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“I’m fine.”
The sharp edge to her voice was directed at him. At herself. At the whole world, and the dumb luck of biology—dumb bad luck, in her case. And for godsakes, if he didn’t stop looking at her like that, she was going to have to leave. It was as if he saw all the way through her, right down to the cramping, which seemed to be ramping up like her now-empty uterus knew it was the subject of conversation… right down to her sad, pathetic, broken heart.
“I’m really sorry,” he said softly.
Cathy looked away, and holy hell, she was glad her makeup was waterproof. Blinking fiercely, she tried to find her voice so she could brush off the concern.
Finally, she said, “I’d really appreciate it if you weren’t nice to me right now. Thanks.”
TWENTY-NINE
WELL, ISN’T THISa surprise,” came the brisk welcome. “A BOGO that shows you two worked it out.”
As Daniel stood on the front step of a little cottage just off the main rural road, he still couldn’t remember the older woman’s last name. Apparently, his chemo brain had taken things as far as it was willing to go by filing her away in the memory banks as “Candy the WSP Receptionist.” That was all he had.
Well, that and the fact that he didn’t want to rehash the last time he’d been here, and the blowup that had come with it. But that was all in the past, and hey, Candy was right. He and Lydia had worked things out. Thank God.
“I just need to ask you something,” Lydia said to the woman. “Do you mind if we come in?”
Candy, whose hair was on the pink side of “natural redhead” at the moment, backed up and indicated the way inside with a hand that hadred-and-green-polished nails. “C’mon in. I got coffee, and leftover pie. That’s it ’cuz I’m going food shopping today in Plattsburgh. Daniel, how’re ya.”
The Brooklyn accent cut all the syllables up into sharp corners, and the last part was not a question that required much of a response, but rather a statement to show that she cared about how he was.
“I’m good,” he murmured as Lydia’s forward progress faltered. For a very good ho-ho-ho reason.
“Oh… wow,” she said as she looked around at the decor. “You outdid yourself this year.”
“Looks great, doesn’t it.” Candy shut the door. “Takes a while to set up. But I was inspired—plus now that the WSP is shut down, I have time on my hands to do it right.”
The parlor was covered in Christmas, from the tree all tinseled up in the corner, to the Santa statues and nutcrackers, to the collection of themed teddy bears that took up most of the couch. All of the knickknacks and figurines that had been there before had been replaced with ones that were in the holiday spirit, but none of that was the highlight.
A model train track had been laid down on the carpet, the twin stripes of rails running a sweep throughout the room, passing under chair legs, swinging through a couple of tables, and going around the tree. Currently, the locomotive was chugga-chugga-choo-choo’ing by the front of thefireplace, and of course, Santa was the conductor in the bright green engine, and Rudolph was riding on the cherry red caboose, and in between, the open boxcars of presents and real candy were actually pretty damn quaint.
As he knelt to inspect a bridge made of Tootsie Rolls, he said, “I saw this up for sale a couple of weeks ago.”
“I couldn’t resist.”
Daniel glanced over at Lydia. “Candy’s another QVC lover.”
“Oh, that’s right.” His wolven went over and perched on a sofa cushion that was three-quarters teddy bear. “You two have that in common, don’t you.”
“Never pegged him as a shopper,” Candy said with a shrug. “But people surprise you. Now, who wants coffee?”
When they both shook their heads, the woman went over to a recliner, sat down, and shifted a set of needles linked by a pink square of stitching into her lap.
She pointed with the project. “You can move the bears, ya know.”
Lydia smiled awkwardly, like she was anxious to get started but didn’t want to be rude. “I’m okay.”
Daniel likewise sat down amid the sea of teddies, and he did move a couple. Onto his lap, as it turned out—because where else was he going toput them, he thought as he picked up his feet so the train could pass by. As Lydia did the same with her boots, he decided this was a new kind of low-impact aerobics.
“So what we got?” Candy’s hands fell into a sequence of moves that she clearly was well familiar with, the needles making a little clicking sound. “And don’t make it too hard. It’s too early in the day to think too much—”
“I need you to tell me what you know about Thomas Eastwind.”
The woman looked over sharply, her hands freezing in mid-stitch. Something about the way she stopped moving so completely brought into hard focus all that bright red hair, and her Santa’s elves sweater with its silver and gold accents, and her bright green polyester pants. But make no mistake. As those eyes narrowed under all their blue shadow, the calculation in them was about as homey as a shotgun.
“Whattabout him.”
