Beauty & the Blue Angel Read online

  He watched her and thought that if the world stopped right now, he could spend eternity just looking at her. The play of sunlight on her features, the way her blond hair seemed to nearly glow, how her lips parted in a soft smile that was at once seductive and so innocent… Daisy Cusak was getting to him. Deep down inside. And he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to stop it from happening.

  Which should have worried him.

  The fact that it didn’t worried him even more.

  The next couple of weeks flew by.

  Her maternity leave from the restaurant was going by so fast, Daisy could hardly believe it. And that was mostly due to Alex.

  He spent nearly every day with her and Angel. When she knew he was on his way, Daisy caught herself watching the street below for a sign of him, like a teenager waiting for her prom date to show up. She knew it was a mistake. Every night she lay awake in her bed and told herself that she should put a stop to it before things got out of hand. And every morning she leaped for the phone when it rang, hoping it was him.

  It was nuts and Daisy knew it. Though she really enjoyed spending time with him, there was always a logical little voice in the back of her mind reminding her that this wasn’t real. Sooner or later, Alex would be shipping out. As a naval pilot, he’d be going wherever they sent him, and she’d be nothing more than a quickly fading, pleasant memory. But then, even if he wasn’t in the navy, even if he was staying here, in Boston, this situation wouldn’t continue for long. Daisy was a nobody—and one of these days, Alex Barone would realize that. He came from a wealthy, influential family. She came from…Heck, she didn’t even know what she came from.

  And she was suddenly very glad that Angel was as tiny as she was. At least the baby wouldn’t have any real memories of the man who’d invaded their world for a short time. Angel wouldn’t miss him. Wouldn’t wonder where he was, if he was safe, if he was thinking about her.

  Though her brain raced with the inevitable goodbye to come, Daisy told herself to relax, stop thinking and just enjoy Alex while he was there. After all, having a gorgeous, kind, thoughtful man pay attention to you wasn’t all bad.

  “So what do you think?” Alex asked. The tone of his voice told her it wasn’t the first time he’d posed the question.

  “Hmm?” She came up out of her mental wanderings and blinked.

  “The picture?” he prodded, smiling. When she still didn’t respond, he nodded toward the storefront window on the street beside them.

  The words Kid’s Pix shimmered in neon-green and yellow above the open doorway to the shop. In the display window was a darling portrait of a laughing baby dressed in a tiny tiger suit.

  Daisy smiled and shook her head. “Angel’s too young to be much of a photography subject. She’d sleep right through it.”

  He glanced down at the snoozing baby, comfy in her stroller. “Probably,” he conceded, then lifted his gaze to Daisy’s. Her stomach did the odd pitch and roll she was getting all too familiar with around him. “But it doesn’t matter. You’ll be holding her, anyway.”

  “Me?” She looked from him to the photography shop and back again, shaking her head all the while. “I don’t think so. I mean, I’m not dressed for having my picture taken and—”

  “First, you look beautiful,” he said, “and second, don’t you want a nice picture of you and the baby? Something you can show her when she’s a teenager and you want to remind her that you knew her when?”

  Daisy’s lips twitched. “I suppose your mother did that?”

  “Oh yeah.” He shifted his feet into a wide-apart, braced-for-anything stance and folded his arms across his chest. Something he usually did when he was about to get stubborn, Daisy’d noticed. “Mom had stacks of incriminating photos of all of us. One wrong move and she was liable to show naked bath pictures to our friends.”

  “She was not.”

  Alex tilted his head to one side and looked thoughtful. “You know, she never actually did it, now that you mention it. At least, not to me. The threat was always more than enough. But my brother Reese swears Mom showed his old girlfriend the picture of him dressed up as a sheep for the school Christmas play. And Gina actually burned her baby pictures to avoid the threat altogether. Mom’s still pretty ticked off about that.”

