Love Finds You in Hershey, Pennsylvania (9 page)

“You said canninabals took Malibu Ken’s leg!”

Jasper swallowed. “I did?”

Kylie scowled at him. “Kylie tried to put Grandma’s ring in her nose, and the volcano got it! ‘Cause you said canninabals wear rings in their noses!”

“Oh. So I did.” He looked helplessly at Sadie. “I forget she’s only four, you know?”

“
Five
,” Kylie stated. “Kylie will be five tomorrow!”

“Kylie…” Dmitri attempted to help out. “Why don’t we go downstairs and you can tell me all about your birthday party tomorrow? And we’ll let Mommy and Jasper see if they can…um…retrieve the ring from the, uh, volcano.”

“It’s a toilet,” Kylie corrected him.

He smiled. “Right.”

Dmitri politely offered Kylie his hand, which she accepted, and the two made their way back into the hall and down to the first floor. Jasper entered the bathroom and sat on the floor beside Sadie.

“I am
so
sorry!” He was already rolling up his sleeves. “I forget that she takes things so literally.”

“Jasper, she’s five years old.”

“I know, I know. But she’s just so easy to talk to…” He stuck his hand into the bowl. “Whew. That’s cold.”

Sadie was finally able to stand to her feet. “Believe me, I know.”

She turned on the water at the sink as hot as she could stand it and lathered her arm with soap. She washed in silence and then repeated the action two more times. When she finished, Jasper’s arm was still in the bowl, with it practically up to his shoulder.

“Do you think we’ll be able to get it back?”

Jasper frowned with concentration and absently remarked, “It took Ken’s leg—it’s not getting your ring too.”

She laughed at him then, the complete seriousness of his expression amusing her.

“My knight in shining armor,” she stated with a thread of breathlessness.

Just then he grinned.

“I think I got it!”

She fell to the floor beside him and leaned close as he attempted to extract his arm. He drew it out, dripping wet, a band of gold gleaming in his fingertips.

“Oh, Jasper—I could
kiss
you!”

He looked at her with a wry expression. “What’s stopping you?”

Something in his eyes made her hesitate. What
was
that? If she didn’t know better, she’d think it was…but no, it couldn’t be.

Sadie looked away and at her watch.

“Oh! Dmitri and I better get going. The movie starts at seven!”

“Right.”

Sadie ignored the strange disappointment in his voice as she checked her reflection in the mirror one last time.

“I won’t be late. Kylie’s dinner is in the microwave—just heat it up. There’s some for you too. Have a good night!”

She rushed for the door and then paused, turning. “And Jasper?”

He looked up, and the little boy sadness in his eyes tugged at her heart.

“Thanks.”

He smiled. “No problem.”

Two and a half hours later, Sadie and Dmitri finished viewing
To Have and Have Not
, a film Dmitri had not experienced before tonight. He had been enraptured from the moment they walked in the door, his jaw dropping at the opulence of the Hershey Theatre lobby’s Italian lava rock floors, marble walls, and arches and bas-relief ceilings.

Sadie had felt a strange swell of pride—the theater was impressive, rivaling the best of European architecture. It left a little glow of triumph warming her insides, knowing that her little town could possess such a gem of a building.

“Parts of it are modeled after St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice,” she couldn’t resist informing him as they’d made their way through the inner foyer. She’d tried to keep the smugness from her tone, but it was impossible.

Take that, Mr. European Entrepreneur
, she couldn’t help but think.

The main auditorium, with its Byzantine design and firmament-inspired ceilings, had left Dmitri equally speechless. And when the pre-show music started—an impressive round of music on the Theatre’s Aeolian-Skinner organ—Dmitri merely shook his head with awe.

Sadie had smirked, feeling both childish and triumphant at the same time.

“Not bad for a small town, huh?”

One corner of Dmitri’s mouth twitched in response. “As they say…not bad at all.”

