“Then why don’t you check it out and take it home with you?”
He regarded her sheepishly. “I’d rather read it here with you.”
An unexpected warm feeling stole into her heart. She could understand how Tony felt. He’d probably gone home all too often to an empty house. He’d clearly been starved for mothering since his own mother had died, despite the attentions of a maternal grandmother he mentioned frequently and affectionately. Whatever women there were in Nick Verone’s life, they weren’t meeting Tony’s needs. A disturbing glimmer of satisfaction rippled through her at that thought, and she mentally stomped it right back into oblivion, where it belonged. The Verones’ lifestyle was none of her concern.
Knowing that and acting on it, however, were two very different things. Subconsciously she’d felt herself slipping into a nurturing role with Tony from the day they’d met. Despite his boundless energy, there had been something a little lost and lonely about him. He reminded her of the way she’d felt for far too long, and instinctively she’d wanted to banish the sad expression from his eyes.
For Dana, Tony had filled an aching emptiness that increasingly seemed to haunt her now that she knew it was never likely to go away. From the time she’d been a little girl, her room cluttered with dolls in every shape and size, she’d wanted children of her own. She’d had a golden life in which all her dreams seemed to be granted, and she’d expected that to be the easiest wish of all to fulfill.
When she and Sam had married, they’d had their lives planned out: a year together to settle in, then a baby and two years after that another one. But too many things had changed in that first year, and ironically, she’d been the one to postpone getting pregnant, even though the decision had torn her apart.
Now her marriage was over and she wasn’t counting on another one. She didn’t even want one. And it was getting late. She was nearing the age when a woman began to realize it was now or never for a baby. She’d forced herself to accept the fact that for her it would be never, but there were still days when she longed for that child to hold in her empty arms. Tony, so hungry for attention, had seemed to be a godsend, but she knew now that her instinctive nurturing had to stop. It wasn’t healthy for Tony and it assuredly wasn’t wise for her—not with Nick beginning to hint around that it might be a package deal.
“Get your stuff together,” she said abruptly to Tony. “I’ll drive you home.”
Hurt sprang up in his eyes at her sharp tone.
“I can walk,” he protested with the automatic cockiness of a young boy anxious to prove himself grown up. Then his eyes lit up. “But if you drive me home,” he said slyly, “maybe you can come in and have some ice cream with dad and me.”
“Ice cream is not a proper dinner,” Dana replied automatically, and then could have bitten her outspoken tongue.
“Yeah, but Dad’s a pretty lousy cook. We go to Gracie’s a lot. When we don’t go there, we usually eat some yucky frozen dinners. I’d rather have ice cream.”
Dana felt a stirring of something that felt disturbingly like sympathy as she pictured Nick and Tony existing on tasteless dinners that came in little metal trays. If these images kept up, she was going to have to buy army boots to stomp them out. The Verones’ diet was of absolutely no concern to her. Tony looked sturdy enough and Nick was certainly not suffering from a lack of vitamins. She’d seen his muscle tone for herself, when he’d been stretching around up on her roof.
“So, how about it?” Tony said, interrupting her before she got lost in those intriguing images again. “Will you come in for ice cream?”
“Not tonight.” Not in this lifetime, if she had a grain of sense in her head. She tried to ignore the disappointment that shadowed Tony’s face as he gave her directions to his house.
It took less than ten minutes to drive across town to an area where the homes were separated by wide sweeps of lawn shaded by ancient oak trees tipped with new green leaves. The Verones’ two-story white frame house, with its black shutters, wraparound porch and upstairs widow’s walk, stood atop a low rise and faced out to sea. The place appeared to have been built in fits and starts, with additions jutting out haphazardly, yet looking very much a part of the whole. Lights blinked in the downstairs windows and an old-fashioned lamppost lit the driveway that wound along the side of the house. More than three times as large as Dana’s two-bedroom cottage, the place still had a warm, cozily inviting appeal.
She was still absorbing that satisfying first impression when the side door opened and Nick appeared. Tony threw open the car door and jumped out. “Hey, Dad, Ms. Brantley brought me home. I asked her to come in for ice cream, but she won’t. You try.”
Dana wondered if she could disappear under the dashboard. Before she could attempt that feat, Nick was beside the car, an all-too-beguiling grin on his face. He leaned down and poked his head in the window. His hair was still damp from a recent shower and he smelled of soap. Dana tried not to sigh. She avoided his gaze altogether.
“How about it, Ms. Brantley?” he said quietly, drawing her attention. “Will I have any better luck than Tony?”
She caught the challenge glinting in his hazel eyes and looked away. “It’s late. I really should be getting home and Tony ought to have some dinner.”
“You both ought to have dinner,” Nick corrected. “I’ll bet you haven’t eaten, either.”
“I’ll grab something at home. Thanks, anyway.”
She risked glancing up. Nick tried for a woebegone expression and failed miserably. The man would look self-confident trying to hold back an avalanche singlehandedly. “You wouldn’t sentence Tony to another one of my disastrous meals, would you?”
Despite her best intentions, Dana found herself returning his mischievous grin. “Surely you’re not suggesting that I stay for dinner and that I fix it.”
His eyes widened innocently. On Tony it would have been the look of an angel. On Nick it was pure seduction. “Of course not,” he denied. “I’ll just pop another TV dinner in the oven. We have plenty.”
Suddenly she knew the battle was over before it had even begun. If Nick had been by himself, she would have refused; her defenses would have held. He would have been eating some prepackaged dinner, while she went home to canned vegetable soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. The idea of being alone with him made her heart race in a disconcerting way that would have made it easy to say no, even when the alternative wasn’t especially appealing.
But with Tony around, she began to waver. He needed a nourishing meal. And while a ten-year-old, especially one who already had matchmaking skills, was hardly a qualified chaperon, he was better than nothing. She wouldn’t have to be there more than an hour or so. How much could happen between them in a single hour?
“Do you have any real food in there?” she asked at last.
“Frozen dinners are real food.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of chicken or beef or fish. This town has a river full of perch and crabs. Surely you occasionally go out and catch some of them.”
“Of course I do. Then we eat them. I think there might be some chicken in the freezer, though.”
“And vegetables?”
“Sure.” Then as an afterthought, he added, “Frozen.”
Dana shook her head. “Men!”
Telling herself it might be nice to have a friend in town, then telling herself she was an idiot for thinking that’s all it would be with a man like Nick, she reluctantly turned off the ignition and climbed out of the car. “Guide me to your refrigerator. We’ll consider this payment for your first day’s labor on my roof.”
“So Billy didn’t show up?” he said, jamming his hands in his pockets.
She scowled at him. “No.”