Her Kind of Hero Read online

  Her lips were soft and full, tasting sweeter than the morning’s treats and so much more tempting. She pulled back abruptly, breaking contact with his mouth and then, sweeping a wet curl of hair from her forehead, gave an embarrassed laugh. “That certainly warmed me up,” she said shakily. “And now I’m ready for lunch.”

  Matt watched her jump through the shallower water onto the shore where she bent down to get her towel out of her pack. By the time he waded to the beachfront she’d toweled off and had spread out the blanket.

  She handed him her towel. “I hope it’s not too wet.”

  He dried his head and face, inhaling the towel’s faintly floral scent, its thick pile soft and warm against his damp skin. The sensation was almost intimate—a hint of what it might be like to hold her again. Matt hoped his impulsive kiss wouldn’t change the easygoing connection that had sprung up between them. He liked this slow unfolding of common interests and shared experiences and didn’t want to jeopardize it.

  When he was semidry, he draped the towel over the branches of a low bush several yards away. She was unpacking the sandwiches and drinks from the insulated bag he’d found in the kitchen.

  “I hope they’re still cool.”

  “Cool enough. I think you got the roast beef?” She handed him a foil-wrapped package and opened the other one, lifting the top half of the bun to inhale the contents. “Smells delicious!”

  “I’ve never tried their grilled veggie.”

  She sank her teeth in, moaning softly as she chewed. “Mmm, tahini sauce.”

  Matt watched her, fascinated by the way she enjoyed her food. The night she’d eaten dinner with his family, he’d noticed the same pleasure as she dug in to Esperanza’s carnitas. He knew then she wouldn’t have to do a single thing more to win over his mother.

  When she caught him staring, she said, midchew, “What?”

  He felt the rush of heat into his face. “Tahini. I’ve heard about that but never tasted it.”

  “It’s good on a lot of things, especially chicken or veggies. Made from ground-up sesame seeds.” She ate while she spoke, as if reluctant to let go of either activity.

  “Middle Eastern, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, and Mediterranean, too. You never had it when you were in the army over there? Iraq, I think you told me?”

  “Yeah and no, mostly basic army rations unfortunately. We had an Iraqi cook once, when we were bivouacked in the desert. But he got shot.” Matt regretted adding that when he saw her smile fall.

  After a few seconds, she looked over at him. “I can’t imagine serving in a war-torn country for all that time. Were those the toughest years you’ve had to endure in your life?”

  Matt could tell her right then. It was the perfect opening. But once spoken, the story couldn’t be erased. It would always be there between them. Despite growing up without a mother, raised by nannies and housekeepers and attending a range of various schools—all significant challenges for any child—Dana’s life had still been cushioned from the realities of the lives of many in Chicago. The bullying incident on the subway platform had been the exception to a relatively protected life. How would she react to a confession that he’d once considered joining a gang? Would he still be a hero in her eyes?

  “They were hard years,” he said evasively. “But I managed to save a lot of money—well, I sent it to Ma and she saved it all for me. That nest egg put me through college when I was discharged, with some left over for a down payment on the bungalow.”

  “You bought that house for your mother?”

  “We bought it together. She’s retired now but she worked all through my life.”

  “What did she do?”

  “She worked in the mail room at a big insurance company downtown. Ended up being manager of the department,” he added with pride. “Rosie and I managed to convince her to retire last year. I think she only agreed because she was already feeling unwell. Fortunately, the job left her a pension as well as health benefits.” Matt fell silent, thinking of the past several months when he’d been too wrapped up in KidsFirst to register his mother’s health issues. And of course, Esperanza never complained to him or Rosie.

  “You worry about her,” Dana said.

  The softness in her voice touched him. No superficial or pat phrases. Something else he liked about her. “For sure. And Rosie, too.”

  “She seems okay.”

  “Appearances can be deceiving with MS,” Matt said. “When she’s in remission, as she is now, she can basically do anything. But then relapses happen and she doesn’t always know what triggers them. Stress might be a factor but only sometimes. She isn’t always careful.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Twenty-six.”

  “It must be challenging for her at times. To be dependent on her family at that age.”

  “She’s still independent,” he pointed out. “She works for a video game start-up downtown and commutes on public transit most of the time, unless she’s relapsed. Then she uses taxis or community service transit.”

  “I guess I meant by dependence, living at home and not on your own. I could hardly wait to move out!”

  “I think Rosie’s better off living with Ma for now. And I don’t think she minds. It’s not like she’s a teenager anymore. She comes and goes as she likes.”

  “I suppose,” Dana murmured.

  She just didn’t get it, Matt thought, coming from an environment protected from the real world. But he wasn’t going to let their different childhoods mar the day. “I’m beginning to wish I’d bought a second sandwich,” he said, finishing his off.

  “There are the leftover pastries.”

  “Back at the lodge. Maybe we ought to get there before Sandro comes and finds them.”

  Dana laughed, “Let’s do that.”

  * * *

  “OH, HELLO, DANA.” Sandro was surprised to see her and not happy, judging from his lack of enthusiasm. Matt frowned, but Sandro wasn’t put off. He tilted his head and raised a questioning brow.

