrage rapidly disintegrating as he watched Tessa's smiling face, marveling at the play of emotions that swept over it. "Good idea." He hesitated then touched her nose with the tip of his finger. "You've got a few more freckles from the sun today. They look like fairy dust."

  Startled Tessa drew back. "I, uh—"

  He continued to trace her cheek. "You have a few here, too."

  "Never mind my freckles," Tessa brushed his hand away, then changed the subject. "I got a lot of work done today. I think this will work out well."

  Danny smiled at her, grinning more widely as she struggled not to respond. "While we're on the subject, you mentioned another personal item you'd like to share?" He tucked a tendril of hair behind her ear. He couldn't help himself; he wanted to touch her again.

  "I'm not sure now's the time."

  Danny smiled again, setting the porch swing moving with his foot. "Sure it is. It's a lovely evening. Time to settle back and relax."

  Tessa smiled. "Yes, it is, unfortunately…" Tessa indicated her clothes. "We're both covered with dirt and I'm kind of hot and thirsty, so it can wait."

  Danny indicated a nearby table featuring a tall glass sweating in the leftover heat. He picked it up and offered her a sip. "I just happen to have a glass of watered-down iced tea I'm willing to share. So ask away."

  Tessa took a sip before tucking some stray wisps of hair behind her ears. "I noticed Laurie's picture last night. You both looked so happy."

  Danny wasn't prepared for Tessa to bring up Laurie. Thinking about the woman he'd lost over three years ago was getting much easier, but he wasn't used to speaking about her to anyone. It was a wound he had closed over and buried deep. Since meeting Tessa he was beginning to emerge from his personal darkness. He wasn't sure what that meant, either, so he treated it with flirting and teasing until he could figure it out.

  "I'm so sorry, Danny. I didn't mean to upset you."

  "No, no, that's okay. We were happy. Very happy."

  "Can you tell me what happened to her?" At Danny's look, Tessa said gently, "I'm not trying to pry. I'm only asking because if one of your children talks about her to me I'd like to know what to say."

  Danny was quiet for a moment, wondering how to describe the woman he'd fallen in love with in high school to this woman he was finding himself drawn to in the present.

  "I know she was lovely," Tessa prompted.

  "My Laurie was very lovely, inside and out." He was still for a moment before continuing in a quiet voice. "She was warm and giving and energetic, never even caught colds, so when she was diagnosed with cancer we didn't believe it."

  "When was that?"

  "Laurie was pregnant with Emma when they discovered the tumor. It had spread by the time they'd discovered it. She had an option of chemotherapy and other medications, but they couldn't guarantee the baby wouldn't be affected. Laurie refused to even consider the subject. She thought she could make it until after Emma was delivered and then she'd start treatments. We were hoping the disease wouldn't spread rapidly." He took a sip of his iced tea before saying, "We were wrong."

  "I'm so sorry, Danny. She must have been a remarkable woman. I can't imagine how hard it must have been for both of you."

  "We fought over her decision about the treatment, but Laurie dug in her heels. I wanted her to live, and she was determined to do so. She said she'd be the exception to the rule. She lived until Emma was six months old and then God had other plans for her, I guess."

  "So Emma didn't get a chance to know how wonderful her mother was, did she?"

  "No, and the boys were little and don't really remember that much. It's been hardest on Alison. She and Laurie were very close. Laurie called Alison her flower fairy when Alison was little."

  "She sounds incredible."

  "She was. We first met in elementary school and by our senior year in high school we were pre-engaged. I went on to college and Laurie worked as an administrative assistant, but the minute I got into the fire department she gave it up. She said she wanted to focus on home, our family and me, since I had such a demanding career. That's the type of long-term relationship I needed. Still need. Before Laurie died she made me promise that I'd marry again, but I…"

  "Couldn't," Tessa said, blinking hard.

  "It's hard to find someone who will put her family first, put me and the kids above anything else. That was Laurie. S
he was the strongest woman I've ever known."

  "Thank you for sharing this with me."

  Danny turned and stretched his arm along the back of the swing. "What about you, Tessa?"

  "Me? Me what?"

  "How long have you been divorced?"

  "A year and a half next month."

  "Don't you want to get married again?"

  "Why?"

  "Huh? Well…uh…I don't know. Most women want to be married, don't they? Get married, have a family?"

  "I've been married and I have a family. To tell the truth, I didn't always like my marriage. It was always all about my husband, and not about my needs. After a while that didn't work for me anymore, so I finally did something about it. Now I have my children and I've started a business I love, so I don't know that there's much marriage can offer me."

  "Are you off men, too, or just marriage?"

  "I find men—some men—attractive." She glanced at him, and then just as quickly glanced away. "I'm not dead, just divorced. But I don't know that I want that type of complication. I'm not looking for involvement."

  Danny pretended to wipe his forehead. "Whew! That's a relief." He wasn't sure what to make of Tessa yet and he was a man who liked straightforward answers. This woman puzzled him, and that annoyed him. It also threw him off balance.

  "You look tired, Danny. I can make it a bit later tomorrow if you'd like, say at nine? That way you can sleep in."

  "Sounds good. Thanks."

  "Does your head hurt? You're squinting your eyes as if your head hurts. Do you have a headache?"

  "Don't go all motherly on me," he snapped with an annoyed look.

  Tessa drew back at his tone. "I wasn't trying to…"

  Danny waved away her explanation. "Never mind. You're right. Sorry, my head is killing me."

  Tessa dug in to her pocket. "Would you like some aspirin? I have some right here."

  "No, I'll be fine. I just need some more sleep."

  "Okay. See you tomorrow."

  Danny's head started pounding again as Josie slammed out of the door, with Eric right behind her. He watched Tessa usher the kids to the car, looking even more appealing in the twilight as the last rays of sun highlighted her hair. The sight affected him more than he expected and he groaned, sprawling back down onto the porch swing. You'd think I'd never seen a woman before. He raised a feeble hand as Tessa honked goodbye. He could see trouble coming.