Читать книгу It Came Upon A Midnight Clear - Suzanne Brockmann - Страница 8

“What you want to do,” Daisy was saying, “is not so much draw an exact picture of the puppy—what a camera lens might see—but rather to draw what you see, what you feel.”

Nell looked over Jake’s shoulder and giggled. “Jake feels an aardvark.”

“That’s not an aardvark, that’s a dog.” Jake looked plaintively at Daisy. “I thought I did okay, don’t you think, babe?”

Daisy kissed the top of his head. “It’s a beautiful, wonderful…aardvark.”

As Crash watched from the doorway of Daisy’s studio, Jake grabbed her and pulled her onto his lap, tickling her. The puppy started barking, adding canine chaos to Daisy’s shouts of laughter.

Nothing had changed.

Three days had passed since Nell had told Crash about Daisy’s illness and he’d gone out to the farm, dreading facing both Daisy and Jake. They’d both cried when they saw him, and he’d asked a million questions, trying to find what they might have missed, trying to turn it all into one giant mistake.

How could Daisy be dying? She looked almost exactly the same as she ever had. Despite being given a virtual death sentence by her doctors, Daisy was still Daisy—colorful, outspoken, passionately enthusiastic.

Crash could pretend that the dark circles under her eyes were from the fact that she’d been up all night again, painting, caught in one of her creative spurts. He could find an excuse for her sudden, sharp drop in weight—it was simply the result of her finally finding a diet that she stuck to, finally finding a way to shed those twenty pounds that she always complained were permanently attached to her hips and thighs.

But he couldn’t ignore the rows of prescription medicines that had appeared on the kitchen counter. Painkillers. They were mostly painkillers that Crash knew Daisy resisted taking.

Daisy had told Crash that he and Jake and Nell would all have to learn to grieve on their own time. She herself had no time to spare for sad faces and teary eyes. She approached each day as if it were a gift, as if each sunset were a masterpiece, each moment of shared laughter a treasure.

It would only be a matter of time, though, before the tumor affected her ability to walk and move, to paint and even to speak.

But now, as Crash watched, Daisy was the same as always.

Jake kissed her lightly, sweetly on the lips. “I’m going to take my aardvark into my office and return Dex’s call.”

Dexter Lancaster was one of the few people who actually knew of Daisy’s illness. Dex had served in Vietnam when Jake had, but not as part of the SEAL units. The lawyer had been with the Marines, in some kind of support-services role.

“I’ll see you later, babe, all right?” Jake added.

Daisy nodded, sliding off his lap and straightening his wayward dark curls, her fingers lingering at the gray at his temples.

Jake was the kind of man who just kept getting better-looking as he got older. He’d been incandescently, gleamingly handsome in his twenties and rakishly handsome in his thirties and forties. Now, in his fifties, time had given his face laugh lines and a craggy maturity that illustrated his intense strength of character. With deep blue eyes that could both sparkle with warmth and laughter or penetrate steel in anger, with his upfront, in-your-face, honestly sincere approach and his outrageous sense of humor, Crash knew that Jake could have had any woman, any woman he wanted.

But Jake had wanted Daisy Owen.

Crash had seen photos of Daisy that Jake had taken back when they’d first met—back when he was a young Navy SEAL on his way to Vietnam, and she was a teenager dressed in cotton gauze she’d tie-dyed herself, selling her drawings and crafts on the streets of San Diego.

With her dark hair cascading down her back in a wild mass of curls, her hazel eyes and her bewitching smile, it was easy to see how she’d caught Jake’s eye. She was beautiful, but her beauty was far more than skin-deep.

And at a time when the people of the counterculture were spitting on the boots of men in uniform, at a time when free love meant that strangers could become the most intimate of lovers, then part never to meet again, Daisy gave Jake neither disdain nor a one-night stand. The first few times they’d met, they’d walked the city streets endlessly, sharing cups of hot chocolate at the all-night coffeehouses, talking until dawn.

When Daisy finally did invite Jake into her tiny apartment, he stayed for two weeks. And when he came back from Vietnam, he moved in for good.