  “Did you get Maria’s email that she won’t be in this week and maybe not next? Donny’s sick, so Dana has kindly agreed to fill in for her,” Matt explained.

  “Really?”

  “Yep. She’s had some office experience and is going to handle things that can’t wait—the schedules, names and permission forms for this next group of kids.”

  “Okay.” Sandro nodded. “Great.”

  His smile wasn’t convincing, but Dana decided to ignore whatever doubts he had about her presence. As long as Matt was happy to have her, that was all that mattered.

  “We’ve just had a swim and lunch, but if you’re hungry, there’s a box of pastries somewhere. And, Dana—” he turned around “—after you change maybe you and I can go through what needs to be finished this afternoon?”

  “Sure,” she said, swinging her daypack over a shoulder. She was barely out the door when she heard Matt say, “Something on your mind, bro?”

  Dana was tempted to take a second to adjust her pack and hear Sandro’s answer but knew she really didn’t want to know. Whatever issues he and Kristen had with her were unimportant. Soon she’d be out of their lives. Dana’s mind was on far more pressing matters, like the picnic by the lake.

  She’d felt comfortable with Matt today, for the first time since meeting him. They’d chatted and teased as if they’d known each other for years. Well, you have in a way. He’d opened up a bit. They both knew what it was like to lose the nurturing love of a parent. While Matt was lucky to have that with Esperanza, he’d also lost the guidance and mentorship of a father.

  She closed the washroom door and quickly changed. When she rolled her suit up in her towel, still damp from Matt’s use, she held it against her face, as if it might magically sweep her back to the lake and his embrace. Though she didn’t need any magic to rel
ive the strength of his arms, the smoothness of his chest beaded with lake water and the pressure of his mouth on hers.

  Back at Maria’s desk, Dana leafed through her notes from the morning, trying to steer her mind away from the lake and the kiss. A forehead kiss might be brotherly, she reasoned, but a kiss on the mouth took a friendly relationship into foreign territory. Dana had no sense of where she was going here, and she needed to know every detail of the direction her life might take.

  Drawing a deep breath, she forced herself back to work. She printed out the schedules for the group leaders and placed all the information each leader would need into colored file folders she’d found on a side table near the desk. The organizing allowed her mind to wander—the dinner with Matt’s family, the casual banter of their drive together to the camp, the run down the hill to the lake.

  The swim. The image of Matt in his trunks surfaced and Dana stopped what she was doing, the sheaf of papers in her hand trembling. This is not me. This quivering adolescent swooning over someone I hardly know and who has no actual connection to me other than an impulsive act twenty years ago. And yet maybe the Dana she remade after that day wasn’t the real one. Being around Matt and his family—even being at Camp Hope—had reopened the possibility of belonging. Wasn’t that what she’d always dreamed about, long before that day? A normal family?

  Okay, Dana. Focus. She stacked the completed folders on the side table and opened up a manila envelope that contained what appeared to be receipts. Matt hadn’t asked her to do any accounting, but she was finished with the weekend’s organization and figured it would be less stressful for Maria if Dana could clear up some of the backlog.

  She logged into the computer and quickly found Maria’s accounting spreadsheet. There was also a notebook in a desk drawer and it appeared that Maria was using it as an interim accounting system before updating the spreadsheet. It took Dana several minutes to figure out Maria’s system but eventually she managed to correlate the receipts with the jotted entries in the notebook, matching amounts and names of the payees. There were quite a few petty cash notes, which indicated unplanned expenditures. Probably typical for organizations like the camp, Dana concluded. Even big companies had those unanticipated expenses, though they wouldn’t be jotted on Post-it notes stuck into a ledger book.

  An hour later, she’d managed to attach all but four receipts to lines in the notebook. The four remaining weren’t official receipts but handwritten Post-it notes, each for the amount of fifty dollars. She couldn’t connect them to a line in Maria’s book, so there was no way to tell if the reimbursements had been made and who received them. Presumably there was an explanation, and Matt might have some information about them in the meantime.

  She’d just finished updating Camp Hope’s spreadsheet when Matt breezed into the office. “Sorry I didn’t come by earlier, but I’ve been on the phone with my contact at Willow Springs town hall. They’ve rescheduled our presentation. Two weeks from today.”

  Dana looked up from the computer monitor. “Is that good news or bad?”

  He grimaced. “I was hoping it would be sooner but apparently something has come up and they had to do some shuffling of meetings. Still, nothing we can do about it. How’s it going here?”

  “I’ve finished the paperwork for the weekend and everything is right there,” Dana said, pointing to the side table.

  He walked over to scan the piles of folders and stapled handouts. “Wow! This is wonderful, Dana. Great idea to use different colors for the leaders’ folders. Easy for them to spot if they’re set down somewhere.”

  “Maria had a new packet of colored folders all ready, so she might have thought of that.”

  “She’ll be happy to see that you got everything in order. Thanks so much, Dana.”

  His smile was so engaging she hesitated to mention what was on her mind. “It was kind of fun, really. I have a passion for organization. Umm, but there was one small thing.”

  “Oh?” He stepped closer.

