Return of the Runaway Bride (20 page)

There were some things she could do something about, and some things she couldn't. Focusing on the pristine white wall, she put all her efforts into the job at hand.

An hour later, Savanna dropped the roller into the empty paint tray.

"How about a break?" she asked.

Daniel stood and stretched the kinks from his back.
"Sounds good to me."

"I'll get us something to drink."

He caught her wrist as she passed him, and he turned her to face him.

In a husky voice, he said, "You look young in that getup.
Really young."

She hitched up the neckline of her t-shirt from where it had slipped to reveal her bare shoulder. The self-conscious action forced her to look away from Daniel's serious gaze.

"Is that supposed to be a compliment?" The teasing quip belied the disquiet she felt.

"Oh," he was quick to add, "I know you're a full-grown woman underneath. I just thought you'd like to know you could still pass for an ornery teenager if you ever had the inclination to."

"Ornery teenager?"

The grin that played on his mouth held a mixture of sensuousness and boyish charm, a combination Savanna found overwhelmingly alluring.

"And if I had the inclination?" The seductive sound of her voice surprised and pleased her both at the same time.

"Well," he
said,
his own tone tantalizingly sexy, "I thought, if you were ever in the mood for a little... fun."

As he said the last word, he reached up and smudged a glob of paint onto the tip of her nose.

"Hey!" Savanna swiped the back of her hand across the slick wetness. "You want to play, huh?"

She whirled around, grabbed the paint roller and wielded it like a weapon. Bending her legs, she lowered her center of gravity and balanced her weight first on one foot, then the other.

"You dirty rat," she imitated the gangsters from old-time movies. "I'm between you and the door, see. You'll never get out alive." She chuckled.
"Or at least unpainted."

"Now wait a minute," he said. He straightened and took a step toward her. "I didn't mean to start anything."

"It's too late for regrets now,
Mugsy
."

Daniel laughed. "What? Have we been transported to some 1940s black and white gangster movie?" He took another step forward. "Come on," he coaxed. "Give me the roller."

He stretched out his hand and Savanna saw a perfect opportunity, an opportunity of which she intended to take full advantage.

With the speed of a jackrabbit, she pushed the roller up the length of his flattened palm.

"I can't believe you did that!"

Daniel crouched like a defensive linebacker and Savanna shrieked. She dodged past him, but he caught her around the waist. They tumbled to the floor, a laughing, squealing, paint-flinging mess.

"You shouldn't have done that, Copper." Now he, too, mimicked hackneyed films of yesteryear.

She struggled under his weight. The hint of threat in his words may have been made teasingly, but she knew he meant to retaliate.

"Take this, you dirty rat."

Savanna felt his paint-streaked hand span her thigh and, for an instant, a jolt of desire shot through her. But then his fingers trailed down her leg, leaving behind a wet, sticky streak of paint. She screeched and laughed at the same time.

They sat up, both breathing hard from their escapade. She saw him look at her and a fresh bout of chuckling had him holding his stomach.

"What's so funny?"

"I think," he commented, pulling out his handkerchief, "that you came out of this a little more painted than you intended."

He gently wiped her jaw, and she realized that she must have pressed her cheek against the paint roller during the tussle.

Daniel stood and then held out his hand to help her up.

"Truce?" he asked.

Savanna grinned up at him.
"Truce."

"Go get
yourself
a shower," he said. "I'll wash up at the kitchen sink."

"I'll hurry," she called over her shoulder.

As she came down the stairs, showered, dressed and paint-free, Savanna heard the strains of a tinkling Mother Goose tune floating in from outside. She ran down the last few steps and over to the screen door.

"It's the ice cream man.
The ice cream man!"

Running out onto the porch, she searched the street.

"You want a cone?"

She turned to see Daniel sitting on the porch, two glasses of iced tea on the small table beside the rocking chair.

"I'd love one," she said gleefully. "I used to get an ice cream treat almost every day when I was a kid."

The excitement twinkling in her eyes and her wide smile took Daniel's breath away. God, he loved just looking at her. Her carefree exuberance was downright irresistible.

"Wait right here," he told her.

He jogged to the curb and flagged down the truck.

"Two vanilla cones, please."
He fished some dollar bills from his pocket. "Oh," he added, "dip one of those in chocolate sprinkles."

On his way toward the house, he studied Savanna as she sat on the step waiting for him. Her whole body conveyed the anticipation she felt. Daniel could feel it himself. He'd enjoyed getting to know her again over the past week.

A small frown wrinkled his brow as a tiny voice in his head asked,
What
will you do when you wake up one morning and find that she's abandoned you, and the hospital, and all the people of Fulton?

