by Ana E Ross
Oh, so he was a friend. He would never have guessed.
“You left your bedroom window opened, so I closed it,” Mindy said.
Adam watched Tashi’s body go stiff.
“What? When?”
“Yesterday. The bottom part was wide open. I know how you are about keeping your windows closed especially when you’re out. I called out for you, but you didn’t answer, so I thought you forgot to close it. That’s what good neighbors do for each other. You babysit for me and wouldn’t let me pay you, so I thought I’d return the favor.”
Adam hadn’t even realized that Tashi was no longer on the porch until he heard the blood-curdling scream from inside her apartment.
He dropped her bags of groceries and raced inside. “Tashi!”
CHAPTER SIX
Tashi swung her hands frantically back and forth inside the gaping hole in the back wall of her bedroom closet. Maybe she’d missed it the first time she looked. She swallowed in desperation, but as her hand moved noiselessly through the black empty space, the harsh reality registered in her brain.
Her duffel bag with all her money was gone. Gone. And so was her cell phone.
Tashi screamed her anger into the air, and as an avalanche of utter despair and hopelessness descended on her, she collapsed to the floor and buried her face in her hands. Hard sobs erupted from her throat as a numb ache settled in her belly then quickly spread to the rest of her body.
How was she going to survive without that money? She couldn’t buy food or pay her utilities. She couldn’t leave town. She couldn’t work. She couldn’t do anything. She was trapped. Trapped, broke, and alone. And in two weeks, she would be homeless since she had no money to pay her rent. She may as well be dead. Her eyes stung from the hot tears that poured out of them.
“Tashi. Sweetheart.”
Tashi was barely aware of Adam’s voice, or his body dropping down beside her, cradling her against him.
“Tesora, ciò che è sbagliato?”
“It’s gone. It’s gone. They took it. They took it all!”
“What’s gone? What did they take?”
“My money. All of my money. They took all of it. It’s all I had in this world.” Her hands fell listlessly to the floor and her head slopped down on Adam’s chest as she gave in to the agonizing maelstrom inside her.
“Cara. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It’s my fault. It’s all my fault. I forgot to close the window.”
“I can’t…. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t live like this… I can’t...” She wrapped her hands about Adam’s waist as her body shook from her misery and defeat. “They took…they took my cell and…and now he…he can’t call me. He can’t call me….”
Adam’s heart was ripping apart for the woman weeping hysterically in his arms as she clutched him as if he were her only hope in the universe. He wanted so much to ask her about the “he” who couldn’t call her, about how much money was stolen from her, and what she meant by she couldn’t live this way anymore.
Now he understood the frantic look in her eyes earlier today when she’d asked if he’d locked up the apartment and if he’d happened to grab her phone the night he’d taken her to his home. Her money and her cell phone were the reasons she’d been anxious to get back to her apartment, only to find them gone. He felt horrible for failing to close the damn window after he’d crawled through it, for creating more havoc in her already tumultuous life.
God, he wished he knew what was going on with her. What kind of trouble she was in.
“What’s wrong, Tashi? Why you crying, girl?”
Adam looked up to see Mindy hovering near the bedroom door, staring at him and Tashi on the floor.
Tashi’s sobs ceased and she stiffened in his arms, but she didn’t try to lift her head or respond to Mindy? In fact, her arms tightened around him as if silently begging him to shield her from the rest of the world, to never leave her alone, to never let her go.
In that instant, Adam vowed in his heart that he would die protecting her if it came to that. Whoever was after her would have to go through him first, and then his three trusted friends before they got to her.
“Someone broke into her apartment,” he said to Mindy. “They stole her money and her phone, and maybe more.” He shrugged. “I don’t know, yet. Did you see anyone strange hanging around in the past three days?”
Mindy shook her head. “No. We weren’t home since Friday. Me and Billy and the kids went to visit my mom in Evergreen. But I can ask the kid two doors down. He came by to feed and walk Bacon. My mom doesn’t like dogs. They must have come through there.” She jutted her chin at the window. “That’s why it was open. You want me to call the cops?” She held up her cell.
