Detective Daddy. Jane Toombs

      “You’re a sweetheart to say so.”

      Which he deciphered to mean she didn’t believe a word of it, so he decided she wouldn’t believe anything else he might have to say about her appearance. If he admitted that he found her beautiful, she would attribute it to kindness on his part. Gallantry, even.

      “There’s more than one who’d tell you I don’t have a kind bone in my body,” he told her. “Or a sweet heart.”

      He could see his words had confused her.

      “You’re wrong about what I want,” he added. “I’d like a photo of you as well as one of Peanut.”

      “Peanut? Is that how you think of her?” She smiled. “I guess she is sort of tiny, at that. Maybe your brother or sister will take one of the three of us. A memento of the April storm.”

      Megan would, he was sure. A memento. But that was what their time together would become, after all.

      Dan reached a gentle finger to brush a strand of hair from her cheek, his touch lingering on the smoothness of her skin for a moment. “Yes,” he said. “Something to remember.”

      He already suspected the hard part would be forgetting.