by Teresa Hill
"I like him. He's just a kid, and I want to help him."
Stephen swore. "I don't know of anybody in the neighborhood named Adams. Did you at least look in the phone book?"
"I will," she assured him.
"Do it now," he insisted, then called out something to the woman she thought must be his secretary.
Allie dutifully searched until she found the book. "There's no listing."
"My secretary checked with the phone company. I have a friend there. There's no Patricia Adams in this town."
"They might not have a phone."
"Maybe. Or maybe nothing the kid told you is true," Stephen said. "You think he's a runaway?"
"If he is, I don't think he's been on the streets long. He's doesn't seem tough enough to have been on his own for long."
"Allie, if he's a runaway, it's no telling what he might do to you."
"He's just a lost kid," she insisted. "Megan was like that once, Stephen. How can I not help this boy when at one time Megan was just like him."
Silence greeted her. She thought she could feel him glaring at her through the phone lines, but it wasn't entirely unpleasant to think about him worrying over her this way.
"He's not your sister," Stephen said.
"No, but I like having him here. I like that he showed up here now, when I'm making plans for a shelter. I think it's fitting. If I can help him, maybe I can help other kids, too. Maybe he can help me understand what kids like him need."
Again, Stephen said nothing. Allie remembered how opposed he was to her plans, and she found that odd. She didn't see him as an uncaring man. She would have sworn he had compassion for people less fortunate than he was. So it didn't fit—his being so skeptical of her plan for the shelter.
"I'm going to do some checking," he said finally. "Describe the kid to me."
She did.
"Could you at least try to be careful while he's around?" Stephen suggested. "Do you have a cordless phone?"
"Yes."
"Keep it with you. All the time. If anything out of the ordinary happens, call me. Or call 911."
"Stephen, this is ridiculous."
"You're the most trusting woman on earth," he complained. "You let me into your house that first night, even though you live in the middle of nowhere, all alone. I could have been an ax murderer."
"You're the boy who lived next door to my family for the first nine years of my life."
"I could have grown up to be an ax murderer," he argued.
"You really are worried about me?"
"Of course I am."
She closed her eyes and thought, Stop it. Just stop it. He might as well have a direct line to her soul. He knew just how to get to her, right there.
No one had worried about her in the longest time, and she wanted to believe the kindness and concern were genuine. That he was a strong, determined man, and that he would know very well how to take care of a woman.
"You know, you don't have to stay there all by yourself. You could stay here," he offered.
"No." She knew better than that.
"I'm offering you a room, Allie. Nothing else."
She was tempted, but she knew better. She was going to prove she was capable of resisting him. "I'll be fine here."
"I'd feel better if you weren't there all alone."
"You would feel better?"
"Yes."
"And the world usually does what Stephen Whittaker wants?"
"Quite often, it does."
"Because you're always right?"
"I'm not sure if I should answer that," he said. "I'm pushing too fast?"
"Yes."
"One of my many faults."
"You have faults?"
"Don't think I'm going to list them for you. I'm trying to get you to like me, remember?"
"I do like you," she said softly. "Too much."
"Okay, that's better. Maybe my ego hasn't sustained a mortal wound."
"Your ego is quite healthy."
"Hey, it's taking a beating with you."
"I'm sure it will survive."
"I'm not," he claimed.
"And I don't know what to do with you," she confessed, then had to take a breath. "Not at all."
"You don't have to decide right this minute. Take some time. Think about it. I'm not going anywhere."
"All right," she said. "I will."
"I'll call you as soon as I find out anything about the boy," Stephen said. "Be careful."
"I will." Allie put the phone down, dutifully found the cordless phone, and kept it with her. Not because she was afraid of Casey. Because she promised Stephen she would. Because she liked the idea of him worrying over her a little. It made her feel warm inside. She could tell herself to be careful, to be smart, to put on the brakes. Now.
But she couldn't stop that little warm glow.
* * *
She and Casey were upstairs a few hours when she heard a vehicle pull into her driveway. She watched from the attic window as a man she didn't recognize climbed out of a beat-up pickup and walked toward the front door.
"We've got company," she said to Casey.
"Who?" He looked worried.
"Maybe the house inspector."
"House inspector?"
"I hired someone to come look over the house. He's going to give me an idea of what needs to be done to the house, to fix it up. You know, for the shelter we talked about," she reminded him. "Grab a box, okay? We might as well start hauling some of this stuff down."
Allie set her box down in the entranceway as the doorbell rang. She opened the front door and found a man who looked to be in his fifties standing there. He wore coveralls stained with paint, a T-shirt, and work boots, and he looked taken aback. In fact, he looked a little like Stephen had that first night.
"Hi, I'm Alicia Bennett," she said. "Are you Mr. Reynolds?"
The man shook his head, looking bewildered, then whispered, "You sure do look like your mother."
Allie smiled gently, because the man had a kind face, weathered and worn, but kind. "Did you know her well?"
"Oh, Lord," he said, sounding shaken. "We went through school together. You've got her smile. I hope you don't mind my saying so. Somebody told me she passed away not long ago."
