by Alice Sharpe
Mac could think of nothing else to do but get rid of the girl and take himself home. “I know where you can sleep,” he told her.
She looked suspicious so he added, “Would you rather stay here in the alley?”
Her answer was immediate and delivered as she glanced back over her shoulder. “No. Please, don’t leave me here.”
“Then come with me. I know of a shelter run by a couple of fine women. They’ll give you a bed for the night and maybe allow you the soul-satisfying pleasure of earning your keep by mopping a floor tomorrow morning. You’ll like them.”
She wadded up the paper that had surrounded the late, great sandwich and stuck it in her pocket. Jake’s pocket…
“I’ll be happy to earn my keep,” she said softly. She punctuated this statement with a yawn that she covered with wet fingers.
She looked so damn pitiful that Mac wanted to fold her in a hug and protect her from the rain, from her confusion, from herself. Instead, he walked away quickly, checking every now and then to make sure she followed, not sure what he’d do if she stopped. What could he do? Who knew better than he that you couldn’t help someone who didn’t want help?
Her trust in him would have been heartwarming if it wasn’t so obvious she was lost enough to follow anyone who offered a ray of hope. It was a big responsibility, being trusted in this way, one that made him antsy lest he fail her. He didn’t want to make her significant problems worse, but he wasn’t equipped to save her, either. It had taken him most of his life just to save himself and, come to think of it, he hadn’t been terribly successful at that chore. If he had, Jessica wouldn’t have left him, right?
Thinking about his ex-wife wasn’t Mac’s idea of a good time, and he approached the shelter with a sigh of relief.
The door to the place stood wide open. Sister Theresa stood framed in the open doorway, talking to a man wearing a long, old-fashioned-looking raincoat. The man carried a compact black bag.
A doctor? If Mac paid the guy for his trouble, would he examine the girl and help her out?
Sister Theresa called to him. “Mac? Is that you? Come in out of the rain. Have a hot cup of coffee or some cocoa. And bring your friend. Everyone’s welcome here.”
He felt a tug on the back of his coat and turned swiftly. The girl was shaking her head, trembling from the cold or a bad case of nerves, or maybe something less obvious.
“You’re going to be fine,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders, trying to reassure her.
She peered around his side, then back at him. My, she had pretty blue eyes. “Is that the woman you mentioned? The kind one?”
He furrowed his brows. The quaint phrasing of the question sounded odd, especially coming from this drowned rat of a woman whose sodden clothes probably outweighed her.
“That’s Sister Theresa, though you’d never know it by the way she dresses. As you can see, the good sister doesn’t go in for the traditional habit. Seems it’s your lucky day. Her visitor looks like a doctor—”
He stopped talking because the girl had wrenched herself free and was now walking away from him as fast as she could, which wasn’t all that fast but was decidedly determined. He called out to Sister Theresa that he’d be back and trotted after his waif, calling for her to wait up. She pulled the hat down farther on her head and kept walking.
He caught up with her easily and even as he seized her arm, he wondered why he bothered. Reasonable or not, she was a grown woman with the right to make any decision she so desired. No cop would arrest her for changing her mind about a shelter. So far as he knew, she’d done nothing wrong and hurt no one, not even herself. But he couldn’t ignore the vulnerable slump of her shoulders or the way her gaze faltered when their eyes met.
She was afraid. If not of Sister Theresa, then of what? Or whom?
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
She cast a wary look toward the still lighted doorway and the two figures who had turned back to their conversation. She shook her head as though unable to put this new fear into words.
“Is it the doctor? Do you know him?”
Again she shook her head.
“Then let him examine you.” He touched her hand. “Come on—”
Again, he was talking to thin air as she’d managed to dart away. Instead of walking, she’d broken into a run. He’d seen a flash of terror in her eyes before she turned and that flash now yanked him after her.