During their time together, at least during all the summer vacations and winter breaks Crash had spent with the two of them, he had only heard Daisy and Jake argue about one thing.

Jake had just turned thirty-five, and he’d wanted Daisy to marry him. In his opinion, they’d lived together, unwed, for long enough. But Daisy’s views on marriage were unswerving. It was their love that bound them together, she said, not some foolish piece of paper.

They’d fought bitterly, and Jake had walked out—for about a minute and a half. It was, in Crash’s opinion, quite possibly the only battle Jake had ever lost.

Crash watched them now as Jake kissed Daisy again, longer this time, lingeringly. Over by the window, Nell’s head was bent over her sketch pad, her wheat-colored hair hiding her face, giving them privacy.

But as Jake stood, Nell glanced up. “Is it my turn or yours to make lunch, Admiral?”

“Yours. But if you want I can—”

“No way am I giving up my turn,” Nell told him. “You get a chance to make those squirrely seaweed barf-burgers every other day. It’s my day, and I’m making grilled cheese with Velveeta and bacon.”

“What?” Jake sounded as if she’d said “arsenic” instead of bacon.

“Vegetarian bacon,” Daisy told him, laughter in her voice. “It’s not real.”

“Thank God,” Jake clutched his chest. “I was about to have a high-cholesterol-induced heart attack just from the thought.”

Crash took a deep breath, and went into the room.

“Hey,” Jake greeted him on his way out the door. “You just missed the morning art lesson, kid. Check this out. What do you think?”

Crash had to smile. Calling the object Jake had drawn an aardvark was too generous. It looked more like a concrete highway divider with a nose and ears. “I think you should leave the artwork to Daisy from now on.”

“Tactfully put.” Jake blew Daisy a kiss, then disappeared.

“Billy, are you here for the day or for longer?” Daisy asked as Crash gave her a quick hug. She was definitely much too skinny.

Focus on the positive. Stay in the moment. Don’t project into the future—there would be time enough for that when it arrived. Crash cleared his throat. “I had the last of my debriefings this morning. My schedule’s free and clear until the New Year, at least.” Scooping the puppy into his arms, he glanced at Nell, changing the subject, not wanting to talk about the reasons why he’d arranged an entire month of leave. “Is this guy yours?”

Nell was smiling at him, approval warming her eyes as she put away her sketch pad and pencils and stood up.

“This guy is a girl, and she’s only here on loan from Esther, the cleaning lady, unfortunately.” Nell reached out and scratched the puppy’s ears. She moved closer—close enough that he could smell the fresh scent of her shampoo, and beneath it, the subtle fragrance of her own personal and very feminine perfume. “Jake was afraid that you were going to be sent on another assignment right away.”

“I was asked, but I turned it down,” Crash told her. “It’s been over a year since I’ve taken any leave. My captain had no problem with that.” Especially considering the circumstances.

Nell gave the puppy a final pat and her fingers accidentally brushed his hand. “I better go get lunch started. You’re joining us, right?”

“If you don’t mind.”

Nell just smiled as she left the room.

The puppy struggled in Crash’s arms, and when he put her onto the floor, she scampered after Nell. He looked up to find Daisy watching him, a knowing smile on her face.

“‘If you don’t mind,”’ she said, imitating him. “You’re either disgustingly coy or totally dense.”

“Since I don’t know what you’re talking about—”

“Totally dense wins. Nell. I’m talking about Nell.” Daisy kicked off her shoes and pulled her legs up so that she was sitting tailor-style. “She’s giving you all the right body-language signals. You know, the ones that say she wants you to jump her bones.”

Crash laughed as he sat down on the window seat. “Daisy.”

She leaned forward. “Go for it. She spends far too much time with her head in a book. It’ll be good for her. It’ll be good for you, too.”

Crash looked at her. “You’re actually serious.”

“How old are you now?”

“Thirty-three.”

She grinned. “I’d say it’s definitely time for you to lose your virginity.”

He couldn’t help but smile. “You’re very funny.”

