by Raine Miller
So he counted backwards from one hundred subtracting seven each time. Mal swore by the technique.
“Nic, are you okay?” Annie asked before her eyes widened. “It was him, wasn’t it?”
His jaw set. “Not in front of Toni.” He turned to call for the girl, somehow managing not to bark out orders. “Hey, kid. We gotta get going. Something’s come up.”
Then he looked down into Annie’s worried eyes. “I’m gonna take Toni home then I’ll drive you home. No,” he cut her off before Annie could respond. “Don’t. Just…I’ll take you home.”
Annie shook her head. “I wasn’t going to object but I’m not going home.”
His gaze sharpened on hers. “Where’re you going?”
“I have a meeting, across town.”
Fuck. He didn’t want her anywhere but under lock and key but he didn’t want to freak her out anymore than she already was. “Fine. I’ll take you. But I’ve got to talk to Mags first.”
***
Annie had met Magdalene DeMarco before but hadn’t seen her in years.
Mags hadn’t changed much. She still reminded Annie of a gorgeous Italian painting with her long dark hair, high cheekbones and full mouth. She had curves Annie could only ever dream of and Nic had loved her once. Maybe he still did.
“Hey, Nic, you’re—” Mags stopped and her gaze narrowed on his face. “What happened? Is Toni okay? Are you okay?”
Toni sauntered through the door, hands in her pockets, smirk in place. “I’m fine. Nic’s all charged up over some phone call he won’t talk about. I’m gonna get a drink. Anybody want one?”
Annie smiled at the wealth of teenage disgust in Toni’s tone. Neither Nic nor she had told Toni about that call. The girl truly was a DeMarco.
When Toni was out of hearing in the kitchen, Mags pinned Nic with a look. “What’s going on?”
Annie shut the door and leaned against it as Nic took Mags’ arm and led her to the couch.
“You know I’d never intentionally put Toni in danger, right?”
Mags nodded as they sat side by side. “I know that. But you’re lookin’ pretty scary right now, Nic. What the hell happened?”
“Just a few phone calls from some asshole who wants to rattle me.”
Mags just stared at him. “Jesus, who’d you piss off this time?”
He shook his head, expression tightening. “I don’t know. But when I find the guy, I’m gonna make sure he doesn’t do it again. In the meantime, I can’t be around Toni for a while. I don’t want this guy getting any ideas about her. You gotta keep her close for little.”
Mags snorted. “She’s gonna love that. What about you?” She looked deep into Nic’s eyes and Annie’s heart tripped over the emotion there. “Are you okay?”
Nic nodded and his gaze skipped to Annie’s for a brief second. “Yeah.”
Mags followed Nic’s gaze then smiled at her. “I’m sorry. Please come sit down. You’re Annie, right? Janey’s friend.”
Annie nodded as she walked to the couch. “Yes.” She held out her hand to Mags, who took it for a firm shake. “But I really can’t stay. I’ve got a meeting in ten minutes I can’t miss. Nic, I’ll just get my car—”
“No.” That one word held a wealth of anger and a hint of fear. It was the fear that made Annie bite back sharp words. “I’ll take you.” He turned back to Mags. “Keep her inside tonight. Just to be safe. I’ll call you later. And don’t say anything to my parents. I haven’t told them what’s going on yet.”
Mags nodded, her gaze flipping between Nic and Annie. “Sure. Stay safe, Nic. I worry about you.”
When she leaned in to kiss Nic on the cheek, Annie’s blood pressure threatened to give her a stroke. She refused to believe she was jealous but no other emotion fit.
Nic gave Mags a hug before he stood. “I know, but I’m not going anywhere. Talk to you tonight.”
Walking to the door, he grabbed Annie’s elbow and led her outside.
“We’ll take your car.” Nic headed straight for it. Obviously he’d seen it. “I’ll pick mine up later. Give me the keys.”
She gave them up without a fight, still trying to come to terms with the fact that she was jealous of Mags. It shouldn’t really be a surprise. Mags had the affection of the man Annie adored.
When they reached her car, Nic released her but stayed by her side until she slid into the passenger seat. When he got into the driver’s seat and asked where they were going, she gave him the address in Manayunk but didn’t say anything else as they headed out of the city.
Silence descended. She’d turned off the radio on the drive over and neither of them bothered to turn it on. He did turn on the air conditioning and that helped cool her off enough to loosen her tongue.
“Are you going to tell me what he said this time?”
Nic didn’t answer but his mouth tightened until he almost scowled.
“It has something to do with me, doesn’t it?” she pushed. “Come on, Nic. I think I deserve to know what’s going on.”
With a harsh sigh, he slid her a quick look. “He was watching me and, yeah, he threatened me.”
Which wouldn’t have made him so frantic. “He threatened me too, didn’t he?”
When Nic didn’t answer, she tried another angle. “What was in the envelope?”
“A report from Jimmy. He’s been trying to track down the calls but it’s tough going, even for him.”
Stopping for a red light, he gave her a hard look. “I don’t want my parents to hear about this. Not yet. Don’t say anything to Janey either until I’ve talked to them. Dad can’t cope with this stress right now, and Mom and Janey don’t need to worry about this. Nothing’s going to happen. I’ll talk care of this.”