  Daisy chuckled, but a part of her worried. Listening to him, she knew just how important a child’s memories of his mother were. And there was so much she didn’t know about being a mother. How would she have learned? She’d never had a role model. No one to watch. What if she messed it all up? What if she was so terrible at this whole motherhood thing that she ended up scarring poor Angel for life?

  “Okay, that story was supposed to make you smile.”

  “It’s just…” She walked around to the front of the stroller, squatted in front of it and smoothed the baby’s blanket. Her tiny daughter’s vulnerability struck her hard, and Daisy heard herself wonder aloud. “What if I suck at this?”

  “At what?”

  “At being her mother.”

  “You won’t.”

  She tipped her head back to look up at him, and studied his face. “And since you’ve known me for a few weeks, you can assure me of this…how?”

  Alex crouched beside her and met her gaze dead-on, with a seriousness that sent a shiver straight to the center of her soul.

  “Because I’ve known you for a few weeks.”

  Covering her hand with his, he gave her fingers a quick squeeze and somehow managed to take a grip on her heart, too. She looked into those dark brown eyes and felt herself drift just a little deeper into the warmth she saw there.

  “Sometimes,” he was saying, “you can meet someone and in a few days know them better than others you might have known for years.” He pulled his hand back and smiled at her. “I know you, Daisy Cusak. You are a good mother.”

  “There hasn’t been a whole lot of mothering to judge me on yet.”

  He shook his head slowly and smiled. “Every time you touch her, it shows. Besides, the first tip-off is bad mothers don’t worry about if they’re good at it or not.”

  She wanted to believe him. She wanted to be everything her daughter would ever need. But she couldn’t be. Even the best mom couldn’t be a daddy. And the thought that someday Angel might feel cheated because she didn’t have a father was enough to rattle Daisy. Then thoughts of the years to come and all of the things that she would have to handle alone sent a cold chill rolling along her spine.

  In her stroller, Angel twisted, kicked at her soft, pale green blanket, waved her tiny fists in the air and tugged at her mother’s heart all at the same time. Whatever she needed, Daisy would find a way to provide it. She might make mistakes in raising her, but it wouldn’t be for lack of trying.

  “So,” Alex asked, giving Daisy a smile that curled her toes and set tiny flames whispering through her bloodstream, “are you ready to take your first step into motherhood and start building that blackmail file?”

  “Yes,” she said, “I think I am.” Besides, she wanted to remember today. This day spent with Alex, when the three of them had felt so much like a family.

  Eight

  “I don’t see what the big problem is.” Daisy’s waitress friend Joan smiled down at the baby, cradled in the crook of her arm. While she talked to Daisy, she kept grinning and making silly faces at Angel. “I mean, geez, we should all have such terrible ordeals to live through. A rich, handsome man wants to spend time with you. Why don’t you go step out in front of a truck and end the misery?”

  “Very funny.” Daisy folded Angel’s laundry and set it in a neat stack beside her on the couch. Joan had stopped by on her way in to work the lunch shift at Antonio’s. And she hadn’t stopped talking about Alex yet.

  Late morning sunshine poured in from the single window overlooking the back alley. It wasn’t much of a view, but with her window box filled with determinedly cheerful yellow and orange nasturtiums, Daisy could fool herself into thinking she had a lovely garden j
ust outside. The faded, overstuffed furniture was comfortable and welcoming, and just being here, in the nest she’d built for herself, gave her a feeling of warm satisfaction.

  Which Joan was trying to shake up.

  “Well, come on.” Her friend made big eyes at the baby. “You tell her, Angel. Tell Mommy to just chill out and enjoy herself already.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Daisy countered. It had been nearly a week since that day in the mall when she and Angel had posed for their first picture together. And in that week, Alex had become even more of a regular visitor than he had been before. He would show up carrying a pizza, or a couple of videos or Chinese food or… Daisy shook her head. She just didn’t know what was coming next. And that was part of the problem. She liked knowing. She liked having a plan. Being able to see far enough down the road in front of her so that there were no surprises.

  Unfortunately, around Alex she’d discovered way too many bends in the road to be able to see very far at all.