“It’s not entirely a joke. For all I know, you haven’t been with a woman. You’ve never brought anyone home. You’ve never mentioned so much as a name.”

“That’s because I happen to value my privacy—as well as respecting the privacy of the woman I’m seeing.”

“I know you’re not seeing anyone right now,” Daisy said. “How could you be? You were away for four months, you got back for two days, and then you were gone again for another week. Unless you have a girlfriend in Malaysia or Hong Kong, or wherever it is you’re sent…”

“No,” Crash said, “I don’t.”

“So what do you do? Stay celibate? Or pay for sex?”

That question made Crash laugh out loud. “I’ve never paid for sex in my life. I can’t believe you’re asking me about this.” Daisy had always been outrageous and shockingly direct, but she’d always steered clear from the subject of his sex life in the past. Some subjects were too personal—or at least they had been, before.

“I’m no longer worried about shocking anyone,” she told him. “I’ve decided that if I want to know the answer to a question, dammit, I’m going to ask it. Besides, I love you, and I love Nell. I think it would be really cool if the two of you got together.”

Crash sighed. “Daisy, Nell’s great. I like her and I…think she’s smart and pretty and…very nice.” He couldn’t help but remember how perfectly she had fit in his arms, how soft her hair had felt beneath his fingers, how good she’d smelled. “Too nice.”

“No, she’s not. She’s sharp and funny and tough and she’s got this real edge to her that—”

“Tough?”

Daisy lifted her chin defensively. “She can be, yeah. Billy, if you’ll just take some time and get to know her, I know you’ll fall in love with her.”

“Look, I’m sorry, but I don’t do ‘in love.”’ Crash wanted to stand up and pace, but there was no room. Besides, he knew without a doubt that Daisy would read some deep meaning into his inability to sit still. “The truth is, I don’t even do long-term or permanent. I couldn’t even if I wanted to—and I don’t want to. You know that I’m never around for more than a few weeks at a time. And because I’m aware of those realities, I don’t ever give anyone false hope by bringing them here to meet you.”

“All those don’ts are so negative. What do you do?” Daisy asked. “One-night stands? You know, that’s dangerous these days.”

Crash looked out the window. The sky was overcast again. December in Virginia was wet and dreary and utterly depressing.

“What I do is, I walk into a bar,” he told her, “and I look around, see who’s looking back at me. If there are any sparks, I approach. I ask if I can buy her a drink. If she says yes, I ask her to take a walk on the beach. And then, away from the noise of the bar, I ask her about her life, about her job, her family, her last scumbag of a boyfriend—whatever—and I listen really carefully to what she tells me because not many people bother to listen, and I know I’ll win big points if I do. And by the time we’ve walked a quarter mile, I’ve listened so well, she’s ready to make it with me.”

Daisy was silent, just watching him. Her expression was sad, as if what he was telling her wasn’t what she’d hoped to hear. Still, there was no judgment and no disapproval in her eyes.

“Instead, I take her home and I kiss her good-night,” Crash continued, “and I ask her if I can see her again—take her to dinner the next night, take her someplace nice. She always says yes, so the next night we go out and I treat her really well. And then I tell her over dessert, right up front, that I want to sleep with her but I’m not going to be around for long. I lay it out right there, right on the table. I’m a SEAL, and I could be called away at any time. I tell her I’m not looking for anything that’s going to last. I’ve got a week, maybe two, and I want to spend that time with her. And she always appreciates my honesty so much that she takes me home. For the next week or however long it is until I get called out on some op, she cooks for me, and she does my laundry, and she keeps me very warm and very, very happy at night. And when I leave, she lets me go, because she knew it was coming. And I walk away—no guilt, no regrets.”

“Didn’t you learn anything from me at all? All those summers we spent together…”

Crash looked up. Daisy’s eyes were still so sad. “I learned to be honest,” he told her. “You taught me that.”

“But what you do seems so…cold and calculated.”

He nodded. “It’s calculated. I don’t pretend it’s not. But I’m honest about it—to myself and to the woman I’m with.”

