placing a kiss on the little girl's curly, dark hair. Its scent was sweet and light and the name of the delicious fragrance danced on the edge of Samantha's mind.
"What should we do now?" she asked Amalie.
There wasn't a doubt in the three-year-old's female mind. "Paint fingernails and eat cookies."
Samantha's lips twitched. Three? Forty-three? There wasn't much distance between the two. "Those just happen to be my two favorite things to do in the whole wide world."
The hot-pink nail color Amalie chose was a beautiful contrast to her golden-tan skin. She seemed to think so too. She danced in front of the mirror in Samantha's bedroom, holding her fingers out like fans as she admired her reflection. While Samantha watched her, another draft of the girl's sweet fragrance floated past and Samantha wished she could remember what it was.
She smiled. "Well, my beauty, what's next on our agenda?"
Amalie opened her eyes wide. "Cookies?"
"Don't you think we've had enough?" When the little girl looked about to protest, Samantha hurriedly compromised. "I'll send some home with you when your daddy picks you up. How's that?"
"Okay," Amalie said. Her face brightened. "How 'bout ice cream?"
Samantha had to laugh. And, of course, Amalie recognized it for the sucker sound that it was.
"Vanilla," she said, skipping toward the kitchen.
Samantha laughed again. "Which is the flavor you had here last week." Actually, she'd bought it with the little girl in mind, just as she'd baked the chocolate chip cookies for her this morning.
Checking the clock, she decided to make it a very small scoop. As she reached into the freezer, she called over her shoulder, "Can you find the spoons, Amalie? They're in the top drawer by the sink."
"'Kay."
The ice cream was hard as granite and Samantha adjusted the freezer temperature before tackling it with a metal scooper. The frozen stuff peeled off in thin curls, and it took a surprising amount of time and elbow grease before she had even a small bowl's worth.
"Here you go," she finally said, and swung around to the table. Amalie sat patiently, spoon nearby.
The child had found something to entertain herself with while waiting. The white bag that Samantha had stuffed into the utensil drawer was on the kitchen table. Amalie had dumped out the contents and was inspecting each of the four different boxes inside.
Samantha's stomach heaved. She dropped the bowl back on the counter, then ran to the bathroom and threw up. Standing on shaky legs, she washed her face with cold water, brushed her teeth, then stared at her forty-three-year-old image in the mirror.
She knew she was still a good-looking woman. She was tall and full-breasted and she needed only an occasional touch-up to hide the few strands of gray in her blond hair. Though her physical characteristics had been her stock in trade for over twenty years, she'd welcomed the signs of advancing middle age. A psychiatrist - or even an experienced bartender, for that matter - would analyze her welcome of the aging process easily. Obviously, she'd been more than relieved to finally find a good reason to leave the tawdry business she called a career behind.
That was what was so damn ironic about her new predicament. She'd been welcoming middle age, for God's sake.
Sighing, she walked back into the kitchen. Amalie's ice cream still sat on the counter and Samantha half smiled as she placed it in front of the little girl.
"Tanks." Amalie smiled back, and abandoned her found playthings to apply herself to the vanilla ice cream.
As Samantha bent to pick the paper bag off the table, another wave of Amalie's delicate scent struck her. Her fingers froze halfway to the bag. Oh, God. She recognized the so-appealing fragrance now. It was baby powder.
Heart pounding, she slowly retrieved each box off the table, refusing to consider the scent an omen. It couldn't be, she thought, redepositing the four different brands of unopened pregnancy tests inside the paper bag. Just as she couldn't be pregnant. Surely one of these tests would give a different result from the first one she'd taken.
* * *
A few hours later Samantha saw Judge D. B. Matthews walk into Bum Luck with another man who had to be his son. Standing at the bar, Samantha felt her stomach pitch, but she wrestled it back under control. With shaking hands she ran a glass of cold water and swallowed down some of the liquid. In the mirror behind the bar, she watched the two newcomers stroll through the room.