“Wait,” he called, but she only ran faster. The clomping of her boots echoed on the wet sidewalk. A gang of five or six boys parted like the Red Sea as she plowed heedlessly through their midst. He heard them heckle her. Wearing that plaid coat and a man’s hat, they probably mistook her for Jake. He doubted she heard a single word.
Then he was among the kids, a few of whom he recognized from the dozens of times he’d seen them roaming the streets. They ignored him, he ignored them. Determined not to lose the girl, he kept up the pace.
It was inevitable that sooner or later the icy sidewalk would claim her and it did as she rounded a corner. He saw her feet slip out from under her and heard her cry as she hit the concrete.
He was there in a second but she was already scrambling to her feet, driven it seemed by panic, more powerful than any drug.
But of what? Of a doctor she’d never met? Of a nun?
She fell again, on hands and knees this time. Another sob, another mad scramble to her feet. He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her toward him. She came kicking and screaming, out of control. She kept crying, “No, No. Please, no.”
He wrapped her tightly against him. “It’s okay, honey,” he said. “Calm down.”
“I don’t want—”
“I know, I can see that. I’m not going to make you do anything. Tell me what you want me to do.”
She collapsed against his chest.
Another group of teenagers—apparently the only people willing to brave the elements—passed on the other side of the street. Mac could see more people peering from sheltered doorways.
He couldn’t abandon the quivering mass of flesh and bones who clung to him for support. He just couldn’t—not here, not like this.
“Try to walk,” he told her. “Let’s get out of here.”
With his arm around her, he helped her along, but not back toward the unknown terror of the doctor or the Catholic nun.
But where?
The shelter seemed to be out of the question. Making a snap decision, he said, “I’m taking you to my place for the night. You’ll be safe there. Tomorrow, we’ll think of what we should do.”
Even as these words left his lips, he recognized the foolishness of this decision. He was promising this extremely needy young woman a haven for the night and help the next day; he would keep his word, but the motivation for his offer had as many facets as an octopus has arms.
Oh, well.
Where before she’d followed, now she leaned on him heavily, her slight weight no problem, but her sudden emotional withdrawal unnerving. He tried asking her questions, but she ignored him and seemed to put all her energy into the act of walking. She must have hurt her knee when she fell; he noticed she’d developed a slight limp and a whimper when she stepped hard on her right leg.
Eventually, he got her back to his car. By now, he was as wet and smelly as she was. On the way around to the driver’s door, he found a spanking new parking ticket tucked under his windshield wiper. Jeez, did these guys follow him around and wait for a meter to run out? The citation went into the glove box with all the others. If the cops didn’t knock off all these tickets, he was going to have to go to the D.A. and complain.
It took several minutes to navigate his way across town. During the drive, he tried not to inhale deeply. The two of them smelled like old rubbish stewed in street grime and booze. He’d probably have to fumigate his car.
The girl rubbed her left shoulder and said nothing.
For once, there was a parking spot within a block of his apartment. If anyt
hing, the rain had grown icier and more vicious, and, heads down, they made their way to his place. A short flight of stairs seemed like more of a challenge than she was up to; without hesitation, he swept her into his arms and carried her up the stairs.
By the time he unlocked the door, she seemed more zombie than human. He didn’t want her clothes, or his outerwear, either, for that matter, inside the apartment proper. He wasn’t sure how to tell her she had to strip.
Thankfully, the entry floor was tile, as they both dripped a river of rainwater. An opposing door that locked on its own led to the apartment itself, providing a nice barrier for cold winters. Now, it gave him a staging area for getting his guest ready to come inside. He carefully locked the door to the outside, wondering when the girl would realize she was trapped, tense because he knew he was taking a chance and unsure why he’d put himself in this position.
Wouldn’t Chief Barry just love to have him investigated for kidnapping or assault….
Taking off his own coat and hanging it on a hook, he found his testify-in-court suit still relatively dry and clean. His shoes were hopeless. “Take off your clothes down to your underwear,” he told her softly. “I’ll get you a robe.”