“Haven’t you ever met anyone that you burn for?” she asked. “Someone you just want to lie down in front of and surrender to? Someone you absolutely live and die for?”

Crash shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’m not looking for that, and I don’t expect to find it, either. I think most people go through life without that kind of experience.”

“That is so sad.” There were tears in her eyes as she looked up at him. “It’s crazy, too. I’m the one who’s dying, but right now I feel so much luckier than you.”

Nell was moving at a dead run as she rounded the corner by the stairs and plowed smack into Crash.

Somehow he managed to catch her and keep them both from landing on the ground in a tangled pile of arms and legs.

“Sorry.” Nell felt herself blushing as he made sure she was steadily on her feet again.

“Is everything all right?” he asked, finally letting go of her arms. “Is Daisy…?”

“She’s fine,” Nell said. “But she said yes.”

He didn’t bother to ask. He just waited for her to explain. He was dressed all in black again today, but because the chill of winter was in the air, he wore a turtleneck instead of his usual T-shirt.

Most men managed to look good in a simple black turtleneck. William Hawken looked incredible.

It hugged his shoulders and arms, accentuating his streamlined muscles. It was funny, Nell had always thought of him as somewhat thin—more lean and wiry than muscular—because most of the time he wore clothes that were just a little too large. His T-shirts were never tight and he always wore his pants just a little low on his hips and slightly loose.

But the truth was, he was built as solid as a rock.

Nell felt herself flush again as she realized she was standing there, staring at the man. “You look really good today,” she admitted. “I like that shirt.”

“Thank you,” he said. If she’d surprised him, he didn’t show it. But then again, he didn’t show much of anything. With the exception of that one time in his apartment, he played all of his emotional cards extremely close to his chest.

“I’m going to need your help,” Nell started toward the second-floor office she’d shared with Daisy. “What do you know about swing bands and health-food caterers? Or how about where I can find a florist specializing in poinsettias and holly?”

“Any florist should be able to handle a Christmas-style arrangement,” Crash said, keeping pace. “Health-food caterers—I’m not the one to ask about that. As for swing bands, I’ve always preferred Benny Goodman.”

“Benny Goodman’s great, but unfortunately he’s dead.” Nell turned on the office lights and sat down at the desk with the computer, using the mouse and the keyboard to sign on to the Internet. “I need to find someone good who’s alive, and ready to be booked for the evening before Christmas eve.” She looked back at Crash. “Any idea where we can get a half dozen twelve-foot Christmas trees with root balls attached—delivered? And then there’s lights and decorations…But we can’t hire a decorator, because they do that ‘monochromatic garbage’—that’s a direct quote—all silver or all red, and that’s not any good. We need real ornaments, all different colors and sizes.”

Crash sat down on the other side of the desk. “Are we having a Christmas party?”

Nell laughed. And then, to her horror, her eyes filled with tears. She blinked them back, but she knew he saw them, because for a fraction of a second, a very peculiar mix of trepidation and an answering flash of pain crossed his face.

“I’m not going to cry,” she told him, fiercely willing herself to do just that. “I’m just…” She forced a smile. “I feel so bad for Jake, you know? In a way, Daisy’s got it easier, because Jake’s the one who’s going to have to go on living. And sometimes, when Daisy’s not around, I see him, and he has this look in his eyes that just breaks my heart.”

Nell sank down, resting her head on top of her desk.

Crash knew she was fighting tears again, and she didn’t want him to see. Nell’s loyalty impressed him. He understood loyalty. It was the one strong emotion he could relate to—and could allow himself to feel.

“You don’t have to be here,” he said.

She lifted her head and looked at him through a curtain of rumpled hair, her expression aghast. “Yes, I most certainly do. Daisy needs me now more than ever.”

“This wasn’t what you were hired to do.”

“I was hired as her personal assistant.”

“You were hired to take care of all the business aspects of Daisy’s career,” Crash pointed out, “so that she would have more time to paint.”

“A good personal assistant does whatever’s needed,” Nell argued. “If the dishes need washing, I’ll do the dishes. Or I’ll clean the fish tank, or—”

“Most people would’ve given their notice weeks ago. Instead of that, you moved in.”

