by Alison Kent
She opened her door. King opened his. She looked over. “Where are you going?”
“To unload your stuff.”
She shook her head. “Just wait, okay? Stay here and wait.”
He frowned as if inconvenienced by the delay, but remained where he was, nodding when she told him, “Thank you.”
The trip from the Hummer up the sidewalk to the porch took a small eternity.
Cady kept her gaze on the front door, knowing curtains would be fluttering away from the windows of the neighbors’ houses and phones would be jangling in their cradles up and down the block.
More than likely, her mother would know she was there before Cady even knocked—an upper hand certain to go the other woman’s way.
Cady was right. She was only halfway up the steps when the locks snapped back.
By the time she reached the top, the door was swinging open, the hinges squeaking, spilling a rectangle of yellow light onto the worn boards of the porch. And then the light disappeared, her mother’s body blocking it.
Except for her fleshier jowls, Lorraine Kowalski looked the same as she had the last time Cady had seen her. She wore the white knit shirt and black knit pants of her cafeteria worker uniform, the thick-soled shoes that made it possible for her to stand on her feet all day.
She held a dish towel in her damp, reddened hands. Her gray hair was pulled tightly to her head and covered with a fine net. Her face was devoid of makeup.
It wasn’t, however, devoid of emotion. Her eyes sparked. Bright red circles glowed on her cheeks. The wrinkles above her cracked lips deepened as her mouth moved, though no words ever came out.
“Hello, Mum,” Cady finally said, looking beyond her mother’s shoulder and blinking away tears.
And because she’d focused her gaze on the Thomas Kinkade painting hanging between two sconces on the living room wall, she never saw the punch coming.
Seven
King had been seconds from unloading Cady’s trash bags from the backseat of the Hummer when the woman who’d met Cady on the front porch slammed her hand into her daughter’s face, then slammed the door so hard the sound echoed all the way to the street.
He bolted away from the vehicle where he’d been waiting, skidded around the front end, and ran up the front walk, taking the six steps in two leaps.
Cady was just getting to her feet when he reached her. He made sure she had her balance and wasn’t going to fall, then he pounded his fist on the door.
She grabbed at the sleeve of his denim shirt with one hand, probed her face with the other. “Don’t bother. She won’t answer.”
“She just assaulted you.” He didn’t know what was going on here, but Cady had been through enough. He wasn’t going to let this one go. He didn’t give a shit that it was her mother behind the battering. “I’m calling the cops.”
This time she grabbed at his cell phone before he could flip it open and punch 911. “Let’s just get out of here. The neighbors have enough gossip to hold them for a while. And I need an ice pack. Again.”
As much as he wanted to bring down the broad behind the door, he knew Cady was right. The bitch could wait. Cady’s face could not. “Is your nose bleeding? Broken? Where’s the nearest ER?”
She shook her head, held onto him as they descended from the porch to the sidewalk. “She’s not that strong. I’ll have a new bruise on top of the others, but I might as well get the abuse out of the way so I can get on with my life.”
He waited until they were both buckled in and he’d started the engine, the truck rumbling softly beneath them, before glancing toward her and asking, “You knew that was coming, didn’t you?”
She shrugged, sucked in a breath as she gently touched the newest damage to her face with the second cold pack he’d supplied her from his camping gear. It took her a minute or two to get settled, and even in the waning light he could see her wince when she moved.
“I wasn’t sure if it would be a fist or a palm, but yeah. I knew.” She groaned, finally pulled her knee to her chest and propped her elbow there, bracing the hand holding the pack. “At least it was Lorraine and not Edgar. Her punishment I was willing to take to prove you wrong.”
He didn’t like the sound of that. Or the blame her words lobbed his direction when he didn’t want to be involved. He wasn’t involved. She wasn’t his problem. She was a stowaway he was going to help find another ride.
He could not be her ride. “What do you mean, prove me wrong?”
She turned her head, her hand moving as if part of her face. All he could see was the cold pack where she held it, and the puffy purple skin around her original black eye. “You said it wouldn’t kill me to go home until I figured out what I was doing with my life.”
He looked back at the road, accepting that he had, indeed, said just that. But he’d said it back when he’d thought her objection to bunking with her folks was her being too proud to ask them for help.
He didn’t know Cady Kowalski wouldn’t be welcome—or safe—in her own family’s home.
Now he wanted to know why.
But first he wanted to know something else. “Why put yourself through that? You couldn’t think of a less damaging way to make your point?”
She settled more comfortably in the far corner of the seat. “You threw my backpack across the garage to get rid of me. You made it clear you didn’t want me around. A dramatic gesture seemed the best way to convince you that I wasn’t throwing a tantrum about not going home.”
“I threw your backpack before I saw your face,” he said, completely convinced. She wasn’t the tantrum type. Dramatic, yes. Hissy-fit, no.
“Yeah, well. Oomph.” She sucked back a sharp breath when he hit a pot hole and jolted her. “Most white knights don’t need a literal blow-by-blow. They take the damsel in distress at her word.”
“Most white knights know the dragon they’re being asked to go up against,” he said, thinking of several he’d walked away from, choosing to save his own ass instead, having been that kinda guy long enough to have put it to the test.
