“Maybe you should.”
He shifted his position, obviously uncomfortable. “How do you talk about things like addiction and alcoholism to a five-year-old?”
“She probably knows more about it than you’d believe,” Mia said quietly.
“Yeah, I guess she would,” he said.
“It might make her feel a little bit less as if she’s been deserted.”
He looked up at her, meeting her eyes. Even now, in this moment of quiet, serious conversation, when Mia’s eyes met his, there was a powerful burst of heat.
His gaze slipped down to the open neckline of her bathrobe, and she could see him looking at the tiny piece of her nightgown that was exposed. It was white, with a narrow white eyelet ruffle.
He wanted to see the rest of it—she knew that from the hunger in his eyes. Would he be disappointed if he knew that her nightgown was simple and functional? It was plain, not sexy, made from lightweight cotton.
He looked into her eyes again. No, he wouldn’t be disappointed, because if they ever were in a position in which he would see her in her nightgown, she would only be wearing it for all of three seconds before he removed it and it landed in a pile on the floor.
The bathroom door opened, and Frisco finally looked away as their pint-size chaperon came back into the living room.
“I’d better go.” Mia stood up. “I’ll just let myself out.”
“I’m hungry,” the little girl said.
Frisco pulled himself to his feet. “Well, let’s go into the kitchen and see what we can find to eat.” He turned to look back at Mia. “I’m sorry we woke you.”
“It’s all right.” Mia turned toward the door.
“Hey, Tash,” she heard Frisco say as she let herself out through the screen door, “did your mom talk to you at all about where she was going?”
Mia shut the door behind her and went back into her own apartment.
She took off her robe and got into bed, but sleep was elusive. She couldn’t stop thinking about Alan Francisco.
It was funny—the fact that Mia had found out he’d been kind enough to play silly make-believe games with his niece made him blush, yet he’d answered the door dressed only in his underwear with nary a smidgen of embarrassment.
Of course, with a body like his, what was there to be embarrassed about?
Still, the briefs he’d been wearing were brief indeed. The snug-fitting white cotton left very little to the imagination. And Mia had a very vivid imagination.
She opened her eyes, willing that same imagination not to get too carried away. Talk about make-believe games. She could make believe that she honestly wasn’t bothered by the fact that Alan had spent most of his adult life as a professional soldier, and Alan could make believe that he wasn’t weighed down by his physical challenge, that he was psychologically healthy, that he wasn’t battling depression and resorting to alcohol to numb his unhappiness.
Mia rolled over onto her stomach and switched on the lamp on her bedside table. She was wide-awake, so she would read. It was better than lying in the dark dreaming about things that would never happen.
FRISCO COVERED THE sleeping child with a light blanket. The television provided a flickering light and the soft murmur of voices. Tasha hadn’t fallen asleep until he’d turned it on, and he knew better now than to turn it off.
He went into the kitchen and poured himself a few fingers of whiskey and took a swallow, welcoming the burn and the sensation of numbness that followed. Man, he needed that. Talking to Natasha about Sharon’s required visit to the detox center had not been fun. But it had been necessary. Mia had been right.
Tash had had no clue where her mother had gone. She’d thought, in fact, that Sharon had gone to jail. The kid had heard bits and pieces of conversations about the car accident her mother had been involved in, and thought Sharon had been arrested for running someone over.
Frisco had explained how the driver of the car Sharon had struck was badly hurt and in the hospital, but not dead. He didn’t go into detail about what would happen if the man were to die—she didn’t need to hear that. But he did try to explain what a detox center was, and why Sharon couldn’t leave the facility to visit Natasha, and why Tash couldn’t go there to visit her.
The kid had looked skeptical when Frisco told her that when Sharon came out of detox, she wouldn’t drink anymore. Frisco shook his head. A five-year-old cynic. What was the world coming to?
He took both his glass and the bottle back through the living room and outside onto the dimly lit landing. The sterile environment of air-conditioned sameness in his condo always got to him, particularly at this time of night. He took a deep breath of the humid, salty air, filling his lungs with the warm scent of the sea.
He sat down on the steps and took another sip of the whiskey. He willed it to make him relax, to put him to sleep, to carry him past these darkest, longest hours of the early morning. He silently cursed the fact that here it was, nearly 0300 again, and here he was, wide awake. He’d been so certain when he’d climbed into bed tonight that his exhaustion would carry him through and keep him sound asleep until the morning. He hadn’t counted on Tasha’s 0200 reveille. He drained his glass and poured himself another drink.
Mia’s door barely made a sound as it opened, but he heard it in the quiet. Still, he didn’t move as she came outside, and he didn’t speak until she stood at the railing, looking down at him.
“How long ago did your dog die?” he asked, keeping his voice low so as not to wake the other condo residents.
She stood very, very still for several long seconds. Finally she laughed softly and sat down next to him on the stairs. “About eight months ago,” she told him, her voice velvety in the darkness. “How did you know I had a dog?”
“Good guess,” he murmured.
“No, really… Tell me.”
“The pooper-scooper you lent me to clean up the mess in the courtyard was a major hint,” he said. “And your car had—how do I put this delicately?—a certain canine perfume.”
“Her name was Zu. She was about a million years old in dog years. I got her when I was eight.”
“Z-o-o?” Frisco asked.
“Z-u,” she said. “It was short for Zu-zu. I named her after a little girl in a movie—”
“It’s a Wonderful Life,” he said.
Mia gazed at him, surprised again. “You’ve seen it?”
He shrugged. “Hasn’t everybody?”
“Probably. But most people don’t remember the name of George Bailey’s youngest daughter.”
“It’s a personal favorite.” He gave her a sidelong glance. “Amazing that I should like it, huh? All of the war scenes in it are incidental.”
“I didn’t say that….”
“But you were thinking it.” Frisco took a sip of his drink. It was whiskey. Mia could smell the pungent scent from where she was sitting. “Sorry about your dog.”
“Thanks,” Mia said. She wrapped her arms around her knees. “I still miss her.”
“Too soon to get another, huh?” he said.
She nodded.
“What breed was she? No, let me guess.” He shifted slightly to face her. She could feel him studying her in the darkness, as if what he could see would help him figure out the answer.
She kept her eyes averted, suddenly afraid to look him in the eye. Why had she come out here? She