He knew it was going to happen. Just as sure as the sun would rise, he was certain that Savanna would someday leave him and the people at the hospital high and dry. Well, he might not
know
it, but he'd be a fool if he didn't remain vigilant of the possibility.

"Damn it," he muttered under his breath, willing the dark thoughts to the back of his brain. Maybe he wouldn't even be around to deal with the mess she was sure to cause.
Maybe.
But if he was still in Fulton when she disappointed the townspeople, he'd deal with it. He had once, he could do it again. But for the moment, he wanted to enjoy the simple pleasure of just being with her.

"Here you go." He handed her the cone covered in chocolate sprinkles and then sat on the porch step next to her. "And by the way, it was an ice cream woman."

He watched her tongue flick out to capture some of the chocolate candies coating the ice cream.

"
Mmmm
."

Tension knotted in his stomach, hot and tight. He wanted her, he couldn't deny it. But his instinct for self-preservation saved him.
Kept him from rubbing his thumb over her ice-cream-coated lips.
Kept him from tasting the chocolate sprinkles that were melting on her tongue.

"You know," she commented, "Fulton is such a beautiful place. The people are true neighbors. They care about each other. You don't find that much where I live. Don't get me wrong, I've made some good friends. But it's just not the same."

Daniel licked at a drip of ice cream that was sliding down his sugar cone.

"I've never seen an ice cream truck traveling down the street I live on." Savanna wiped at the corners of her mouth with her fingers. "If someone from Fulton had a problem and needed to call the police, chances are he'd know the policeman, feel comfortable that someone was concerned." She grimaced. "In the city, you're lucky to have the police show up. And they're so hardened by the things they experienced, they don't have it in them to feel excessive concern. Maintaining the law is just another job in the city."

What she said was most probably true, Daniel mused.

"Towns like Fulton take care of their own," Savanna went on. "I remember the Christmas before I left there was a family whose house burned down. Mom and I took
them
blankets and clothes."

From the faraway look in Savanna's eyes, Daniel could tell she was caught up in a memory.

"That family told us about the help they'd received. Not just household items, but money and groceries, even toys and gifts for the children's Christmas." She
nodded,
her eyes still distant. "Fulton takes care of its own...where, in the city, there's so much coming and going, it's hard to even get to know who's living next door to you."

Daniel took a bite of his cone. Fulton was a good town, a wholesome town. Everything Savanna said was true. He could easily recall people who had been helped and cared for when they were unable to do for themselves. Hadn't friends and neighbors showed his family kindness and caring when his father had died? And Fulton had other quaint qualities.

Only in a small town would you find the school buses dropping children off right at their front doors,
or mailmen who stopped in for coffee and a discussion of local affairs. Or ice cream trucks offering frozen confections that had children screaming with delight.

Fulton was a town he wanted to live in. Daniel sat up straight, realizing in that instant that he'd made an important decision.

He looked at the woman beside him. It had taken Savanna, someone who had left Fulton and returned to notice all that she had been missing, to make him see that he never wanted to leave.

"Listen," he said, popping the last bit of cone into his mouth. "I have to run. There's something I need to do."

"But, your jacket…"

"I'll get it later," he promised, then strode off with purpose in his step.

~
 
~
 
~

Humidity weighed down the hot air. Thin cirrus clouds scudded high across the night sky, casting lacy shadows on the lawn. The quiet was heavenly. The temperature inside the air-conditioned house would have been a whole lot more comfortable. Still Savanna continued to sit on the porch swing, sipping at her half-empty glass of merlot.

After Daniel had left in such a hurry this afternoon, she'd cleaned up the paint mess and then she'd pulled out the file she'd been compiling on the gala dinner. The few phone contacts she'd intended to make had turned into nearly two dozen calls made and received, and by the time she'd finished for the day, her ear actually hurt and her neck had been stiff from holding the phone in the crook of her shoulder as she'd talked, shuffled papers and taken notes.

Her mind had continued to whirr with thoughts about the fund-raising event as she'd eaten a little dinner and then slipped into the shower. She should have gone to bed hours ago, but organizing these events energized her to the point that sleep was often elusive.

Sitting here enjoying the night, absorbing the calm, was just what she needed.

A pair of headlights caught her attention and she watched as a car moved along the street, slowing as it neared her house. She recognized Daniel's car even before it had a chance to come to a full stop. He sat behind the steering wheel for nearly a full minute, the engine continuing to purr.

She stood and took the few steps that brought her out of the shadows so he could see her. Moonlight struck the satin of her short kimono-type robe and lit the white fabric like a beacon.