Page 48 of The Playboy and the Widow
“I’d be honored.”
“And maybe Gary Hidenlighter.”
“Who’s he?” The name sounded vaguely familiar to Cliff, and he wondered where he’d heard it.
“The boy who offered her a baseball card if she’d let him kiss her.”
“Ah, yes,” Cliff answered with a lopsided grin. “I seem to recall hearing about the dastardly proposition now.”
“Kissing doesn’t seem to be so bad,” Katie added thoughtfully after a moment. “Mom and you sure do it a lot.”
Cliff lightly slipped his arm around Diana’s shoulders and smiled down on her. “I can’t speak for your mother, but I know what I like.”
“I do, too,” she responded, looking up at Cliff, comforted by his feathery touch.
Getting Katie out of the hospital wasn’t nearly as much a problem as getting her in had been since Cliff was there to smooth the way. While Diana filled in the spaces Cliff had left blank on the permission forms, he wheeled Katie up to the hospital pharmacy and had the prescription for the pain medication filled. By the time they returned, Diana had finished her task. As the two came toward her, the sight of them together filled her with an odd sensation of rightness.
“Can I ride in Cliff’s car?” Katie asked once they were in the parking lot.
“Katie, Cliff has to get back to his office.”
“No, I don’t,” he countered quickly, looking almost boyish in his eagerness. “While we were waiting, I phoned my secretary and told her I was taking the rest of the day off.”
“Oh, goodie.” Katie’s happy eyes flew from her mother to Cliff and then back to Diana again. “Since Cliff isn’t real busy, can I go in his car?”
Diana’s gaze went to Cliff, who acquiesced with a short nod.
All the way into Kent, Katie chatted a mile a minute. The physician had claimed that the pain medication would make the little girl drowsy, but thus far it had had just the opposite effect. Katie was a wonder.
“I used my new lucky lure the other day,” Cliff said when he was able to get a word in edgewise.
“Oh, good. Did it work?”
“Like a dream.” His change in luck had astonished him and had amazed Charlie, who’d wanted to know where Cliff had bought that silver lure. Cliff had sailed back into the marina that afternoon with a good-size salmon and a large flounder, while Charlie hadn’t gotten so much as a curious nibble.
Katie let out a long sigh of relief. “I was real afraid the new one wouldn’t have the same magic.”
“Then rest assured, Katie Collins, because this new lure seems to be even better than the old one. In fact, you might have done me a favor by losing the original.”
“Really? Are we ever going to go fishing on your sailboat again? I promise never to get into your gear unless you tell me I can.”
“I think another fishing expedition could be arranged, but let’s leave that up to your mother, okay?” He wasn’t sure Diana would agree to seeing him again, and didn’t want to disappoint Katie.
“That sounds okay,” Katie assented.
When Cliff pulled into the driveway behind Diana’s gray bomber, it seemed that half the kids in the neighborhood rushed out to greet Katie.
They followed her into the house, and she sat them down, organized their questions and patiently answered each one, explaining in graphic detail what had happened to her. As he looked on from the kitchen, it seemed to Cliff that she was holding her own press conference.
While Katie was hailed as a heroine, Diana brewed coffee and brought a cup to Cliff. “Do you mind if I take a look around your garage?” he asked her unexpectedly after taking a sip.
“Sure, go ahead.” She wondered what he was up to and was mildly surprised when he reappeared a couple of minutes later with a handsaw.
“Here,” he said, handing her his suit jacket, and marched outside.
Katie noticed he was gone right away. “What’s Cliff doing?”
Diana was just as curious as her daughter and followed him out the sliding glass door. She paused, watching him from the patio as he methodically started trimming off the lower branches of the backyard’s lone tree.
