Sari told Paul with a sigh when she outlined the courses Glory had told her about. “There’s no way Daddy will ever let me drive myself. I don’t even have a driver’s license.”
He scowled. “Surely not.”
She shrugged. “He holds the purse strings, you know. Either I do it his way or I don’t do it,” she said with the complacency of a woman who’d lived such a sheltered life. “So I do it.”
“Haven’t you ever wanted to break out?” he asked suddenly.
She grinned at him across a plate of cookies, which they were sharing with cups of coffee at the small kitchen table. “You offering to help me?” she teased. “Got a helicopter and a couple of guys wearing ninja suits?”
He chuckled. “Not quite. I used to know a couple of guys like that, though, in the old days.”
“Oh, please,” she said, munching a cookie. “You aren’t old enough to be remembering ‘the old days.’”
His eyebrows rose. “You need glasses, kid. I’ve got gray hair already.”
She eyed him. He was so gorgeous. Black wavy hair, deep-set warm brown eyes, high cheekbones, chiseled mouth; he was any woman’s dream guy. “Gray hair, my left elbow.”
“No kidding. Right here.” He indicated a spot at his temple.
“Oh, that one. Sure. You’re old, all right. You’ve got one whole gray hair.”
He grinned, as she’d expected him to. “Well, maybe a few more than that. I’m like my grandfather. His hair never turned gray. He had a few silver hairs when he died, at the age of eighty.”
“Do you look like him?” she asked, sipping coffee.
“No. I look like my grandmother. Everybody else was Italian. She was tiny and Greek and she had a mouth like a mob boss.” He chuckled. “Do something wrong, and that gnarled little hand came out of nowhere to grab your ear.” He made a face.
“So that’s why your ears are so big,” she mused, looking at them.
“Hey, I was never that bad,” he argued. He glowered at her. “And my ears aren’t that big.”
“If you say so,” she said, hiding the gleam in her eyes.
“You little termagant,” he said, exasperated.
“Where do you get all those big words?” she asked.
“College.”
“Really? You never told me you went to college.”
He shrugged. “I don’t like talking about the past.”
“I noticed.”
“We could talk about your past,” he invited.
“And after those forty-five seconds, we could go back to yours,” she teased, blue eyes twinkling. “Come on, what did you study?”
“Law.” His face hardened with the memories. “Criminal law.”
She frowned. “That was before you came to work for Daddy, yes?”
She was killing him and she didn’t know it. His hand, on the thick white mug, was almost white with the pressure he was exerting. “A long time before that.”
“Then, what…”
Mandy came into the room like a chubby whirlwind. “Where did you put the ribbons I was saving to wrap the holiday cookies with?” she demanded from Sari.
“Oh, my gosh, I was working on homemade Christmas cards and I borrowed them. I’m sorry!”
“Go get them,” Mandy ordered with all the authority of a drill sergeant. “Right now!”
Sari left in a whirlwind, and Mandy turned to Paul, who was paler than normal. His hand, around the mug, was just beginning to loosen its grip.
He gave her a suspicious look.
“Sari doesn’t think,” Mandy said quietly. “She’s curious and she asks questions, because she doesn’t think.”
He didn’t admit anything. He took a deep breath. “Thanks,” he bit off.
“We all have dark memories that we never share, Mr. Paul,” she said gently. She patted his shoulder as she walked behind him. “Age diminishes the sting a bit. But you’re much too young for that just yet,” she added with a soft chuckle.
“You’re a tonic, girl.”
“I haven’t been a girl for forty years, you sweet man, but now I feel like one!”
He laughed, the pain washing away in good humor.
“There. That’s better,” she said, smiling at him. “You just keep putting one foot in front of the other, and it gets easier.”
“It’s been almost five years.”
“Thirty years for me,” Mandy said surprisingly. “And it’s much easier now.”
He drew in a breath and finished his coffee. “Maybe in twenty-five years, I’ll forget it all, then.”
She looked at him with a somber little smile. “It would do an injustice to the people we love to forget them,” she said softly. “Pain comes with the memories, sure. But the memories become less painful in time.”
He scowled. “You should have been a philosopher.”
“And then who’d bake cookies for you and Miss Sari and Miss Merrie?” she asked.
“Well, if we had to depend on Isabel’s cooking, I expect we’d all starve,” he said deliberately when he heard Sari coming.
She stopped in the doorway, gasping and glaring. “That is so unfair!” she exclaimed. “Heavens, I made an almost-edible, barely scorched potato casserole just last week!”
“That’s true,” Mandy agreed.
Paul glowered. “Almost being the operative word.”
“And I didn’t even mention that I saw you pushing yours out the back door while I was trying to pry open one of my biscuits so I could butter it!”
Sari sighed. “I guess they were a pretty good substitute for bricks,” she added. “Maybe I’ll learn to cook one day.”
“You’re doing just fine, darlin’,” Mandy said encouragingly. “It takes time to learn.” She shot Paul a glance. “And a lot of encouragement.”
“Damn, Isabel, I almost got one of those biscuits pried open to put butter in!” He glanced at Mandy. “How’s that?”
“Why don’t you go patrol the backyard?” Sari muttered.
“She’s