“No. No cops.” Tashi pushed out of his arms, and stared at Mindy.
Just like no hospital the other night, he thought, watching her closely. Was she hiding from the law? God, he hoped not.
Mindy gave her a strange look. “You sure? ‘Cause they caught the guys who broke into Mrs. Shane’s house last week. They got back most of her jewelry and stuff. How much money we talking about, anyway?” She advanced farther into the room. “You got some nice furniture, Tashi,” she remarked, glancing around. “That leather couch, and plasma TV... How you afford this stuff? You don’t even work.” She ran her hand along the glossy cherry surface of Tashi’s bureau that matched her nightstands, and the head and footboards of her bed.
Tashi looked at him with a hesitant plea in her eyes.
Mindy’s curiosity mirrored his, but Adam was not about to let her questions upset Tashi any further. The girl had been through enough, and whether or not she wanted him to, he was taking her back to his home, and he was keeping her there until she told him her story. All of it.
She owed him the truth, and her trust.
He helped her to her feet, and leading her over to the bed, he sat her on the edge of the unmade mattress. “Just sit here, cara. I’ll take care of everything.”
Too weak, too numb, and too distraught to protest, she leaned against the footboard and stared across the room as if she didn’t recognize where she was. Or perhaps she just didn’t care. Someone had invaded her private space and stolen her most treasured possessions—possessions that were obviously linked to her survival, and to someone important in her past.
Adam closed his eyes briefly, hoping that the “he” she’d mentioned wasn’t a man she was in love with and who was in love with her. The thought of her with another man was…
“You sure he’s not your boyfriend, Tashi? ‘Cause he sure treating you like he is. Girl, you should make him your boyfriend. If a guy treated me like that, I’d be—”
“Mindy, can you do me a favor?” Adam walked over to the window and opened it to let some air in. The smell wasn’t as horrible as the night he’d climbed through it to save Tashi, perhaps because it had been ajar for two days, but it was stuffy in the room, nonetheless.
Mindy gave him a provocative smile as she smacked away on her gum. “Sure. What?”
“I’ll need some large trash bags. Can you check the kitchen?”
“Sure.” She looked a bit disappointed, but immediately left to do his bidding.
She was a pleaser, Adam thought as he began emptying the contents of the bureau drawers and the closet on the bed.
Tashi didn’t have much, so by the time Mindy returned with a box of thirty-gallon trash bags, all of Tashi’s clothes were in a small pile on the bed.
He gave a bag to Mindy. “Can you gather her personal things from the bathroom and put them in this? No cleaners or laundry soaps or anything like that. Just necessities you think a woman would want to take if she were going on a long vacation.”
“Sure. Okay. You taking her with you?”
She’d thankfully discarded her gum. The clicking sound was getting on his nerves. “Yes.” He began to stuff handful of clothes into a trash bag, hangers and all. He just wanted to get the hell out of this place as soon as possible, even more so
than he had the other night.
“Can you take me, too? Me and my kids?” Mindy asked from the bathroom.
“What about Billy?”
“What about him?”
“You’d just leave him like that?”
“He’d be happy if I left. He’s always complaining that my kids are noisy and annoying. But he puts up with us.”
“Really? He puts up with you?” Adam’s lips twisted into a hard line as he tied the drawstring of the first bag, set it on the floor, and pulled another bag from the box. Two bags. All Tashi’s clothes fit into two trash bags—well, one and a half bags, since the pile on the bed was a lot smaller now.
“Wait a minute,” Mindy yelled from the bathroom. “You think Billy is my…” She chuckled.
“Billy’s her brother.”
Adam turned and glanced at Tashi. She still had a blank look on her face as she watched him stuff her belongings into the bag. He hesitated, waiting for her to stop him. She didn’t, and instead turned her head and gazed out of the window, as if she were at peace with the fact that someone was making decisions for her.
