“They here yet?” Riley asked in a muttered undertone.

“Waitin’ in your office.” She leaned across her desktop, braced on her forearms, to smile at the children. “Hey…who’s this we got here?”

“David, Helen,” said Summer, “say hello to Mrs…uh-”

“Johnson-but y’all can call me Danell if you want to, okay?” The children both nodded; apparently overcome with awe, they were expressing it in their own individual ways-David in round-eyed silence, Helen antsy and primed for battle.

“It’d probably be better if they stayed out here,” Riley said, frowning. “Danell, do you think you could-”

“Oh, sure-no problem.” She shooed them off with a wave of her hand and a toothy grin for the children. “We’ll be fine-won’t we, hon? Hey, you guys like to draw pictures?”

Riley murmured, “Thanks,” and put his hand on Summer’s waist, his heart already beating like a trip-hammer.

“Can I watch you work the computer?” he heard David ask shyly as he ushered Summer into the hallway.

And his secretary answered, “Well, sure, I guess you can if you want to. How ’bout you, ladybug? Hey, that is a very pretty dress you’re wearing.”

And Helen’s response, in a tone of uncharacteristic sweetness: “Uh-huh-Mr. Riley buyed it for me. He buyed us lots of stuff-books…even one about dinosaurs. An’ you know what else…?”

Riley closed his eyes and gave an inaudible sigh as he opened his office door and waved Summer in ahead of him. Oh, Lord. Danell was never going to let him hear the end of this.


The feds had gone. The outlines of the plan to trap and capture Hal Robey were in place; all that remained was the phone call that would set it in motion. Summer looked drained but resolved; Riley felt as if he’d spent a week in court. He felt exhausted, but wired, too, a mood he normally might soothe with a quiet evening in feminine company… an elegant dinner…good wine…soft music… He tried putting Summer into that picture, but it just wouldn’t work, somehow. Somehow he’d known it wouldn’t. No matter how lovely she was in that yellow dress and high-heeled shoes, she was always going to be more at home in blue jeans and sneakers.

In his secretary’s office, they found David jammed in between Danell’s knees and the computer, avidly click-clicking away with the mouse. When she heard them come in, Danell threw a look over her shoulder long enough to say indignantly, “Hey, did you know there are card games on here?” And then, turning back to David, she said, “There you go-red nine on that black ten right there. See it?”

“Is Helen-”

Danell jerked her head toward the waiting room. “She’s out there paperin’ the place with pictures of dinosaurs on sticky notes.”

“Could I please use the rest room?” Summer murmured.

“Sure,” Riley said. “Down the hall on the left.” While she excused herself, Danell surrendered her chair to David and came around her desk. Riley saw the look in her eye and held up a hand. “Don’t even start.”

“Don’t tell me don’t start,” she huffed in a whisper. “That woman and those kids been livin’ with you.”

“Oh, hell.” He scrubbed a hand over his eyes and whispered back, “It’s not what you think.”

“Hey-you don’t even know what I think.” He looked at her then and saw that she had a sparkle in her eyes and a big grin on her face-clearly tickled to death.

“Hush, Danell-you know she’s not my type.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Seriously-you’ve known me how many years now? How many women have I been out with in that time? Now, tell me-have you ever known me, even once, to date a woman who had kids?”

She didn’t say anything, just nailed him with one of her looks. Riley rolled his eyes; he knew he wasn’t off the hook yet. Sure enough, Danell folded her arms, moved in close and poked him in the chest with one of her inch-long silver-blue fingernails. “Now, you tell me somethin’. If all those women you been datin’ all these years were your type-how come you never married any of ’em? Hmm? Tell me that.”

Riley just looked at her. He’d have come up with an answer for her, though; he was sure he would have, except that right then Summer came back into the room, looking like she’d just washed her face and brushed her hair. Looking as fresh and lovely as a field full of daffodils. And his words, his breath, and it felt like his whole beating heart, somehow wound up stuck in his throat. “Ready?” he asked in a garbled croak.

She nodded and said breathlessly, “Mrs. Johnson, thank you so much,” but her eyes were on Riley’s face.

And he couldn’t take his eyes away from hers. He thought, Why not? At least…dinner? And he was seeing her sitting across the table from him, candlelight shining in her eyes and in her hair.

“Can we go now?” Helen whined, shuffling in from the waiting room. “I’m hungry.”

