Nobody's Angel

by Patricia Rice

  “So, where are you working?” she asked casually as she dried her hands.

  “I have a friend with a kiln who needs someone who can do decorative design.” He chugged the milk as if it were beer. He'd spent the better part of his life acquiring an education so he wouldn't be reduced to his family's trade of catering to tourists who wanted pots to match their decor. But they had to eat somehow.

  “You can do design?”

  He heard her effort to remain casual. He'd never had much patience with designer plates. Any kid with crayons could color a paper plate with the same effect. But it was better than flipping hamburgers.

  “It's a job, and he'll pay me cash daily, so we'll have food and gas money. I can work at night so we can still hit the banks come Monday.” The domesticity of that “we” and the assumption that she'd stay worried him, but he was at a loss as to what else to do. He couldn't send her home with a knife-wielding nutcase looking for her. He prayed no one would know to look for the immaculate Mrs. Tony Nicholls in this flophouse.

  “I found a map of Charlotte and a telephone book while I was cleaning, and I've plotted a list of banks along Tony's major routes.”

  He could hear her scrambling to rise, and he turned to offer a hand. She weighed next to nothing, but the imprint of her hand in his burned like hot coals.

  Play it cool, Quinn. He realized he was using his father's name in the same derogatory tone as Faith did. Striving for nonchalance, he untangled their fingers, and flustered, she reached for a glass. He couldn't help the heady triumph at knowing she was as aroused as he was. They didn't have the time to waste on those feelings. Should they ever be insane enough to give in to impulses, they'd probably bang themselves into oblivion. A week in bed wouldn't be enough for him.

  Tearing his mind from that thought, he acknowledged her efficiency. “We'll start first thing Monday. In the meantime, we need cash, so I told Rex I'd be in this afternoon.”

  “Rex?” She poured orange juice and rested against the counter. “Does anyone honestly name their kids Rex these days?”

  “His real name's Ralph but that wasn't kingly enough.” Adrian grinned at the disbelieving flare of her nostrils.

  She drained her glass and set it in the sink. “Eat something,” she ordered. “Cereal may be boring, but it's good for you.”

  He hadn't had someone tell him when to eat since he'd been living at home, a million years ago in a different incarnation. In these last years he'd perfected an air of aloofness, grown his hair long, wore an earring, accentuated his differences so people would think twice before crossing his path. He'd been known to intimidate grown men by the way he stood. And this bubble-headed female ordered him about as if he were a child.

  He reached for a cereal bowl. “Keep the doors locked and don't let anyone in until I come back,” he ordered.

  “I'll do that.”

  She said it so sweetly that Adrian jerked his head up. He didn't trust her innocent smile. “You're working on the bank letter, right?”

  “That will take all of fifteen minutes.” Her innocent smile disappeared as she leaned against the counter, folded her arms, and did her best imitation of him. “Do you really think I mean to stay in here and be your housekeeper?”

  “There's a jerk out there with a knife looking for you!” He tried to keep his voice to a low roar. His only other alternative was to throttle the stupid woman. Did she have any idea what folding her arms like that did for her breasts?

  “I'm perfectly capable of defending myself. I keep telling you that, but you don't listen well.” She leaned forward and all but stuck her face in his. “I'm not yours to take care of, Quinn. I won't be your prisoner, your burden, your responsibility, your anything. Got it?”

  Oh, he had it all right. He could grab her neck right now and kiss her until her head spun and they were both writhing on the floor. But he didn't need the hassle. Not daring to lay a hand on any other part of her, he covered her pretty nose with the flat of his palm and carefully pushed her back. “I get it. I'm only ‘Quinn’ when you're irritated, right?”

  She stepped away. “Shove it where the sun don't shine, mister.”

  He even lusted after her when she was being stupid. He grimaced. Who was he calling stupid? “I'm not Tony. I don't have patience with stupid females. What if this jerk has a gun? You have a defense against that?”

  “That's my concern and not yours.”

  The milk and cereal curdled in his stomach, and he threw the rest in the sink. “You'll just let me carry that guilt on my conscience for the rest of my life? Thanks a lot. I really need one more albatross around my neck.”

