Adrian got a taste of hopelessness as the hours of the morning slipped by with no sign of Nikki. He roamed all over, stopped for lunch at McDonald’s, then roamed more. Dave hadn’t seen her all day, though he said that wasn’t unusual. Then he asked why Adrian missed the Wednesday Bible class. Adrian wanted to tell him that it wasn’t his soul he was worried about, it was his head. He made up some other excuse instead, finding this necessary lying coming a little easier each time.
By late afternoon, his feet ached. He’d run into Seamus, who spoke so highly of Mama Jam’s Jamaican beef patties that he bought six for both of them. Seamus wolfed his down within seconds, his dirty fingers shoving them in his mouth. Losing his appetite, Adrian gave Seamus his three as well.
Now, grumpy and hungry, Adrian wandered over to a makeshift bench, a board perched atop two halves of a green oil drum, and watched a barge cruise into the port of Palm Beach. He rubbed his fingers down his face, letting his body relax for the first time in hours. Within a few minutes a man with a large belly and grizzled gray beard sat down beside him. He nodded at Adrian as he settled onto the bench.
Adrian felt instantly uncomfortable; not out of fear, but for some reason he didn’t want to delve into at the time. Still, he didn’t get up right away. The strange sense of social obligation seemed terribly out of place.
“New ‘round here, aren’t you?” the man asked, though he kept watching the incoming barge.
“Just passing through.”
The man nodded. “I thought that too, when I first got here. That was ten years ago.”
Adrian looked at him, a clammy feeling in his stomach. “What happened?”
“Used to work on a ship. Much bigger than that thing over there.” He pointed to a large, steel ship in the distance. “I was the captain,” he said with a lift of his shoulders. “Captain Charlie. Made a lot of money, had respect.” He looked down at himself with a melancholy smile. “Hard to believe now.”
Adrian reached in his pocket for his lighter and fired up a cigarette. Charley’s eyes lit up, and with the speed of a ferret, he was holding the gold lighter in his liver-spotted hands.
“Nice lighter.” Charlie eyed Adrian. “Where did you get something like this?”
Adrian retrieved it, sliding it in his pocket. Stupid move, Wilde. Nash. Get a Bic. “Friend gave it to me a long time ago.”
“Oh.” Then Charlie’s eyes widened again as Adrian dropped his cigarette after two drags and stepped on the butt. “No! What are you doing?”
Despite his rotund appearance, Charlie could move if he had to. Apparently, he did, because within a second he was down on his knees reaching for the cigarette with one hand and holding Adrian’s sneaker with the other. The cigarette was flat, but Charlie tenderly fingered it until it was oval at best.
“How can you waste a whole cigarette like that?” After patting his pocket, he turned and asked, “Can I have a light off that pretty lighter of yours?”
Adrian lit the squashed cigarette for him, holding tight to the lighter this time. Another mistake. Bums didn’t waste cigarettes or liquor, not for any reason. He’d have to save his lighting up for private moments, and leave the gold lighter at home.
“So, what happened? When you were the respected captain?”
“I made a stupid mistake. Got drunk one night and rammed the ship onto some shoals. They fired me but good. My wife divorced me in shame, and I left town.” He shrugged, taking a deep drag off the cigarette. “Not much work for drunk sailors these days.”
“Maybe you should get off the booze,” Adrian said, not feeling much pity for the man now.
Charlie turned to him, his watery gray eyes stern. “I haven’t had a drink in ten years, since that night. All it takes is one mistake in that industry, and you’re gone. I tried everything I could, but I couldn’t make ends meet. Now I have nothing. But I try. Once, I had it all.”
Even a man like that had pride. It surprised him. And once, he’d had it all.
Adrian shivered, realizing that’s where he was now. Could something happen, something devastating that could ruin his career in one moment of poor judgment? He thought of Stan’s urgency in returning to New York City to talk to Calvin Klein. Nah, they could wait. Still, Adrian stood, feeling uncomfortable. He slipped his hands into his pockets and started walking away. Then, he turned around, pulled out the lighter, and tossed it to the man.