“Yes, honey, we’re going.” And Summer turned her face away from him, reaching out to pull her child against her in a one-armed hug, leaving him feeling strangely off balance and bereft, as if something precious had been wrenched from his grasp. “Do either of you need to use the rest room before we leave?” That was directed at the children, of course.

“Uh-uh,” said Helen with a decisive shake of her head, and David elaborated without looking away from the monitor, “We just went.”

“Why don’t I take you out for dinner?” Riley said to Summer, ignoring Danell’s smirk. He was still thinking of nice restaurants-one of Charleston’s less touristy seafood places, perhaps. Somewhere the children wouldn’t be too out of place…

“Pizza!” yelled Helen, doing her bunny-hop thing, and David looked up long enough to echo, “Yeah, pizza! Can we, Mom? We haven’t had pizza in a long time. Please?”

Riley’s vision of a romantic dinner vanished like a puff of smoke.

“There’s a very nice pizza place right down the road-would you like me to call and make you a reservation?” Danell purred with a perfectly straight face.

Riley looked pointedly at his watch, then said with a pained grimace, “Danell, it’s past quittin’ time-don’t you have someplace you need to go?”

“Yessir, boss-” she shut off the computer’s monitor to David’s yelp of disappointment “-I am goin’ home to mah man an’ mah kids.” She made two syllables out of both “man” and “kids,” which she could do when she chose to lay the Southern molasses on thick. She swooped down to collect her pocketbook from under her desk and slung it over her shoulder. “Hey-I’m serious about that pizza place. Down the road to the left, ’bout a mile on your right. Poppa Joe’s.” She gave them a wave, and Riley a wink. “Y’all have a nice evenin’, now.”


“It was nice of you to do this,” Summer said an hour or so later as she dropped a crust onto the pizza platter with a small, replete sigh. “They’ve had a good time.” Her eyes were on the children as she said it; they were across the room in an alcove that held a dozen or so video games, and she could see David’s head jerking as he worked the controls, and Helen’s head bobbing up and down beside him as she watched.

She didn’t want to look at Riley; she didn’t have to know how uncomfortable he was in these surroundings. His look of abject misery was like a black storm cloud on the horizon-enough to cast an uneasy pall on the picnic, but not enough to cancel it. She almost felt sorry for him-the suave and elegant Riley Grogan, brought to this. Pizza and video games! What next? Almost. To her surprise, what she did feel was annoyance. Even anger. Like a mild undercurrent of electricity running just beneath her skin.

“It’s all right,” she said, unable to keep that little burr of irritation out of her voice, “the effects aren’t permanent, you know.”

He came back from the dark place where he’d been with a small start and a puzzled “What?”

“This place…us…our life-style. It won’t rub off on you-unless you wanted it to, I suppose-which I’m sure you don’t. Once this is all cleared up and we’re out of your life, you’ll have no trouble at all going back to the life you’re used to.”

He shifted uncomfortably, but didn’t smile or deny. Instead he held her eyes with a long, dark look and said quietly, “I’d rather not talk about my life right now, if you don’t mind.” Then, in abrupt reversal of that, he looked down, released a long, audible breath. “It’s just that sometimes places… things…remind me of places I’ve been in my life…places I’d just as soon not be reminded of. Do you understand?”

Summer nodded, the anger tremors inside her becoming something else-tension…awareness…anticipation. But she didn’t want to let it go. “A pizza place?” she murmured, smiling a little, letting him see the compassion-and a little of the sadness-in her heart. “Can that be so bad a memory?”

And then he smiled, too, finally. “Not the place-the time. Reminds me of when I was in college, if you want to know the truth.” The smile slipped sideways and he abandoned it in a swallow of beer. “My college days were a time of-” he searched for a word and found it “-struggle. Not the best time of my life. Nor the worst.” He laughed suddenly. “Even the music’s the same.” And he tilted his head, listening to the song-an old one of Olivia Newton-John’s that had just come on the jukebox.

Summer sat up straight “I remember that It’s from the movie Grease. I was in high school when that came out.” She began to sing softly, and after a moment, he did, too. Then they both stumbled over the lyrics and stopped at the same time, laughing together.

“Hey,” said Riley suddenly, “would you like to dance?”

She blinked and said, “What?”

“Dance. You know-man, woman, step-together, one-twothree…”

Dance? Oh, God, thought Summer. I will not think of Cinderella… I will not! She felt an overwhelming desire to laugh, but there was no room in her chest for anything except her rapidly beating heart. She made a small, desperate sound. “I-I don’t think they do that here.”