Mindy emerged from the bathroom. Her bag hardly had anything in it. “My mom had me late in life. She said I was an even bigger mistake than Billy. She was good to us and looked after us when we were kids, but she wasn’t overly joyful at having us.” She opened the drawer of the nightstand and began to toss the contents into the bag. “She didn’t even put any effort into naming us. Just, Billy and Mindy. They aren’t short for anything, and we don’t have middle names.” She shrugged dismissively. “I got pregnant with Kyle when I was seventeen, and she threw me out. I moved in with his father and two of his friends, then we had Brittany.”
Adam set the other bag on the floor. It was hard to believe Mindy was basically the same age as he suspected Tashi was, yet she looked a lot older. A hard-knock life did age a person. Billy was probably ten years younger than he looked, and if Tashi stayed here, she’d be aging fast, too. “Where’s the kids’ father?” he asked Mindy.
Mindy sat down on the mattress. “He died in a motorcycle accident when Brittany was two months. I’ve been living with Billy ever since.”
“I didn’t know that, Mindy. I’m sorry,” Tashi said, joining the conversation.
Dear Lord, this place was chock-full of sorrow and disappointment. Grabbing another bag from the box, Adam walked to the closet to get the few pairs of shoes she owned, and to make sure he hadn’t left anything but the neatly folded sheets and towels on the shelf. He grabbed one more bag and scooped up the soiled bed sheets and her nightgown that he’d tossed on the floor three nights ago and dumped them inside. He tied the bag securely and dropped it in a corner.
“Thanks for all your help, Mindy,” Tashi said.
“Hey.” Mindy scooted down to sit next to Tashi. “I’ll miss you, and not just because you babysit for me for free once in a while when I have to work late, and you keep to yourself a lot, and don’t socialize, but I’m sure you have your reasons. Even though I can’t say we’re friends, I’ll miss you. I’ll miss not having you next door.”
Adam’s heart did a jig when he saw the slight hint of a smile on Tashi’s face. While the women talked, he went and washed his hands in the bathroom, then walked into the living room and the kitchen to check for important items Tashi might want to take. There was nothing of sentimental value as far as he could tell.
There were no pictures on her walls, no little trinkets or other personal items, no photographs—none of the little odds and ends people collected over the years and displayed to express their uniqueness and make a house a home. There was nothing to show that Tashi Holland had a past, nor where that past was located. That lack of “stuff” only meant one thing: she’d left her previous home in haste. All she’d brought with her to this new location was a bag of money and a cell phone, and now they were gone.
She had nothing tying her to this neighborhood. She has nothing tying her to this town either. The perturbing point sent him back into the direction of the bedroom where the women were talking quietly and holding hands like longtime girlfriends, even though their earlier conversation indicated that they hardly knew each other.
“Where do you work, Mindy?” he asked, strolling over to them.
“At the convenience store on the corner. I don’t have a car so I had to take something in walking distance.”
“Do you like it there?”
She snorted. “Like I like sandals in winter. They keep my feet off the snow, but they don’t keep them warm.”
Adam was impressed at her analogy. The girl had a brain. She’d just made some wrong decisions at too early an age, and was now stuck with raising two children on her own. He understood all about making wrong decisions—he’d almost made two horrific ones, and he was educated and privileged. Mindy could have sat at home and collected government assistance, like many unwed mothers were doing, but she’d chosen to work for a meager wage to provide for her children.
“Billy doesn’t charge me rent, and he pays all the utilities. I just can’t ask him for anything for me or the kids and I can’t bring any guys home. Like I would.” She puffed out air through her lips as she flipped her blond hair over her shoulders. “Plus when a guy finds out I have two kids, they run the other way.” She sighed. “My neighbor watches them when I’m at work and she doesn’t charge me that much, so…” She shrugged her thin shoulders and looked off with a hint of embarrassment on her face. “I’m doing the best I can.”
Yes, she was. And Lord, she was a talker, but she had nothing to be ashamed of. All she needed was a chance. She was a fighter, a survivor, just like Tashi. The only difference was that Tashi was all alone—well that, and Tashi didn’t talk. She had people hunting her and no support system, which made her a lot more vulnerable than Mindy who had family and friends nearby. Mindy had been kind to Tashi, and for that reason alone, she deserved her chance—one that he could offer. “Do you know who I am, Mindy?” he asked.
