by Linda Turner
Mortified, Phoebe wondered wildly if it was possible to die of terminal embarrassment right there on the spot. Quickly averting her gaze from Mitch’s sudden devilish grin, she choked, “No, honey, I’m not mad. Why don’t you and Robby go up to the apartment and get your duffel bags? Then you can load them in the car just as soon as Mr. Ryan and I get the bed back in the U-Haul. We’re going to have to find a place to stay tonight, and it’s getting late.”
Robby immediately challenged Becky to race him up the stairs, and they both took off. Her cheeks still flushed, Phoebe quickly took their place at the opposite end of the bed frame and bent to get a grip. All business, she nodded for him to proceed. “All right. Ready when you are.”
But instead of lifting his end and backing down the stairs with it, he just stood there, frowning at her. “What do you mean, you have to find a place to stay tonight?” he demanded. “Aren’t you going back to your old apartment?”
“No.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because it’s an adults only complex,” she said simply, and set down her end of the bed. She didn’t know why she bothered to give him an explanation—it really wasn’t any of his concern—but she found herself telling him about how the kids came to live with her. “My landlord gave me one week to find another place,” she concluded. “I thought I had.”
“But surely if you explained to him—”
“It wouldn’t do any good. He already found another tenant.”
That was it, end of story. Leaning down again to grip the bottom edge of the bed frame, she arched an eyebrow at him when he again made no effort to lift his end. “I thought you were going to help me move this thing.”
“I thought you had somewhere to go,” he retorted, scowling at her as if her homelessness was her own fault. “What are you going to do?”
Confused, she scowled right back at him. “Don’t worry about me. This isn’t your problem.”
She spoke nothing less than the truth. Just because she had been conned out of just about every penny she owned in his building didn’t mean he was in any way responsible for what happened to her or the kids. After all, it wasn’t as if he’d participated in Percy’s little scam—he hadn’t known anything about it. So why was he so concerned about what she did when she left the Social Club? Anyone would have thought he’d be glad to see the last of her.
When she said as much, he looked at her as if she’d just insulted him. “Maybe I don’t like the idea of throwing a woman and two kids out in the street when it’s getting dark,” he snapped. “I like to think I’m not that much of a louse.”
“But you’re not throwing us out,” she pointed out reasonably. “We don’t belong here. If some other stranger had wandered in here by mistake, you would naturally expect them to leave. That’s what we’re doing. Why do you have a problem with that?”
It was a good question, one he didn’t have an answer for. And that frustrated the hell out of him. Regardless of how difficult the question was, he was a man who seldom had problems coming up with an answer. But with this woman he didn’t even know, he didn’t have a clue why he couldn’t let her walk out the door. He just knew it would be a mistake.
“Damned if I know,” he said honestly. “I guess because I feel partly responsible. If the jerk who scammed you hadn’t been able to get in here in the first place, you wouldn’t be homeless right now.”
“But that’s not your fault. After all, it’s not like this is the first place Percy has pulled this particular little job. He obviously has no trouble breaking into other people’s apartments.”
“Maybe not, but that doesn’t change the fact that you have no place to go tonight.” And that, more than anything, ate at him. He could just see her and the kids sleeping in the car tonight and he wasn’t letting that happen.
Making a snap decision, he said, “Look, the way I see it, we both have a problem. You don’t have an apartment, and I’ve got an empty one that needs to be cleaned before the new tenants move in next week. Granted, I could pay a cleaning service to do that for me, and you could go to a hotel tonight if you absolutely had to. But why should you do that when you could stay here, just for the cost of cleaning the apartment?”
“You mean we could stay for tonight?”
He shrugged. “The Johnsons won’t need it until next Thursday. As long as you’re out before they show up, I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t stay until then. That would give you some time to look for another place without feeling like you had to take the first available thing that came along. If you don’t mind cleaning the apartment, of course.”