“And that horrible car was right there behind my van in the alley.”
Maudine leaned over the Formica table, absorbed in Nikki’s story about Crackers’s accident. She fingered the chopped strands of her bright red hair. “Are you sure it was the same car?”
“No, that’s why I didn’t take a rock to the windshield. I couldn’t wait around for the driver, either.”
Maudine’s gray eyes widened. “Why not? I’d have spied on the car,” she whispered conspiratorially. “You want me to spy on it?”
Nikki waved her hand. “Nah, it’s gone now.”
“And what about that guy, Arian?”
“Adrian,” Nikki corrected.
Sometimes, though Maudine was in her mid-thirties by her own best guess, she acted like a young girl. The young girl she had never been able to enjoy being, because her stepfather molested her. Then her mother had kicked her out of the house when Maudine finally gathered the courage to tell her. It had been one hell after another, ending with the state taking her children after her husband deserted her for a young waitress. Now she lived at the Lord’s Shelter, where Nikki had found her this afternoon.
“So, what happened with him?”
“Nothing. He’s probably gone by now.” Nikki glanced around the Seashell Diner. There was no one quite that handsome anywhere in sight.
Maudine smiled, looking up at her through her red eye lashes. “You like him, don’t you?”
“Maudine!” Nikki lowered her voice when she realized how loud it was. “I don’t like him. I mean, he was nice, but that’s all. Besides, I can’t trust anyone.”
That’s all Maudine knew about Nikki: that she was hiding from something or someone, and that she lived in her van. Sometimes Nikki even let Maudine drive it around when the cops harassed her. Because of Maudine’s appearance, they seemed to think she was a hooker. Nikki hoped not.
“Is he cute?”
Nikki rolled her eyes, not wanting to talk about the mysterious stranger anymore. “No, he’s not cute.” At Maudine’s surprised expression, she added, “He’s handsome. He has these gorgeous brown eyes that pull you in when he looks at you.” She thought of how gently he’d handled Crackers, how he carried him ten blocks to the animal clinic. “And he’s noble.”
“What’s noble?” Maudine asked, still smiling dreamily at Adrian’s description.
Nikki frowned, saddened that Maudine knew nothing about nobility and chivalry. “It’s being good and tender.”
“Oh. Did you kiss him?”
Nikki threw a wadded napkin at her. “Stop it.”
Maudine broke out into a fit of giggles, nearly knocking over her root beer float. When she finally settled down, her face sobered. “You’re too pretty to be down here, Nikki.”
Nikki leaned forward. “So are you.”
Maudine blushed furiously, highlighting every red freckle on her face. “Get out of here.”
“I’m serious.” Nikki had already vowed to bring Maudine with her when she left this horrible place that had become her home. With an emotional overhaul, Maudine might be all right.
Maudine hunched over, digging in her dirty parachute bag that used to be white. Then she proudly brought out three bottle caps: Arizona tea, Coca Cola, and a white, flat one. She picked up the Arizona one.
“This was raspberry flavored. Very good. A boy left half of it at the mall yesterday. It was still cold when I took it out of the garbage. Kids leave the best food. Remember that. Follow a big family, and you’re set for food for a week. Fanny Farmer’s was giving out free samples of their butter toffee. Yu
m. You should come with me sometime. There’s all kinds of goodies at the mall.”
“Maybe sometime.”
Maudine scooped up her caps and deposited them with the many others she toted around her neck. They were as valuable as gold to her. She braced her chin on her hands. “Tell me about Adrian again, what he looks like, and I’ll spy on him for you. Maybe he’s an alien or something. Someone should keep an eye on him.”
CHAPTER 5
“Wait.”