  “Get this through your head, Quinn.” She boxed his temples with the flat of her hands. “I … am … not … yours. Period. We may temporarily live under the same roof, but that's it. We may temporarily share this little problem, but that does not mean we share anything else. I have a life in Knoxville and I lead my life the way I want. You can't lead it for me. These are hard lessons, but I've learned them well.” She tapped his temples again. “Practice.”

  Some other time. Right now, it only took her touch to ignite the fuse. Grabbing her wrists, Adrian jerked her tight against him and lowered his head.

  Faith gasped as her breasts crushed into an immovable wall of muscle, and the hot kiss she'd desperately tried to forget seared across her mouth. He held her wrists behind her back so she couldn't move, couldn't do more than accept the slide of his lips across hers, the milky taste of his breath as he plied her with reckless kisses that she couldn't fight, that she needed as much as she needed air. She opened her mouth to him, surrendered to his invasion, didn't even notice when he released her arms until his hands firmly cupped her buttocks and lifted her closer. She had tried to pretend that other time hadn't happened, that it had been a mistake of beer and music and fear, but she couldn't pretend this away.

  She slid her hands to his shirt to shove him away. Instead her fingers curled in his collar, and the heat of his chest through the thin cotton nearly scorched her.

  Adrian was the one with sense and strength enough to pry her fingers loose and set her back, although he continued holding her wrists. If she looked half as stunned as he did, she didn't have a chance against him.

  “Come with me to the pottery,” he demanded. Or asked. She couldn't tell which.

  She shook her head instinctively. “No,” she whispered, unable to quite catch her breath. He was still too close, and she couldn't seem to step back. “You have to let me do this on my own.”

  “Do you want to kill me?” he asked with clenched jaw.

  “Sometimes, yes.” Defiantly, she threw back her head and met his glare. “In ways, you're much, much worse than Tony, and I don't want you anywhere near me. I don't want your macho culture or your take-charge attitude or any of those other things that make you who you are. I want to be left alone.”

  He dropped her hands. “Fine. Will you be here when I come back?”

  “Don't lock the doors if I'm not here. I'll be back,” she said calmly.

  “Dammit, there are dangerous men out there looking for you!” he shouted, totally enraged all over again. “Have you no sense at all?”

  Here it was, the moment she could stand up and fight back, or retreat to the complacent little woman Tony had thought her.

  Adrian looked as if he would grind her bones to mincemeat. He had enough on his mind as it was. Maybe now wasn't the time for defiance in the face of anger. “I'll need groceries,” she said sweetly, trying not to grind her teeth.

  “I'll get them.” He slammed out, and Faith winced as the door rocked in its frame.

  She was a wimp. Okay, maybe she just didn't want to worry Adrian more than necessary.

  But it was damned well time for him to realize she wasn't one of those things he needed to worry about. This time, she wasn't staying home to please any man.

  “Dolores, I know it's Saturday night!” Exasperated, Belinda set down her mother's tray and refrained f
rom heaving the soup remains at her younger sister. “Forgive me for having a life of my own, but I have to go home to fix Jim some food, and we can't leave the little ones here alone. You have to be in by eleven. That's final.”

  Dolores stuck out her lower lip in the same manner as six-year-old Ines. “I'll marry Mike and move out and then I can leave this place anytime I like. What will you do then?”

  “I'll take the little ones to your love nest.” Belinda heard her sister's defiance but wanted to laugh at the naive belief that she could leave anytime she liked. Family didn't work that way. Life didn't work that way. “Don't be ridiculous, chiquita. Marriage is far, far worse than being home by eleven. You would spend all your time trying to earn enough money to pay the rent and buy groceries and make car payments, and then you'd never have time to go out on Saturday night. Consider yourself lucky.”

  “Yeah, well, why doesn't Adrian do all that?” Dolores shouted, before flouncing off to primp some more for her date.

  Adrian had been out of prison for a month and had yet to contribute to the family's finances. Belinda sighed and began scraping scraps into the disposal. Well, at least he'd moved Cesar back in to help with the little ones. Except now he'd sent him to Knoxville and that wasn't much help. Still, she couldn't blame Adrian. As the next eldest, she knew how hard and how long he'd worked to keep them all together with a roof over their heads, as well as fed and educated. She was having a hard time telling him that she couldn't step into his shoes.