It was a fair deal, one that benefited them both. Still, Mitch half expected her to turn him down. The women he knew in the corporate world wouldn’t have considered cleaning someone else’s apartment, even if doing so would put a temporary roof over their heads. Sharp and cunning, they would have been more inclined to try to sweet-talk him into letting them stay for nothing.
Phoebe Smith, he was glad to discover, didn’t practice those kinds of wiles. In fact, he didn’t know whether to be flattered or insulted when she apparently didn’t even consider trying to charm him. Instead, she made a rapid decision. Abruptly stepping around the bed frame, she took two steps toward him and held out her hand. “We have a deal, Mr. Ryan. Thank you for the offer. I promise the kids and I will stay out of your way over the next couple of days and leave the apartment spotless when we move out.”
Taking her hand, he shook it firmly. “Fair enough. We might as well take this bed frame back upstairs, then. If you’re going to be here a week, you’re going to need it.”
In spite of the fact that they were going to be there less than a week, he offered to help her carry her bed up, too, but she couldn’t see the sense of that. The kids would share the one bed and she planned to stretch out on the floor in her sleeping bag.
“This’ll be fine,” she assured him. “It’ll be simpler to leave most of the stuff packed in the U-Haul—I’ll rent it for a few more days, and I’ll camp out on the floor. It isn’t as if it’s for the rest of my life.”
He looked as if he wanted to argue, but he obviously thought better of it. “All right. If that’s the way you want it. I’ll leave you to unpack your things.”
The kids let out a whoop the second the door closed behind him, delighted that they were getting to stay. Grinning, she cautioned, “It’s just for a week, guys, okay? Don’t start thinking of this place as home. As soon as I can manage to work something else out, we’ll be moving on.”
She might as well have saved her breath. “Can we have a fire in the fireplace, Aunt Phoebe?” Becky asked with wide-eyed innocence. “There’s wood and everything already in it. Please?”
“We can roast marshmallows after supper,” Robby added eagerly. “And make s’mores! It’ll be just like at camp.”
Rolling her eyes, Phoebe groaned. They were in love with the place and they hadn’t been there thirty minutes! How was she ever going to move them out without breaking their hearts? “I don’t think we need a fire tonight,” she hedged. “We’ve got to unpack and cook supper. Maybe tomorrow night.”
She tried to dampen their enthusiasm by pointing out that the social club didn’t have a playground like a regular apartment complex and there probably weren’t any kids for them to play with, but nothing she said fazed them. Chattering happily, they helped her bring in the bare essentials they would need for the next couple of days, then followed her all over the apartment as she did a hasty cleaning. They hardly touched their supper, then it was bath time. They were so excited, she never expected to be able to get them to bed by their regular bedtime, but it had been a roller coaster of a day, and they were worn out. Their heads hardly hit their pillows before they were both out like a light.
The silence in the apartment was sudden, complete, welcoming. Sighing softly, Phoebe couldn’t help but smile. She was crazy about the kids, but they were ceaselessly energetic and they loved to chatter. She rea
lized she would probably come to treasure times like this, when they were in bed and the quiet of the evening gently settled around her.
But tonight, of all nights, she knew she had no reason to be at peace. Yes, they had a roof over their heads, thanks to Mitch Ryan. And a quick call to the U-Haul leasing agent had—for a nominal fee, thank God!—bought her another week before she had to return the trailer. After that, however, her luck would run out. A week from now, there was no telling where the Smith family would be. Any sane person would have been poring over the classifieds in the paper, looking for another apartment. But she’d worried enough for one day. Tonight, she was going to take a bubble bath.
How long she soaked in the tub, she couldn’t have said later. The water was still warm, however, when she thought she heard the front door to the apartment open. Startled, she sat up straight in the water, listening, her heart thundering. She’d forgotten that she had to block the front door with cans and noisemakers, to wake her in case Becky walked in her sleep.