They’d settled in for the film, though Sadie couldn’t resist nudging him playfully in the side once in a while when his eyes would wander from the screen to the ceiling, where a display of man-made starlight twinkled.

Sadie had tried not to dwell on that last look in Jasper’s eyes before she’d left the house that evening, though her stomach fluttered in agitation every time she thought of it. His eyes had been faintly murky with a sadness she was unaccustomed to seeing in him. It was an expression that had taunted her all night, but she once again forced the image from her mind as she and Dmitri left the theater and walked the short distance to Café Zooka, the local coffee shop attached to the Hershey Story Museum.

Dmitri held the door for Sadie and placed their order at the counter. After receiving their beverages, they settled themselves at a booth and resumed their conversation.

“Absolutely wonderful.” Dmitri summed up the experience with boy-like glee.

Sadie smiled. “If I had known it was going to get you this excited, I’d have waited a month and taken you to their double feature night.”

Dmitri’s face glowed. “They have one of those?”

“Yep. I can see we’re going to mark it on our calendars.”

Dmitri couldn’t have looked more pleased. They paused to enjoy their drinks—a café Americano, black, for Dmitri and a chai latte for Sadie. After a moment, Dmitri swiveled the subject to matters closer to home.

“Kylie is a most…interesting child, isn’t she?”

Sadie felt a surge of motherly pride coupled with endless frustration, her lips twisting in wry amusement at this observation. “You can’t even begin to imagine.”

She leaned in. “When she turned two, she painted the walls with my lipstick. All twelve tubes of it.” She cupped one hand beside her mouth and whispered confidentially, “I used to have an obsession with lipstick.” Leaning back, she ran two fingers across her chin in order to showcase her lips. “And now? Clear lip gloss or chapstick only.”

He laughed.

“I had thought, of course, that the lipstick episode indicated she would become a child prodigy. My darling girl would be a Picasso by age six.” Sadie sighed. “Alas, she had no desire to paint on canvas or paper…or even with water paint or crayons, for that matter. Walls and lipstick all the way.”

She folded her hands in front of her. “I know they say not to stifle your child, but honestly—how many coats of paint can one wall take? I began to be afraid of what would happen if she discovered my secret stash of nail polish.”

“I suppose parenting is at times a case of erring on the side of caution.”

Sadie nodded in firm agreement. “That’s something they will
never
tell you in the books.”

Sadie blew on her latte and then sipped it carefully before continuing.

“Then came her interest in fashion. My mother had saved all sorts of clothes over the years, and Kylie loved to drag them out and try them on. Which is fine, you know? Kids do that.”

Sadie paused to sip her drink once more.

“Except Kylie…?” Dmitri prompted.

“Except Kylie loved to place my great-grandmother’s brassieres on her head and the girdles around her waist and then march outside into the yard and announce to the neighbors that she was Thor, God of Thunder.”

Dmitri choked on his coffee, and Sadie smiled. “Yeah, that was my reaction too when they told me. But of course, nothing compares to six months ago when she decided she was finally old enough to drive. She waited until Jasper was occupied with something else, stole the keys to his car, started it up, and clapped her hands with glee as it rolled out of the driveway and down the street.”

Dmitri’s eyes widened with shock. “What happened?”

“Jasper realized what was going on in time to chase the car down the block and hop inside before any real damage occurred. And he keeps his keys pinned to him at all times now, by the way.”

“She’s not even five yet!” Dmitri remarked.

“I know. I figure she’s already discovered makeup, though—after the lipstick thing—and the driving issue’s already been dealt with, so at least that’s out of the way. All that’s left now is boys, piercings, and drugs.”

“You’re very optimistic,” he commented.

She grinned. “You know…cliché as it sounds, it’s Kylie herself that gives me whatever optimism I have. After she was born, I was on this huge upstroke. I had book contracts and a cooking show and a husband who loved me. My life couldn’t have been better. And then there came this huge wave of change—the cooking show failed, the contracts ran out, Ned died, and Mom was diagnosed with cancer. And there would be days where I’d just lie in bed and cry and cry until Kylie came in and pressed her nose to mine.”

