So nice, the pastoral minister had enthused. She takes in and finds homes for all the strays that come around here, he’d said, leaving Mal with the impression of a woman as a faded, well–used doormat who didn’t have sense enough to say no when NO! was required.
Stubborn bitch, was the center’s maintenance chief’s resentfully respectful, grudgingly fond assessment; she told him exactly what she wanted and how she wanted it done at the center, said no to him regularly and without argument whenever he tried to reassure her that there was a shortcut he could take that would require a great deal less work on his part, and okay, so maybe whatever it was would need repair again sooner, but…
And Angus Abernathy, aka John Roth, Our Lady of Roses’ current freelance, volunteer bookkeeper, simply called her terrific.
Looking at her now, Mal himself was inclined to think they were all absolutely right and positively wrong, that the real person behind Grace Witoczynksi’s various reputations was someone who would astound them all. He’d seen her places some of them never had: in her weekend capacity as arborealist consultant in residence for Bordine’s Better Blooms, a local nursery; as coach to Our Lady’s third– and fourth–grade girls’ softball team—twelve highly individualistic preadolescents whose attention spans and attitudes would have proved the undoing of anyone; and as the woman who stood looking wistfully at the moon from her bedroom window most nights before she went alone to bed. And he was just supposed to see and do his job and not care which was either.
But after studying her—perhaps a little more closely than he really needed to in order to keep track of Abernathy—for eighteen puzzling days, he did care.
A lot more than was healthy.
Sighing, he hoisted Grace up his chest until he could turn her and get one arm under her shoulders and the other beneath her knees, and picked her up. He’d been trying to figure a way to get closer to Abernathy, but now that opportunity had, so to speak, bitten him in the butt, as Sheila would say, he found himself reluctant to use it—her. But he also didn’t see where he had a lot of choice. Not if he was going to find Dunne.
"Don’t move," he said with such menace that the man on the ground simply nodded, frightened, and scooted up tight against the Suburban’s rear tire. Then Mal carried Grace around and tucked her into her track’s passenger seat, belted her in and closed the door. Her head lolled sideways at an awkward angle. Blowing out his cheeks on a damn–it–all breath, Mal rooted through the back of her truck until he found a pillow and a soft blanket, returned to prop her up more carefully. Her skin was cold and clammy against the backs of his hands—faint producing the proverbial cold sweat—her eyelids white and blue–veined, translucent in the Suburban’s overhead light.
How odd to find her beautiful.
And how unfortunate.
He turned his hand over, touched one pale cheek with his fingertips the way he’d wanted to since he’d watched her at her window the first time.
"I’m sorry," he said quietly.
He went back around the truck and released Grace Witoczynksi’s attacker with the threat of great bodily damage if he or any other crim in the area ever came near her again. Then he pulled the day’s last cigarette—only number ten, keeping his promise to Jennifer, no matter how much it killed him—out of his pocket, lit it and took his time smoking it before he climbed into the Suburban, fitted her keys into the transmission and drove the woman he was about to use, to further his investigations, home.
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Bio
TERESE RAMIN lives in Michigan.
A full–fledged believer in dreams, Terese has never wanted to do anything but write. After years of dreaming without doing anything about it, she finally completed her first romance novel, which won a Romance Writers of America Golden Heart and was published by Silhouette Books. She is the recipient of a Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Award, its K.I.S.S. Award, and a multiple career achievement nominee. She hasn’t dreamed without acting for a long time.
Five Kids, One Christmas (The Brannigan Sisters) Page 24
