One Plus One Makes Marriage
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“Wait.”
When he turned around, he found that she’d caught up to him again. She was holding out his jacket. Annoyed at forgetting it, he took the jacket from her and shrugged into it. She was still clutching the ridiculous dog.
Melanie tugged at his sleeve, brushing it off with her other hand. “Lint,” she explained, when he looked at her quizzically, pulling away his arm. “Wouldn’t want you getting dusty on my account.”
Why did her eyes look as if she was enjoying some sort of secret amusement? Lance wondered. And why should he care what she was enjoying, or what she was even thinking, for that matter?
He didn’t, he reminded himself. “Just pay the fine,” was all he said as he walked out.
In the middle of ringing up a sale, Joy excused herself for a moment and went to Melanie.
“Why did you slip that dalmatian into his pocket?” she wanted to know. Melanie had told her more than once that the piece was not for sale, merely for display. “He said he didn’t want it.”
Melanie looked at her innocently, though a smile played on her lips. “What makes you think I slipped anything into his pocket?”
“Open your hand,” Joy instructed. When Melanie did, it was empty. Joy just shook her head. “I don’t think he’s the kind of guy who’d enjoy having you practice your sleight of hand on him. He doesn’t strike me as the type who likes magic.”
“He might not like it,” Melanie agreed, looking toward the doorway. “But he’s the type who definitely looks as if he needs a little magic in his life.”
“Oh, miss...”
Joy flashed an apologetic smile at her customer and hurried back to the register. “You’d think that just being here, selling these things would be enough magic,” she said to Melanie. She knew what Melanie was about. There were times when her best friend’s heart was just too big for her own good.
One of the other customers beckoned to her. Melanie nodded and went to the woman. “There’s never enough magic in the world,” Melanie told Joy softly in reply.
Joy merely sighed. There was no arguing with Melanie when she was like this.
His first reaction, when he put his hand into his pocket feeling for his keys and found the figurine, was to turn around and give the damn dog back to her. But that would mean returning to the shop—and to her. And he was reluctant to do that. Lance didn’t like facing things he didn’t understand unless he was in some way prepared to tackle them. He didn’t understand Melanie McCloud or the abject friendliness she seemed so willing to tender. Everyone had a motive, a secret agenda they tried to adhere to. What was hers?
Until he figured it out, he didn’t see himself going back there to face that supposedly guileless smile and those blue eyes that looked as if they were fathoms deep.
So he’d kept the tiny symbol of a life that wasn’t really a part of him any longer. Kept it until he came into his office and tossed it on his desk where it promptly disappeared into the piles of reports that he had temporarily inherited from Kelly.
He found the figurine again the next day, not that he was looking for it. What he was looking for was the report on the Logan warehouse, a place that had burned down to the ground after being inspected thoroughly only the month before. Supposedly, the fire had been an accident. He still had his doubts about that.
Just as he’d had his doubts about the woman who’d somehow managed to sneak this into his pocket when he’d specifically refused it.
Muttering under his breath, Lance studied the small, foolishly grinning dog. Waste of china, he thought, turning it around in his hand.
The scent of vanilla nudged its way into the cluttered room that usually smelled of sweat and stale air, teasing his senses. Reminding him of her and those improbable dimples that beguiled him.
She was here, he realized. In the station. In his office.
He turned his chair around slowly, as if unwilling to find her there, eating into his space. But find her there he did, standing in the doorway, looking fresher than anyone had a right to be.
He frowned. What was she doing here, anyway? Maybe she’d come about the dog. He wouldn’t put it past her to use it as an excuse.
“Something I can do for you?”
He was holding the figurine she’d given him in his hand. She was right, there was a softer side to him. Melanie’s mouth curved. “You kept it.”
Why did such a simple smile have the effect of a knockout punch on him? The whole thing was beyond ridiculous. Annoyed at his reaction and at her finding him this way, he shrugged.
“I was just about to throw it out.” But he continued to hold it.
Melanie merely smiled at the gruff protest. “If you were going to do that, you would have done it when you found it in your pocket.” She’d watched him a second before coming in. He’d picked up the dalmatian and looked at it, a sad expression on his face before turning his chair toward the window. What could he have been thinking of that made him look so sad?
No one should feel that sad, or that alone.
Instead of tossing it into the trash, he just dropped the dog carelessly onto his desk. There was enough paper spread all over to pad the fall.
“How did you get it into my pocket?” he wanted to know. He distinctly remembered seeing it in her hand after he’d taken his jacket from her.
It came so naturally to her, she had to stop to remember. “Sleight of hand.” The frown on his face deepened. “One of my mother’s friends was a magician. My Aunt Elaine put him up at the house for a while when he was down on his luck. He paid her back by teaching me a few tricks.”
Sounded like she’d grown up in the middle of a circus. That could go a long way in accounting for her attitude.
“Like coming into a firehouse and trying to get your fines taken care of?” He assumed that she thought she would have another go at him to try to make him change his mind about filing the violations. If so, she was out of luck and too late. He’d filed them as soon as he’d returned, dalmatian in his pocket notwithstanding.
“Already done.” She realized he probably thought she’d asked someone to rescind them for her. She could tell by his expression. What had made him so cynical? “I paid them,” she added to clear up any lingering doubt.