Sadie shook her head. “You can’t…” She drew a breath and looked off into the distance for a moment. She took another deep breath and continued. “You can’t look into eyes identical to yours—eyes that place such complete faith and trust in you—and not make a choice to go on living. I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know how to look at her and
not
be optimistic.”

She focused on Dmitri once more. “She’s all that makes life worth fighting for.”

He raised his mug. “Here’s to Kylie, then, and all that’s right in this world.”

Sadie raised her cup. “Hear, hear.”

They drank to it. “So, what about you?” she prompted. “Any fatherly inclinations?”

He raised an eyebrow, and she rolled her eyes. “I’m just
asking
, for heaven’s sake. I didn’t ask if you wanted to be
Kylie’s
father, did I?”

He ducked his head in embarrassment. “Sorry. It’s just that I get a lot of…interest that way.”

Sadie smirked. “I bet you do, good-looking Russian man such as yourself. But you mean to tell me there’s never been anyone who actually caught your eye?”

Dmitri shrugged.

Sadie leaned her back against the booth. “Ahh, man of mystery, huh? I think you’ve watched one too many of those old movies, Mr. Velichko.”

He didn’t respond. Sadie’s curiosity sparked. She did love a challenge. Time, though. That was what was needed. Time and patience. She’d crack Dmitri Velichko yet, just wait and see.

“So why is it that you’re
really
in Hershey, hmm?”

He drained his coffee. “I’m looking into new opportunities.”

Sadie’s jaw clenched. Was he going to reveal
nothing
to her? She toyed with her latte and grew silent as the drink grew cold.

It was several moments before Dmitri spoke.

“I was looking for a change. A chance to start over. Everyone’s entitled to that, aren’t they? A second chance?”

His words struck so swift and so deep that she nearly gasped. What was it Jasper had said?

Chances, Sadie. It’s all about second chances.

She figured God was probably trying to get her attention with that one, but she decided to block it out.

“Some people use up their chances,” she quietly remarked, thinking far more about her father than Dmitri at that moment.

Dmitri frowned. “Do you really think so?”

She looked up, realizing what she’d said. She thought about it for a minute. “I don’t know, Dmitri. I guess it depends on the circumstances.”

He leveled his gaze on her and asked an unexpected question. “Are you a Christian, Sadie?”

She swallowed. “Yeah, actually, I am.”

“Then do you believe what they say—that God is a God of second chances?”

She hesitated. Where was he going with this? She answered softly, “I’d like to think so.”

He didn’t say anything more.

She frowned. “What, that’s it?”

He looked at her. “What’s it?”

“That’s all you’re gonna say?”

“That’s all I wanted to know.”

“Oh.” She hadn’t expected that.

When they returned to Sadie’s, Dmitri walked her to the door like a true gentlemen. They lingered on the front porch for a moment, him thanking her for mentioning the movie and her thanking him for buying her a latte.

She reminded him about marking the double feature on his calendar, and then he turned to go. On impulse, she grabbed his hand, and he turned.

She stared up at him, fighting a mix of confused emotions. On the one hand, she found him deceptive and conniving—not telling her his true reasons for being in town. But then, on the other hand, he really was quite handsome and awfully charming.

It had been a long time since Sadie had been kissed by a man. Not since Ned had died. For a moment she stared into the cool, pale wells of his eyes and wondered what it would be like to be kissed by someone as good-looking as Dmitri Velichko.

She practically dared him to do it, and whatever he saw in her eyes must have sparked him to take the initiative, because the next thing she knew, he leaned in and their lips met. It took her a moment to adjust to the sensation. Other than Kylie’s, no other lips had touched hers in several years.

Once she got used to it, a certain familiarity returned. As the kiss lingered, she waited…for what, she wasn’t certain. Whistles? Bells? Fireworks? The horn section of a band?