Ladybug. It’s mostly pictures. I have a very large vocabulary.” She pronounced the big word with obvious pride. “I mean, for a five-year-old, but I can’t spell all those words yet.”
As Mrs. Dolby began clearing off, Fletcher put his hand over Cleo’s. She reveled in the warmth of his touch. Then he said, “Okay. Time for a confession.”
“Should I be worried?”
“The truth is, I’ve got to work for a few hours.”
She frowned. “Now?”
He looked so charmingly guilty. “Here’s the truth. I was afraid if I told you earlier, you’d leave.”
Ashlyn piped right up. “But you can’t leave, Cleo. You have to see my book. The happy ladybug is hiding from a big, fat robin. She’s very scared. We have to figure out how to save her. And as soon as she’s safe from danger, then we can play some games.”
Fletcher’s lean hand tightened over hers. “Please stay. I won’t be too long….”
So Cleo and Ashlyn retired to the family room, where Ashlyn brought out her work in progress and they discussed ways the ladybug might keep from being the robin’s lunch.
Then they got down on the floor to play Concentration. Ashlyn was amazingly adept at the game. If she turned over a card, she remembered it.
“My uncle Cade taught me,” she explained. “Uncle Cade is married to Aunt Jane.”
“That’s right. I remember.”
“He’s a gambler, Uncle Cade is. That’s his job. You would like Uncle Cade, Cleo. He’s almost as handsome as Daddy. And whenever I see him, he picks me up and swings me high in the air and he calls me Princess. He says that I can remember cards because it runs in the family.”
There were only ten cards left on the floor when Cleo’s purse started playing the William Tell Overture. She took out her cell phone and saw that the caller was Celia.
“Just checking on you,” her new friend said. “I had to make sure that Fletcher is treating you right.”
Cleo grinned and pitched her voice low enough that Ashlyn, still on the floor with the cards, wouldn’t hear. “You are dying to know what happened—in detail.”
“Bust-ed. Listen, can you talk?”
Ashlyn glanced up then.
Cleo met those wide, watchful eyes. “Well, as a matter of fact, Ashlyn was just beating the pants off me at Concentration.”
“You’re at Fletcher’s.”
“I am.”
“And he has to work.”
“How did you know?”
“I’m married to his brother. Come on over, both you and Ashlyn. It’s just me and the kids—until noon, when Aaron has sworn to join us for a little quality family time.”
“But Fletcher said he’d be finished in an hour or so.”
“Cleo, it doesn’t matter what he said. Take it from a woman with a Bravo man of her own. He won’t be finished until noon. And if he is, Mrs. Dolby can tell him where to find you.”
* * *
At Celia’s, J.J. was napping. Ashlyn trotted right off to Davey’s room. Cleo and Celia took seats on a sofa in the living room.
“You know,” said Celia once Cleo had brought her up to date on the Fletcher situation, “he has had a few girlfriends in the past couple of years….”
“Is that supposed to reassure me?”
“Let me finish. He’s had girlfriends—but until you, none of them have gotten anywhere near Ashlyn.”
“So you think maybe he’s looking for a new nanny?”
Celia leaned closer. Winter sunlight from the wall of windows behind them brought out the gold highlights in her red hair. “I’m serious. This is a major step for him. You’re the only one he’s allowed near his little girl. And look how near. He leaves you alone with her. That’s a very big thing, believe me. He’s so … protective of her. He works like a demon, but that child is the center of his life.”
Cleo bit her lip and nodded. “I know that. I do. And … well, I have to admit I’m beginning to feel a little hopeful about the two of us. The past couple of days have been like a dream come true….”
Celia knew there was more. “But?”
Again Cleo kept it low. “Last night I asked him about his ex-wife. He was reluctant to talk about her—more than reluctant. It was like a curtain going down. Maybe it’s too early for me to be asking him such hard questions.”
Celia brushed her shoulder with a light hand. “I can tell you this—it’s not just you. That I know of, he rarely talks about her to anyone.”
“You mean, at least I’m not alone?”
Celia looked sheepish. “Yeah. And I can tell you what I know….”
“Oh, please. Yes.”
“Well …” Celia kicked off her flats, tucked her legs to the side and braced an elbow on the back of the sofa. “Aaron says they got married in college.”
“They met there?”
“Uh-huh. At Princeton. He was studying finance on full scholarship. She was in humanities—English Lit, something like that. They both got their degrees. And he went into the casino business. I don’t think she worked. The marriage lasted for five years or so. Then Belinda got pregnant with Ashlyn—and then the marriage broke up. He left her and he also gave her full custody of Ashlyn.”
Cleo let out a hard breath. “You’re not serious. He wouldn’t do that—not the way he feels about his family, not the way he is with Ashlyn now.”
Celia shrugged. “But he did do that. I remember when Ashlyn first came here to live with him. He never saw that little girl until Belinda’s parents contacted him to tell him that his ex-wife had died.”
“It seems … completely unlike him. He’s tough and he can be scary, but I understood that first day I met him that to him family is everything. His child is everything. You even said so yourself.” And Cleo was hungry for any information she could get. “How did Belinda die?”
“He didn’t tell you?”
“He said it was ‘sudden.’”
“It was. She had a stroke. One of those freak things you’d never imagine could happen to someone that young. She and Ashlyn were at Belinda’s parents’ house in upstate New York. Belinda told her mother she had a headache. She went to lie down—and never got back up again. Her mother went to check on her and found her dead.”
“How awful …”
Celia
