Nobody's Angel

by Patricia Rice

  He snorted in agreement. “All right, let's just drive by, see how things look. It's always best to know where your enemies are.”

  They traveled down a long country road in the opposite direction from the lake and its million dollar mansions, past farms, jungles of trees and kudzu, and an occasional shabby cottage. Twenty years ago the whole area around Charlotte had looked like this.

  “Sandra's was the third house on the right. She had a play set for the kids in the backyard.” She couldn't hide the hitch in her voice as they approached a lane of shiny mobile homes.

  They slowed down in time to watch a young boy emerge through the front door and run next door to a neighbor's.

  “Could that be Tony's oldest?” Faith asked, trying to hide her wistfulness. She'd calculated the oldest would be about twelve now. If she and Tony had had children as soon as they were married, her child would be eleven. She didn't think she would ever make sense of what Tony had done. He'd had children when they married. He'd had a mistress, whom he never stopped seeing. She'd never comprehend it.

  “I never saw them, so I don't know. The kid's hair is the same crummy brown as Tony's, that's all I can tell you.” Adrian hit the gas and turned around in a driveway down the road. “But Sandra's SUV isn't there.”

  “She could have sold or rented the place, I suppose.” Faith sank into her seat and wondered what self-destructive devil had urged her to make this detour. She should be grateful she'd never had Tony's child. She never could have escaped if children had been involved.

  “I have some friends who live out in this direction. I'll ask them to drive by occasionally, see if they ever see the Explorer there.” Dismissing Sandra, Adrian snapped on the radio.

  They didn't say anything else as they drove back to the interstate and the next round of banks.

  By mid-afternoon they were ready to admit defeat. They'd reached the last exit before the interstate stretched through miles of farmland, and they hadn't found a single bank with any knowledge of Tony's corporation.

  “I told George I'd be there by six to rehearse,” Faith said tiredly, stretching her aching knee as far as the tiny car would allow.

  “I don't suppose it would do any good to tell you it's dangerous for you to make public appearances.” Adrian glared at the heavy traffic blocking his access to the last bank on the list.

  She figured it was only sheer bullheadedness that prevented him from simply turning around and going home. “I don't think your potter friend would be interested in paying me for my inept attempts to paint. And I refuse to rely on a man for my support. I'll earn my way, and singing is the easiest way I can make a quick buck.”

  She could see the muscle jerk over his cheekbone and his fist grip the wheel tighter, but he didn't argue. “I'll take you there and pick you up.”

  “That will cut into your time at the pottery. One of the band can see me home.”

  “Just tell me what time you'll be done, or I can give you a phone number, and you can call me when you're ready to leave. I don't want anyone else knowing where we live.” He cut between two cars, hit the gas, and entered the parking lot, swinging into a parking space, shifting, and shutting off the engine in one swift motion.

  He was trying to be reasonable. She'd try to do the same. She could vehemently deny any need for any man's help, insult his machismo, and protest—for the thousandth time— that she could take care of herself, or she could compromise. Deciding she wasn't half so independent as he liked to believe, she settled for compromise. She liked his concern for her welfare, even if it derived from his guilt in involving her.

  “There's only this bank at this exit,” he said grimly as he climbed out. “What are the chances they even have safe deposit boxes?”

  Faith shrugged, figuring the question was rhetorical. They'd have to go in and ask, no matter what they thought.

  The bank's temperature sign flashed eighty as they dragged across the blacktopped parking lot and entered the air-conditioned coolness of the interior. At this hour on a Monday, the clerks were busy counting cash and tallying receipts. Customers were a nuisance.

  A woman in gray gabardine eventually offered her services, took them back to the vault records, and scanned the index. Well, as the only bank in town, they apparently had deposit boxes, Faith decided. Lucky them.

  “Yes, the Nicholls Corporation,” the woman acknowledged to Faith's total surprise. “The rent is paid through the end of this month. Do you have your keys?”