"Two months ago," Allie said.
"I'm awful sorry to hear that, little lady. I thought the world o' your mother."
She held out her hand to him. "Please, call me Allie."
He took off his cap and shook her hand. "I'm Tucker Barnes. Sorry I didn't introduce myself right off."
"It's all right," Allie assured him, wondering where she'd heard the name before. >From her mother, she supposed.
She turned to Casey and introduced him to Mr. Barnes. Tucker stared at Casey. Casey backed away and said, "I'm going to finish bringing those boxes downstairs, Allie."
"Thanks." When he was out of earshot, she turned back to Tucker. "Do you recognize him?"
"Can't say for sure." Tucker sighed. "You say he lives around here?"
"That's what he told me."
The old man stood there in the doorway, not taking his eyes off Casey, who brought two more boxes downstairs, then disappeared again.
"Adams, you said?"
"Yes."
"I don't know anybody named Adams," he said finally.
Odd, Allie thought. This was so odd. "Mr. Barnes?—"
"Tucker," he said. "Everybody calls me Tucker."
"What can I do for you?"
"I just wanted to come by and tell you how sorry I was to hear about your mother, and tell you if there's anything I can do to help you close up the house or fix it up—whatever—you just call me." He handed her a slightly creased business card from his shirt pocket. "I paint. I hang Sheetrock. Do a little electrical work. Whatever. Won't charge you nothing but the paint or the materials, either. I figure I owe it to your mother. So you just give me a call. I'd be happy to help."
Allie took the card. "Thank you."
A
nd with that, the man was gone.
She stood at the front door watching him leave. She wasn't afraid of him, just confused, intrigued. That had to be one of the oddest conversations she'd had since coming back to Dublin, and that was saying a lot.
* * *
Martha got home late, finding Tucker at her kitchen table. More often than not, he was there when she came home, although he didn't officially live with her. They didn't have that kind of relationship, probably never would. But it was more than Martha ever had with any other man. Maybe one day, she would convince herself it was enough.
Tucker kept a room in a house across town, although he didn't spend much time in it. He was usually keeping Martha's bed warm, eating her food, taking care of her. He wasn't a moocher, looking for a willing woman and a cook and a housekeeper and a free place to stay. He paid her money toward the rent and bought the groceries and took her out every now and then. He was better to her than any man she ever had, but he didn't love her.
He'd never made any promises to her, except that he would never love her and never lie to her, and Martha didn't think he'd ever broken either promise.
He didn't drink much, either. A cold beer or two after work, but Martha didn't consider that "drinkin'." Drinkin' involved downing too much, too fast, getting mean and smartin' off, saying things to hurt people, or maybe taking a hand to someone.
Tucker didn't do any of that.
So for him to be sitting at the table with a bottle of Jack Daniel's in front of him, something had to be wrong. He eyed her as warily as the half-empty glass in his hand when she walked in and sat down at the table without saying a word. Asking wouldn't do any good, she'd found. Tucker would tell her when he was good and ready. To push him only made him mad, and she'd always worried that if she ever made him mad enough, he'd take off and never come back. So she'd learned to stay quiet when something was troubling him.
Finally Tucker emptied the glass and said, "I went to see her."
Martha didn't have to ask who he meant. "Did you tell her who you were?"
"Just that I was a friend of her mother's since we were little kids. I offered to help her, if she needed anything done to the house."
Martha waited. None of that sounded so bad. And what did she have to be worrying about anyway? Janet Bennett was dead and buried. She couldn't take Tucker away from Martha, although Janet's memory was what kept him from loving Martha. And that hurt. It made her angry, but she tried not to get all bent out of shape about it, because Janet was gone. Martha wasn't going to waste her time being jealous of a memory.
"Have you seen the boy?" Tucker said.
"What boy?" Martha asked.
"There was this boy at the house with her. A scruffy-looking teenager. You know, with those stupid lookin' pants that are too big, the kind you can't even walk in without steppin' on 'em, and a ratty T-shirt and funny hair."
"All the kids look like that now, Tuck."
"But you don't know this boy, do you? When she was in town, did she have this boy with her?"
"I didn't see her with anybody," Martha said. "Why? What's so special about this boy?"
"She said he was some neighborhood kid helping her around the house, acted like she didn't even know who he is, but that can't be right. I don't know why she'd try to hide it, but..." Tucker poured himself another drink and took a swallow. "He looks just like... like..."
He couldn't say her name. Well, maybe he could, but he didn't. Not if he could help it. It hurt Martha's feelings all over again. "Janet?" she asked. "This boy looks like Janet?"
Tucker nodded. "I thought she might have had a son. After she left here."
Martha nodded, understanding. That would upset Tucker, if his precious, long-lost love found someone else, if another man had fathered another child with her.
Feeling uncharacteristically old and bitter, Martha wondered once again why Tucker hadn't taken off to find Janet years ago, when Janet had taken her daughter and left her husband and gone away. If he loved the woman so damned much, why hadn't he gone and found her then? Why had he stayed here waiting for her to come back?