Nikki scooted towards Crackers and pulled the two yellow flowers from between the cracks of the asphalt before the puppy sprayed them. She smelled the tiny bouquet, remembering the fresh flowers the maid had put in her room every morning when she lived in the mansion. Nikki didn’t particularly miss the jewels in her box, the fancy clothes, or especially the droll parties where everyone tried to outdo each other with dress and drunkenness. She did miss silly little things, like the flowers…and Häagen-Dazs ice cream. And bubble baths.
She returned to the van, putting those flowers in a cup of water. Because the flowers didn’t smell, she lifted the cap off her Opium perfume bottle and inhaled. Then, for the heck of it, she deposited a tiny drop on her wrist.
She removed the robe, then her silk nightgown, and put on her wool sweater and jeans. Over all that she put on her shawl to hide her braided hair and the overcoat. Grabbing her camera, she rejoined Crackers where she’d tied him to the bumper.
Her main purpose in life was surviving, but beyond that, taking pictures filled the greatest moments. The rest was an empty space that dreams had left behind. If she could spend every waking hour taking photographs, she would, but that was impractical. Last night, as she lay in her bed tossing and turning, she thought of some great shots with a crippled puppy in them. Today, she would turn those thoughts into film.
The cold front had swept through the night before, bringing with it rain and even colder air. Wispy clouds scudded across the sky, leaving streaks of blue where they thinned the most. Soon they would dissipate altogether, leaving a glorious day. For now, the weather would be a good backdrop for her pictures.
Midmorning, when the sun began to dominate the sky, Nikki was still posing Crackers, this time in Seamus’s baby stroller. She knew he allowed it only because he was far into another world today, and hadn’t realized what she’d asked. That was why she wanted to get the shot and be on her way. Now that her creativity was percolating with ideas, she wanted to find Maudine and pose her with Crackers, sharing a treat together. That was what she wanted her photographs to show, that the homeless were people too, and that they enjoyed the same simple pleasures everyone else did.
“You’re going to spoil that puppy crazy,” a low voice said behind her, and she jumped just as she made the exposure.
Whirling around with her hand on her heart, she stood to face Adrian. He looked extraordinarily handsome at that moment, with the sun gleaming off almost black hair and a devilish smile on his face. She looked away, not wanting to notice those things about him.
“I was just posing him.”
Crackers had already struggled out of the stroller and waddled over to Adrian, obviously recognizing him as his savior. Adrian knelt down and scratched the puppy’s chin. In a sweatshirt, his chest looked even larger than before; she could imagine him wrapping his arms about a woman and making her feel very secure. Her hand went to her lips at the feelings that thought invoked. Not this woman, she reminded herself, looking away. The feeling lingered, though. It had been so long since a man had held her. The thought of it seemed like heaven.
“He looks happy. You must be a great nurse.”
“Okay, I am spoiling him rotten, and he loves it.” Her voice grew soft. “I doubt anyone’s ever spoiled him before.” She couldn’t help but smile at Crackers’s tail, wildly swinging every time Adrian spoke.
He held the pup’s chin and said, “You don’t know how lucky you are, fella.”
Nikki pulled on the leash she fashioned from a couple of belts and started walking away.
“Did I say something wrong?” he asked in that rich voice of his.
“No. It’s just that I…have to go now. I have to get Crackers back…” She started to say home but let the sentence hang. “He’s been on his leg all morning.”
“Can I walk with you?”
“It’s probably best if you don’t.” Ulyssis’s warning to be careful floated through her mind. She remembered something he’d said about the man who’d come into the gallery. “Do you like to photograph things, Adrian?” Damn, but she liked the feel of his name on her tongue.
He gave her an odd look. “Yes, but I’m not very good. There wasn’t much to do where I grew up, so when my Uncle Carlos gave me one of his cameras he used in his private investigator practice, it gave me something to do with my time.”
Nikki found herself smiling, picturing him as a kid with a camera. In spite of herself, she wanted to know more about him. “What kinds of things did you take pictures of?”
“At first everything, but my newspaper delivery business could hardly support my habit. I always look for the story behind the photograph.”