He twisted his mouth, added, “Then again—”
“You’re no white knight,” Cady finished for him.
“Exactly.”
Yet even as he made the admission, he felt the label constrict him in ways that no longer fit. He should have listened to her. He should have done more than hear the words coming out of her mouth.
He should have paid attention to what she was saying, especially after seeing for himself the nut job who was her roommate. She’d told him the truth about that, hadn’t she? He’d just found this more convenient to ignore.
He might not be much for rescues, but that didn’t mean he had to be a jerk. She needed help, and giving it wasn’t going to put him out. It was the least he could do since he was a whole lot of responsible for her newest shiner.
He pulled into the next fast food joint he saw. They were fifteen minutes from her parents’ house. What were the odds she’d run into someone she knew? “Hungry?”
“Starving. I would never make it on Survivor. I can’t even get by on peanut butter crackers.” She grabbed her backpack and followed him to the door, once they were inside telling him, “I’m going to see if I can do something about my face. Just get me something with cheese and bacon and fries, and size it as big as you can.”
“Yes ma’am,” he said, thinking she didn’t look big enough to hold that many calories. She was either a bottomless pit, an emotional eater, or starving like she’d said.
He also got to thinking, while he was waiting for their food and for her to reappear, that she really didn’t need to do anything to her face. Aside from covering up the cuts and bruises. And even that was more about her own comfort level with having people see her beat all to hell.
She was cute, in a perky elf with hair like a field of charred alfalfa kind of way. She was tall, and he liked tall. She was curvy enough, with a lithe, limber, athletic build, nothing out of proportion, overdone, or fa
ke.
Not that he minded fake or overdone. Both made for good eye candy, one night stands, and centerfolds.
But he’d discovered a lot about himself this last year, and one of those discoveries was that he wanted what his cousin Simon had found with Michelina…except that wasn’t quite right.
He wasn’t Simon. He lived just as dangerously, though in his own way, fighting personal demons instead of bad guys, losing as often as beating them down.
He’d thought for a while that it would be nice to have a cheering section if not an equal partner at his side—except he was too old for the first, and too old-fashioned for the second because he liked things done his way. So he wasn’t much for compromise. Sue him.
No, what he found himself wanting was a friend who was also a lover, someone to go home to, to talk to about his day and hers, a reason to look forward to the end of the day besides a bath, a plate of food, and a bed.
And why Cady Kowalski was making him revisit all of this while waiting for his onion rings and double cheeseburger, he couldn’t have said.
It wasn’t like he’d been the one on the wrong end of her roommate’s gun this morning, his life flashing before his eyes in too many unresolved shades of gray.
The gun was now stored in his camping gear along with his own. He probably should have left it with Alice, or ditched it before leaving the state.
Now he’d have to deal with the stolen weapon he was hauling around, as well as figure out what to do with Cady before he hit the road for the long drive home that was supposed to be his vacation.
He supposed he could put her on a plane to wherever she wanted to go. He had the money. Enough that he could give her a nice start on a new life on top of the plane ticket. Hell, she could buy all new stuff instead of secondhand.
That sounded like a win-win plan, the best thing for the both of them—even though he knew he was going to have a hell of a time persuading Cady of that.
“Order two-sixty-four. Two-sixty-four. Hello, mister? Two-sixty-four!”
“I’ll get it,” Cady said, nudging him as she walked to the counter to take the tray from the woman in the red chef’s hat holding it out as if doing them a big fat favor in her free time.
He followed Cady to the table she chose, trying not to notice the fit of her jeans or her sweet curvy ass or her long, long legs.
He’d enjoyed flirting with her during the Ferrer Fragrance ad photo shoot. He’d liked a lot feeling her hands on his face and in his hair. He’d gotten a charge out of having her rub against him as she tried to turn him into someone he’d never wanted to be.
But he’d never expected to see her again once Micky had her pictures in hand. And he was finding it really strange to be remembering the flirting and the touching when more than likely he and Cady would be sharing a room—though he doubted a bed—tonight.
“You looked like you were lost in thought,” she said to him, sliding into the booth after returning the tray to the counter.
“You could say that,” he said, popping his straw from its wrapper and shoving it through the plastic lid into his caffeinated drink. He probably should’ve gone for no sugar and decaf. He sure didn’t need the jolt.
Cady watched him intently. “Worth a penny, or worth a pound?”
“You’re mixing your currency.”
“And you’re avoiding the question,” said she who looked like the lucky survivor of a killer auto accident. He wondered how long she’d have to wait to see a doctor about pulling the stitches.
“After everything that’s happened today? I’ll be the interrogator. You’re the interrogatee,” he said, then bit away a good third of his burger.
“I suppose that’s only fair,” she responded, then bit away almost as much of her own.
In silence, King watched her flinch and grimace as she chewed and swallowed, watched her wash down the food with a long gulp of her soda, chase the drink with enough French fries to choke a horse.
He chuckled under his breath, went back to feasting on his own greasy heart-attack-in-a-box.
“I’m hungry, okay?” she asked, around a mouthful of food. “And I’m rarely Miss Manners even when I’m not starving to death.”
