Michael Carmody looked her full in the face. “I don’t know for sure, but I’ve got an idea that someone hurt you. And I’m sorry.” He stood up and reached for her hands, and Diana shocked herself by letting him take them. With his eyes on hers, he said, “But I’m not that guy.”
She pulled her hands free, turning away. “You’re all that guy,” she said.
“No.” Michael’s voice was gentle but insistent, and somehow he was right in front of her, turning her toward him, with one hand holding her hand, the other touching her chin, guiding her face toward his. “No, we’re not.”
They were so close that she could see his eyes were a mixture of hazel and green; so close that she could smell him, and whatever combination of soap and shampoo and aftershave he used smelled good to her. He was cupping her face, very gently, not pushing her, not forcing it, letting her be the one to move closer, to tilt her head up and look in his eyes and, finally, to press her mouth against his.
It was a sweet, chaste kiss, the first real kiss of her life, and Diana felt every part of it—the warmth of his palm on her cheek, his thumb, moving gently along her cheekbone; his lips, warm and soft amid the prickly patch of his beard; the comforting bulk of his body, blocking the wind, sheltering her, as surely as a house. Her drew her against him, his hand at the base of her neck. “Okay?” he whispered.
Her skin was tingling, her breath was coming fast. Instead of answering, she put her mouth against his again, tilting her head back, deepening the kiss. She felt a sigh shudder through him. His barn coat hung open, and when he pulled her against him and wrapped his coat around her, it felt like coming in out of the cold to stand by a fire. His plaid shirt brushed against her chest, and she could imagine how it would feel if she was naked, her breasts pressed against the soft flannel. She shivered, and slipped her hands underneath his coat, gliding them down along his back and back up to his shoulders, letting her cheek rest against his chest. She could hear his heart, could feel her head rise and fall with his breaths. His hand made gentle circles on her back as he held her against him, and she felt like a storm-tossed dory that had come through the wind and the waves and had found its way back to the shelter of the shore. Our Lady of Safe Harbor, she thought… but when he bent to kiss her again, she pulled away.
“I have to go,” she said. “I—I have things to do.”
Michael looked almost comically crestfallen. If he was a dog, his ears and his tail would all be drooping. “Tell you what,” he said. He bent down and scooped up a handful of shells. “I could ask Maudie—the one with the tomatoes—to sell these at the farmers’ market. When you come back—if you come back—I’ll give you whatever she makes.”
“Well, Maudie should get some of the money, if she’s doing the selling,” said Diana. “And what about you? Do you want an agent’s cut?”
“I’ll take an IOU,” he said. “You promise to go on a date with me this weekend.”
Diana considered. “Deal,” she said, and extended her hand. Gravely, Michael shook it, then he pulled her into another bear hug. Diana leaned into his warmth, feeling safer, more at home than she had in a long, long time.
11
Daisy
The morning after she’d met the other Diana, Daisy slept through the night and woke up after seven o’clock, well-rested for the first time in what felt like months. She always slept more soundly when she had a bed to herself. It was as if she was so attuned to Hal’s moods and his movements that every time he rolled over or sighed in his sleep, part of her would wake up enough to notice.
She took a long shower in the hotel bathroom, enjoying the selection of bath products. Once she’d checked out, she wheeled her neat suitcase to Petrossian on Fifty-Ninth and Seventh Avenue, where she sat at one of the four tables in the café at the back of the shop. She had smoked salmon eggs Benedict for breakfast and bought a pound of lox to take home before heading to the Pick-a-Bagel across the street. Philadelphia’s bagels were just as good as the ones in New York, but there was no telling Vernon Shoemaker that, and woe betide her if she ever came back from the city without his everything bagels. She bought a dozen for Danny and Jesse, another dozen for her father-in-law.
Vernon still lived in the apartment in a retirement community in Bryn Mawr where he’d resided back when Daisy had first met him. Hal had called her, desperate for help, and the following afternoon, Daisy cut her last literature class of the year and drove two and a half hours to Bryn Mawr. Her client had turned out to be a scowling gentleman with pale, watery eyes and the most ridiculously elaborate comb-over she’d ever seen.