  The doorbell rang, and she let Dolores answer it. A man should be here to interview the sullen teenagers the girls were dating. Adrian used to straighten her dates out quick enough. She couldn't do the same. They looked at her as if she were a bug on a rug.

  Dolores popped back into the kitchen doorway with an odd look on her face. “Maybe you'd better talk to this lady.”

  Immediately alarmed, Belinda dried her hands, ran them through her hair to set it straight, and brushed down her khakis. Strangers never meant good news.

  Dolores had left the woman standing on the other side of the front screen door. Instead of castigating her sister for rudeness, Belinda checked to make certain the lock was fastened. Call her a bigot, but in her experience blond, white women wearing more makeup than Tammy Faye did not call on them for sociable purposes.

  The scent of cheap musk perfume and cigarette smoke engulfed Belinda as she approached. The leopard-print silk tank top screamed Wal-Mart, and her black leggings stretched far too tight over wide hips. Belinda didn't like discovering that she was not only a bigot, but a snob for thinking this creature spelled trouble with a capital T.

  “May I help you?” she inquired politely, striving to hide her accelerating heartbeat. Ever since Adrian's arrest, she'd been suspicious of the motives of strangers.

  “This where Adrian Raphael lives?”

  “No, I'm sorry.” That wasn't a lie. Adrian didn't live here. He was temporarily sleeping at Cesar's, but he didn't live anywhere.

  “You know where he is?”

  That was a little tougher to skirt around, but Belinda definitely did not like the sounds of this. “May I ask who's inquiring?” she asked stiffly.

  “Just an old friend. I heard he was out, and wanted to come by and wish him well.”

  Belinda thought that highly unlikely. Adrian had a taste for sophisticated women, and considering the one he'd brought home the other day, that taste hadn't changed. Faith might not be Hispanic like his other ladies, but she was definitely sophisticated. Belinda found it hard to believe that the woman on the other side of the door could be the menace who had driven Adrian off the road, though. She barely looked bright enough to drive.

  She glanced to the street and noticed a red Ford Explorer, one that looked a little worse for wear. Adrian had said it was a pickup that hit them, not an SUV.

  “Perhaps when he calls I can tell him you were asking after him. Would you like to leave your name and number?” Manners had been pummeled into her at an early age, and in this case they were convenient. Adrian would want to know who the visitor was.

  “No, I'll find him. I want it to be a surprise.” Giving Belinda a dismissive look, she tottered back down the cracked walk on her high heels.

  Some men preferred voluptuous, Belinda thought as she watched their unexpected visitor climb into the SUV. Jim certainly didn't mind her own less than svelte figure. But the leopard-woman carried “voluptuous” to the point of ridicule. No one could look like that naturally. Leopard-woman had spent a lot of time and money on that huge hair and those huge …

  Okay, she was being catty. Carefully closing the door and locking it, she wondered who she could call to warn Adrian. Faith. She would start by calling Faith at Cesar's.

  Dolores watched her with avid curiosity. “Who do you think that was?”

  “Not anybody Adrian met in prison,” Belinda said decisively, reaching for the phone.

  Faith wasn't in the apartment when Adrian arrived a little after nine.

  Terror skyrocketed his blood pressure as he lowered the grocery sack to the kitchen counter. Where the hell could she be?

  Had anything happened to her?

  Fury met terror and both ripped through him at once. He'd damned well told her …

  Racing to her bedroom, discovering no sign of disturbance other than clothes strewn across the bed, he tried to check his temper and think. Nothing could have happened to her here. She'd been perfectly safe behind locked doors. The damned woman had just taken it into her head to defy him.

  He wanted to wring her neck for terrorizing him like this. He'd told her … He'd warned her …

  Ah, hell. Rubbing his hand over his eyes, Adrian tried to accept his insanity for what it was. She'd said she could take care of herself. He didn't believe her, but there was only so much he could do. She'd made up her mind that she didn't need him or any man, and he sure as hell couldn't blame her.

