Adrian used to feel that way, too. He didn’t want to see them because they reminded him of what he was once afraid of becoming. For a while, he had been one of them. They weren’t just nuisances or blotches on the face of society; they were people, human beings who had run out of luck. He would never look at them the same way again, not here or in New York.
Adrian parked outside The Lord’s Shelter. It was a bright, sunny day, and he felt like a completely different man than the Adrian Nash who had gone there to spend the night. He looked different, too, with crisp jeans and a bulky sweater he’d picked up in France a year ago. His hair was combed straight and tied back, and his face clean-shaven. Strangely, he didn’t feel as out-of-place as he looked.
When Dave saw him walk inside, his friendly expression turned curious, then to that hostile tone it had the last time Adrian was there. He walked to where Adrian stood, just inside the front doors. Before Dave could say anything, Adrian held out his hand.
“Hello, I’m Adrian Wilde.” He handed him a business card, turning Dave’s expression back to curious. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
Dave looked him over, then shrugged. “Follow me to my office.”
Adrian remembered the office well, though they’d gone in a different way. He could still see Nikki standing there with the orange light all around her, making her look like an angel. Dave took a seat behind his battered desk and read the business card, but Adrian remained standing.
“You’re here to take pictures of the homeless? Is that what this has been about?”
“No, not at all. I told you the truth when I said I was looking for a woman I had known. Nikki is that woman. I don’t know what she told you about me, but she’s right about one thing: I did lie about who I was. It’s not because I’m on some devious mission. How much do you know about her?”
Dave shrugged. “Not much. Most people who come in here don’t volunteer much about themselves.”
“I suppose not. But there’s something different about Nikki. I’m sure you’ve noticed.”
Dave’s light skin blushed at that. “Of course. She’s a lovely girl who certainly doesn’t belong here. But she’s never asked for help, and our policy here is not to push it on anyone.”
“She wouldn’t have taken your help anyway. She’s in danger. I can’t tell you much more than that, because I don’t know all the details. All I do know is that I have to help her.”
“She knows you lied about your identity.”
“She now knows who I really am and why I’m here. Whether she believes the latter part, I don’t know.” He wasn’t about to explain it all to Dave. “I’ve looked all over for her, but I can’t find her anywhere. I’d like to help out here, so if she comes in, I’ll be able to talk to her. That’s all I want to do, is see her and try to help her.” At Dave’s hesitation, he added, “I know you have no reason to trust me, but I’m all Nikki has right now. You’ll be here to make sure I don’t throw her over my shoulder and haul off with her.” The thought did have some appeal. Adrian raised his hands. “I can ladle soup real good.”
Dave seemed to contemplate the whole thing, tapping his fingers on the desk top. Finally he said, “Okay. But if there’s even an inkling of trouble—”
“I know, the cops respond quickly when you call them.”
Both men smiled, and Dave said, “Okay, you got the hint last time.” He looked at his watch, getting up. “It’s about lunch time. Let’s see if we can find you an apron.”
“I’ll risk my jeans, thank you.”
As the line of familiar faces filed past him, Adrian’s gaze kept drifting toward the door. He smiled at the people with whom he’d spoken, but they only gave him curious glances. Adrian wasn’t sure that they’d even recognize him without the beard, but he didn’t much care. There was only one thing he cared about. Well, two. One was small and fuzzy.
Nikki had finagled the phone number to the rental house under the pretext of having left an item there while friends had rented it a month ago. Though the agent insisted they’d never found a camera, she sweet-talked the man into letting her call the current resident just to take a quick look in one of the upstairs rooms where the cleaning people may have missed it.
No one had answered the phone in two days. When the machine picked up, a generic voice announced the guests were out seeing the sights and would she like to leave a message? She realized she’d hoped to hear Adrian’s voice, and shook her head in disgust.