  Joan slowly sank onto the other end of the sofa, curled her legs up under her and shifted Angel to her other arm. “I just don’t get it. Why does this bug you so much? Do you hate the guy?” As soon as she said the words, Joan’s face clouded up and her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Hey, is that it? Do you want him to leave you alone and he’s not? Is he like a stalker or something? ’Cause if he is, I’ll talk to Big Mike at the restaurant and he’ll—”

  “No!” Daisy spoke up so quickly it startled the baby, who jumped in Joan’s arms. Guiltily, Daisy lowered her voice again. “It’s not like that. And for heaven’s sake, I don’t need Big Mike.” Just the thought of the two hundred fifty pound wrestler-turned-waiter was enough to make Daisy smile. He looked so big and mean, yet was as protective of the waitresses as a mother hen with her chicks.

  Sighing, she leaned back, still clutching a tiny pink T-shirt. “The problem isn’t that I don’t like him. It’s that I do.”

  “Then I repeat—chill out and enjoy.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  To Joan these things were black-and-white. But then, Joan didn’t have to worry about a baby, did she? Yet even as that defense went through her mind, Daisy had to discount it. It wasn’t Angel keeping her from making more of Alex’s attentions than she was. This was all Daisy. She’d trusted a man once—and he’d left her alone and pregnant.

  Not that she thought Alex was that kind of guy. But then she hadn’t thought Jeff was, either. Had she?

  “I know what you’re thinking.”

  Daisy sighed. “Suddenly everybody’s a mind reader.”

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing. Go on. What am I thinking?”

  “You’re comparing Alex Barone to that worthless, lying, no good, lazy, shiftless…” she paused and covered Angel’s ears with her hands, so the baby wouldn’t hear her father’s name “…Jeff.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “No?”

  “All right, maybe I am. A little. Do you blame me?”

  “I guess not,” Joan admitted, sitting back against the cushions and staring down into Angel’s eyes. “But, honey, all men aren’t like that louse. Are you going to join a convent because of one creep?”

  “I don’t think convents take single mothers.”

  “Their loss.”

  Daisy smiled, in spite of the weird conversation. She’d always been able to count on Joan for just about anything. She’d been a good friend over the last few years. And she understood what Daisy had gone through after Jeff left. But Joan came from a warm, loving family. She had parents, two brothers who teased her unmercifully, and nephews and nieces, and she had no idea what it was like to be completely alone. To have no one for support when your legs got knocked out from under you.

  Daisy just couldn’t risk being hurt that badly again. Not when it would affect Angel this time, too.

  Joan glanced at her wristwatch, sucked in a breath and reluctantly laid Angel down on the wide sofa cushions. “I’m gonna be late. Gotta go.”

  “Say hi to everyone for me.”

  “I will.” She slung her brown leather shoulder bag onto her left arm, straightened her short, black uniform skirt, then said, “You know I’m on your side, right?”

  “Sure I know that.”

  “Okay. Just checking.” Waving one hand at Daisy to tell her to keep her seat, Joan headed for the door. But she paused with one hand on the door-knob. “You know,” she said with a smile, looking back over her shoulder, “if you decide you really don’t want him hanging around, you could always throw him my way.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind,” Daisy said wryly. But after Joan left, Daisy realized that the thought of Alex Barone with someone else made her stomach churn.

  And that told her she was in big trouble.

  Alex left his parents’ Beacon Hill town house and hurried down the walk toward the street. Late morning sunlight poured over the city in a pale warning of the summer heat lurking just around the corner. Soon enough the city would be steaming under a blanket of humidity. But for now, there was a breeze drifting in off the ocean and the promise of another day spent with Daisy and the baby.

  Behind him, he heard the front door open and close again quickly. The rapid click of heels on the walk told him who was chasing him even before he turned around to say, “What is it, Rita? I’m in a hurry.”

  “Yeah,” his younger sister said. “I noticed.”

