“Thanks,” Steve said. “Have you ever been married, Elsie?”

“Sure. I’ve been married lots of times. I was married to my first husband for thirty-seven years. He passed away, then I married Myron Fogel. He was a handsome devil, but he made noise at the breakfast table, so I divorced him. I know it was picky of me, but I couldn’t take another minute of him slurping his cereal milk. After that there was Gus. He had a heart attack. It was Gus who left me the Caddie. I was engaged to a real live one in Vermont when I broke my hip. I came down here to be near my sister while I was in rehab, and Wilma Nelson wrote and told me that the old coot I was engaged to had been taking other women to the bingo game in Mt.Pleasant. I guess I know what that means, so I sent him his ring back. It never fit right anyway.”

“I’m sorry,” Daisy said.

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Elsie told her.

“At my age you never expect to keep a man for long anyway. Men my age are dropping dead like flies.”

Daisy finished the last of her brandy and set the glass on the television. “I have to go,” she said. “I have to get up early tomorrow. I don’t have the paper route anymore, but I still have to cross the children.”

Chapter 9

Steve had coffee made and bacon frying when Daisy and Elsie came back from crossing the high school kids.

“I could eat a horse,” Elsie said. “That bacon smells great.”

Daisy poured herself a cup of coffee and poked at the bacon, while Steve cracked eggs into a second fry pan.

“I’m moving back to my town house,” Daisy said. “This house isn’t any safer than my own now that everyone thinks I’m your live-in girlfriend.” She felt her voice waver when he glanced over at her. “It was very nice of you to let us stay here for a while.”

“It wasn’t nice at all,” Steve said. “It was self-serving. I was ecstatic when that goon broke your door and forced you to find another place to stay. I was completely besotted. I’d resorted to sleeping out in your parking lot, for crying out loud.”

“I don’t get it,” Elsie said. “I thought you two were getting married.”

Steve dumped the scrambled eggs onto a plate. “Daisy wasn’t enamored with the idea.”

Elsie shook her head and grunted. “What a ninny.”

“I have good reasons not to want to get married right now,” Daisy said.

“Like what?” Elsie asked her. “Don’t you love him?”

Daisy sucked in a quick breath. She shot a look at Steve and found him smiling. He raised his eyebrows at her, and she uttered an oath under her breath. Damn him, she thought, if he’d looked at her like that two weeks ago, she’d have forgotten her name. As it was, she was only temporarily sexually excited. She pressed her lips together and concentrated on the bacon, placing it piece by piece onto paper towels. “There are lots of kinds of love,” she said. “Some love you can ignore better than other kinds of love.”

Elsie squinted at her. “What the devil’s that supposed to mean?” She turned to Steve. “How about you? Do you know why she doesn’t want to get married?”

“Something about pierced ears, I think. It’s pretty complicated.”

Daisy topped off her coffee and sat at the table. “I simply said married was permanent… like pierced ears.”

“Mabel Schnaaf had pierced ears and they grew over. She never used to put earrings in, and the ears grew back together,” Elsie said, buttering a piece of toast. “Everyone told her it was gonna happen, but she wouldn’t listen.”

Daisy helped herself to bacon and eggs. “The point is that my marriage is going to be permanent, and permanent is a long time, so I’m in no rush.”

“I don’t know,” Elsie said. “You aren’t getting any younger. You’re starting to get little squint lines at the corners of your eyes. Once you get them squint lines, everything starts going to pot.”

Daisy bolted down some eggs. “I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to panic me into marrying him, but it won’t work. I like squint lines. I think they give a person character. Besides, I’m sure Steve wouldn’t want me to marry him just because I was feeling over-the-hill and desperate.”

“Sure I would,” Steve told her. “Hell, I’ll take you any way I can get you. Do you remember how you landed the job at the radio station?”

“I nagged you. I was obnoxious. I wouldn’t take no for an answer. I hounded you for months.”

“I can make all that look like amateur hour… if I have to. Of course, I doubt I’ll have to.”

Daisy paused with her fork in midair. “Oh?”

“I have a secret weapon.”

“What is it?”

He ate a piece of bacon. “If I told you, it wouldn’t be a secret anymore, would it?”

“Dumb,” Daisy said. “This is the dumbest conversation ever. I have to get to work.” She took her empty plate to the sink and rinsed it. “Elsie, I’ll be ready in five minutes.”