She didn’t dare drive by the house, but even calls late at night yielded no answer. She wondered if he’d given up and gone back to New York. For some odd reason, that thought made her feel lonely, not safe. He could have been some madman, or a murderer. Still, the words he’d spoken at the beach haunted her: It felt like I was going into you, right before you experienced whatever put those scars on you. I was there with you. I felt everything you felt.
She shivered, wondering if his voice would ever go away. He had described her experience. Maybe he’d guessed what it was like to get caught in an explosion, but knowing that she thought only of her mother, and seeing the man who had mugged her, taking her wallet and leaving her feeling violated, how did he know that?
It was late afternoon before she got the courage up to drive into West Palm Beach. She parked behind the veterinarian’s office and walked inside with Crackers. The same pretty blonde was behind the counter, and she greeted Crackers and gave him a dog biscuit.
Nikki leaned against the counter. “Did the man who was with me pay Crackers’s bill?” The blonde seemed to weigh her answer, and Nikki added, “You can tell me the truth. I won’t tell him.” That much was true.
“Yes. He even came back in and paid the balance.” The woman smiled. “He’s gorgeous. He was in a few days ago to see if you’d brought the puppy back for his checkup.”
Nikki’s face went pale. “He was just in?”
“A couple of days ago.”
The doctor walked out to bring them back to the examining room.
Crackers got a clean bill of health, another dog biscuit, and the good news that in two weeks the cast would come off. She didn’t make an appointment, in case Adrian was still in town and came in again.
“I’m parked out back. Is there an exit there?”
The woman gave her an odd look, then nodded. “Sure. Follow me.” When she opened the door, she added, “And good luck with your fellow. You’re one lucky lady.”
After looking around for Maudine, Nikki decided to check The Lord’s Shelter for her. It was getting late, and the nights got cold. Nikki was pretty sure Maudine would be sleeping at the shelter if she got there early enough. A bowl of chicken noodle soup might help the chill in Nikki’s heart, too. It helped everything else, didn’t it?
She wrapped her arms around herself as she hurried up the front steps to the shelter. It had been a while since she’d been there, and it gave her an odd sense of comfort as she pushed the heavy door open. The line of hungry people nearly reached the entry, but she wanted to find Maudine first.
When she walked past the kitchen, she nearly fainted. She couldn’t believe what she saw, and blinked her eyes several times. Adrian stood behind the counter, dishing out bowls of soup. Or at least she thought it was Adrian. At first she thought her mind was playing tricks on her.
He was clean-shaven, and his hair was straight, pulled back in a ponytail. His rich burgundy sweater hugged the width of his chest. But it was his eyes that solidified the fact that it was, indeed, Adrian Wilde. She’d never forget those gorgeous brown eyes. As she stood with her mouth agape, she saw his eyebrows knit together a second before he looked in her direction.
She ducked out of view before he saw her, leaning against a bookcase in the now deserted reading area. Her heart was pounding like a jackhammer. After taking a second to catch her breath, she slipped down the hallway to Dave’s office. It was dark and cold, but she was glad it was unlocked. She shut the door and locked it, leaning against the wood. Her hand
was pressed against her heart as though that could calm its frantic beating. After a time, she let herself feel some amount of relief that he hadn’t seen her.
The last time she’d been in this office, Adrian had been with her, carrying an injured Crackers. She remembered how concerned he’d been, and realized that was guilt. She had seen it again at the beach. Whether it had been concern or guilt, she knew it was real. Her heart whispered that a killer wouldn’t have felt either for a dog, but she ignored it. How could she have let him get so close to her? How could she have trusted him?
She already knew the answers to those questions. The way he’d made her feel, the way he’d listened to her talk. He’d told her that she was too pretty to be on the streets, and she knew, deep in her heart, that he’d meant that. She wrapped her arms around herself, remembering how wonderful it felt to have his arms around her. She knew she should run far, far away from here, somewhere he could never find her. If only she had enough courage to leave.
