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  He strode toward the counter now, but she didn’t look up until she could see his reflection in the display case. “Yes?” Her trembling voice betrayed her, but probably not for the reason he thought. “May I help you?”

  “I just came by to check on your daughter. I’m Link Whitman. I’ve never properly introduced myself.” He stripped off his gloves and extended his right hand.

  She held up her own plastic-gloved hand. “Sorry. I’m working with food.”

  “Oh. No problem.” He withdrew his hand. “I understand. Is she doing okay? Your daughter?”

  “She’s not my—Like I told you this morning, she’s fine.”

  His mouth tilted in a sheepish smile. “Maybe the question is, how are you holding up?”

  She couldn’t help but stare at the steel gray-blue of his eyes. From that first day at the shelter, his eyes had reminded her of Portia’s eyes. “I’m fine.” If she said anything else, she might dissolve into tears again. He’d already caught her losing it once today. That was plenty.

  “Listen . . .” He shifted from one foot to the other, then back again. “I’m really sorry about what happened. I know that must have scared you to death. I don’t have kids, but I’ve seen my sisters freak out about a lot less with their own kids.” He looked at the floor. “I honestly don’t think I was driving too fast or anything, but—well, if it was my fault, I’m really sorry. I’ve had nightmares about it.”

  She tilted her head and eyed him. “It just happened this morning. How could you be having nightmares?”

  “Well, nightmare. I’m working extra shifts lately. So sleeping at odd hours. Like this afternoon. And I had a wild dream, a nightmare. I’m not lying to you.”

  “Never said you were.”

  “That’s where I’m headed now. Work.” He nodded to where his truck was parked out front. “But I wanted to be sure your daughter was okay first. I could tell your husband was upset and I just—”

  “My husband? What in the world are you talking about?” She hadn’t meant for it to come out quite so shrill.

  “The guy in here this morning.” One side of his mouth tipped up. “Sorry. That wasn’t your husband?”

  She couldn’t help laughing. “That’s my dad.”

  “Oh.”

  If she didn’t know better, she’d have thought he looked relieved. Don’t go getting any ideas, Shayla Jean. You’ve got no business—

  “Sorry. He . . . he doesn’t look old enough.”

  “Yeah, well . . . Listen, you need anything from the bakery?” She pointed to the empty case. “This stuff is all going to the shelter in Cape, so if you want anything, speak now.”

  “Or what? Forever hold my peace?”

  She smiled before she could stop herself. “Something like that.” The warmth that slid into his eyes somehow worked its way inside her as well, and she remembered how he’d made her feel when they were flirting.

  “No,” he said quietly. “I don’t need anything. Other than . . . I just wanted to see how you were doing. And to check on your daughter.”

  “Oh. She’s not my daughter.” Not that it was any of his business.

  “What? What in the world are you talking about?” His voice went as shrill as hers had seconds earlier.

  They both laughed at his parroting of her words. But he looked confused. “That wasn’t your little girl this morning?”

  “Portia is my brother’s child,” Shayla offered.

  “Porsche! I knew it!”

  “What?” She propped her hands on her hips. “Somebody better start talking some sense here pretty quick.”

  He grinned. “That’s your daughter’s—I mean, your niece’s name? Porsche. Like the car?”

  “It’s Portia.” She spelled it for him. “And what do you mean ‘I knew it’?” She mimicked his crowing.

  “In my dream—my nightmare—you were yelling that. Porsche. Over and over.”

  Now he was dreaming about her?

  “I guess you were yelling that in real life too. Portia. Her name, I mean—it sounds like the car. You know—Porsche?”

  “I know what a Porsche is.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t remember much, but I remember you yelling her name. The whole thing is kind of a blur.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Tell me about it. But yes, I’m sure I yelled her name. Scared the potatoes out of me.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, me too. I just keep thinking about what could have happened. It could have been so much worse—”

  “No.” She waved a hand at him. “I don’t even want to go there. I’m just trying to forget it happened.”