Swearing, she rose, dripping, to her feet and snatched up a towel. Dear God, what had she been thinking of? Louise, the kids’ maternal grandmother, had warned her about Becky’s sleepwalking and the need to set up some kind of alarm system. Worried, she’d diligently set up the cans each evening for the last week, just in case Becky felt unsettled about the changes in her life, but until now she’d slept peacefully through the night. Phoebe had an awful feeling that had just changed.
Sick at the thought, she hurriedly pulled on her nightgown. She was still struggling into her robe when she rushed into the kids’ bedroom. Robby lay dead to the world at one end of the bed. At the other end was Becky’s pillow. She was nowhere in sight.
“Oh, God!”
Frantic, Phoebe quickly searched the rest of the apartment, but it was empty and the front door was standing wide open. Rushing out into the hall, she thought she heard the sound of a door opening quietly downstairs at the back of the house, and her heart stopped dead in her chest. Dear God, Becky had gone outside! Out into the cold and the dark, wearing nothing but a thin flannel gown. Asleep, she wouldn’t be aware of the dangers of downtown San Antonio at night, and not just from someone who might wish her harm. The river ran right behind the house. In most places, it wasn’t more than four or five feet deep, but Becky was only six years old and small for her age. If she fell in, she could easily drown.
Swallowing a sob, Phoebe ran for the stairs.
Chapter 3
Seated at the old rolltop desk in Alice’s office, Mitch frowned down at the screen of his laptop computer and tried to make sense of the business proposal he’d spent the last hour working on. In its current state, he admitted in disgust, it was the worst plan he’d ever come up with. Amateurish and half-baked, it didn’t make a hell of a lot of sense, and it was all because he couldn’t get the little brunette in 2C out of his head. When he should have been thinking about sales figures and projected profits over the course of the next few years, all he could think of was the love and laughter that had lit her face as she sat on the stairs and tickled her niece and nephew. And this after learning that she was homeless and that she’d just lost a considerable amount of money! Any other woman he knew would have been crying, or, at the very least, raging at the Fates. Instead, she’d found a way to laugh, and for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out how. He knew she was aware of just how dire her circumstances were—he’d seen the panic in her eyes—but by the time he’d helped her get that damn bed into the apartment, she’d acted like she didn’t have a care in the world. And for some reason, that grated on his nerves. Dammit, she should have been worried!
Outside, the wind raced around the house, moaning and stirring up fallen leaves, as a cold front charged through the city like a freight train headed for the border. A few minutes before, the moon had been shining down on the lovers strolling hand in hand on the River Walk, but now it had disappeared behind gathering storm clouds, and the night had suddenly become dark and ominous.
Tree limbs groaned and cracked and scraped against the eaves, and somewhere in the house, a door slammed. Knowing how the electricity had a tendency to go out during a storm, Mitch quickly saved what he was working on and shut down his computer. He should, he supposed, haul in the antique wicker furniture on the back porch before it started raining. Alice always worried about it getting wet, and if something happened to it, he’d never be able to replace it. It had been her mother’s, and it meant more to her than a safe full of diamonds.
Dragging on a jacket, he headed for the back door and stepped out onto the darkened porch just as lightning slashed across the night sky. Thunder seemed to crack right over his head. Instinctively, he ducked...and thought he caught sight of someone in the garden. Stiffening, he searched the darkness, convinced his mind was playing tricks on him. The temperature had dropped twenty degrees in the last ten minutes and any second now, the storm was going to come down on the city like the vengeance of God. Only a fool would be walking in the garden.
Then lightning flared again, for a split second stripping away the darkness like a photographer’s flash. And there, caught in the eerie gray light of nature’s electrical display, were Phoebe Smith and her niece, in their nightclothes, looking for all the world like they were out for a Sunday stroll in the garden. If he hadn’t seen it with his own two eyes, Mitch would have never believed it.
“What the hell!”
Furious, he strode toward them. The woman was crazy. Certifiable! She had to be. Only a nutcase went for a walk in a thunderstorm. And she had her niece with her, for God’s sake! What was she doing? Trying to get them both killed?