  Heart in mouth, Faith couldn't say anything. Adrian produced the key ring. The woman nodded, and marched back to the vault.

  Not even looking at Adrian, Faith followed on her heels, heart pounding a rapid ticktock in time with the huge bank clock over the vault door. The last box had been empty. The last box had been conveniently located near home. This one was in the middle of nowhere. Could they really have found Tony's secret cache?

  She waited patiently as the clerk opened a lock with her key, checked her ring for a similar key, and inserted it. It fit.

  Adrian reached past her to lift the heavy box from its space, and the clerk guided them back to the viewing room, where she left them alone in a private cubicle. By this time Faith was holding her breath and suspected Adrian was holding his.

  Setting the box down on the table, he cautiously turned the key until it clicked. Not glancing at her, he slid the drawer open.

  “My God!” Faith exclaimed in a whisper as she stood at Adrian's side, staring at the same vision that held him captive.

  “It's impossible to keep a few million dollars in a single box,” he said pragmatically, lifting out a crisp bundle of green. “If they're all fifties, stacked side by side like this, I doubt if there's fifty thousand.”

  “No ledgers,” she whispered, still in awe of that much cash in one place.

  “Computer disks,” he corrected. “Tony put the books on computer after you left.”

  He sounded so cool and collected, as if they handled fifty thousand dollars every day of the week. “You can pay back some of the money,” she suggested. “Would that help?”

  Removing his handkerchief from his back pocket, he wiped the bundle he'd touched, replaced it in the drawer, then using the handkerchief again, closed it and wiped the handle and the rest of the surface, before returning the keys to his pocket. “All this will do is convince the D.A. that you were in cahoots with me.” He carried the box back to the vault and slammed it into place. “You'd better pay the rent on this thing for another year so we have time to gather more evidence. If the bank opens it and sees all that cash, they'll have to report it.”

  She couldn't believe this. They'd spent days hunting down Tony's cache, and they were walking off and leaving it behind. Instead of screaming in celebration, he treated it as if it were a contaminated nuclear device.

  Adrian sat at the back of the barroom watching Faith rehearse and sipping the beer he'd brought in with him. The bar was closed on Mondays, but he figured he ought to take the edge off before he faced Faith with the latest development. Discovering the cash had been a mixed blessing in the face of recurring disaster.

  Up on stage, Faith listened to the band leader, nodded her head, and waited for her opening cue as the guitarist started a new riff. She'd changed into a bright red T-shirt reading WARNING: I HAVE AN ATTITUDE AND I KNOW HOW TO USE IT, and a pair of cutoff blue jeans that must have been molded to her shape. Adrian gave thanks to the powers that be that she'd had the sense to wear the shirt on the outside of the jeans so he didn't have to watch every little jiggle and bounce from here. He was almost certain he'd internally combust if he had to look much longer without touching.

  As she sank into a slow, seductive song in a husky voice that hit him in the gut, he nearly crushed his beer can before he drank the contents. God, he wanted her so badly everything else became a murky haze in the back of his mind. Maybe he should send her to her parents in Mexico. He could assume she'd be safe from him there, at least.

  She wo
uldn't go. If he'd learned nothing else about Faith Hope Nicholls these last days, he'd learned she didn't give up and she didn't give in.

  He couldn't predict how she would react to more bad news. Instead of trying, he sat back, sipped his beer, and tried not to let the hot poker in his pants dictate what they would do next. He had to be logical about this.

  She knew he was out here, but she was studiously ignoring him this time instead of playing the part of siren. Still, the song shivered along his skin, digging in and not letting go.

  He shouldn't torture himself like this, but he'd prepared a little surprise for her, and he waited to see if the band carried it out. She deserved a little compensation, some recognition that she was special, that today was special. He couldn't do much for her, but he had done what little he could.