“Yeah, well, the idea of Daisy having to go into a hospice was unacceptable.” Nell swept her hair out of her face as she reached for a tissue and briskly blew her nose. “And she hated the thought of hiring some stranger to provide round-the-clock personal care. But she didn’t want to dump all that responsibility on Jake, so…” She shrugged.

“So you volunteered.”

“I haven’t had any medical training, so when the time comes that she needs a nurse, someone’s still going to have to come in, but at least she’ll know I’ll be there, too.” Nell tossed the crumpled tissue across the room, sinking it expertly into the wastebasket. “It’s no big deal.” She took a deep breath and pretended to look at the computer screen.

“That’s not true and you know it.”

She looked up at him, gazing directly into his eyes. “Are you going to help me, Hawken, or what?”

Crash had to smile. He liked her direct approach. He liked her. He was definitely going to help with whatever it was that she was doing, but first he had to make something clear to her.

“I know we’re all trying to be as upbeat as Daisy is,” he said quietly, “but that gets hard sometimes. I don’t want you to have to worry about what I’ll say or do if you need to cry. You don’t need that weighing you down, too. We’re living with a lot of emotional upheaval here. There’s nothing normal about this, and we can’t expect each other to behave normally. So, let’s make a deal, okay? You can cry whenever you want, but you can’t hold it against me if I stand up and walk away when you do, because…everything that you’re feeling…I’m fighting it, too.”

Nell just sat there, looking at him. Her eyes were rimmed with red, she wore no makeup, and she looked as if she’d slept about as much as he had in the past few days—which wasn’t much at all.

Maybe they’d both sleep better if they shared a bed.

Crash gently pushed that thought away. He knew it would be true, but he also knew that the absolute, absolute last thing Nell needed in her life right now was to become intimately entangled with him.

She was the kind of woman he avoided like the plague when he walked into a bar. He’d recognized her on sight that first time they’d met. She was too sweet, too smart, too innocently full of life and hope and promise.

She was the kind of woman who wouldn’t believe him when he said he wasn’t looking for long-term or permanent. She was the kind of woman who would think that she could change him.

She was the kind of woman who would cry great big, silent tears as he packed his bag—the kind of woman who would beg him to come back.

No, under completely normal conditions, Crash wouldn’t allow himself to get close to Nell. And right now she was a bubbling caldron of high-octane emotions. He knew—not with any sense of ego, but from that same flatly factual voice of experience—that it wouldn’t take very much for her to fancy herself in love with him. He knew because he was experiencing the very same highs and lows himself.

But, like he’d told Daisy, he didn’t do “in love” and he knew himself well enough to recognize that the rush of emotions he was feeling wasn’t real. It couldn’t possibly be real. And giving in to this powerful physical temptation would be the worst thing he could do to this woman, no matter how badly he longed for something—for someone—to hold on to. No matter how badly he longed for the distraction of sexual release.

He liked Nell too much to use her that way. And knowing what he knew about her, he would be using her.

Crash forced himself to take a step back, to separate a little bit more from his emotions. He’d file his red-hot attraction for Nell in that mental holding area he’d created, right next to all the anger and grief and pain he felt over Daisy’s impending death. All he needed was just a little more distance, a little more detachment.

But Nell finally moved, holding out her hand to him, stretching her arm across her desk. “I’ll accept your deal,” she said. “I want to state for the record, though, that I don’t usually cry at the drop of a hat.”

He took her hand. It was so much smaller than his, her fingers slender and cool. Her grip was firm, and that, along with the crooked smile she gave him, almost made him toss his resolve out the window.

He nearly asked her, point-blank, if she wanted to try to release some tension with him tonight. Daisy had purposely put them in bedrooms right next to each other. It wouldn’t be difficult for him to slip into her room and…

Nell was looking at him, her eyes wide, as if she knew what he was thinking. But then he realized that he was still holding her hand. Quickly, he let it go.

Detach.