“You’ve got to go to school. You don’t want to spend the rest of your life here, do you?”
Pedro vehemently shook his head, sending his silky black hair spraying. Adrian had seen himself in the Cuban boy and had gathered the courage to face the ghost of what he might have been. Pedro’s mother was fired from her domestic job as housekeeper, where she and her son lived. Now the boy was out of the school district and not attending at all.
Adrian heard Dave’s angry voice at the door and started walking over to help. The front door closed, and Dave balled his fists up in silent fury.
“What’s wrong?” Adrian asked as he approached, but Dave shook his head.
“Nothing.” He looked at a few of the homeless who had gathered at the sounds of a confrontation. Shaking his head again, he headed down the hallway to his office. Adrian followed, too stubborn to ever take the hint.
“Tell me what that was all about.”
Dave gestured for him to close the door. “The city officials want to close us down. We have two weeks to fix our code violations. This isn’t the first time they’ve been here. The problem is, we barely have enough money to get by as it is. Why do you think we only serve biscuits and soup? I’ve been trying to keep it all together on a dime budget, but this is going to sink us. There’s nothing I can do about it.”
“What will happen to all the people who eat and sleep here?” Adrian was thinking about Pedro.
“They’ll go back to the streets, sleep in cardboard boxes and alleys. The city figures if the shelter goes, so will the homeless. It doesn’t work that way.”
“What needs to be done?”
“The two biggies are a better roof and a bigger kitchen. Heck, this kitchen was made for little church functions, heating coffee, things like that. But it’s all we have.”
Adrian looked out the window through the coating of grime. If he never saw Nikki again, he would worry about her night and day. Was she safe? Well fed? He wouldn’t be able to help her with the first concern, but if the shelter was here, she would at least have a place to go, get a hot meal. He thought of Seamus, Charlie, and all the others who relied on The Lord’s Shelter. If he were homeless, this would be a place of solace and comfort. He wanted to make sure it was there for them, now and always.
“It looks like we have a lot of work to do, then.” Adrian smiled at Dave’s confused expression.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, we have to meet with a contractor to see what kind of work we’re talking about. Then we’ll all pitch in to get it fixed.”
“You didn’t hear me. That takes money, and we have exactly two hundred dollars in the emergency fund. That won’t even buy a new stove.”
“We’re not going to touch the emergency fund. I happen to know a wealthy businessman who could use a tax write-off. I have a feeling that he’d have a special interest in this project. What are you sitting there with your mouth open for? Get the phone book out and start calling contractors.”
When word spread that the shelter was in danger of being shut down, everybody who called it home pitched in to help. Charlie had been in construction briefly after the shipping accident and had some handyman experience. Even Pedro was eager to help as much as a twelve-year-old could. The contractor took care of the electrical and plumbing, and everyone helped with hanging drywall, painting and cleaning up. Adrian supplied hamburgers to all the help, since the kitchen was inoperable.
The roof was handled simultaneously by professionals, but Adrian kept on top of everything, pretending he knew more about the business than he did. Rock and roll blared from morning to dusk, and into the evening hours after the construction crew left for the day. Adrian, Dave and a handful of other men and women continued their work under rented lights.
For six days Adrian worked from sun up till late at night, breaking only after Dave insisted. More than protecting the shelter from being shut down, all the hard work kept Nikki from consuming Adrian’s mind. Sometimes he showered at the shelter and stayed up talking with Dave until they were both exhausted.
That was the case tonight, and when Dave’s eyes started drooping, Adrian reluctantly pulled his boots from the corner of the desk. Unlike Dave, and despite the days of hard work, he was restless tonight.
“I’ll let you get to sleep. I think that shower woke me up for a while.”
“If you want to keep shooting the bull, I can stay up.”
Dave was not the sort of guy Adrian would have hung around with in New York, but hard work and common goal had brought them together like old friends. Despite the fact that Adrian stuck with the story of a business acquaintance footing the bill for the construction, he suspected Dave knew it was his money.