  “So what did your brother say when he heard about it?”

  Oh boy. Here it came. She swallowed and averted her gaze. “My brother?”

  “You didn’t tell him yet?”

  “Oh.” She looked at the floor. “He doesn’t know. He’s . . . out of town.”

  “Well, I’ll vouch for you, if you need me to. There wasn’t anything anybody could have done. It was just . . . one of those things. So, you were babysitting?”

  She stared at him. He was awfully nosy. Good looking as all get out. But nosy. “Something like that,” she said.

  He gave her a look that asked for more.

  She checked the clock above the cash register. “I really need to close up shop.”

  He followed her gaze. “Oh, right. Sorry. And I need to get to work. Can I give you a lift home?”

  “Not unless you want to carry me up those stairs?” She nodded toward the open staircase that hugged the back wall of the store.

  “Seriously? You live here?”

  “Last time I checked.” She probably shouldn’t have told him that. Daddy had left for Bowling Green—to see Jerry—at noon and wouldn’t be home till late. Portia was upstairs watching TV. They were essentially alone. Not that she was scared of Link Whitman. She’d had enough dealings with the Whitman family to know they were good people. The grandmother used to live here in Langhorne before they’d put her in a home, and one of the sisters still lived here. The one with the adorable twins.

  “There’s an apartment upstairs, huh? I never knew that. So you guys own the bakery?”

  “Us and the bank.” He didn’t need to know that the apartment was essentially a warren of bedrooms. They’d never had a kitchen upstairs, but had always used the bakery’s kitchen to prepare their meals, which they ate in the dining room or in the little alcove at the bottom of the back kitchen stairs. And when they’d taken Portia in two years ago, they converted the sitting room upstairs to a third bedroom and playroom. Shayla had a small sofa in her room, but she actually preferred the sunny seating area at the back of the bakery with its comfy leather couches and the collection of green plants she babied. Customers gravitated to the cozy nook during the day, but when the bakery closed at three each afternoon, it was all hers.

  “Yeah, I get that,” Link said. “Kind of like my truck . . . me and the bank.” He glanced out the front window to where his pickup was parked.

  She smiled and went on packing up the day-old pastries.

  “My mom really likes your stuff—your baked goods, I mean. Says if she ever got tired of baking for her guests, she’d just let you do it.”

  She felt herself flush. “It’s mostly my dad who does the baking. I’m learning a little, but he does most of it. I just man the counter. And wash dishes. And sweep floors.”

  “And box up stuff for the homeless shelter.” He looked pointedly at the tower of boxes she’d formed atop the empty display case. “That’s really nice of you to do that.”

  She shrugged. “Better than putting it in the Dumpster. Or eating it.” She patted her belly and was rewarded with his laughter. It was his laugh that had attracted her to him the first time they’d met at the shelter in Cape that day. She’d loved talking to him there. Just shooting the breeze, but he always made her laugh. She’d been disappointed when the shelter director told her the IT work was finished.

 
; Link slipped his cell phone from his jeans pocket and checked the time. “I’d better get going or I’ll be late. I just wanted to make sure everybody was okay.” He started toward the front door.

  But watching his broad shoulders, she felt an urgency rising inside her, as if she might not get another chance to say what she needed to say. “Hey.” She peeled off the plastic gloves and tossed them into the trash, coming around to the other side of the counter where he’d been standing. “Link!” It came out too loud.

  But he wheeled around, curiosity written in his expression. “Yeah?”

  “I feel bad about what I said this morning. I know it wasn’t really your fault.”

  A hint of mischief came to his eyes. “Do you feel bad about beating the snot out of me?”

  She made a show of covering her face with her hands. “I was hoping you wouldn’t remember that part.” She peeked at him from between her fingers.

  “Oh, I remember all right.” He winced. “Got the bruises to prove it. On top of the bruises your niece gave me.”