  Squinting in the sunlight, he let out a hiss of impatience. He’d cut short his visit with his parents for a reason. And that reason was waiting for him in a tiny apartment on the other side of town. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Rita dismissed his irritation as only a sister could. “I mean, you’ve hardly seen the family since you’ve been back in town. You’ve been spending all your time with Daisy, haven’t you?”

  A teenager on a skateboard shouted “Heads up!” and barreled toward them along the sidewalk.

  Alex grabbed his sister’s arm and pulled her out of range. Then, leaning back against the SUV he’d rented a few days ago, he watched her for a long minute before saying, “That’s none of your business, Rita.”

  “Family’s family.”

  “And who I see is up to me.”

  “I know that.” A breeze whipped her hair across her eyes and she plucked it away to stare up at him. “Don’t get me wrong, I like Daisy.”

  “Then what’s this about?”

  She shrugged and shoved both hands into the pockets of her jeans. “Look, Alex, Daisy’s a sweetie. I know that. But she’s a single mom with a lot to deal with right now.”

  “And?”

  “And you’re a guy who’s on his way out of town.”

  “Not for another three weeks.”

  “Oh, well then, never mind.”

  Impatience tugged at him, but Alex knew his family well enough to realize he wouldn’t be going anywhere until Rita had said what she wanted to.

  “Say what you came out here to say, all right?”

  “Fine. Daisy doesn’t need you pretending to be Prince Charming before you fuel up your jet and fly off into the sunset.”

  “What am I supposed to do?” he demanded. “Not see her? Stay away?”

  Rita looked up at him and he saw understanding and sympathy in her eyes. Neither of which appealed to him at the moment. “If you’re just going to walk away from her in three weeks, then yeah.”

  “And if I’m not going to walk away?” The words were out before he could censor them. He’d been doing a lot of thinking lately, and most especially, he’d been thinking about having to leave Daisy. Hell, a few weeks ago he hadn’t known she existed. Now he woke up every morning eager to see her. Wanting to be with her, near her. He wanted to touch her. Wanted to kiss her, hold her and have her turn to him in the night. He wanted to belong in that tiny apartment with the rain forest look to it. That cozy sense of warmth she created wherever she was drew him in and made him want more.
/>   And the thought of leaving her in three weeks made him almost regret, for the first time, being in the military.

  Rita smiled up at him. “Could this be it?”

  He frowned at her. “It what?”

  But she didn’t answer. She just chuckled, shook her head and muttered, “I never would have believed it.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “Not a thing, big brother,” she said, and rose up on her toes to plant a kiss on his cheek. “Not a single thing.” Then she turned and headed back to the house, leaving Alex staring after her, wondering why women had to be so damned confusing.

  “I said, you’ve made a mistake.” Daisy kept one hand on the doorjamb and the other on the door itself, ready to slam it shut and lock it, just in case. It paid to be careful anyway, but when you were dealing with a surly deliveryman who had to weigh three hundred pounds…

  “Look, lady,” he muttered, waving his clipboard at her again, as if it were a magic wand and this time he’d be able to make her change her mind. “It says right here—deliver to Daisy Cusak. You Daisy?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Last name Cusak?”

  She huffed out a breath. “Yes.”

  “Then we don’t got a problem, do we?” He stared down at her through two steely-blue eyes set in a wide, weatherworn face. Clearly, he expected her to back up and let him in with whatever was stacked behind him in the narrow hallway.

  Daisy was not going to comply.

  “There is a problem because I didn’t order anything and I’m—”

  “I ordered it,” said a voice from the hall. A familiar voice. One that had the ability to trail along her skin like silk.

  “Alex?” She tried to peer past the boxes and the mountain of man standing between her and the hall. But she wasn’t about to let go of that door. Not yet.

  “I’m here.” In another second or two, he appeared, squeezing between two huge boxes and the big man who was growing more surly by the minute.

  “What’s this about?” she asked as Alex stepped into the apartment. He took her arm and moved her out of the way, while opening the door wider at the same time.