She stared down at her clothes as though she’d never seen them before.
“Okay, then,” he said, and unlocked the second door. Turning on all the lights as he went, he made his way quickly to his bedroom, the carpeted floor a welcome cushion under his sock-clad feet. He grabbed the raw silk robe his aunt had brought him back from Hong Kong a decade before and hurried back to the entry.
She was still standing where he’d left her. Her eyes were closed and she looked as if she’d fall down if he blew on her. His first thought was to call a doctor. He quickly dismissed that and comforted himself with the thought that she’d rally after a hot shower and a good night’s sleep.
“I’ll help you,” he told her.
That seemed to rouse her a little. A least she opened her eyes. In the bright light, her irises looked as blue as a summer sky and as guileless as a picnic. Again, he felt a surge of protective ardor that was totally out of place.
He unbuttoned her coat. Jake’s coat. Where did she get this awful garment? Under what circumstances did a burned-out boozehound give up his coat on an icy winter day? For money? This girl didn’t look like she had two coins to rub together. Out of some kind of loyalty or caring? Did Jake know this woman?
He removed his ruined hat from her head, peeled the wet coat from her body and deposited it on the tile floor. She stood facing him in a flannel shirt so dirty it was hard to tell its original color. Her pants were way too big and tied around her waist with a length of rope. The boots on her feet suddenly looked huge, like clown shoes. He knelt down and untied them, but it really wasn’t necessary. They slipped off in his hands and he found she was barefoot underneath. Her tanned feet were damn near frozen to the touch.
“You might want to take the rest of these wet things off,” he said, raising the robe between them as a privacy shield.
He heard nothing and ventured a peek. She stood there, swaying.
“All-righty then,” he said, and biting the figurative bullet, hoped a sense of modesty didn’t pay her a belated visit. Talking all the while about the virtue of hot water and soap, he unbuttoned her shirt and stripped the wet cloth away. He tried to do this without looking, but that proved impossible, especially after he caught a glimpse of what lay hidden under the shirt.
Black silk. A tiny glittering sea horse sewn on to a wisp of black lace.
It was like peeling an egg and finding a diamond instead of a yolk.
Though he tried not to notice, he was a man, after all, and he couldn’t help but take heed of the size and shape of her breasts. Not as large as Jessica’s, but firm looking and beautifully rounded, this woman’s breasts filled the cups of her bra with what appeared to be damn near perfection.
“Pretty underwear,” he said, hoping the comment might startle her into speech. More likely, it would earn him a slap across the face, a slap he deserved if his increasingly wayward thoughts were to be considered. She didn’t move.
That’s when he noticed her staring at the inside of her left arm. He followed her gaze and saw what so mesmerized her were several needle marks and surrounding bruises.
Damn.
Here he’d just about decided she wasn’t a druggie and, pow, proof. Would she start climbing the walls when her latest hit wore off? “Are you okay?” he demanded. “Talk to me.”
She stared at him and shook her head. Had she gone into some kind of shock induced by cold and stress?
“Say something,” he demanded.
“I’m…I’m cold,” she stammered, hugging herself. Her left shoulder was black and blue.
And then she began plucking at the snarl around her waist, trying to untie the rope, having no luck. She cast him a helpless look and so he tried to come to her aid, but in the end, it proved necessary to take out his pocket knife. Bypassing the knot, he hacked through the rope. The pants immediately slid over her slender hips, puddling on the floor at her feet.
Her panties matched her bra—bedecked with a dazzling sea horse, feminine, expensive, out of place. They, too, covered lovely mounds of flesh, as well as a trim stomach. Both her knees were red, but the right one sported a two-inch gash that looked relatively superficial. Additional bruises marred her thighs and legs.
As she held his hands for support and stepped out of her pants, he wondered again. Who was she? A coed gone astray? A working girl whose favorite john indulged his fantasies by dressing her in fancy lingerie and then pummeling her?
