Stitch in Snow

'I got in this morning,' Dan said, still ruffling Baggins' neck fur, 'I don't know how long I'm staying and I didn't mean to alarm you. I need a car for transport so I didn't phone you and you're a marvellous dog, aren't you, Baggins?'

Baggins promptly produced more ecstasies of welcome, wriggling between Dan's legs so that he almost tripped Dan up.

'Would you like some coffee, Dan?'

'I 'd love some…'

'… Or breakfast?'

'I'd in mind to invite you out to lunch…'

'Good heavens, what time is it?'

'Nearly twelve…'

'But you must be exhausted if you came in on that morning flight.'

'I'm used to flying.'

'I'll fix the coffee. I won't be a minute…' I got out of the room, so flustered that I dropped the kettle into the sink as I tried to fill it. The fluster then descended to my innards and my hands shook so that I spilled coffee as I filled the filter top, dropped a coffee mug, fortunately only into the plastic dish drainer so it was unscathed.

'This place is just right for you Jenny.' he said, appearing in the archway from the dining room. 'Had it long?'

'Three years now.' Yes, yes, talk inanities until you can get your breath back. 'You're sure you don't want an egg and some good Irish bacon?'

'I said I wanted to take you out to lunch…' He really was in my kitchen, the warm orange of the walls making his tanned face darker. He looked much less haggard than he had the last time I'd seen him. In Denver, in Peter's living room. His hair was shorter, though, and he'd trimmed the moustache recently. The casual shirt, open at his throat, the dark blue blazer made his presence all the more overpowering for me.

'Unless you've something else planned…'

'No, Tim and Trish left yesterday on their trip…'

'I know…'

'How do you know?'

'You just told me,' and he jerked his head backwards toward the front of the house and then he grinned, coming towards me. 'Besides, Tim told me he and Trish would be gone by the sixth…' Dan moved across the small room, towards me.

'Tim told you?'

'Yes, when I came to Bethlehem. Only you'd already hightailed it out of the States…'

I swallowed. To think I had missed him by such a small margin. 'I had no reason to remain. My tour was over. Tim and I had had our visit. I was anxious to get home…'

If he didn't move away from me, six weeks of careful discipline, or stern exorcism…

He did move, but not away. Closer. He leaned against the counter, facing me, and before I could turn away from his gaze, he had caught my chin and tipped my face up.

'Jenny,' he said and folded me into his arms because he'd seen the ridiculous watering of my eyes. 'Jenny, Jenny!' And he kissed my cheek and stroked my hair, not at all the way Tim does, and loved me with his hands and the length of his body while I stupidly bawled away the longing and frustration of the last six weeks.

'Jenny! Jenny?' He framed my face with both hands and kissed me slowly, ever so slowly, leisurely as if he had all the time in the world.

Except that I'd put the kettle on and it's the whistling kind.

He didn't interrupt the kiss but with one hand, he let go of me and tried to find the kettle. He burned his hand and that broke the kiss.

I was all contrition but my weeps had turned to laughter as I held his burned fingers under the cold water. I got command of myself.

'You'll freeze my fingers off,' he complained, pulling his hand out of mine and examining the red marks critically.

'He who pulls kettle from fire without watchful eye gets fingers burned! I've something to take the sting out…'

He snatched me back to his side. 'Jenny, are you glad to see me?'

Our eyes met and he slowly dropped his hand, his expression puzzled and expectant. Or hopeful? My behaviour had blighted him. He must have come straight from the airport to my house. Tim had obviously given him precise directions for how else could he have found the house? His eyes were weary, too, from travel fatigue and the time change, and anxious.

Slowly I became aware that his anxiety was reaclass="underline" he was very unsure of his welcome. I had attributed to him more self-confidence and assurance than I now realised he possessed. The murder charge had been a terrible, terrible strain and he had not recovered from that either.

'Did you know that it's D-Day?' I asked with the first steadying thought that had come to my mind.

He blinked in an effort to follow my line of thought.

'I was grembling about the house, full of self-pity when you knocked, banged and clattered at my door like the knell of doom. I'd decided that "D" is for Deserted. Now I guess it's really "D" for Dan Day.'

I'd said the right thing. The anxiety cleared out of his face and his eyes began to sparkle as I remembered they could from Denver. Lightly he put his arms around my waist, wincing a bit as he inadvertently clasped the burned fingers.

'Tim told me that I should come the day after he and Trish left because you'd be feeling deserted and I could…' He broke off with a laugh.

'Catch me with my defences down?'

'That's right.' He nodded vigorously, his face smiling. 'I thought he was wrong at first until…' He hugged me to him, swaying both of us back and forth. 'Oh, Jenny!' And he buried his face in my hair, nibbling at my neck.

Resolutely I pushed him from me, and miraculously he let me.

'Yes, Jenny, we need to talk. Seriously. So make me that coffee which has scarred me for life.'

Dan perched on one of the breakfast stools as I poured water into the filter top, got out the sugar and milk, added another cup to the one I had nearly broken.

'So, why besides making it a " D " for Dan Day, are you in Dublin?'

'I'm here to see you, Jenny.'

'I thought you were doing something about off-shore oil.'

'I'm here to see you, first and foremost. Jenny.'

'Where's DJ?' I was scared of why he wanted to see me, first and foremost.

'In Denver with the Taggerts. I wanted him to finish school before… Before I made other plans for him.'

He took the cup I offered, lifting it in a salute.

'He's had a very rough two years, Jenny…If I'd had any idea that he was being so abused…'

'Abused?' I got absolutely rigid with hatred of a woman who'd abuse a nice youngster like DJ. I thought of his sensitive face, the haunted eyes, the intensity of his stare when he measured me up as the person who could absolve his father.

'Not physically,' Dan hastily reassured me, 'but I've a lot to make up to him. By the way, Tim's a credit to you. I'd've known him anywhere from those books.'

'You haven't ever read them?'

'DJ insisted,' and Dan smiled again, this time pure mischief at my shock. 'And I'll admit that I thoroughly enjoyed them. Them and a second childhood. Tim and DJ got on very well, by the way…'

'Tim and DJ?' I sank, strengthless, onto the other stool.

'Yes, when DJ found I was going to Bethlehem, he insisted on coming with me. He wanted to thank you, too…'

'Oh, Dan, if I'd only known. He must have been so disappointed.'

'Not half as much as I was but then, he met Tim,' Dan went on blandly. 'DJ said for me to tell you that he'd've known Tim anywhere, too. And I was to say that Tim in person is even nicer than Tim of the books.'

'Except when you want to get him up in the morning to do chores.'

Dan laughed. 'And thanks for that sweater, Jenny.'

'You did get it? Did it fit?'

'I have it with me. That's why I came.'

'Why you came? But you said it fit?'

'So it does. But I had to come, you see, because you'd sent me the sweater.'

I was confused.

'Why would that make you come? I mean, I did hope to get a note from you saying that it had come…'

'I wanted to write, but after I'd talked to Tim…'

'But you couldn't have got the sweater that fast…'