“Besides the fact that you’re hot and sexy, maybe rich on account of the car you drove up in, and not Tashi’s boyfriend?” She butted her shoulder playfully against Tashi’s. “No.”
“My name is Adam. Adam Andreas.”
Her mouth dropped opened and her eyes popped wide. “Like in Andreas hotels and restaurants? You related to them?”
“Yes, that Andreas,” Tashi chimed in. “He’s CEO of Andreas International. He’s one of the wealthiest men in Granite Falls. Maybe in the world,” she added, sending him a tangled look he couldn’t decipher. “Not only is he hot and sexy, he’s filthy rich, too.”
“Oh my God.” Mindy’s hand flew to her mouth. “Tashi, you sure know how to pick them, girl. Or not.” She leered at Adam.
Adam gazed at Tashi, a smile tickling the corners of his mouth. Was she becoming jealous of the ease with which Mindy had taken to him, was engaging him in conversation, had told him her life story just minutes after meeting him, when she’d spent three days with him and told him nothing about herself? Well, in all fairness, she was in no position to engage in small talk for two of those three days, but....
“Mindy Marshall.” Mindy held out her hand.
He shook it. “A pleasure.”
She glanced at Tashi. “Since Tashi doesn’t want you as a boyfriend, Adam, I—”
“I would like to offer you a better paying job with full family medical benefits in one of my establishments,” Adam said, cutting her off. Although he liked her bubbly temperament, he had no interest in starting a liaison with her. “You can move out of Billy’s apartment and into something of your own in a nicer part of town. Would you like that?”
“Would I? Yes. Yes.” She jumped off the bed and threw her arms around him, quite indecorously. “Thank you, Adam. Thank you so much.”
“You’re very welcome.” He tried to pry her arms from around him. He was too conscious of her breasts crushed against his chest. He would lie if he said he wasn’t somewhat aroused. Heck, he hadn’t be
en with a woman in months, and here was one clinging to him, offering him a temporary fix—the kind of fixes he liked, yet he squelched that physical reaction in an instant. He wanted more, something deeper and more meaningful.
And the woman with whom he wanted that deeper and more meaningful connection was staring at him questioningly. The rich prey on the poor and naïve and use them for their own selfish needs.
“So, how do we do this? Over dinner or something like that?” Mindy asked.
Adam pushed her at arm’s length and stepped back. “No, Miss Marshall. We wouldn’t be meeting. You can call Hotel Andreas tomorrow and ask for Mrs. Templeton in H.R. I’ll let her know you’ll be calling. You’ll be interviewed to determine your skills and figure out where you best fit in. You’ll have all the on-the-job training you need, and we offer full scholarships to our employees who wish to attend college.”
She’d gotten the message and dropped her gaze and her attempt at seduction. “I’d love to go to college to get a degree in accounting,” she said, her voice taking on a more professional tone. “I barely finished high school. I’ll work hard. I won’t let you down, Mr. Andreas.”
“I don’t expect you to.” He spoke to Mindy, but his eyes bore into Tashi in an attempt to eradicate any misconceptions she might have about him fraternizing with his employees. He wondered if a male superior had sexually harassed her at her former workplace. Had she been threatened when she complained? Was the money that was stolen hush money? If it were, why would “they” still be after her? His head was about to explode with the unanswered questions.
“I can’t wait to tell Billy I’m moving out.” Mindy’s voice broke the invisible thread of tension that was spinning between Tashi and him. She gave Tashi a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “We’ll stay in touch, right?”
“You bet. And Mindy, you can take the furniture or whatever else you want. But you have to move it before my lease runs out in two weeks. The keys are on the kitchen counter. Give them to Mr. Yoder when he comes around. Tell him I say thanks.” She paused. “I’m really happy for you, Mindy. I’m glad you’re getting out—moving up,” she added on a smile. “Good luck, and take care of those babies.”
