Dead Certain - Mariah Stewart [64]
“I don’t watch the news.” She shook her head, her permed blond curls barely moving. “It’s too depressing. Rapes. Murders. Robberies. Little kids being abused. Little sick kids selling lemonade to help pay their medical bills.”
Dolores’s mascara-darkened eyes brimmed with sympathetic tears. “I know all those things happen every day. So I don’t watch. And between you and me, Connie drives me nuts some days. Noon news, news at four. News at six. I tune it out. I just don’t want to know.”
“Yeah, well, you know what they say about ignorance being bliss. Not that I think you’re ignorant,” he hastened to add. “I mean, you’re smart, Dolores. Maybe the smartest woman I know. And you’re right. There’s so much bad stuff going on in the world that we just don’t have any control over. It hurts to watch that stuff.”
“Exactly. That’s exactly my point.” She peered behind him to see if he’d fed the cat. “Cujo. Come on in here, now. Vinnie’s got dinner for you. Isn’t he a nice man?”
Cujo continued to stare from the safety of the dining room.
“Maybe he’s not hungry right now,” Vince offered, hoping that he wasn’t going to be expected to stand here and wait for the cat to eat. “Cujo might not be hungry, but I sure am.”
“Oh, of course you are. It’s almost eight o’clock. We can go. We don’t have to wait.”
Like I was gonna . . .
“Now, you like the Pepper Pot or the Oak Tree Inn?” Vince asked while Dolores pulled on the front door to close it tightly.
“Oh, they’re both wonderful.” Her eyes lit up. “But they’re both so expensive, Vinnie. Are you sure you don’t want to have a burger down at the Dew Drop?”
“Dolores, we have had burgers together at the Dew Drop Inn for the past two weeks. Now I want to have a nice dinner out with you, just you and me, at someplace nice. Someplace special.” He slid into his smooth role, donning sincerity like a pair of gloves. “Because you are special, Dolores. The most special lady I ever knew. And I want you to have the best.”
“Oh, Vinnie.” She stopped dead in her tracks on the top steps. The blush was back, her face scarlet with pleasure even in the dim porch light. “That’s so . . . so sweet.”
“It’s true, Dolores. You’re . . . well, you’re one of a kind.”
“And you’re one of a kind, too, Vinnie.”
“Well, then, shall we go?” He offered his arm and she took it, smiling.
“We can go in my car,” he told her when she paused at the sidewalk.
“It’s a beautiful car,” she told him. “I don’t think I’ve ever ridden in a Lincoln town car before.”
“Well, it’s not new, you know.” He opened the door for her and held it until she had slid past him onto the seat.
“Oh, the leather is so nice. It looks almost new.”
“Well, I got a good deal on it,” he said. For a car that was eight years old and had more than a hundred thousand miles on it, he’d gotten a damned good deal, since he’d paid cash.
“I don’t think I ever even saw your car before.”
“That’s ’cause I always walk to the Dew.”
“Well, if I lived half a block away, I’d walk, too.”
“I’m only there until I can find something more permanent,” he told her as they pulled away from the curb. “I took the room because it was the only thing immediately available. Plus, when I first came to town, I wasn’t sure how long I’d be staying. But now . . .”
“Now . . . ?”
“Now I’m thinking I might want to stay around for a while.” He winked at her.
“Oh,” she said under her breath.
Oh, indeed. He smiled at her across the front seat.
Dinner went exceptionally well. By the time the last bit of red wine had been sipped and coffee and dessert had been served, Dolores was starry-eyed and Vince Giordano—Vinnie Daniels, that is—was feeling about as confident as a man could be. There was only one more thing to do.
He’d baited the hook. Now all he had to do was reel her in.
He stopped the car in front of her house and reached for her face, caressing it gently, touching her lips with his fingers. Then he sighed, got out of the car, and went around to her side to open her door.
“You’re such a gentleman, Vinnie,”