"Damn." Daniel scooped the Pop-Tart off the floor and into the trash. "Damn. Hell. And crap!"
The sight of Mary Elise in the archway halted the flow of bottled curses. Mary Elise in his clothes. His gray sweatpants and a T-shirt from a missile-testing project had never looked so good. Fire-red hair streamed over both her shoulders, pert br**sts nudging the well-worn cotton to part the curtain of hair.
He needed air. He needed space. Both running low in his small condo.
Daniel turned away and hoped Mary Elise would get the not-so-subtle message that he wasn't in the mood for chitchat. Maybe she would go comfort Trey and leave him the hell alone. He realized his avoidance tactics were juvenile and didn't give a damn.
He jerked open the cabinet to look for … he had no idea what. He just knew he didn't want this attraction, and he definitely didn't want a soul-searching conversation about Trey and their father and the past with Mary Elise. He wanted to smile with her, joke about the incongruous notion of him packing Scooby-Doo lunch boxes and attending school plays. Anything to keep from facing so many truths.
First on the list, his relationship with his father sucked. With that as his only model, he didn't hold out much hope of his ability to parent two needy boys.
Next, and worse, came the gut-scraping knowledge that he hadn't done right by this woman, a person he'd cared about more than anyone then. Not that he had a clue how to tap into the emotional crap he knew she needed. Another blot against his parenting potential.
And damned if he didn't want to plunge right back into the same mistakes, if it meant a chance to plunge into her one more time.
He let his hand settle on a jar of peanut butter and reached for the silverware drawer.
Apparently Mary Elise didn't take hints. Or plain ignored them as she appeared in the kitchen.
He recognized the tilt of her chin well. She might be a more subdued version of the animated spitfire who'd trailed his tracks and kept him from falling irretrievably into mischief with her dry wit and wisdom. Yet even subdued to half power, this woman had an unmistakable will. The furrow in her brow said it all.
She intended to talk.
Given his self-control lay in the trash right beside that Pop-Tart, he figured the bedroom door and wide expanse of bed waiting a few steps away didn't offer much hope for getting through their conversation with an inch of sanity left.
Chapter 6
Standing beside Daniel in the galley kitchen, Mary Elise forced her brow to smooth and edged aside her urge to offer advice. Danny should hone his own instincts in dealing with the boys. She could already gauge from the way he'd talked to Trey that his intuition was on target. Sure, she might approach things differently, but that didn't make his way wrong.
And therein lay the core truth. He needed to set patterns in place that he could maintain, not her way, since she would soon be gone.She shouldn't tell him what to say to Trey, but she couldn't leave him alone with all that pain pulsing through the small kitchen. The echo of Franklin Baker's voice from the answering machine had shaken her, even if she couldn't hear the words. She could only imagine what Daniel must be feeling.>Great. That "and stuff" would no doubt be unfit for kids' eyes, like the time he'd returned to find Hannah waiting with a shrimp casserole and a ribbed tank top that encased gravity-defying double-D's. And Hannah was smart as well as hot—a biochemist researcher at the medical university, for crying out loud—what more could a man want? Yet still he wasn't interested in the brainy blonde.
Blonde? Not redhead. Crap.
Two more hang-ups cycled through.
He flipped the coffeemaker on as the next message picked up. "Daniel? Elaine. Uh, just wanted to let you know I'll be in Charleston on business next week and, uh, thought maybe we could, well, have dinner or something. I'll cook. Well, call me."
An image of auburn-haired Elaine taunted him. Daniel glanced heavenward and barked, "Okay, okay, Big Guy. You've made your point."
He'd actually had a semiserious relationship with Elaine, a chef at a five-star joint. He'd even donned a tie for her once, not that he hesitated in breaking things off six months ago when he'd transferred from California. He'd cited the long-distance-relationship reason, already realizing they wouldn't work out. She'd offered to pack up her ginzu knives and follow him.
Damn, but he felt bad.
Not bad enough to mislead her by letting her food processor back into his life. Like his life wasn't screwed up enough right now anyway. And then he still had to puzzle through whatever had Mary Elise so on edge. Daniel reached on top of the refrigerator for a box of Pop-Tarts.
"Is she a good cook?" Trey's voice drifted from behind him.
Pivoting, Daniel ripped open the pastry box. "Run that by me again?"
His brother stood in the archway, knobby knees showing just below the hem of a Thunderbirds air show T-shirt. Not a hint of bedhead in sight in his dark hair, the kid carried a puffed-chest air and haughty look that would have done their old man proud.
"Is that Elaine lady on the answering machine really a good cook?"
"Yeah, she's a great cook. If you're into stir-fried sprouts and snails." Daniel pulled out a pack of Pop-Tarts and tossed aside the box.
"Actually, I like escargot. Calamari too."
Figures. "Charleston has awesome seafood restaurants. Shrimp trawlers bring stuff in fresh every day."