He cleared his throat. This entire conversation had started with evergreen trees, swing bands and poinsettias. “So, are Jake and Daisy throwing a Christmas party?”

Nell lifted an eyebrow. “Do you really think they’d do something that mundane or predictable—or easy to plan? No, this is not your average Christmas party. I was just up in the studio while Daisy was painting,” she told him, “and Jake came in and asked her what she wanted to do tonight. He thought maybe she’d want to go to a movie. And she said that lately they only did what she wanted to do, and that wasn’t fair. She thought that tonight they should do something that Jake wanted. And they got into this discussion about Daisy’s list—the list of all the things she wants to do before…you know.”

Crash nodded. He knew.

“So Daisy said she thought it would be fair if Jake made a similar list, and he said that he didn’t need to. He said there was only one thing on his wish list—a wish that she would get well and live with him for another twenty years. And if he couldn’t have that, then his only other wish would be for her to marry him.”

Crash felt a lump forming in his throat. After all this time, Jake still wanted Daisy to marry him.

“So she said yes,” Nell continued softly.

He tried to clear it, but it wouldn’t go away. “Just like that?”

Nell nodded. “Yeah. She’s finally giving in.”

Poor Jake. He’d wanted forever, but all he was getting was a cheap illusion.

Crash felt helplessness and rage churning inside of him, fighting to break free and sweep him away like a tidal wave. It wasn’t fair. He had to look away from the gentle blue of Nell’s eyes, or, dammit, he was going to start to cry.

And once he started, he’d never be able to stop.

“Maybe,” Nell said quietly, “maybe knowing that Daisy loved him enough to give in and marry him will help. Maybe someday Jake will find some comfort in that.”

Crash shook his head, still unable to meet her gaze. He stood up, knowing that if he just walked away, she would understand. But she’d also asked for his help. He sat back down, willing himself to detach even more, to stop feeling so damn much. He took a deep breath and let it slowly out. And when he spoke, his voice was even. “So now we’re planning a wedding.”

“Yup. Daisy said yes, and then turned to me and asked if I could take care of the details—in exactly three weeks. Of course, I said yes, too.” She laughed, and it came out sounding just on the verge of hysterical, just a little bit giddy. “Please, please say that you’ll help me.”

“I’ll help you.”

She briefly closed her eyes. “Thank God.”

“But I don’t have a lot of experience with weddings.”

“Neither do I.”

“In fact, I tend to avoid weddings like the plague,” he admitted.

“All of my college friends who are married either eloped or got married on the other coast,” Nell said. “I’ve never even been to a real wedding. The closest I’ve ever gotten was watching the TV broadcast of Princess Diana’s wedding to Prince Charles when I was little.”

“That probably had just a little bit more flash and fanfare than Daisy and Jake are going to want.”

Nell laughed, and then stopped short. He’d just made a joke. That had been a joke, hadn’t it?

He wasn’t smiling, but there definitely was a glint of something in his eyes. Amusement. Or was it tears?

Crash turned his head and examined the toe of his boot. With his lids lowered, Nell couldn’t see his eyes, and when he looked up again, he was carefully devoid of all expression.

“We should probably make a list of all the essential supplies for a wedding,” he suggested.

“We’ve got the bride and the groom. They’re pretty essential, and we can already cross them off the list.”

“But they’ll need clothes.”

“A wedding gown—something funky that’ll make Daisy feel as if she’s still thumbing her nose at convention.” Nell started an Internet search. “There must be some kind of wedding checklist somewhere that we can use—so we don’t forget something important.”

“Like wedding rings.”

“Or—God!—someone to perform the ceremony.” She looked up, pushing the phone and the yellow pages toward him. “Trees,” she said. “A half a dozen twelve-foot Christmas trees. Live.”

“Delivered ASAP,” he said. “You can already cross it off your list.” He reached for the phone, but she didn’t let it go, and he looked up at her.

“Thanks,” she said quietly. They both knew she was talking about more than just his help with this project.

Crash nodded. “You can cross that off your list, too.”

“A prenuptial agreement?” Nell’s voice was loaded with disbelief.

