Still Waters by Tami Hoag Page B

investigation. He would, as a matter of courtesy, duty, and principle, ride along in the hearse from Davidson's Funeral Home, and stand in on the procedure, but he had told Dane he was more than happy to be relegated to the role of witness this time around.
    Witness
. The word brought to mind a clear image of Elizabeth Stuart sitting in his office, pale, shaking, gray eyes glazed with tears as she relived the horror of finding the body. Dane swore under his breath. He had wanted to put his arms around her, to offer comfort. He tossed back the last of his beer and set the empty on the porch rail as he looked across the pasture and woods that lay between his house and the old Drewes place. No question about it, she was more dangerous to him vulnerable than sexy. Sex he could handle. Sex he could keep in perspective. Vulnerability was another thing. And need. Need was something he didn't like to think about. He much preferred his other impression of Elizabeth Stuart—the opportunistic alley cat. Comfort was the last thing he wanted to offer her.
    “Daddy?”
    Dane turned automatically, as if he were used to the title, when the truth was he heard it only over the phone except for the few precious times a year when Amy came to stay with him. His daughter stood at the front door, her long brown hair in disarray around her shoulders, an L.A. Raiders jersey hanging to her knees. She blinked at him sleepily and wandered onto the porch to snuggle against him as naturally as if it were something she did every night of her life. Dane slid an arm around her and leaned his cheek against the top of her head, breathing deep the scents of Love's Baby Soft cologne and strawberry shampoo.
    “What are you doing up?” he said softly. “It's way past your bedtime, peanut.”
    She smiled at him as if she thought he was dear but bordering on senility. “Daddy, I
am
fifteen, you know.”
    “No way,” he scoffed. “You're not more than ten. It wasn't a week ago you were throwing up baby formula on me.”
    “Gross!” She pretended offense, but ruined it with a pixie giggle. “I'm still on California time, too, you know,” she reminded him.
    “Hmm . . .” He didn't like to think about that either—that his daughter lived half a continent away with her mother and the man who had taken his place.
    Six months after the divorce Tricia had signed a prenuptial agreement with a running back who had two good knees and a yearning to become the next John Madden. Dane told himself he didn't regret losing Tricia, he just regretted losing, period. He told himself he didn't even care that she'd taken him to the cleaners in the divorce. But he would never forgive her for taking his daughter away from him.
    He looked down at Amy now, panic seizing his gut as the realization hit him again. She wasn't such a little girl anymore. It seemed she'd grown half a foot since he'd seen her last. The softness of childhood was beginning to melt away from her, revealing the angular bone structure of a fashion model. She wasn't a woman yet either, but somewhere in between, the transition obvious in her face, where her cheeks were beginning to hollow but little-girl freckles still dotted the bridge of her tip-tilted nose.
    He'd lost so much time with her. The years had stampeded over him, leaving him with only a handful of memories of pigtails and gap-toothed smiles, of a little sprite who trailed a stuffed rabbit with her everywhere she went. He'd spent so little time being a father to a little girl that he had no idea what to do with a teenager.
    A mock frown curled down the corners of his mouth, and he lifted a brow imperiously. “Your mother lets you stay up past midnight?”
    “And I shave my legs too,” she said with a saucy, teasing look that reminded him too much of Tricia. “
And
I go on dates with boys.”
    Dane shuddered with true horror and shook his head. “That does it. I'm shipping you off to a convent.”
    “We're not Catholic.”
    “Doesn't