“Okay. All I need is my pocketbook. What car are we taking?”

Daisy stopped at the kitchen door. “I forgot about the cars.”

“Take the black car,” Steve said. “I’m staying home for most of the day. There should be carpenters arriving any minute, I need to make arrangements to have new carpet put down, and I need to do something about getting the Ford SUV repaired.” He kicked back from the table and stacked the plates.

When Daisy came flying down the stairs he was waiting at the front door. He reached out for her as she skimmed past, spun her around, and pulled her to him with enough speed to make her breath catch in her throat. The kiss was long and deep, stirring the embers of desire until he was sure they were glowing hot, ready to flame. His hands gentled when he broke from the kiss.

“Be careful out there,” he said. He watched her sway for a moment, her eyes unfocused, and knew he’d accomplished his goal.

Daisy turned without a word. She left the house, got into the black car beside Elsie, and gripped the steering wheel, wondering how she was going to drive when her body was humming in private places and her mind was filled with erotic thoughts of Steve Crow.

“You okay?” Elsie said. “You look kinda dopey.”

“I’m fine.” And she definitely wasn’t dopey, she thought. In fact, she was pretty smart. She’d figured out Steve’s secret weapon. Now all she had to do was figure out how to survive it.

It was five-thirty when Daisy and Elsie got back to the house. The windows had been replaced and the grounds repaired. Inside, two men were still laying new carpet.

“The police haven’t found your car yet,” Steve told Elsie. “You’re going to have to go down to the station and sign some forms. Tomorrow I’ll ride with Daisy, and you can have the day off.”

Kevin ambled in from the kitchen. “This has been an utterly cool day,” he said to Daisy. “Bob and I made a cake. And then we ate it. If you’re nice to me, I might give you the recipe for your next cookbook.”

“Maybe I’ll call my next book Bones for Bob and Kevin. Is that the extent of the coolness, or did something else awesome happen?”

“Mom called. Boy, are you in big trouble. She saw your picture on the evening news in Texas. They played the clip where they said you were the oil tycoon’s live-in girlfriend.”

“Great. I hope you set her straight.”

“I tried, but it was tough, what with all the yelling going on.”

“I got a TV show I want to catch,” Elsie said. “One of them cable stations is running an Errol Flynn festival.”

“Is that the guy with the sword and the cheesy mustache?” Kevin said, following Elsie into the family room.

“There isn’t anything cheesy about any part of Errol Flynn,” she told him. “He was what you call a swashbuckler. He could have grown any kind of mustache he wanted.”

“Hope you’re hungry,” Steve said to Daisy. “I’ve been slaving over a hot stove all day making spaghetti sauce.”

Daisy looked in the pot. “I’m impressed. This smells terrific.”

“Of course. It’s my specialty.” He slid his arms around her waist and deposited a lingering kiss at the nape of her neck.

“Forget it,” she said. “I know what your secret weapon is, and it’s not going to work.”

“That’s because you haven’t tasted it yet. No woman has been able to resist my secret weapon once they’ve sat down and feasted on it.”

Daisy’s mouth dropped open. “That’s… outrageous!”

“You’re going to want to have seconds, and thirds, then when you wake up tomorrow you’re going to have an insatiable craving to eat more for breakfast.”

“What an ego!”

His voice was silky. “It’s all in the spices.”

“Wait a minute. What are you talking about?”

“My spaghetti sauce, of course.My secret weapon. Everyone always loves my spaghetti sauce.”

“Sure. I knew that.”

“What did you think we were talking about?”

Her gaze inadvertently slid below his waist.

“You thought that was my secret weapon?”

“Of course not. I knew it was the spaghetti sauce. You men are all alike. You think all it takes is a pot of hot tomatoes to turn us women into slavering idiots. I suppose you thought one look at your sauce would have me panting. Well, let me tell you something, buster, it takes more than spaghetti sauce to weaken my resolve.”

“Want to know what we’re having for dessert?”

“No!”

He dumped spaghetti into boiling water and took a bowl of freshly grated cheese from the refrigerator. “As long as we’re on the subject, I want to clear the air a little. I don’t want to push you into a marriage you don’t want.”

“No?”

“My intention is to hang around until you decide you’re going to go nuts and start screaming and foaming at the mouth if you don’t get… married.”

“And you think your cooking is good enough to do that, huh?”

“Do you want a serious answer, or do you want to flirt some more?”