The closest parking space she could find was nearly a block away. She’d probably have been closer parked in her own driveway. But this street was well lit, with lots of people coming and going. She felt safer here.
She walked briskly to the front door, stood up straight and tall, and rang the bell. When the door opened, she found herself face-to-face with the gorgeous man from the park.
“Hi,” he said, looking somber yet still very pretty all in black, his blond hair slicked back and still kind of wet.
“Hi.” Gwen’s mouth was hanging open, as if she were incapable of even talking to such an attractive man. Funny, she hadn’t had any trouble earlier in the park. Of course, they’d had the dog between them then. The man just looked at her, waiting, and finally she remembered why she’d come and held up the dish. “I brought a quiche.”
“Thank you.” He stepped back to give her room. “Come in, please.”
“Oh, I don’t need to do that. I didn’t even know your…Mrs. Cassidy. Was she your mother?”
He nodded, looking like he had when she’d asked about the dog.
“I didn’t really know her,” Gwen said. “I just heard about her from so many people. I work at the flower shop on the edge of the park—”
“Joanie Graham’s place?”
“Yes. So many people came by to send things to her. And my aunt spoke highly of her. She must have been a very special woman.”
“She was,” he said. “Please. Come in.”
“All right. Just for a moment.” She stepped across the threshold, saw the house was packed with people.
“This way.” He closed the door and then fell into step beside her, guiding her through the crush of friends and neighbors with a polite hand at her back, down the hall.
She felt a little tremble shoot down her spine, a little spooked at his touch, a little…well, pleased was the only word that seemed to fit. Honestly, she wasn’t sure which feeling was stronger. She wasn’t scared of him. Not here in the middle of a house full of people. No one was going to hurt her here. But the thought of finding it pleasant to have him touch her was just as unsettling.
She’d thought for a while after the attack that she would be happy if no one ever touched her again, but her therapist had warned her that touch was something the human body craved, much in the same way it needed food to eat and air to breathe. Not necessarily a romantic touch, but any kind of touch. A hug. A hand in hers. A friendly shoulder to cry on. Anything.
No one touched her anymore.
It was one of the saddest realizations she’d had in months.
What in the world was she going to do about that?
Gwen glanced guiltily up at the good-looking man at her side. He would not be helping her with that particular problem.
She started babbling, as she tended to do when she was nervous.
“I saw the cars on my way home…. I live just around the block. My aunt was Charlotte, and when she moved to Florida a few months ago, she offered me the use of her house.” Aunt Charlotte had admitted to being in a terrible rut after her husband died and very, very lonely. Her two sons, their wives and children had settled in Florida four years ago, and she missed them terribly. Now that her husband was gone, there was nothing keeping her here. She’d leased a furnished condo, left all her things behind and gone to Florida to try out living there. If she liked it, she was moving permanently. “She spoke very highly of your mother,” Gwen said. “And…well, when I saw that you had a crowd of people dropping by, I thought someone might be hungry….”
Her voice trailed off at the end. They’d gotten to the kitchen where the counters were already overflowing with culinary offerings.
“I guess everyone else had the same idea,” she said, feeling both foolish and intrusive now.
“No, it’s good.” He took the quiche from her and found a place for it on the counter. “My sisters were in a panic this afternoon, claiming the house would be full and that we didn’t have anything to offer anyone. They were about to call the deli on the corner and beg them for an emergency delivery of some trays of food, when friends and neighbors started arriving, bringing things. People have been very kind.”
Gwen nodded, seeing clearly that no matter how kind anyone had been, this man was still sad and tired. And she’d been having entirely inappropriate thoughts about him at a time like this.
He’d probably been exhausted before he’d set out to run today, maybe intent on exhausting himself even more to forget for a little while what had happened.
“I’m sorry you lost her,” she said. “I know how hard that is.”
He nodded. “Thanks…. Uh. Sorry. I didn’t even ask your name.”
“Gwen,” she said. “Gwen Moss.”
He held out his hand, gripped hers for a moment and said, “Jackson Cassidy. Most people call me Jax.”
“If there’s anything I can do…” she said.
He nodded. “I guess we’ll need flowers. I forgot. I want her to have lots of them. Pretty, colorful ones. Not funeralish stuff. She liked big, bold colors.”
“Whatever you want,” Gwen promised, although she hated doing funeral arrangements.
“I’ll come in. Soon. My sisters and I have about a million things to do, and I think flowers ended up on my list of things to take care of.”
She wanted to tell him they’d make it as quick and painless as possible for him, but doubted anything about this would be painless. Life was so difficult at times.
She’d been completely unprepared for that. Somehow, she’d gotten the idea that life was supposed to be a breeze, that bad things would somehow simply not touch her.
Was that the way it was supposed to be? Or had she just gotten unlucky, been in the wrong place at the wrong time?
That’s what the detective had said to her. Wrong place, wrong time. While she’d sat shivering on a darkened curb near an even darker alley, on a cold, dreary night that still had the power to send her shooting out of bed screaming.
Gwen looked up to find Jack Cassidy staring down at her. She wondered exactly how his mother had died. In a warm, safe bed surrounded by the people who loved her and not feeling any pain? The kind of death a person saw coming from miles away, which gave her all the time she needed to say her goodbyes and tell the people she loved how important they were to her?
Gwen hoped Mrs. Cassidy went just like that, then wondered if it really mattered at all. If anything could lessen the pain of losing someone you loved. The woman was still gone, after all.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
Gwen nodded. “I just…It’s been a tough year. I should go.”
She turned to do just that, and then saw the dog. Romeo, if possible, looked even more solemn than Jackson Cassidy had. His head hung low as he moped into the kitchen and whined pitifully.
“Oh, you poor baby,” Gwen said.
He looked up at her with sad, puppy-dog eyes, and she bent down and fussed over him, taking his snout between her two hands and touching her nose to his wet one. She kissed his face, then released him and stood back up.
Romeo brushed up against her, leaning into her side, and she rubbed the soft fur on his equally soft head.
“He was your mother’s dog?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“I remember my aunt talking about what a gorgeous dog your mother had, but I hadn’t seen him since I came to the neighborhood.”