“Nah, I’m sure I’ll drop dead as soon as I get home. See you bright and early tomorrow. We’re almost done.”
“Thanks to you, we are.”
“I’ll pass the thanks on to my friend.”
Dave gave Adrian a knowing smile. “Sure, you do that.”
Adrian wore only a white cotton T-shirt and blue jeans to his car, not bothering to put on a sweater for just a minute or two. He left the windows open as he drove back to the house, radio blaring jazz to counteract the overdose of rock and roll.
When he walked into the house, he sensed immediately that something wasn’t right. It only took him a second to find just the opposite was true—something was very right. The shell necklace was hanging from the peg, and Nikki was sound asleep on the sofa in the living room. His heart lurched inside him, but he told himself it was because he was glad she was safe. Right there on his couch. He took the necklace off the peg and walked into the living room.
Crackers’s tail thumped against the throw rug as he struggled to his feet when he saw Adrian. He stroked the pup’s head but his gaze remained on Nikki. She was wearing a long skirt and a black sweater, and her long, blond curls flowed around her face and shoulders. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. She looked so peaceful, so content. He couldn’t deny that his feelings for her went deeper than relief. The overwhelming need to protect her, to hold her in his arms again, engulfed him.
Breaking out of his spell, he kicked off his shoes and walked closer to the couch, kneeling down beside her. He set the necklace on the table. He didn’t want to disturb her sleep, but curiosity overcame thoughtfulness. She was curled up under an afghan, and her hands were tucked beneath her cheek. Thoughts of kissing her seemed ludicrous, like kissing an angel. He touched her cheek, and she stirred from a deep sleep. Her green eyes widened, then rested upon him. She rubbed them sleepily, sitting up.
“I didn’t expect to find an angel on my couch when I came back. I would have returned earlier.” He spoke softly, so as not to jar the delicacy of the moment.
“I hope you don’t mind that we came in. I waited out front for a while, but it got so late. There was a window in back that was unlocked.”
Rita, he thought with chagrin. “I don’t mind. I’m glad you’re here. I’ve been worried about you.”
She smiled, becoming more awake. “You’ve been too busy to worry about me.”
“Oh, you mean the shelter. If it weren’t for that, I’d go crazy.”
“I thought you would be gone by now.”
He touched her cheek again. “You can’t get rid of me that easily.”
“I can see that.” She looked around for a moment, then back at him. “I don’t even know why I’m here. I shouldn’t be here.”
“Do you still think I’m working for Devlin?”
She started at his familiar use of the name but shook her head. “Adrian, please hold me.”
He gathered her in his arms, holding himself back lest he crush her. She felt small and delicate, and he had to remind himself how tough she really was.
“Let me help you,” he said into her hair.
She pulled out of his embrace, facing him. “You can’t help me. I wish you could understand, but no one can help me. I just have to wait.”
“I want to understand, Nikki. Tell me what we’re up against.” At her puzzled look, he added, “I told you, we’re in this together. If something happens to you, I think a part of me will die, too.” He would never tell her about the drowning nightmares and what they foretold. If she drowned, and he experienced it with her, would he die, too?
She rocked back and forth, her lips in a tight line. “I haven’t talked about it since the trial. I don’t even think about it, except for the nightmares.” Her hand subconsciously went to her scarred shoulder. Her eyes focused elsewhere, somewhere beyond him. “The day you felt the explosion ... that was when my whole world shattered.”
CHAPTER 11
Nikki couldn’t believe she was sharing this with anyone, much less someone she couldn’t completely trust. She had overheard him talking to Dave, when they’d come into the office and she’d had to hide in the closet. Adrian was serious about helping the shelter stay afloat.
As she looked into his eyes, filled with sympathy and understanding, she continued what she had started.
Touched by Lightning [Dreams of You] (Romantic Suspense) Page 13