She had no doubt he would. Nic was good at taking care of things. But he wasn’t Superman. If he got hurt, he’d bleed, just like a regular mortal. Her chest ached to think about it.
So she switched topics.
“You and Mags and Toni seem pretty close. You spend a lot of time with them, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I helped Mags with Toni after Nino died. It was the last thing he asked.”
Annie heard a wealth of pain in those tightly controlled words and they pounded at her already tender heart. “So why haven’t you married her?”
He shot her a scowl. “What the hell are you talking about?”
She couldn’t stop pushing. “Mags. Why haven’t you married her? Isn’t that what Nino wanted? For you to take his place?”
Nic snorted. “Mags never wanted me. Not even when I pursued her. She only ever wanted Nino. And it’s my fault he’s dead.”
She gasped. “You know that’s not true. How can you say that?” She turned in the seat so she could see him. “You can’t blame yourself for that. And how can you deny you want her? You admitted you had a thing for her.”
His hands curved around the steering wheel until his knuckles were white. “I was young and she was beautiful. But I never really loved her, not the way Nino did. You could see it in his face whenever he talked about her. She was his whole world. And Mags only ever wanted Nino. She hasn’t looked at another man since he died.”
Nic flexed his fingers, as if trying to restore the blood flow. “He died in my arms and his last words were to take care of his wife and his kid. He was dragging me back to the truck when he got hit. I should’ve died, damn it. Not him.” The words had the ring of a familiar mantra. “My injuries killed my career, but here I am. And Nino’s in a coffin.”
Annie wanted to put her hands over his, to wrap her arms around him, but he was driving and it looked like he needed all the concentration he had to keep going. Still, she couldn’t be quiet.
“Nic, what happened to Nino wasn’t your fault.” And if you had died that day, a piece of my heart would have gone with you. “Nino’s death was a tragedy but you survived. And I’m not sorry about that.”
But she was regretting the years she’d let him keep her at arms’ length. Sh
e took a deep breath and ripped away the bandage she’d stuck on old wounds.
“When your parents came to get Janey at school, I wouldn’t let them leave without me. I came home too. I told everyone it was for moral support. But I was being selfish. I had to see for myself that you were going to be okay. When they brought you back here from Germany, I was at the hospital almost every day. Waiting in the hall. I told Janey not to tell you I was there.”
With an abruptness that startled a gasp out of her, Nic pulled into a parking space with a jerk then turned to spear her with a white-hot gaze. “Why didn’t you come in to see me?”
No turning back now. “Because I was afraid you’d send me away.”
She didn’t know how long they sat there, staring at each other. His expression showed nothing but that intense gaze of his burned. Then he laughed, but there was no humor in the short sound.
“I never thought of you as anything other than another sister when you were a kid, Annie. And then I come home one day and you’re eighteen and you’re beautiful. And still too damn young. And so out of my league.”
Then he sighed and looked out the front window. “Is this the right address? I made sure we weren’t followed so you don’t have to worry about that.”
Annie blinked, trying to get her bearings for the whiplash caused by their conversation. Yes, they’d arrived at the address she’d given him. She’d totally missed that.
When she nodded, he got out of the car and walked around to open hers. He reached in to help her out with a firm grip on her arm, as if he was afraid she’d try to get away.
“What is this place?” he asked.
Annie took a deep breath to clear her mind and shoved their conversation to the back of her mind for examination later. Right now, she needed to focus. “Dawn House.” She paused, knowing she needed to talk to him about so many things but for now… “You can’t go in with me. You might scare the girls.”
Shock made his eyes widen. “Well, hell, Annie. Don’t hold back to spare my feelings.”
Grimacing, she shrugged and regretted it when he released her. “Sorry, that didn’t come out right. Dawn House is a female-only shelter for abused teens and runaways. The girls are sent here by the police or from the homeless shelters in town. We take them in, get them counseling, medical attention, send them home, if that’s what they want.”
Nic took another look at the building before returning his intent gaze to hers. “What do you do here?”
“I run it.”
Taking a closer look at the three-story brick building, Nic noticed it was nondescript in every way from the surrounding buildings. Which was probably the point.
Manayunk had made a name for itself in recent years as an artists’ enclave, but it still had a blue-color feel to it. And it was large enough to hide a shelter like this. Which Annie apparently ran in all her spare time when she wasn’t working full-time for DeMarco Investigations.
As she moved toward the front door, he followed her up the stairs until she stopped on the landing.
“I’m going to be here for at least four or five hours. If you need to take the car—”
He shook his head. He was going nowhere. “Why don’t you take me in and show me around.”
She frowned and he could tell she didn’t want him here. Tough. He wasn’t going anywhere. He didn’t have a clue what this guy might do next and he wasn’t going to leave Annie as an open target.
“The girls—”
“I won’t do anything to scare your girls, Annie. But I’m not leaving. I’ll wait in your office. That’s private, right? I can make some calls and you can do whatever it is you do here.”
After a few more seconds’ hesitation, she nodded sharply. “Fine. But don’t be surprised if some of the girls cower at the sight of you. You’re big and you’re grim. Some of them have been abused and you’re going to startle them.”
