Coming Home(17)

“So,” she said with a tentative smile.

They looked at each other until Leah started chewing on her lip again, dropping her eyes back to the menu.

“Where were you driving home from?”

“Hmm?”

“Last night. You said you were driving home and trying to stay awake. Where were you coming from?”

“Oh,” Leah said, looking up from the menu. “My dad’s house.”

“Ah,” Danny nodded. “Big family gathering for the holiday?”

“Not really,” she said. “What about you?”

He shook his head. “Dinner with my sister and her boyfriend-of-the-minute. Stopped by Gram’s for a bit. Found your bracelet,” he said, nodding toward her wrist. “And then I hung out with my buddy at his job.”

Leah made a face. “He had to work on Christmas?”

“He’s a bartender. It got busier than they thought it would, so he got called in,” Danny said, turning a page of the menu.

“On Christmas night? Where does he bartend?”

“The Rabbit Hole.”

“Here in White Plains? That’s only a few blocks from here.”

Danny lifted his eyes, a slow smile curving his lips. “I know where it is.”

She closed her eyes and shook her head quickly as she mumbled, “Right. Duh.”

“Have you been there?” he asked, watching the most attractive blush color her cheeks as she refocused on the menu.

She nodded. “A while back.”

“That means a lot to you, huh?”

Leah looked up at him questioningly, and he pointed to her wrist, where she was carefully rolling the bracelet between her fingers.

She dropped it like it burned her, looking somewhat embarrassed as she brought her hands under the table and gripped the side of her chair, shifting it slightly.

“It was my mom’s,” she said, picking up the menu and studying it with renewed intensity.

Danny watched her for a moment before lowering his eyes. There were a hundred reasons he could think of that might have caused her to use the past tense in that last sentence, and none of them were good.

The waitress approached the table with their drinks then, and Leah visibly relaxed, looking like she wanted to jump up and hug her for the interruption.

After they had placed their orders, Danny reached for Leah’s menu and handed them both to the waitress.

“By the way,” he said. “I never got a chance to thank you.”

“For?” she asked, leaning over to sip her iced tea.

“For being so nice to Gram the other day.”

Leah smiled the first genuine smile he’d seen since they entered the restaurant. “She’s so sweet.”

“Yeah, a little too sweet. I don’t know what she was thinking, inviting a complete stranger who could have been a lunatic into her house.”

Leah raised her eyebrows.

“No offense to you or anything,” he added quickly. “It’s just that…well, you never know…you know?”

“No, it’s okay,” she said with a laugh. “I totally understand you being protective of your grandmother.”

“She’s not my grandmother.”

Leah pulled her brow together. “She’s not? You call her Gram.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. Why the hell did he just tell her that? “It’s just…I grew up with her grandson. So we’re sort of like family.”