Like her. “And you didn’t do anything with it?”
He shrugged. “If you count working with my uncle catching illicit cheaters for rankled spouses. Even then, I always went for the artistic angles.” He reached for the camera in her hands, and she reluctantly let him take it. That he would steal it was the least of her worries.
“A Hasselblad. It’s a good camera, isn’t it?” He looked it over and then handed it back to her.
“I suppose. I’ve had it for a while.” A gift from her mother who always insisted on the best. When her mother thought it was a hobby.
As he looked into her eyes, she felt such a poignancy she could hardly pull her gaze away from his. Once again she forced herself to walk away from him, wondering if he was lying about his mild interest in photography. The man who’d gone into Ulyssis’s gallery said he was a photographer. She kept her camera in the folds of her coat to hide it from any other interested individuals who wanted to do more than compliment her taste in equipment.
When he spoke, his voice was a short distance behind her, and she knew he had remained where he was. Crackers was straining against his homemade collar, trying to go back to him.
“Nikki, let me buy you lunch. Crackers, too.”
“I don’t need your charity,” she said, still looking ahead. Her voice trembled, and she cleared her throat. “But thank you anyway.”
He laughed, though not in a mocking way. “I’m not offering you charity. You can tell me about your hobby.”
When she turned around, he was standing with his hands in his pockets, leaning his weight on one leg. He smiled, such an innocent smile. If he were hired to find her, or to kill her, he was probably the best in the business. And her brother, Devlin, would hire the best.
Crackers continued to strain as she fought with herself over something as silly as whether to have lunch with this man. The two belts came undone, and the pup hobbled eagerly over to Adrian. She found herself ironically glad that she’d given Crackers a sponge bath now that Adrian was rubbing his cheek against the top of the dog’s head. Something in that small action tugged at her resistance, and she stepped forward to retrieve her puppy.
“I guess I’m outvoted.”
He smiled. “Looks like it.” He reattached the belts and carried the dog several blocks to a restaurant called Mama Jam’s. She paused warily outside, already smelling the jerk spices.
“Haven’t you ever eaten here?” he asked. “Or have you, and that’s why you’re looking like that?”
“No, I’ve never eaten here.”
He looked up at the peeling paint of the sideboards and the jaunty sign over the door depicting a round black woman with fruit on her head. “I didn’t think I’d ever eat at a place like this either, but Seamus talked me into it. They have great Jamaican meat patties.” Adrian tied Crackers up to the black bars on the
window in a shady spot.
Her eyes widened. “Seamus? You and Seamus had lunch here?”
“Sure. What’s so strange about that?”
She shook her head, walking closer. “I can’t imagine you and him having lunch together. Does he talk to you?”
“He told me about his wife and little girl, and how they died in a car accident.”
“I didn’t know,” she said softly, walking inside as he held the door for her.
Island music played in the background, and a large black lady waved them to sit wherever they wanted. Nikki wondered if the woman was a model for the sign, though she wasn’t wearing any fruit. Adrian led her to a small homemade table near the front window where they could see Crackers.
Once the hot tea had been brought to the table, Nikki was glad to occupy herself with preparing it. Adrian dumped one packet of sugar in his and stirred it, but he was watching her. She could tell, even as she stared into her cup and watched the amber liquid make little whirlpools. He was leaned back in the simple wooden chair, one leg stretched out so that it extended to her side of the table. His presence seemed to overwhelm the tiny place. When she finally had to look up at him, he didn’t quickly look away. Instead, he smiled. The strange feeling in her stomach made her wish he would have glanced away.
“I thought you’d be gone by now,” she said, trying hard not to make it sound like she cared one way or the other.
“Not yet. I’m looking for work in the area. I like it here.”
So, he wasn’t going away anytime soon. A tiny feeling of elation overruled her sense of security.
“Where do you go at night?” She found herself asking. “To sleep.”
Touched by Lightning [Dreams of You] (Romantic Suspense) Page 6
