Free Listen to Your Heart by Mona Ingram Page B

fine so
far, aren’t we?” He reached across the table and stroked the back of her hand
with one finger. “Aren’t we?”
    She withdrew her hand.
    Anger boiled in his gut. Anger at
whoever had hurt her. But he managed to control himself. “Have I done something
wrong?”  He sat back and spoke as calmly as he could. “I’m not going anywhere,
Dale, so you might as well get used to it.”
    A tear rolled down her cheek and she
brushed it away absent-mindedly. She seemed to be studying the pictures of
Tuscany of the wall, but he knew she wasn’t actually seeing them. He waited for
her to gather her thoughts.
    “It was when you warmed my hands,” she
said, her voice little more than a whisper. “You caught me by surprise.” She
raised her eyes. “My mother used to do that.”
    He held her gaze.
    The pizza was delivered. Chance thanked
the server, but it sat between them, untouched.
    When she spoke, her voice seemed to come
from far away. “My mother was a crack addict,” she said finally. “I didn’t
realize that until I was in my teens. Until I started living at the Dempsey’s.”
She ran her finger around the rim of her coffee mug. “When I was small, she’d
get straight for a while and come home. In those days, crack was fairly new and
I guess the authorities didn’t understand the depth of her addiction, because every
time I asked to go back with her, they’d let me.” A faint smile crossed her
lips. “She’d make a big fuss over me and tell me how much she loved me. Things
would be great for a month or two, and then she’d disappear. I’d wait and wait
for her to come back, even though deep down inside I knew that wasn’t going to
happen.” She paused. “Children are far more intuitive than adults realize.
Anyway, I’d try to cover up when the neighbours inquired, but eventually they’d
call Child Protective Services.” She looked up at him. “I don’t know how many
times this happened but it was always the same. She’d apologize and hug me and
tell me I was the most important person in her life. You’d think I would have
learned not to trust her, but I loved her in spite of it. Soon it got so I
didn’t trust anyone who told me they cared. If the one person who was supposed
to love me would do that, why should I trust anyone else?”
    She picked up a slice of pizza and
started to pull off the pieces of pepperoni and eat them. “Mrs. Dempsey was
always there for me.” She looked up. “Morgan’s mother.”
    He nodded.
    “Never once did she criticise my mom.
She explained to me that being an addict was a disease, and that Mom really
loved me, but by then I was really messed up. I don’t know why she didn’t give
up on me, but she didn’t. She was there for me when my mother finally took an
overdose and died.” She looked into the distance, nodding as though reliving
those days. “She fought to have me live with them. Now she’s my mother.”
    Chance put a slice of pizza on his plate
and stared at it. “She sounds like a good woman.”
    Dale smiled. “She is.”
    They sat in comfortable silence while
Chance ate his pizza.
    “Thank you,” she said eventually.
    “For what?” he grabbed another slice but
waited for her to speak.
    “For not saying all the trite things
that most people would say right now. Like you’re not my mother, that I can
trust you...yada, yada, yada.”
    “Oh, that.” He smiled and took a large
bite. “What if I had said something like that?”
    She glared at him. “Don’t go there,
Chance Larson. I may have to hurt you.”
    He very deliberately wiped his mouth
with a napkin. It was disconcerting the way her eyes lingered on his lips, but
he rested his forearms on the table and leaned forward. “I’ll just repeat what
I said before. I’m attracted to you, Dale, and I’m not going anywhere.” He
lifted her hand and kissed her palm. “That’s a deposit until I can kiss you
properly.”
    Her eyes widened. “You didn’t say you
were attracted