She looked at him quickly. The initial shock blazing there faded, and her eyes became remote and her expression turned reserved. “Well, I’ve apparently hit one of your hotbuttons.”
“Uh…I’d say that’s probably a hot button for most men. Not being given the chance to raise or even know about their child? Being lied to about the paternity of their child?” Declan was so angry, so upset, he was nearly blind with rage. He stood, his fingers curling into fists on top of the table. “I think it’s best if I leavenow.”
“If that’s what you want.” Leslie stood, still the calm and cool executive. “I’m sorry to have upsetyou—”
“Yeah, well, so am I.” He let himself out without a backward glance, his body shaking with both sorrow andfury.
Seventeen
Leslie didn’t sleep wellthat night, despite her earlier prediction that shewould.
In fact, she and Rufus stayed up far too late, idly viewing some randomGleeepisodes, simply because Declan had mentioned he’d watched it with Stephanie and she’d never seen itbefore.
For some reason, the in-your-face high school show peppered with pop songs from the last four decades made Leslie feel like her life was slightly less messy. After all, she was no longer in high school and didn’t have to try and deal with figuring out who she was. She’d done that long ago, and let the chips fall where theymay.
Apparently, Declan didn’t like the way the chips had fallen. That hurt Leslie far more than it had when she realized she and Eric didn’t belong together, and that she didn’t want to give up her career—her life—and move to Denver because that was where helived.
Ironic that she ended up changing careers and moving to Wicks Hollow—but that had been her decision, and hers alone. And if she’d carried Ella to term, Leslie was certain she’d have probably made other life decisions aswell.
Too bad Declan couldn’tunderstand.
And too bad Eric had been so bloody damned rigid and unbending and misogynistic that she felt she’dhadto make that executivedecision.
Would she have made the same decisionnow?
Probably…not. Whoknew?
What did it matter? It was done with—completely a non-issue.
Except where Declan was concerned. And the status of Leslie’s heart. Damn, she’d really started to fall for him—way early on, in fact, when he came practically barging into her house on a mission to protect his daughter from the child labor lawviolator.
Leslie laughed, but it hurt. Oh, her hearthurt.
Damn, I really screwed this up.And now she’d ruined everything—over something that happened more than a year ago, before Declan even came into herlife.
It was late, and she was drowsing in front of the television on the sumptuous leather sectional, half watching, halfsleeping.
Suddenly, her eyes bolted fullyopen.
The music.The ghost’smusic.
It was here, in this room, for the first time ever. Much louder than ever before, encroaching on her private space, moving deeper into the house. What did this mean? Was Dorothy getting impatient? Had somethinghappened?
Leslie was wide awake now, looking around the room wildly for the ghostly image. This was new. It had never come in here before. It wasalways—
She stopped and looked at the TV. And then she looked at Rufus, who hadn’t evenstirred.
The music wasn’t filtering in from the front of the hall, or even from the ghost…it was coming from the TV, from the crew-cut character named Puck, who was playing a guitar and singing aballad.
The hair on Leslie’s arms prickled, and her hands turned clammy. But it was thesame music. She recognized it as the music that always filtered through the night whenever Dorothy’s ghostappeared.
But that music…it wasn’t from the1920s.
No, this song was much more recent thanthat.
* * *
“Ican’t believeI didn’t recognize the song right away. I mean, who doesn’t know ‘Waiting for a Girl Like You’?” Leslie said, uncaring that her voicecarried.