Awkwardly, he pulled the robe over her arms and tied the sash around her waist, studiously trying to ignore the feel of her cold but petal-soft skin. The ripe smell of the alley helped squash amorous thoughts. Supporting half her weight, they shuffled inside the apartment. He closed and locked the door behind them, still babbling like a demented man, covering his own apprehension with the sound of his voice.
“I can’t keep thinking of you as ‘the girl,’” he said. “It’s politically incorrect and after our recent familiarity, a little silly.”
No rise from her. No flicker of an eyebrow or curl of a lip. No indignant sneer, no anger. Nothing.
“How about I call you Grace?”
She stared at him, wrinkling her brow as though trying to think.
“Is that name okay with you?” he said, trying his best to force her to speak, concerned that she still could.
She mumbled something that sounded like yes and he let it be. Within minutes, he had her in the shower, underwear and all. He could almost see the hot spray coax her back to life. When she grabbed the soap from his hand, he knew it was time to step away and leave her alone.
“There’s shampoo on the shelf in there,” he told her.
She answered by handing him her underwear, which she’d wrung out.
As he dropped it in the sink, he heard a strangled cry coming from the shower, then another. Without thinking, he threw back the curtain.
“What is it…Grace? What’s wrong?”
Stark naked, she stared at him with wide eyes. Her mouth formed a perfect little O.
Even as he tried to reassure her that she was okay, that he’d leave the room or call for help, whatever she wanted, he couldn’t help but absorb the details of her body. And wow, what a body she had. Nipples like pink rose buds. Curvaceous waist and hips. Long, shapely legs. Lots of tanned skin, discreet areas of lily white.
The unexpected heat of desire knocked him on his heels. Good to know his ex-wife’s betrayal hadn’t killed every impulse in his body, but talk about poor timing. He tried to turn away, but the woman—Grace—ran shaky hands across her flat tummy and a new fear crystallized in his head. Was she going to throw up?
And then he finally understood her distress.
Across her belly, vertical lines, so faint they were all but invisible.
The lines a woman’s abdomen ac
quires as her body stretches to accommodate a pregnancy.
His gaze met hers. Tears streamed down her face.
She was somebody’s mother.
Chapter Two
Grace managed to gather enough wits to wash her hair and towel dry herself. The man didn’t leave the room, though she could feel his intense desire to do so. If he stayed, it must be because she looked as awful as she felt.
A pregnancy. She had a child.
She wiped the tears from her face with shaky fingers.
A baby.
Or not. Maybe the pregnancy hadn’t ended well. Maybe that was the tragedy that had propelled her into a lifestyle that ultimately led her to find herself in a stranger’s bathroom, needle marks on her arm, covered with bruises, her mind little more than a foggy cliff edged with perilous drops into nothingness.
The man handed her a tissue which she took gratefully and blew her nose.
Competing for attention with an exhaustion so acute it ate away at her joints was a growing sense of anxiety. There was someplace she needed to be, someone she needed to see, something she needed to do.
But what?
“Here, put this on,” the man said.
She stared at the blue garment and realized she’d been standing there with the towel clutched to her chest, the rest of her body stark naked. She knew what he offered was a robe, she knew he wanted her to put it on, to cover herself. She even knew, in some remote part of her mind, that he felt disconcerted by her nudity. She reached for the robe, but everything seemed to happen in slow motion. At last, she got it around her. She could feel the man’s relief.
What kind of woman is so unconcerned about a strange man seeing her naked?
She didn’t even want to contemplate the possibilities. She was too tired to ponder such a troubling question.
“Thank you,” she mumbled.
He shrugged broad shoulders still encased in a gray suit jacket now stained with shower water. As she watched, he took off his jacket and draped it over a towel bar, then rolled up the sleeves of a white shirt. He had nice forearms, strong looking, dusted with fine, dark hair.