  As she lowered her voice to sob out the last notes of the song, the band broke into a crazed guitar rendition of “Happy Birthday.” She stopped in mid-note, stared blankly into the darkness outside the stage lights, then swerved around to look at the band. Adrian got up from the table and sauntered forward as one of the stagehands entered carrying a huge chocolate cake covered with flaming candles. They'd probably broken every safety rule in the book and would set off fire alarms in a minute, but it was worth it just to see Faith's face.

  She looked startled, as if uncertain the band's impromptu outburst into song was for her. Her jaw literally dropped at sight of the cake. Adrian grinned as her eyes widened and a smile of disbelief finally lit up her entire face. She was so beautiful, he could eat her instead of the cake. Something internal yearned to claim her as his, to pamper her like this forever, to give her a life of surprises just so he could see that look on her face over and over again.

  He'd have to be satisfied with the accusing look she finally swung in his direction.

  “You!” she shouted. “You told!”

  He vaulted onto the stage in front of her. “Of course I did. How else could I claim the birthday kiss?” Without waiting for her to take that in, he caught her by the waist, hauled her against him, and covered her mouth with his as he'd been dying to do since the last time.

  The band whooped and hollered, the music screamed into something suggestive, but Adrian knew nothing beyond the moist press of her mouth against his and the subtle powdery scent mixing with the heat of Faith's skin as she wrapped her arms around his neck and surrendered without a protest.

  She was slim and rounded and soft in all the right places as he crushed her against him. She nestled right where he needed her as hunger consumed them both. Fire should have shot from their heads instead of the candles. Skyrockets couldn't have been more heady. If he didn't stop soon, they'd have to break out the fire extinguishers.

  Gasping, Adrian set her back on her feet, although his hands couldn't quite let go. She looked as dazed as he felt, but he had word skills she didn't possess, and he used them to ease the tension. “If that's my reward for remembering, what do I get if the cake is good?”

  “Fat.” Shoving her hands against his shoulders, she pushed away, but not so far that he couldn't reach out and grab her again if he wanted. She wasn't retreating. She was embarrassed.

  He grinned at her response. So, her word skills were almost on a par with his. “Feliz cumpleaños, querida.”

  “I didn't even realize the date until I signed into the register at that last bank,” she murmured, wrapping her arms around herself as the band's noise died down and the others surrounded them.

  “Do we all get birthday kisses?” George asked with interest.

  “Not unless you want to die young.” Adrian possessively hauled Faith into his arms again. He noticed she didn't protest, although he could attribute it to her desire not to be mauled by anyone else. “Who's hoarding the champagne?”

  On cue, another stagehand meandered out with a massive silver bucket of ice and a magnum bottle. The band cheered ecstatically, one clever member scaled the bar to release the champagne glasses, and the party began.

  “You shouldn't have,” Faith whispered, still not fighting his embrace.

  Her bottom fit snugly beneath his hips, his arm encompassed her waist with ease, and he would easily sacrifice cake and champagne to stay this way. “Rex pays me well. And a friend of Belinda's gave me a discount on the cake. I'd rather give you something more memorable, but I was afraid you'd throw anything else at me.”

  She chuckled. “You're probably right. The last time anyone remembered my birthday, Tony gave me a string of pearls and told me he had to go to D.C. for the week. That's the only time I ever returned one of his gifts. I was so mad at him for going away and not taking me on the cruise I wanted that I bought plane tickets to Mexico to visit my parents. He never even noticed I wore fakes.”

  Adrian looked down at her as she smiled at the boy bringing her a glass of bubbling liquid. “You mean those pearls you wore today aren't real?”

  “Nope. They were designer fakes, but they're fakes. Can you imagine living where I do and trying to hide expensive jewelry from thieves?” She took the champagne glass and held it in her hand as George made a flowery birthday speech.

  “Thank God for small favors,” he breathed, accepting his glass and chugging a gulp before George finished. At the inquiring look she threw over her shoulder, he shook his head. “It will wait. Let's enjoy your party first. Belinda and Cesar wanted to be here, but I told them Mama and the kids came first and that you'd understand.”

  “I don't need a party. Just being remembered is so nice.”