  She handed him the Post-its. “I can’t find any reference in Maria’s ledger for these four payments. You can see that she’s written petty cash under the amount, but there’s no match for them in her notebook. At least, none that I’ve been able to find, so I don’t know if anyone got the money or not.”

  Matt thumbed through the slips of paper a couple of times before setting them back down on the desk. “Well, I’m sure Maria will have an explanation. We have a rule about the amount paid out through petty cash. Nothing over a hundred.”

  “It’s more that these aren’t official receipts. They’re basically IOUs”

  “I’m not sure what your point is.”

  His lack of concern threw her off. “I’m pretty sure the tax agency will want something more than that.” She gestured to the notes.

  He waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t worry about them. Maria will deal with it when she gets back.”

  “But the books won’t balance.”

  “And when she’s back at work I can ask her about them.” His voice was patient, but his gaze was intense.

  She felt her face heat up, wishing now she hadn’t raised her concern. Dana took a deep breath. He was right. All would be explained when Maria returned.

  “Umm, did you want to go over what needs to be done next?” Dana asked, breaking the spell of those eyes.

  His expression softened. “That’s what I came to tell you. I got a call that my car will be ready at the end of the day and Sandro has offered to drive me into Willow Springs to pick it up.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “Besides, he and I haven’t had a chance to go over our presentation notes yet, so...”

  She looked down at the piles of paper on the desk, hoping her disappointment wasn’t too obvious. No drive home and no drive together in the morning.

  He cleared his throat. “Why don’t you head home then? And we can go over other stuff that needs to be done in the morning. Does that work for you? Assuming you can still give us the time?”

  “Sure.” Dana started shuffling the papers in a pile. “When tomorrow?”

  “Say, eleven? I have a meeting at the drop-in first thing.”

  “Okay, well, see you then.” Dana bent down to pick up her daypack and stood up, all too aware of his eyes on her the whole time.

  As she moved toward him and the door beyond, he stopped her with a hand on her forearm. “It was a great morning,” he said softly. “And I’ll miss your company on the way in tomorrow.”

  “Likewise,” she murmured, returning his smile as she brushed past him.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  MATT WATCHED SANDRO drumming his fingertips on the steering wheel, a sure sign that their talk at the lodge was still on his mind. His friend had denied being surly toward Dana and had clammed up.

  “I appreciate the lift, buddy,” Matt said as Sandro’s SUV headed for Willow Springs. “It’ll be good to get my wheels back, as decrepit as they are.”

  That brought a grin. “Time to upgrade, bro.”

  “Yeah, well, it’d be nice but...” Matt stared out the window, thinking that the convenience of having his car again was offset by not getting rides to the camp with Dana. The time they had shared together felt like a lot more than two days. He was sorry to see that opportunity disappear.

  “So,” Sandro interrupted his thoughts, “how come you decided to have Dana fill in for Maria? Why not Loreen Baxter?”

  Okay, Matt thought. Now he’s getting around to it. “Loreen’s position as treasurer is basically titular, right? She’s not an accountant or bookkeeper.”

  “Dana isn’t an accountant either. Didn’t you say she was a lawyer?”

  “Yes, but she’s had office experience—the tasks that need doing while Maria’s away can be done by anyone.”

  “There you go!” Sandro exclaimed, turning to look at Matt. “Eve
n one of the staff from the drop-in could do the work.”

  “Yeah, but I thought doing Maria’s job would be a good use of Dana’s volunteer time and we wouldn’t have to draw anyone away from their own job. So, what’s this really about, Sandro?”

  “It’s not about anything,” Sandro muttered. “Just that you made the decisions about having her volunteer at the camp and filling in for Maria without mentioning it to me. We’ve been working together since the drop-in opened up and through all the planning for the camp.”

  Matt pursed his lips. Everything Sandro said was true. He usually passed things by him, not so much for an okay, but because they’d been working together at KidsFirst since it opened. “Yeah, you’re right. I guess I thought I was being expedient. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize what it meant to you.”

  Sandro digested the apology for a few seconds before adding, “I’m also concerned that you might be attracted to her.”

  Matt looked away, wondering when his friend had become so intuitive.

  When he didn’t answer, Sandro went on to say, “I just don’t want you to get hurt, bro. She could be just doing this for her own personal glory and leave you high and dry when she tires of it.”

  Matt knew all too well exactly what Sandro was getting at. The last few days spent with Dana, connecting with her and simply being with her, had raised some questions. What’s next for us? After her time at Camp Hope?

  He was still mulling over those questions an hour later, after he’d picked up his car and was on his way back to the camp. He’d decided to call Maria to clarify the issue with the IOUs that Dana had found. There was only one person he could think of who might have persuaded Maria to hand over money without a proper receipt—Sandro. He hadn’t raised the matter with him yet because he wanted to be certain about his suspicion. Besides, the conversation about Dana had been tense enough.

  His call to Maria had been brief. Sandro gave me those pieces of paper. He said he lost the actual receipts and he needed the money right away. I’m sorry—I didn’t get a chance to write the payments in my book. I intended to do that but then Donny got sick.