straightened slowly, feeling as old and wicked as the witch from Snow White. She sank into her chair as the tremors started, earthquakes of emotion that she couldn’t control. “Doogie, I’m sorry. It was wrong of me to strike you.”
He made a muffled sound, then turned and ran, crashing through the outside door and cutting across the parking lot in front of an elderly couple, nearly knocking them down as he fled the place.
Stephanie stood, her mind in a whirl. She clenched a hand over her stomach and felt totally helpless in dealing with her son. She was aware of the disapproving glances from the couple as she stared outside. She nodded apologetically to them and closed the door.
For a moment she thought she was going to be sick. The tinkle of chimes at the front door reminded her she had a full afternoon of work ahead and Pat hadn’t had lunch yet.
Worried, her heart aching, she went to the front. “Ready for a lunch break?” she asked with forced cheer.
“Starved,” Pat affirmed. “Everything okay with the kid?” She’d known Doogie since birth, had, in fact, babysat with him when she’d still been a girl in school.
“No. Did he say anything to you?”
Pat shook her head, her smile sympathetic. “I saw Nick Dorelli drop him off at the door. I knew he must be in trouble.” She hesitated. “Don’t be too hard on him. All kids go through a stage, well, you know…” She grabbed her purse, tilted her head in the direction of two teenage girls going over the racks of earrings on a carousel, and left.
Stephanie straightened a shelf of cotton sweaters, then surveyed the small shop. The Glass Slipper looked smart, up-to-the-minute and friendly. She’d picked the muted gray-green of sage and the soft yellows and red of the local clay for a theme. Pedestals of black Colorado granite held inexpensive urns that looked priceless. Scarves and costume jewelry were casually draped over the clay pieces.
The ordered disarray didn’t comfort her today. She sighed and rubbed her forehead where a headache was making itself known. Anger and embarrassment with her son roiled in her. She felt incompetent as a parent. Maybe she was.
Giggles from the two girls brought her back to the business at hand. She dredged up a smile. “Those look lovely on you,” she said to one who’d put on a pair of earrings from the rack. “Do you want them wrapped or are you going to wear them?”
“I’ll wear them.” The girls paid and left, talking and giggling about a boy one of them liked.
Once she’d been that carefree, but not since the summer she’d graduated and her mother had divorced her father and moved to Santa Fe, leaving them behind, Stephanie reflected.
She’d started her first year at the community college while Nick went east to a big university. In January her father had gone hunting and died in an avalanche.
Clay Bolt had been the deputy who’d come to tell her. He’d been with her when they dug her father out. He’d gone to the morgue with her. He’d stayed at the house until her mother arrived. After the funeral, Stephanie had lived there alone.
Nick had come home at spring vacation and seen Clay with her on the porch, the deputy’s arms around her to comfort her at a low moment in her life. Nick had accused her of betraying him.
She’d been astounded, then furious that he didn’t trust her, when she’d trusted him at his Ivy League school with all those debutantes hanging around. After he’d stormed out, she’d waited for him to come back to apologize, but he hadn’t. Not one call, one letter. She’d stubbornly resisted the need to contact him.
Until Clay’s death, she’d thought nothing could have been worse than that bleak period. The following year had been the loneliest of her life. Clay had become her closest friend. Months later, accepting that it was over between her and Nick, she’d dated the handsome deputy. They’d married a year after that.
Her husband had been even-tempered, a man who liked working with his hands, either on the house or on the various vehicles they’d had. The marriage had had its off moments, but mostly it had been good.
She sighed shakily. Always, always, she would regret that stupid quarrel before he’d gone off to work. He’d stopped at the convenience store to pick up a pack of gum because he’d quit smoking and had run into a robbery in progress.
Sometimes she felt as if her life had ended that day, too. But she’d had a child to care for, and that alone was enough to make her go on.
The death had changed Doogie, though. He’d become quieter and harder to handle; difficult where once he’d been easygoing and good-humored; moody where once he’d been mischievous and given to joking.
If only she had a man who could talk to Doogie like a father. Doogie had adored Clay. The two males had been close.
She stewed over the situation the rest of the afternoon. When the store closed at five and Doogie hadn’t returned, she paced the tiny office, unsure what to do.
The mayor’s wife, who was also her partner in the store, breezed in. “Hi. How’s it going?”
“Hi, Amy. Fine. It was slow this afternoon.”
“Everyone’s waiting for the Summer Madness sales to start. Did all our merchandise come in?”
“Not yet, but I’m expecting it Monday.”
She and Amy had opened the store four years ago. And she and Clay had quarreled about it ever since. He had liked his wife at home, not in town until all hours, as he put it. Actually the store was open late only on Friday night.
“Good.” Amy picked up a package under the counter. “Pat said my new outfit was in. You should get yourself one of these silk gown and peignoir sets,” she advised. “You never know when you might want to seduce a man. That’s what I’m going to do to the mayor tonight” Laughing, she took her package and said good-night.
Stephanie’s smile dried up as soon as the door closed. She hadn’t thought of seducing a man in a long time. That was way down on her list of priorities. Right now, she was a parent with a missing child. After another half hour, she gave up her troubled vigil and picked up the phone. She called the dispatcher and asked for Deputy Dorelli.
Ten minutes later, Stephanie stood at the barred window and watched as Nick stepped down from the cruiser and crossed the parking lot. He walked with the easy assurance of a man who knew his world and was secure in it.
Gone was the young man she’d once known. He hadn’t been that person in years, but it wasn’t until last Christmas, under a sprig of mistletoe, that she’d fully realized it.
That kiss had shaken her. It had stirred passion and longing and memories of the past that she hadn’t allowed herself to consider in years. With it had come the startling realization that she was still a woman and she still had a heart full of dreams. She blinked as unexpected tears stung her eyes.
Nick entered without knocking and got right to the point. “What’s wrong?”
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