and he can salsa like you wouldn’t believe.”
Jessie giggled. She had a hard time visualizing Detective Padillo dancing.
“Then we went to my friend Manny’s play at this little theater in North Hollywood.”
“Dinner, salsa dancing, and a play. And afterward?”
“Afterward, we had coffee and went for a walk down Melrose. It was really so great, Jessie.”
The jingle of the front door sounded just then, and Jessie whimpered. “That’ll be Danny. We’ll pick this up the instant I get back. Promise?”
Amber raised three fingers in a mock vow and nodded.
Jessie checked her makeup in the mirror on the office wall before grabbing her purse from the hook on the door and hurrying out into the store. She glanced at Marcia, Amber’s friend from her church who they’d hired to temporarily fill in on the sales floor, and they exchanged a smile before Jessie greeted Danny with a peck to his stubbly cheek.
“I’ll be back in an hour,” she called back, and Marcia nodded.
“Have fun.”
Once the glass door jingled behind them and they reached the sidewalk, Jessie tucked her arm into the crook of Danny’s.
“Who’s the new clerk?” he asked as they strolled toward the end of the plaza.
“A friend of Amber’s. She needed a job, and I’m giving her a try as an Adornments Angel to see if she’s a good fit.”
“An Adornments . . .”
“Oh,” she replied with a chuckle. “Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian apparently have Dash Dolls for their store. It’s called Dash. . . . Oh, never mind. It’s just something Amber thought up.”
“Adornments Angels.” He nodded, suppressing the smirk. “I can see that. Sure.”
“Oh, hush,” she said, tapping his arm as they made their way into Nosh and headed for an open bistro table at the back.
As he held Jessie’s chair for her, Danny asked, “Salad or sandwich?”
“I think I’ll get a little crazy,” she teased. “I’ll have soup. Vegetable, if they have it.”
He chuckled. “Half a sandwich to go with it?”
“Tuna on one of those little French baguettes.”
“You really are a wild one.”
She watched him head for the counter before digging her phone out of her purse and setting it on the table. On the other side of the shiny glass window, a toddler with springy gold curls clung tightly to her mother’s hand as they slowly made their way down the sidewalk past the bistro. She couldn’t make out the words or tune, but Jessie’s heart seized at the sight and distant sound of them singing out loud, and she wondered if she’d ever have a little daughter or son to walk with or sing to, someone with her own dark hair and blue eyes . . . or with Danny’s blond—
She sliced her own thoughts cleanly in two at the realization that they’d automatically drawn her straight toward Danny as the other half of her future scenario.
“It’ll be a few minutes,” he remarked, unaware of the train of thought he’d casually derailed. “But I got you a tea.” He placed two sturdy cups on the table between them and sat across from her. “Now tell me about these exciting phone calls of yours.”
She opened one of the napkins he’d brought along and smoothed it over her lap. “Okay. Let’s start with this. I’m going to make Amber a partner in the store.”
Danny’s smile came slow and steady. “Really.”
“Her birthday is next week. I was on the phone a good part of my afternoon yesterday with Antonio’s business attorney. Remember the one who helped me get things straight when I started the store?”
“Sure.”
“Well, I’d gotten to thinking about how valuable Amber has been to me, from the very first. I mean, she’s so invested in Adornments. Anyway, it occurred to me that I owe her everything. I mean I couldn’t possibly have made a go of things without her.”
“So you decided to hand over a stake in the store?”
She nodded, then shook her head in amazement at the decision. “I know. It seems strange, but at the same time . . . it seems so right. So I’m going to give her a 30 percent share of the store for her birthday. We’ve worked it out so she’ll have the option to buy in—up to another 15 percent—over the next three years if she chooses to do it.”
“That’s . . . really generous, Jessie.”
“Do you think it’s a good idea?”
“I mostly only know Amber through her dealings with you,” he admitted. “But I think the two of you work very well together. Rewarding her for everything she’s done—”
“Not just rewarding her,” she interrupted. “I just feel like she’s so much more than an employee now. You know?”
He nodded. “I get it.”
“Anyway, so I should have the papers in time to wrap them up and give them to Amber for her big day. I’m so excited about it. And now with this other opportunity—”
“Other opportunity?”
“It’s right out of the blue,” she said. “As strange an opportunity as you can imagine.”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with Stanton, does it?”
She curled her face into a sour frown. “Of course not, silly. I said opportunity, not affliction.”
Danny chuckled. “Go on then.”
“Do you know who Carmina Rosario is?”
“I think I dated her in high school,” he replied dryly. “Fiery temperament. Very straight teeth.”
“Well, you should have held on to her,” she said without missing a beat. “She’s this big Hollywood stylist. And she used to have a reality show where cameras followed her around and filmed her getting celebrities ready for red carpet events and coordinating their party planning, that kind of thing.”
“O-kay. Glad Rosie made a name for herself.”
“Carmina,” Jessie corrected with a chuckle.
“Oh. Right.”
“Anyway, she’s taken a step back to pop out some babies and the like, and her producers are interested in replacing her and giving Courtney a reality show instead.”
“Courtney. Really, and she wants to do it? I mean, isn’t she also doing the equivalent of popping out babies?”
“Kind of,” she said and sipped her tea. “That’s