Pushing open the door, she led him into an enclosed vestibule and entered a code on the keypad by the next set of doors. He wondered who had installed it and how good it was. He’d take a look at it before they left.
It bugged the hell out of him that he’d never known about this place. He thought he knew everything about Annie, but somehow she’d concealed this part of her life.
Of course, over the last several years, he’d kept his distance. Except for the incident with that scum lawyer she’d been working for, he’d been careful not to ask too many question about what was going on in her life. It made him crazy to know he’d never be a part of it.
Once through the second set of doors, they made their way down a short hallway then Annie turned left into a large living area. Couches defined several seating areas, three with small televisions. A baby grand piano occupied a far corner while an entertainment system with a wide-screen TV balanced the other end of the room.
Five pairs of female eyes latched onto him from different areas. Fear radiated from two, anger from another two and one stared right through him.
The last girl had painfully thin arms wrapped around legs drawn tightly to her chest. She had bruises on her arms and a shiner that made her blue eyes seem to pop out of her thin face. Her dark hair reminded him of Toni and he felt his bile start to rise.
Annie turned, whispered, “Wait here please,” then she approached each girl individually, speaking to them softly, touching their shoulders.
She asked them how they were doing with a smile and asked each of them a personal question.
When she reached the girl with the shiner, Annie sat across from her and waited until the girl looked at her. She spoke but the girl didn’t answer. At least, Nic didn’t think she did. He could barely hear Annie.
Before she rose, Annie reached over to touch the girl’s hand for a second.
Then Annie rose and walked back to him. She gestured for him to follow. “Come on, up here.”
She led him to the stairs at the back of the room, which led to another hallway filled with closed doors.
“My office is in here.”
Waving him through a door in the middle of the hallway with “Annie” stenciled across it, she stopped in the doorway.
“You can stay here until I’m done.” She gave him a quick nod before she turned.
He caught her arm just before she could make her escape.
“When you said you run this place, what did you mean?”
She glanced at his hand on his arm, and he knew she expected him to release her. Not until he had some answers.
“I’m sure you can figure that out for yourself, Nic. I fund it. From a trust my grandparents set up. My grandparents were great philanthropists. Before my grandmother died three years ago, she set up the trust to fund this shelter and made me the executive director.
“There are five full-time staff members. Two psychologists, one medical doctor and two trained therapists and social workers. We have thirty beds but we’re trying to get city council to approve another ten and to allow us to be a group home. Some of these girls don’t have anywhere to go. We try to help them get clean or sober, try to get them to call home. Some don’t have a home to go to and those are the ones that need us most of all.”
Apparently this was something Annie cared about passionately, if her expression was anything to go by. Then she seemed to remember who she was talking to and dropped her gaze.
“I’ve got some things I need to do,” she said. “I’ll be back a little later.”
Nic let her go and watched her walk away from him, his gaze locked on the sway of her slim ass. Totally inappropriate but, holy shit. The woman flipped his every switch.
Dropping into the chair behind the desk, he let his gaze roam. A denim couch that looked to be a sleeper took up almost half of the room. A file cabinet was the only other furniture and a wall of bookcases sat opposite the sofa. Books ranging from romance and science fiction to texts on psychology and stress-related eating disorders filled the shelves.
Damn. How had he not known about this part
of her life?
On a purely irrational level, it made him crazy not to know all of her secrets. Hell, he’d spilled his guts in the car, told her the one thing he’d never been able to tell anyone else. Not his parents or his brother or sister. He’d never want to worry them like that. They’d dealt with enough when he’d been recovering and he’d locked all that self-pitying bullshit away where they’d never see it.
Yes, he’d grieved for Nino. And he still carried the guilt that he’d survived and Nino hadn’t.
She’d been at the hospital every day.
And what the hell did it mean? Anything at all? He thought she’d moved on with her life. Hell, he’d been expecting her to announce her engagement to some up–and-coming lawyer or politician for the past few years. Why the hell hadn’t she?
He wanted to believe…
What?
That maybe they had a shot at making a relationship work? That he could seduce her and unwrap her like a Christmas gift before he laid her out on his bed and wrapped her legs around his waist while he fucked her until he couldn’t see straight?
While someone put a target on her back?
Sighing, he let his gaze wander again, coming to rest on the two photographs on her desk. One was Annie and her dad, her dad laughing as he held her in his arms on the back of a camel. She couldn’t have been more than five. In the background, he saw a pyramid.
In the second photo, a teenage Annie had her arms around a couple he assumed were her grandparents. She smiled into the camera, dressed in a strapless white gown that would have made him drop to his knees and beg her to put him out of his misery if he’d ever actually seen her wear it.
She never smiled at him like she was in the photo.
He wanted to hit something. “Screw this.” He pulled out his cell phone. “Hey. I got another call.”
Jimmy didn’t hesitate. “Gimme an hour. I’ll try and trace it.”
“Jimmy… He was watching me. And he threatened Annie again.”
“Oh hell.”
“Yeah. Find something for me, Jim.”
“Shit, Nic. I sent her there with that damn stupid report.”