Baby Steps. Karen Templeton

“I’m surprised you haven’t already melted, my friend. Maria’s already smacked me twice for staring!” He leaned close enough for C.J. to smell twenty years’ worth of sopapillas on his white apron. “These women who think we want them skinny, they got it all wrong, no? Give me a woman I’m not afraid is going to break, anytime.”

      C.J. swallowed a smile. Felix’s wife certainly fit the bill there. He handed a ten to the grinning proprietor, told him to keep the change, then stood as Dana emerged from the restroom…and a vaguely familiar female voice said, “C.J.? What on earth are you doing here?” right behind him.

      He turned to find himself face-to-face with an artfully streaked blonde in one of those short, shapeless dresses and a tennis visor, flanked on either side by miniature versions of herself, twin girls who could have been anywhere between three and seven.

      He thought back. Five, he decided, had to be the cut-off.

      “I thought that was you when I came in,” the woman said, perfect teeth flashing, the ends of her straight, gleaming hair skimming her shoulders. “We don’t live far, the girls love the milkshakes here.” The grin widened. “My goodness, it’s been way too long. How are you? You look terrific!”

      “Um, you, too.” Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Dana’s approach, her raised eyebrows. “Well, well,” C.J. said, glancing at the little girls. “You’ve certainly been busy, haven’t you…?”

      “Oh. Hello.” The blonde offered Dana a cool smile, and C.J. thought, I’m dead.

      “Dana Malone, this is…”

      “Cybill Sparks,” she mercifully supplied, assessing Dana as only a female who feels her territory threatened can. Never mind that he hadn’t even seen the woman—with whom he’d had a brief (and not particularly sweet, as he recalled) affair—in years. Or that she’d clearly moved on.

      A weird blend of protectiveness and irritation spiked through C.J., even as Dana, her smile as gracious as Cybill’s was frozen, said, “C.J.’s my Realtor. We were just scouting out properties for my store.”

      Which was apparently sufficient to silence Cybill’s Incoming Threat alarm. “Oh? What do you sell?” she asked, her smile more natural again. “Not women’s clothing, I presume?”

      A moment passed. “No, a children’s store. Maybe you’ve heard of it?” Dana grinned for the twins, who had ducked behind their mother’s legs and were both smiling up at her with wide blue eyes. “Great Expectations?”

      “Ohmigod, yes! I love that store! We’re in there all the time! With four sets of grandparents, the girls get far more clothes than they could ever wear. It’s so great having someplace to unload them. Especially since I can make a few bucks on the deal.” She laughed. “Although don’t tell any of the grands!”

      “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Dana muttered, but Cybill’s attention had already slithered back to C.J. Her hand landed on his arm, her expression downright rapacious. “I’ve been meaning to call you for, gosh, ages.”

      “To let me know you were married?” C.J. said lightly.

      “No, silly, to let you know I’m divorced! My number’s the same, so give me a call sometime.” Another tooth flash. “With all those grandparents, it’s no trouble at all finding a sitter on short notice! Nice to meet you,” she tossed dismissively in Dana’s direction, then steered the children toward the counter.

      Dana waited until they’d gotten outside to laugh.

      “What’s so damned funny?” C.J. grumbled.

      “You had no idea who she was, did you?”

      “Of course I knew who she was,” he said, giving his lungs a second to adjust to the breath-sucking heat. “It was just her name that temporarily escaped me.”

      “That is seriously pathetic.”

      “Not nearly as pathetic as the way she threw herself at me,” he muttered.

      “True. For a moment there I thought she was going to unhinge her jaws and swallow you whole. I take it she’s an old girlfriend?” she asked over his grunt.

      “She’d like to think so. But I swear, the kids aren’t mine.”

      She chuckled again, a sound he realized he enjoyed. Very much. He stole a glance at her profile as they walked to the car, thinking what a bundle of contradictions she was—self-deprecating one minute, completely comfortable with teasing him the next. About another woman’s putting the moves on him, no less.

      He literally shook his head to clear it.

      “So what happened?” Dana said as they got to the car and C.J. beeped it unlocked.

      “Nothing, in the long run. Much to her chagrin.”

      Once in the car, they clicked their seat belts in place almost simultaneously. “So tell me…” Dana briefly checked her makeup in the visor mirror, then turned to him, amusement glittering in her eyes. “Do women launch themselves at you on a regular basis?”

      C.J. wasn’t sure which startled him more—the question itself or the ingenuousness underpinning it. He met Dana’s curious, open gaze and thought, There’s something different about this one, even as he said, “You do realize there’s no way I can answer that and keep either my dignity or your respect intact?”

      “My…respect?”

      He twisted the key in the ignition, backed out of the lot. “A Realtor who doesn’t have his clients’ respect isn’t going to get very far.”

      “I see.” She faced front again, severing what he realized had been a gossamer-thin thread of connection, leaving him feeling both annoyed and relieved, which made no sense whatsoever. “Thanks,” she said, her voice definitely a shade darker than moments before. “For the soda, I mean. I needed that. And I promise not to be such a worrywart on Friday.”

      “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” he said lightly, wondering why her soft laugh in response sent a chill marching up his spine.

      In combat boots.

      Sometime later, Dana let herself into her parents’ Northeast Heights home, breathing in the pomander of swamp-cooled air, that night’s fried chicken and a brief whiff of fresh roses, at once comforting and disquieting in its immutability. Her pull here tonight was equally comforting, equally disquieting. Tonight, she needed home, even though, paradoxically, this was the one place guaranteed to remind her of those areas of her life currently running on empty.

      She found her father first, molded to a leather recliner in the family room, a can of diet soda clutched in one thick-fingered hand, the baseball game on the movie-theater-sized TV screen reflected in his glasses.

      “Hey, Daddy. Whatcha up to?”

      Gene Malone jerked up his head and grinned, his thinning hair fanned out behind his head like a limp peacock’s tail. “Hey, there, baby!” he said over the announcer’s mellow drone. “What brings you around?”

      Her father, a Sandia Labs retiree, was rounder, and balder, than he used to be, but the humor simmering behind his pea soup-colored eyes was the same as always. Dana bent over to kiss his forehead, then crackled onto the plastic-armored sofa beside the chair, staring at the TV. “Nothing much. Just hadn’t seen y’all in a bit.” Trying to keep from frowning, she studied his face. “How’re you feeling?”

      “Never better.” A heart “episode” the year before had scared the willies out of them; unfortunately, she strongly suspected he wasn’t following his diet and exercise regimen as scrupulously as he should. Especially when he said, “You know, this eating more chicken and fish routine really seems to be helping. I haven’t felt this good in ages.”

      Uh-huh. Somehow, she didn’t think fried chicken was what the doctor had in mind. “Glad to hear it, Daddy. Where’s Mama?”