Martha had watched him and wanted him for years, had waited patiently for him to get over the woman who'd broken his heart, the woman who made it impossible for him to ever love Martha.
So why hadn't he gone to find her? Martha almost asked him. She almost shouted it at him and ruined everything.
And then she got all sad and hurt and wisely kept quiet. She supposed it wasn't so hard to figure out why Tucker stayed where he was, waiting and hoping and making the best of things with Martha. After all, Martha did the same thing herself. She stayed right here with him, hoping all the time that he would come to love her someday. Maybe just a fraction as much as he'd loved Janet Bennett.
* * *
Allie and Casey gave up on the attic around six, and she offered to cook dinner for him, but he declined. Not wanting to let him go without some food, she professed a great desire for a foot-long chili dog and soft-serve ice cream, desires that could only be satisfied at a tiny Dairy Queen on the edge of town. She'd passed it the day before and remembered going there as a child. Finally, after she raved and raved about the food there, Casey agreed to go with her.
"You got to be kidding," he said as they pulled into the miniscule parking lot of the whitewashed, cinder-block building.
"No. The food's great."
"But..."
"It's always looked like this. It's always crowded. There's never enough room to park or hardly any place to sit down, but nobody cares. Because the chili dogs are fabulous. We're lucky they finally added a furnace to heat the place. It used to only open for a couple of months in the summer."
Casey still looked skeptical.
"Just wait," she said, standing in line at the window at the front of the building.
Allie had also wanted to come here because it used to be a teen hangout. She'd wondered if there were more kids like Casey in town and where they would be. And she was still certain Casey was a runaway, no matter what he said.
She ordered for him and for her, paid for their meal, and then slid to the right of the window to wait until the food was ready. There were groups of kids clustered around two of the picnic tables set up in the grass at the back of the parking lot and a few more clustered around various cars. Laughing, seemingly happy kids.
She searched their faces, finding herself reassured. They were okay. And then her gaze caught on a teenage girl, standing all alone near the back corner of the building. A girl with stringy hair that looked like it hadn't been washed in days and wrinkly, dingy-looking clothes. One with a hollow look in her eyes and a bit of a snarl on her face that seemed to dare anyone to try to get near her.
Allie must have been lost in thought, looking at the girl, because the next thing she knew, Casey put a bag of food and a drink in her hand. She led him back to the car, since there was no place else to eat.
They set their drinks on the hood and carefully dug into the chili dogs, which were indeed a foot long and not the easiest food in the world to eat.
"Not bad," he said after he swallowed the first mouthful.
"Told you." They were every bit as good as she remembered.
Allie let him plow through two of them, in what took maybe two minutes, before she pointed out the girl. "Do you know her?"
Casey shook his head back and forth.
"You haven't seen her around?"
"No."
"She just looks... lost. I wondered if she had a place to go."
"You're not gonna ask her, are you?"
"I don't know. I just... I wondered how she ended up here. All alone. I wondered what might have happened to make her think she was better off on her own, on the streets, instead of with her family...."
She looked up at Casey, who seemed to be fighting a grin.
"You just don't give up, do you?"
"Actually, most of the time I do. I always have," she said with painful honesty. "It's one of the big
gest regrets of my life."
"Well, you don't give up on this," he said. "And if this is about me, Allie, I swear, I'm fine. I've got a home. I've got a mother. She loves me a lot."
"But you're here. You're all alone, aren't you? You don't live two blocks away from my house."
He shrugged easily. "My mom and I had a fight. That's all."
"Must have been some fight."
"Yeah. It was. I wouldn't have taken off over just anything. I'm a good kid. But this was somethin' big. Somethin' important. I did what I had to do."
"Running isn't going to solve anything," Allie insisted.
"Sure it is. Anyway, I'm not running away from anything. I'm running to somethin'. There's somethin' I have to find out, and I couldn't do it at home."
"Something worth risking your life?"
"Allie—"
"I know. You think you're indestructible. All kids do. And it just isn't true. Believe it or not, your mother does know some things, and you should listen to her."
"I do," he insisted. "Most all the time, I do."
"I think you made a mistake," she said, even though she risked alienating him all together.
Maddeningly calm, he shrugged again. "I don't."
"And I think you should go home."
"I will. When I've found out what I need to know."
"Have you called your mother, at least?"
"Nope."
"Casey, she has to be worried half to death."
"She doesn't even know I'm gone."
Allie gaped at him. "You're kidding?"
He shook his head back and forth, the amusement returning.
"How can she not know? You said she's a good mother. You said she loves you...."
"She does."
"You're not making any sense at all," Allie argued.
"It's complicated. But I've got it under control. Really."
Allie wanted to tear his hair out. Or maybe hers.
He seemed absolutely oblivious to the danger he was in—a kid on his own, who claimed to have a perfectly good home to go to. She wondered about that part. He didn't seem like a hotheaded kid. He'd been polite and well mannered, a hard worker, no trouble at all except for his stubborn insistence that he was perfectly safe by himself on the streets. So why had he left?