  Tears glinted in her eyes, and Adrian heard the break in her voice. He hugged her closer. She deserved someone who could make the world beautiful for her. All he could do was make it worse.

  “Blow out the candles, Faith!” the guitarist, with one arm around a girlfriend, shouted.

  “You have no idea what you've started,” Faith murmured as she stepped away from Adrian's hold.

  “But I know exactly how to end it,” he murmured back, following her across the stage. She shot him a look of suspicion, but he could play innocent a while longer. They were safe here for a while, and she deserved a little party.

  With the cake served and another round of champagne begun, someone stuck a CD into the sound system and music poured forth. Deciding he'd watched Faith accept enough kisses on the cheeks and hugs and inane patter from the band, Adrian drew her into his arms again and began the dancing. He knew it was a mistake, knew he should keep the entire barroom's distance between them, but he might as well cut off his tongue as to try.

  “Thank you,” she murmured into his shirt front, swaying easily into his rhythm. “I know you're making the best of a bad deal, but I've …” Faith didn't know how to continue. She hadn't realized how alone she had been these last years, how hungry for a human touch, a simple acknowledgment of her presence, anything to show she was alive and not a superhuman robot. A tear trickled from the corner of her eye, and embarrassed at the stupid sentimentality, she surreptitiously tried to wipe it.

  Adrian raked his hand through her hair and tilted her head back so he could press a kiss against the place she'd wiped. “I'm not making the best of a bad deal. I'm thanking you for understanding, for being better than any person I've met for a long time, for reinstating some of my faith in the human race.” He grimaced at the pun of her name.

  She grinned. “For reinstating Faith into the human race?” she countered.

  “Have you ever considered changing your name?” he grumbled, moving into a quick two-step required by the change of songs from the speaker.

  “I did once, it didn't work out.” She slipped from his grasp and, ignoring the complaint from her knee, executed a tricky dip and swirl with her hands on her hips, and defied him to match her.

  He did. Adrian might be out of practice, but he kept up with an innate agility that had her heart racing with admiration and glee. Tony had never danced with her like this. He'd manage a slow waltz if required, but then he'd always wander off to talk with people far
more important than she, leaving her to idle her time on the sidelines. She'd never known what it was like to have a man's full attention focused on her, especially a man with a focus as intent as Adrian's. Like paper in the hot sun under the magnifying glass of his gaze, she sizzled. She forgot her knee.

  When one of the band members discovered an open keg of beer, Adrian caught Faith's hand and drew her out of the stage lights and toward the darkness near the door. “Time to go. I don't need breaking and entering on my parole record.”

  She didn't object. She was exhilarated by the man and the music, not the champagne and the party. She floated after him, as high on bubbles of happiness as on champagne. She might come down with a thud in a little while, but she wasn't in a hurry. She was thirty years old today and had little of what she'd hoped to have by now, but she was all right. She would make it. The next ten years were going to be good ones. She could feel it in her bones.

  She tucked her T-shirt into her jeans and grabbed the blouse she'd worn over it earlier.

  “Where's the egg?” she asked, buttoning up as they emerged onto the night street and no familiar vehicle waited. The evening was cool, and she hugged the blouse around her.

  “Cesar has it. Maybe we should take you car shopping in the morning. You'll have to call Annie and see if the insurance check is in the mail.” He steered her down the street, avoiding the streetlights.

  She liked the solid feel of his hand at her back. Adrian had amazingly strong hands.

  “I don't suppose the bug was worth enough to buy a Miata,” she mourned, still not feeling any pain.

  “Not unless it was classified as an antique vehicle,” he said dryly, pushing her into a dark alley after the next building. “If we don't find Tony's books, we could always take his ill-gotten gains and buy you one.”

  “And let his fellow lawyers pay for his crime. That's only fair,” she agreed, trying not to stumble in the darkness. She'd worn comfortable shoes, but Adrian was proceeding entirely too fast. “Where are we going? Are we walking home?”