Muttering curses, he had every intention of reading her the riot act, but she never gave him the chance. She glanced up and he saw both distress and relief written on her pale face. “Oh, thank God!” she breathed in a voice that was barely above a whisper. “Please tell me you know something about sleepwalking! I don’t know what to do. I’ve been trying to get her back into the house, but I’m afraid I’ll wake her up and I’ve always heard you’re not supposed to do that. But if I don’t get her inside soon, it’s going to start raining and she’ll wake up anyway.”
Her teeth were chattering...and she was shaking like a leaf, which wasn’t surprising since the wind seemed to be blowing straight from the Arctic and she had nothing on but a light gown and robe. And she was barefoot, dammit! So was her niece. But unlike Phoebe, Becky seemed totally unaware of the change in the weather despite her thin gown. Her expression was blank, and, amazingly, she was asleep with her eyes open. When thunder boomed overhead, not so much as an eyelash flickered in response.
Swearing, he shrugged out of his jacket and quickly, carefully, settled it around the little girl’s shoulders. “How long has she been out here?” he asked gruffly.
Hugging herself, Phoebe blinked back tears. “I don’t know. Maybe ten minutes. She and Robby were both in bed asleep, so I took a bubble bath. I was in the tub when I heard the front door open. By the time I got dressed, she was outside. Do you think we should wake her?”
Mitch studied the child through narrowed eyes, then shook his head. “No. She’d probably be spooked if she woke up and found herself outside, especially in this weather. If she’s scared of thunderstorms, she’d really be freaked. Let’s see if we can get her back to the porch.”
By unspoken agreement, they flanked Becky, then Phoebe reached out and gently nudged the little girl toward the house. “C’mon, honey,” she said softly. “It’s time to go back to bed.”
Becky gave no sign that she heard. But when Phoebe gave her another little push in the middle of the back, she stepped toward the porch without an ounce of hesitation and walked through the door Mitch hastily pulled open for her. In a trancelike state, she walked up the stairs and into apartment 2C as if it had been home all her life. Her bed was just as she’d left it—with her pillow at one end and her brother at the other. Ignoring Robby, she crawled in at the end where she’d left her pi
llow, stretched out, and closed her eyes. Just as the storm finally broke outside, she sighed in contentment and relaxed into peaceful sleep.
If she hadn’t been so afraid of waking her, Phoebe would have laughed. The little minx! If she could sleep through the storm rattling the walls, she could sleep through anything.
Glancing up, her gaze met Mitch’s and she saw that he was obviously thinking the same thing. Amusement glinting in his eyes, he exchanged a slow grin with her just as thunder cracked three times in succession overhead. Phoebe knew that if Mitch hadn’t come to her rescue, she’d probably still be out there trying to get Becky inside and soaked to the skin by now.
His thoughts obviously mirroring hers, his gaze dropped, reminding her that she wore nothing but a thin gown and robe. Granted, she was covered from her neck to her ankles, so it wasn’t as if he could see anything. But the second his eyes slowly lifted back to hers, she felt his awareness that she was naked underneath her nightclothes.
And with no effort whatsoever, he stole her breath.
Fighting the need to cross her arms over her breasts, she told herself that if she acted nonchalant, he would, too. But her heart did a funny rollover in her chest and her throat closed tighter than a fist. She couldn’t for the life of her manage a single word.
Caught in the heat of his gaze, she would have sworn time ground to a stop. Then he blinked, the warmth abruptly disappeared from his eyes, and she couldn’t be sure she hadn’t imagined the entire incident. “Looks like she’s not going anywhere else tonight,” he said coolly, “but you might want to barricade the front door just in case.”
Her throat still thick, she said stiffly, “Yes. Of course. Thank you for your help.”
“No thanks necessary. I’m just glad we got her inside before the rain hit.”
With a nod good-night, he took his leave with the graceful stride of a man who seldom if ever lacked confidence in himself. Watching him, Phoebe never knew that his heart was pounding just as hard as hers.