Crash paused in the kitchen doorway, looking in to find her sitting at the table across from Dexter Lancaster, Jake and Daisy’s lawyer.

She’d made them both tea, and she sat with her hands wrapped around her cup, as if she were cold.

Lancaster was a big man. He had at least five inches and seventy pounds on Crash, but most of those pounds were the result of too many doughnuts and Danishes in the morning and too many servings of blueberry cheesecake at night. Age and a sweet tooth had conspired to take the sharp edges off Lancaster’s WASP-y good looks and as a result, somewhat ironically, he was probably more handsome at age forty-nine than he’d been at thirty.

He was a friendly-looking bear of a man, with warm blue eyes that actually twinkled behind round, wire-framed glasses. His hair was sandy-blond and still thick and untouched by gray.

He sighed as he answered Nell. “Yeah, I know, it sounds crazy, but in a way, it’ll clarify exactly which parts of Daisy’s estate she wishes to leave to persons other than Jake. If it’s in both the prenup and the will, it’ll speed the process along after she’s…” He shook his head, taking off his glasses and wiping his eyes with both hands. “Sorry.”

Nell took a deep breath. “Don’t be. It’s coming, you know. Daisy faces it. She talks about it matter-of-factly. We should be able to do that, too.” She made a sound that was half laughter, half sob. “Easier said than done, though, huh?”

Dex Lancaster set his glasses down and reached across the table to cover her hand with his. “You know, your being here is a godsend to both of them.”

The exact same thought had crossed Crash’s mind at least three times a day. But he’d never said it aloud. He’d figured that Nell surely knew.

She smiled at Lancaster. “Thanks.”

The lawyer smiled back at her, still holding her hand.

The man liked her. He more than liked her.

Dexter Lancaster had a thing for Nell. The man was twenty years her senior, at least, but Crash knew from his subtle body language and from the way he was looking at her that he found her undeniably attractive.

Lancaster was no fool. And judging from the fact that his law firm had one of the best reputations in the country, he also was not an underachiever. Any second now, he was going to ask Nell out to dinner.

“I was wondering…” Lancaster started.

Crash coughed and stepped into the room.

Nell slipped her hand out from beneath Lancaster’s as she turned to look up at him. “You’re back,” she said, giving him a smile. It was a bigger smile than the one she’d given Dex Lancaster. “Did you have any problem getting the rings?”

Crash took the two jewelers’ boxes from the inside pocket of his jacket and set them on the table in front of her. “None whatsoever.”

“You know Dex, don’t you?” she asked.

“We’ve met a few times,” Crash said.

The lawyer stood up as he held out his hand, and the two men shook.

But their handshake wasn’t a greeting. It was a not-so-subtle sizing up. It was more than obvious, from the once-over Lancaster was giving him, that he was trying to figure out what claim—if any—Crash had already staked out.

Crash met the older man’s gaze steadily. And after the handshake was done, he moved slightly to stand closer to Nell, putting one hand on the back of her chair in a gesture that was clearly possessive.

What the hell was he doing?

He didn’t want this girl.

He’d resolved to stay away from her, to keep his distance, both physically and emotionally.

But as much as he didn’t want her, he didn’t want to see her taken for a ride, either.

Crash didn’t trust lawyers any farther than he could throw them, and Dexter Lancaster was no exception to his rule, despite the fact that his eyes twinkled like Santa Claus’s.

Lancaster checked his watch. “I have to get going.” He twinkled at Nell. “I’m sure I’ll talk to you soon.” He nodded at Crash as he slipped on his overcoat. “Nice seeing you again.”

Like hell it was. “Take care,” Crash lied in return.

“What was that all about?” Nell turned to ask as the door closed behind Dexter Lancaster.

Crash opened the refrigerator and pretended to be engrossed by its contents. “Just a little Army/Navy rivalry.”

Nell laughed. “You’re kidding. All that tension just because you’re in the Navy and he was in the Army?”

Crash took a can of soda out and shut the refrigerator door. “Crazy, huh?” he said as he escaped into the other room.