  “You’re not serious . . .” She knew her eyes must be as round as the doughnuts she’d just boxed up. “I’m so sorry. I was a little out of my head. Seriously, I feel awful. I didn’t know I hit you that hard. You don’t really have bruises?” She was pretty sure he was exaggerating.

  But what if he wasn’t? What if he filed assault and battery charges against her? Had anyone witnessed what happened? But surely, someone from a family like the Whitmans wouldn’t do such a thing. Still, people could be pretty sue-happy these days.

  She didn’t remember anyone else being in the store at the time or on the street, but surely someone had heard his brakes squeal and come by to see what was going on. She’d wondered if they should have called the police to report what happened. But she could already imagine her father shaking his head adamantly at the idea. No police. It had been that way for men like him—black men—forever, but after what happened with Jerry, Daddy’s disdain—fear even—of the police had risen to a new level. And the whole thing with Ferguson a while back hadn’t helped matters any. It seemed like her father was on edge all the time these days. For no reason. But then, a lot of things had happened “for no reason,” so she couldn’t really blame him.

  A new thought struck her. What if the Chicory Inn quit ordering from the bakery? And told other people in town to do the same? Her stupid mistake might cost them.

  “Quit looking like that.” Link touched her wrist briefly. “I’m just giving you a hard time. I’m fine. Wouldn’t be much of a man if I couldn’t take your wimpy punches.”

  “Hey!” She laughed nervously, but she’d never been so relieved to be teased. And so happy to see his smile reappear. “Don’t make me show you how hard I can hit if I really need to.”

  He put up both hands in surrender but laughed as he did. “Don’t worry. I have no intention of getting you riled up again.”

  “Smart move, Whitman.” Seeing him like this, she remembered how he’d made her feel when he flirted with her the other times he’d come in.

  His smile faded. “Seriously, though. Don’t think anything of it. Like I said, I know my sisters would have reacted the same if one of their kids—or a niece or nephew,” he added quickly, “was in danger. All’s forgiven. You forgive me?”

  She gave him a knowing smile. “For saving Portia’s life, you mean?”

  “Well, I didn’t want to say anything, but now that you mention it . . .”

  “You don’t have to look so smug.”

  He cocked his head, studying her. “Would you want to go out with me?”

  Wow. That was fast. “Out?”

  “As in, on a date? Out on a date?”

  “You don’t waste any time, do you?”

  “It just seemed like the thing to do.”

  She gave him a skeptical look. “What’s that supposed to mean? I’m not a charity case.”

  “What? Who said anything about charity?”

  “You’re not just asking me because you think you owe it to me because you almost killed Portia.”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute. Two minutes ago I saved her life. How’d we get back to ‘almost killed her’?”

  She was pretty certain he was still flirting, but she wasn’t sure where this was going. Or if he was serious about asking her out. Only one way to find out. “Are you seriously asking me out on a date?”

  “Dead serious.”

  “Why?”

  “Do I have to have a motive?”

  “Men usually do.”

  “Um, would it be the wrong answer if I said I thought you were really pretty, and I like talking to you?”

  She couldn’t hide the smile that came. Or the surprise. “That would be a good answer, I guess.”

  “That would be the truth.”

  “Well, alrighty then. When were you thinking this date would happen?”

  “Can you do Sunday? I’m working some overtime until after Christmas, so Sunday night’s about the only time I’m free the rest of the year. Unless you want to do an early breakfast.”

  “You mean like three a.m.? Because I have to be down here to work at four.”

  “Oh.” Link’s eyes got big. “Then Sunday’s it, I guess. That work?”

  She frowned. Daddy wasn’t going to like this. At all. “I’ll have to see about a babysitter.”

  “You babysit on Sundays too?”

  She forgot she hadn’t explained the situation. “Portia lives with us. My brother’s . . . not exactly in the picture right now.”

  “Oh. What about Portia’s mother?”

  “Not in the picture either.”