“Then who are you, Cady Kowalski? Why don’t we start there?”
“You know just about everything there is,” she said, reaching for her napkin and gently dabbing her mouth. “I’m an unemployed, homeless, twenty-nine-year-old woman with no real friends and no family ties.”
That sounded a lot like where he’d been a year ago. Except for the woman part. And the twenty-nine-year-old part.
And the part about having a home; the trailer he’d been living in could’ve been a cardboard box for all the comforts it gave him.
“No family ties.” A good place to start. “Tell me what went wrong there. What happened to make your mother think a fist is any way to greet her daughter?”
Cady shrugged, tore off a big hunk of her sandwich, and popped it into her mouth. King waited.
A lifetime ago, he’d spent four years in Angola. He still had the patience of a saint, and the tenacity of an inmate determined to come out of that hellhole in one piece.
No black-eyed waif, fine ass or not, was going to get rid of him by blowing him off.
Once she was through her food and staring wistfully at what he hadn’t eaten, she seemed to realize it, too. “Are you going to eat that?”
He nodded. “But I’m happy to order you seconds.”
She deflated like a bike tire hitting a nail. “As long as I tell you what you want to know, you mean.”
“Sounds like a fair trade.”
“To you, sure,” she said, snitching one of his onions. And then she sighed. Capitulated. “Okay. A junior burger and an order of onion rings for this. I got my older brother killed. There. Is that enough?”
It was enough to hold him while he headed to the counter to place her order, leaning back while he waited and watching her wolf down the onion rings he’d left on the table.
Bottomless pit. Nervous eater. Starving woman. He wasn’t sure that she wasn’t all three.
But a killer? That he would never believe.
He’d lived with killers behind bars. He knew what they thought, how they thought. Cady might be capable of massacring a cheeseburger, but that was the extent of her murderous tendencies.
Hell, she was sporting railroad track stitches across her cheekbone and two of the blackest eyes he’d ever seen—all that without filing assault and battery charges against any of her assailants.
She hadn’t even wanted to bring the heat down on Alice for the incident with the gun.
Added up? The girl was on the run. She might not have defined her lifestyle in those terms, but she didn’t have to. He’d just done it for her.
“Order two-seventy-two—”
“I’ve got it,” he told the woman at the counter before she started in with the attitude, adding a “Thanks” that earned him an unexpected smile.
Back at the table, he gave Cady the burger, but kept half of the onion rings for himself. “What happened to your brother?”
“He was shot during a home invasion. Killed. Bled out all over the floor of the front room.”
Whoa. He’d expected to hear that she’d rolled the car she’d been driving. Or that she’d given him pneumonia. Maybe that she’d sent him on a late night burger run and he’d interrupted a robbery. But not that. Not that.
He held her gaze, genuinely sympathetic. “I’m sorry. Truly.”
“So am I,” she said, staring down at her food. “Kevin was a real sweetheart. He didn’t deserve to die that way.”
“Does anyone?”
A corner of her mouth twitched. “I can think of a few people.”
“Like those who shot him?”
She’d unwrapped the paper from around her small burger while talking, but as his question settled around them, she wrapped it back up. Then she pushed it across the table. “Here. I changed my mind. It’s
not a fair trade.”
“You already gave me more than you said you would,” he said to set her at ease—though he was still wildly curious about how a home invasion was her fault—as he pushed the burger right back.
She took it, but didn’t eat it, and her gaze remained on her fingers, the polish on her nails chipped and black, while she toyed with the yellow wax paper. “Maybe I’ll save this for later. I’m pretty stuffed.”
“After all of that?” He nodded to indicate the pile of trash next to her arm “You should be.”
He’d been hoping to see a spark of the smart-mouthed stylist who’d moussed and gelled his hair into the same natural bed head he woke up with each day. For the moment, that girl was gone.
This one had drifted back to her brother’s death, and was going to need more than a junior cheeseburger or King’s digs to bring her around.
What he had to say next probably wasn’t going to be much help in making that happen. “We should get going. We need to find a place to bunk down for the night before you fall out from exhaustion.”
That had her lifting her head. “What do you mean, bunk down?”
“A bed. A place to sleep,” he said, keeping his eyes on her as he swirled what was left of his drink in its ice and brought the cup to his mouth.
“Together?”
“If we can’t find a place with two beds, I’ll take the floor. I’ve got a sleeping bag.” And if he was going to take her with him, he’d have to get her one, too. Something to think about tomorrow. Once he was thinking straight again.
He obviously needed sleep as badly as she did. Why else would he be considering taking her with him?
When she still hadn’t responded, and the silence between them had taken on an uncomfortable life of its own, he said, “You jumped into my ride like a stowaway. You didn’t think about sleeping arrangements?”
“I wasn’t thinking about anything but finding the cheapest way possible out of town.”
He gave her an eyeful. “You tried to get me to drop you at Greyhound. That dog don’t run for free, boo.”
“Which is why you were my first choice,” she said, sitting back, crossing her arms, her chin up, trembling though defiant. “You can take me farther away than I can afford to get on the bus. But now I’m wondering what traveling with you is going to cost me. And if you’re worth it.”
