The Bravos: Family Ties: The Bravo Family Way / Married in Haste / From Here to Paternity. Christine Rimmer
said, still in that grave way of hers, “You’re pretty. And very tall.”
“Why, thank you, Ashlyn.”
“You’re almost as tall as my Daddy, I bet.”
“Just about.”
“You can let go of my hand now.”
“All right.” She released the small, soft fingers.
Ashlyn put both hands behind her back but held her ground, dark head tipped back, those serious eyes scanning Cleo’s down-turned face. “It’s nine days.” She brought her hands front again and held up all her fingers, small face puckered up. Then she bent her right thumb to her palm and turned both hands, backside-first, to Cleo. “Nine.”
“Very good.”
“It’s arithmetic.”
“Yes. What’s nine days?”
“Until my birthday. I’m having a party. Not on my birthday but the Saturday after. There will be clowns and rides and a magic show. A lot of kids are coming.” She seemed to reach a decision. “You can come, too.”
“Why, I …”
“There will be cake.”
“Well, that is tempting.”
“And ice cream.” Fletcher spoke from behind her.
Cleo looked back at him and knew by his carefully composed expression that he was hiding a smile. “Devious,” she muttered.
He said, “Whatever it takes.”
She turned back to the child. And Ashlyn asked, so simply and sweetly, “Will you come to my party?”
Cleo said the first word that popped into her head. It just happened to be, “Yes.”
Fletcher insisted on escorting Cleo to the parking garage and out to her car.
Neither spoke as they got off the elevator they’d taken from his apartment and crossed to the ones that went to the parking garages. They got on an empty car and went down to C level. When the doors slid open, she turned to him.
“It really isn’t necessary for you to—”
“But I want to.” He signaled her to exit ahead of him and then fell in beside her once the elevator door had shut behind them. Their footsteps echoing on concrete, they walked the five rows to her green SUV.
Cleo had her key ready. She pushed the remote lock button. The SUV beeped twice, the sound very loud in the cavernous space.
She made the obligatory polite noises. “Thank you. It was an excellent lunch.”
He moved in closer—too close, really. She saw again the blue that rimmed those pale gray irises. She smelled that tempting aftershave. She might have moved away a step, put a little space between them. But the SUV was at her back.
He said, as if continuing a conversation that had never been interrupted, “So many children here and at High Sierra who can gain so much from what you have to give them …”
Again she tried to remember all the reasons it wouldn’t work to put a KinderWay in his resort. Those reasons seemed meaningless now. “I can’t believe I’m thinking of saying yes to this.”
“Believe it. Say yes.”
“There are … permits and procedures we’d have to—”
“We’ll cross every T in sight, dot every last damn I.”
“I’ll have to hire an entire second staff, start from the bottom up. That will take—”
“It’s manageable. All of it. And it won’t take long. Believe me.”
She felt a silly smile tremble across her mouth. “You’re interrupting me again.”
“Sorry. Did I tell you I’m impatient?”
“You did. Yes.”
“You won’t regret this, Cleo. That’s a promise.”
It all seemed so simple by then. From all wrong to exactly right in the space of a few hours. Was that crazy? Maybe.
Then again, no. Not crazy at all. It was a fabulous opportunity and she’d be crazy to pass it up.
“Come on,” said Fletcher. “Say yes.” He held out his hand.
She took it. “Yes,” she said, those forbidden, hot little flares of awareness racing through her at his touch.
“Excellent.” He gave her hand a firm shake and then released it. “I’ll call you tomorrow. We’ll set up a meeting ASAP with the lawyers, get all the paperwork handled. Then you can get started looking for the people you’ll need.” He reached around behind her, grabbed the door latch and pulled it open for her.
Feeling suddenly dazed, she swung up into the seat. She stared at him wide-eyed. “Did I just say yes?”
He grinned. “You did. No going back now.” He pushed the door shut and stepped back.
For a moment, still bemused at the choice she had just made, she only sat there and stared at him through the side window. He lifted an eyebrow, clearly wondering if for some reason she’d changed her mind about leaving.
Feeling foolish, she shook herself and stabbed her key into the ignition. The engine turned over and caught. She backed out of the space, so rattled by what she had just agreed to that she came within an inch of hitting a car in the row behind her.
She slammed on the brakes and looked over at Fletcher, who still stood where she’d left him.
He mouthed the word, “Careful.”
She put it in drive and got the heck out of there. Every nerve in her body was humming. Very strange. Definitely scary.
And no, she didn’t let herself look in her rearview mirror to see if he was still standing there watching as she drove away.
Chapter Four
That night in bed, before she turned out the light, Cleo called Danny and told him that she would open a KinderWay at Impresario after all.
“Good for you,” Danny said.
She relaxed into her pillows, realizing she’d been vaguely worried he wouldn’t like the idea, that he might be a little jealous, might remember that blue box on the entry hall table last Tuesday night and suspect that Fletcher Bravo would be putting the moves on her. But no. Not Danny. He didn’t have a jealous bone in his body.
“Oh, Danny. You think so? You really think it’s the right way to go?”
“You bet. I think it’s a smart move. And I’m glad you decided not to let what happened when you were a kid keep you from accepting a great offer right now.”
She caught a curl of her hair and wrapped it around her index finger as she teased into the phone, “Who says I was doing anything as neurotic as that?”
“Hey. I didn’t say it was neurotic.”
“Close enough.”
“Aw, come on. It’s natural for a person to stay away from the things that scare them, the things that have messed them over in the past. It only gets to be a problem if you let what scares you keep you from doing what’s going to be good for you now.”
Sometimes Danny’s insights did amaze her. “You know, I think you missed your calling. You should have been a shrink.”
“Uh-uh. You need a college education for that. I’ll pass. I had enough trouble makin’it through high school.”
“If you say so. It’s the mental-health profession’s loss.”
“Yeah,