  He'd just have to get used to living in paralyzing terror.

  Returning to the kitchenette, he tried to ignore the silence. No country music, no swinging posteriors, no sassy-mouthed blonde. He should be grateful for a chance to be alone.

  He'd had four years of near solitude, enough to know he despised it.

  Shoving a six-pack into the refrigerator, he leaned against the sink and tore ravenously into the sandwich he'd bought at the deli. He'd brought one for Faith, too, a fancy gourmet thing with bean sprouts and who-knew-what on it. He was hungry enough to eat both.

  Was Faith hungry? She didn't have any cash.

  Shit. She was a grown woman, as she'd told him repeatedly. He didn't have to worry about her as if she were Ines.

  If he hadn't kidnapped her from her well-ordered life, she wouldn't be out on the street now, hungry and half dressed. This was his fault. He'd deal with it.

  Throwing off his paint-stained shirt, rummaging through the duffel and vowing to find a Laundromat, Adrian ticked off a mental list of places Faith could have gone.

  A neatly penciled page of telephone numbers beside the phone caught his eye as his head popped through his sport shirt. He could use Cesar's laptop to check the directory.… One of the numbers had a check mark beside it.

  Tucking the shirt in, Adrian picked up the phone and dialed. The open page of the newspaper's entertainment section confirmed his suspicions when the number connected with a local country dance bar.

  The address to the bar wasn't far from there. She'd probably walked. He wouldn't have her walking back at night. Stupid female. Even suburbia wasn't safe late on a Saturday night, and this wasn't suburbia.

  So much for his rational decision to let her spread her wings and fly. He slammed out in search of his runaway canary.

  “Uh-oh.”

  Faith slid off Belinda's high heels and rubbed her foot, glancing at Belinda as she did so. “Uh-oh?”

  “Big brother cometh.” Belinda slid farther down in her seat behind the huge amplifier and tried to make herself small.

  Faith ig
nored the tightening knot in her stomach. She'd agreed to help Adrian. She hadn't agreed to be his prisoner.

  “The band's ready to cut to the last set. You on?” George, the lead singer, stepped to the side of the platform.

  “I'm ready. And forget funny. Let's do this sexy.” Slipping on her shoes, Faith took George's hand and climbed back onto the stage.

  George raised his eyebrows but didn't question her decision. Behind her, Belinda squeaked and covered her eyes. Adrian's sister had forgotten her fears about her strange visitor when Faith told her about this gig. Belinda had eagerly called in a neighbor to baby-sit and volunteered to bring clothes Faith could sing in. But, obviously, she hadn't expected her half brother to show up. Did the whole family fear the big bully?

  As the band struck up the first chord of the duet, Faith searched the crowded room for Adrian, finding him without much effort. He'd propped an elbow on the bar not ten feet from the stage and was watching intently. She'd fry his damned eyebrows off. That should teach him not to follow her around town.

  She couldn't look real sexy with jeans covering her knees and a borrowed cowboy hat hiding the bandage on her forehead, but she figured given Adrian's current state of abstinence, it wouldn't take real sexy. She ought to be ashamed of herself. Instead, she felt confident and just a little bit wicked.

  Adrian sipped his beer as he watched Faith's slender figure limp out on stage in jeans and a sparkly red vest. He glared at the polished and grinning male vocalist who accompanied her. He didn't like the way his palms got clammy and his heart skipped a beat, but he'd calm down in a minute or two. Just because his sexual frustration had fixated on a blond demon in heels didn't mean he had to act on it.

  She opened on a sultry note that almost instantly quieted the loud chatter at the bar. Even though she completely ignored him, Adrian could feel every damned note strike and slide under his skin like daggers.

  He gulped his beer as Faith turned big gray eyes up to her partner and crooned low notes that crawled right up Adrian's spine and mined a hole through his middle. He tried to remember she was just a stupid housewife who had believed Tony's lies for eight years. A woman like that would settle for anything in pants, and a smooth-talking snake like the singer would suffice. Maybe she wanted a little excitement in her life this time around, instead of Tony's security. Adrian knew he couldn't offer her either.