“This is what friends do in a crisis,” Ruby repeated. “Now quit worrying about it. We’re going to be fine.”
“I don’t know how to thank—”
“No thanks are necessary, and if you keep it up, I’m going to get cranky. Now, I just got paid for helping Mrs. Carlyle clean her apartment, so I recommend we get Kevin and go out for pizza.”
Deanna shook her head, struggling to her feet. “I have to get back to work.”
“You most certainly do not. Joey knows what happened. I explained when I called. And I’ve already told him you won’t be back in until at least tomorrow, possibly the day after.”
“This is no time for me to miss work,” Deanna protested, as panic rose up in her belly. “He could fire me.”
Ruby grabbed her shoulders and shook her gently. “Hey, wake up. Not even Joey is dumb enough or mean enough to fire you under these circumstances. You’re half the reason people keep coming back there. It’s certainly not for his gourmet cooking. Now listen to me. You’ve just been through a trauma. In my experience the only thing to do in this kind of situation is eat comfort food. In fact, I think we ought to follow the pizza with hot-fudge sundaes.”
Despite her dismay over the wild spin her life was taking, Deanna laughed. “I’m the one with the crisis. How come you get to indulge?”
“I’m giving up men.” Ruby winked at her. “In my book, that is a genuine trauma.”
For Deanna, who’d given up on men after being dumped by Kevin’s dad, it didn’t seem like any sacrifice at all, but she wasn’t Ruby. Ruby might have been devastated by her divorce, but she’d bounced right back into the game. She made no apologies at all for the fact that she enjoyed having a man in her life.
“You could always take Kevin to the fire station. Try your luck with Sean Devaney again,” Deanna suggested, ignoring the surprising pang of dismay that swept through her at the prospect of pushing Ruby and Sean together.
“And have that gorgeous hunk reject me twice? I don’t think so. A woman has to have some pride.” Ruby regarded Deanna slyly. “Of course, when you take Kevin over there, I might just tag along and see what the rest of the pickings are like.”
Deanna sighed heavily. “I suppose that’s how I’m going to pay you back for taking me in.”
“Absolutely.”
An image of Sean Devaney crept into her head. The man was seriously gorgeous. What healthy woman wouldn’t want to sneak another look at him? It didn’t mean she was actually interested in anything more. And she did owe Ruby big-time.
“Done,” she agreed eventually.
And based on the way her hormones dipped and swayed in jubilation even as she uttered the word, she’d better make very sure that all of her carefully honed defenses were firmly in place.
“And Mom said I shouldn’t bother you because you’re probably really busy, but I was thinking that if you weren’t busy, maybe you could come over in the fire truck and take me for a ride,” Kevin Blackwell was saying earnestly to Sean.
The call had come in on the nonemergency line at the fire station about five minutes earlier. Sean had barely gotten a word in edgewise. The kid definitely had a lot to say, and he was saying it all in such a rush that Sean could barely keep up with him.
“Hey, Kevin, slow down, okay?” he said, laughing.
“Oh, okay. I thought you might be in a hurry.”
“Not right this second,” Sean reassured him. “How did you know how to find me?”
“It was easy. Ruby found the number in the phone book.”
Ah, so the notorious Ruby was promoting this idea. For whose benefit? Sean wondered. The kid’s or her own? Or was she by any chance matchmaking? That possibility intrigued him far more than it should.
“Is she there now?” Sean asked, hoping to clarify things before he agreed to anything.
“Uh-uh. I’m at the pay phone outside the laundry. Ruby’s inside. She’ll be out in a minute, though. She said it was okay if I called. It is, isn’t it? You’re not mad, are you?” he asked worriedly.
“No. I’m not mad. I’m glad to hear from you,” Sean said, realizing it was true. He’d thought about the boy—and his mother—a lot the past couple of weeks. He’d dismissed the thoughts as perfectly normal under the circumstances. He often worried about people whose homes had been destroyed, though few of them haunted his dreams the way Deanna Blackwell had.
“How are you and your mom doing?” he asked.
“Okay, I guess. Staying with Ruby is kind of cool,” Kevin said. “She keeps way better stuff in the refrigerator than Mom did.”
Sean bit back a chuckle at the boy’s standards. “Such as?”
“Ice cream and sodas and a whole bag of candy. Mom says I’m not supposed to touch that ’cause it’s Ruby’s crisis food, whatever that is. But I don’t think she’d mind if I ate one candy bar, do you?”
“No, I don’t imagine she would, as long as you asked permission first.” More curious than he cared to admit, Sean asked, “Does Ruby have a lot of crises?” And what kind were they? he wondered. The kind no five-year-old should know about?
“I don’t know,” Kevin told him. “Maybe you could ask her. She just came out.”
“In a minute,” he said, hoping to put off a conversation with Ruby until he had plenty of backup to distract her, namely Hank. “I can’t get away from here, but maybe you and Ruby can come on over to see the fire truck, like I promised.”
“Wow, that would be cool,” Kevin said enthusiastically. “You talk to her, okay? She’ll do it if you ask. Here.”
Sean heard the flurry of excited conversation on the other end, then finally Ruby took the phone.
“You sure know how to win a kid’s heart,” she said.
Sean ignored the compliment. “What about