  “Oh. Wow . . . I’m sorry.”

  She shrugged. And considered just telling him everything right off the bat. Let him reject her before he wasted any time or money on a date. But there was something different about him. She wasn’t sure what, but she wasn’t willing to let him go so easily. “It is what it is,” she said finally.

  “We could take her with us—Portia. If that’s okay with you. And if it’s okay with your dad . . . or whoever you have to check with.”

  For some crazy reason, that made her smile. “I have to check with me, myself, and I. I’m pretty much it where Portia’s concerned.” She tilted her head, studying him. “You sure you want to take a five-year-old with us on a date?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “I’m not sure you’re counting the cost here. She can be a little feisty.”

  “You haven’t been to a Whitman family dinner yet. Eight little rug rats running around screaming their heads off, coloring on the walls, climbing the curtains, wiping their sticky fingers—and runny noses—on everything”—he made a face—“every Tuesday. I sometimes sit right there at the kids’ table. And live to tell the tale.”

  She laughed. “Okay, okay. You convinced me.” But he’d said yet. You haven’t been to a Whitman family dinner yet. Somehow she couldn’t picture herself and Portia at a table with the Whitman family. Just like she’d never been able to picture herself at a table with her mother’s family. Or wanted to. And for good reason.

  She’d been out to the inn before, delivering baked goods. It was a fancy house. And Mrs. Whitman—Link’s mother—was a fancy lady. The kind that wore makeup and earrings around the house.

  Shayla shook off the comparison. She’d cross that bridge when she came to it. If she ever did. She frowned. “You don’t really sit at the kids’ table?”

  He shrugged a shoulder. “Guess you’ll just have to find out for yourself someday.”

  4

  Link walked backwards to the curb, watching Shayla Michaels move around inside the bakery. When he finally turned and approached his pickup, he caught his reflection in the window in the last inkling of daylight—and realized he was smiling.

  A rare occurrence recently, according to his biggest sister. His smile widened, imagining how Corinne would chide him if he referred to her as “biggest” to her face. “Oldest sister, bud
dy. Use your words,” she’d say. And then, of course, he’d have to give her a hard time about how ancient she really was at the ripe old age of thirty-three.

  He loved all his sisters, and most of the time he didn’t mind the way they mother-henned him to death. Even Landyn, who was his little sis, somehow managed to boss him around.

  Mom always said—only half joking—that Link’s poor wife would pay for all the damage his sisters had done to him with their coddling. But he wasn’t too concerned.

  What he was concerned about was the fact that he’d somehow ended up asking a girl for a date! A girl with a kid . . . even if it wasn’t her own. And a girl who was about as far as she could possibly be from the list he’d written out when he was sixteen or seventeen: “The Woman I Want to Marry.” The list had been some youth group exercise, if he remembered right. He wasn’t even sure why he’d participated. He couldn’t have cared less about being married back then. All through college even.

  It wasn’t until his two older sisters started settling down with their husbands, and then Tim married Bree, and Link started thinking marriage looked like a pretty good deal. He’d just never met the right woman.

  His sisters accused him of being too picky. He hadn’t gotten any less picky as the years went by, but even so, Shayla wasn’t anything like the elusive—imaginary—woman on his list. Not only because she wasn’t blonde and blue-eyed, but because Shayla had no doubt been raised very differently than he had. A whole ’nother culture.

  He checked the thought. That wasn’t fair. He was making assumptions based mostly on the color of her skin. But he also knew enough after their conversation just now to guess that they might not be on the same page on a lot of things.

  Not that he wanted to end up with a female carbon copy of himself. But if that list—the one that had silently guided him for over a dozen years now—held any weight, Shayla wasn’t even on the radar. Actually, if the list held any weight, he’d be marrying a carbon copy of his sisters.

  He climbed into the pickup and backed out. Slowly, remembering the events of this morning. The ice had melted from the streets, but he knew he’d drive a lot more carefully for a long time to come.