Angus's Lost Lady

by Marie Ferrarella

  Like a child resisting bedtime because she is afraid of the dark, Rebecca looked for something to talk about—something to keep him here just a little longer.

  She seized the first idea that came to her. “Um, listen, I don’t want you to think that I’m asking you for a free ride.”

  It was right where he’d remembered, Angus thought, taking out his old high school football jersey. He shook it out before placing it on the bed. Number 17. How many years since he’d worn it? He couldn’t remember. He didn’t even know why he kept it. If anyone had asked him, he wouldn’t have said that he was a particularly sentimental person. But Angus supposed that he had to be. There was no other explanation for his holding on to the jersey this long.

  Her protest caught his attention and he looked at her. “As I recall, you didn’t ask for anything.”

  Yes, she had. Just by being here tonight, she had, Rebecca thought. And it wasn’t fair to him.

  “I intend to pay you,” she assured Angus with conviction. A gut feeling told her that she didn’t accept charity. “I don’t have anything now, but I must have a job in my other life. As soon as I get back to it, I’ll pay you for all your trouble.”

  It was an odd word for her to use, he thought. He hadn’t thought of her as trouble. Just someone who needed him. It also occurred to him that he liked being needed. Maybe it pointed to some sort of latent vanity in him, but he had to admit that he liked that need acknowledged as well.

  “No trouble,” he said, but noticed that she didn’t look convinced. “I consider it a mental challenge.” He caught himself wanting to push back a stray lock that threatened to fall into her eyes. Surprised by the impulse, Angus shoved his hands into his back pockets instead. “Right now, you’re the most interesting case I’ve had in a very long time.”

  “There, you said it,” she responded. “I’m a case. People who ask you to take on their cases pay you for that service. For your expertise.” She looked at him, determined to lay a claim to some sort of integrity. “I want to pay you.”

  Her lips fell a little short of forming a pout as she stated her intent. Those lips held his attention a moment longer than they should have. Maybe even two moments. Angus roused himself, moving his gaze to her eyes. Just as lethal, he thought. He couldn’t win.

  “Like you said, once you get back to your life, you can write me a check.” He turned down her covers, deliberately turning his back on her at the same time. It felt just a wee bit crowded in the room for him. And a wee bit too warm.

  “Angus?”

  Very carefully, he smoothed down the comforter, just the way he did for Vikki. “Hmm?”

  She licked her lips, grabbing on to her waning courage before it disappeared entirely.

  “What if I don’t have a job?” When he turned around to look at her, her awkwardness increased. When she was herself, was she good with words? Because right now, she felt terribly clumsy and inadequate at framing her thoughts. “In my other life, I mean. What if I was fired?”

  That was the least of his concerns. “We’ll work something out,” he promised. He nodded at the jersey. “Now get some sleep, okay?”

  Rebecca picked up the green-and-white jersey and held it to her, as if just holding it could give her a measure of comfort. “Okay.”

  She was struggling with her fears again, he could see it. Angus felt for her. Pausing, he reached for her hand. He meant only to squeeze it, one human being silently offering comfort to another. But the look in her eyes made him think of Vikki the first time he ever saw her. She’d been trying to put on a brave front, but it was evident that she was very afraid of this new world she suddenly found herself in. Afraid and lost.

  Before he could think it through, or think to stop himself, Angus inclined his head and brushed his lips against the hollow of Rebecca’s cheek.

  The softness nearly undid him.

  Like squeezing her hand, the friendly kiss was meant to give comfort, nothing more. It wasn’t intended to open any doors, or to link itself to anything else.

  It wasn’t meant to. But it did, all the same.

  Something happened in that small measurement of time. A spark had been set off, telegraphing itself across an invisible line.

  Yes, something had happened.

  Something wondrous.

  Quivering inside, Rebecca stared at him as she touched her hand to her cheek. Her fingers lightly glided along the tiny spot where his lips had made the slightest contact with her skin. She was lost, not only in time and space—but also for words.

  Angus, too, had felt something just then—sympathy, empathy? Desire? He wasn’t sure just what. Maybe all of the above. Maybe it didn’t even have a name. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that he suddenly found himself wanting to hold her.

  But he couldn’t allow that to happen. He wasn’t about to scare her or have her thinking the wrong thing. And he wasn’t about to start anything, either.

  Angus deliberately backed away from her, from the feeling that had prompted his action in the first place. He was still backing away when he bumped against the doorjamb.

  The contact grounded him. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Still feeling a little dazed and disoriented—something that was beginning to seem like second nature to her—Rebecca nodded, repeating the word as if it were a faith-healing chant. “Morning.”

  Angus lingered for just a moment. It was all he would allow himself.

  “I’ll be right outside on the couch if you need anything.” He nodded toward the living room. “Or think of anything.”

  “Thanks.”

  But all she had to think of, Rebecca thought ruefully as she closed the door behind him, were the events that had taken place since this afternoon. Everything else before then didn’t even exist for her.

  Like a white knight riding to her rescue, Angus MacDougall vividly dominated every thought Rebecca could call her own.

  “Are you going to go back inside and read her a story?”

  Angus’s heart felt as if it had jackknifed inside his chest. Swinging around, he realized that he’d almost backed into his daughter. She was standing less than a foot away from his bedroom door.

  Rebecca’s bedroom door, for the time being, he amended.

  Angus pinned Vikki with a stern look. She was supposed to have been in bed and asleep at least half an hour ago. “What are you doing out here?”

  Vikki looked unwilling to give him an answer. She rocked on her toes, stalling. But he continued waiting, and she finally said, “Wondering if you were going to read to her.”

  With one hand on her shoulder, Angus guided his daughter back to her room.

  “She doesn’t need me to read her a story.” Angus pushed open Vikki’s door. “And what are you doing still up?” As if to negate his observation, Vikki scrambled into her bed. For the second time that evening, Angus found himself tucking covers around his daughter. “I swear Vik, you pop up more often than a jack-in-the-box.”

  Vikki’s eyebrows came together in deep concentration. “What’s that?”

  “You don’t know what a jack-in-the-box is?” Just went to show him how out-of-touch he was with the world of the nineties’ child.

  Her hair swung back and forth around her face as she shook her head. “I know what an inside straight is,” she countered proudly.

  She was Jane’s, all right. Angus skimmed his finger along her nose. “You don’t need to know that,” he informed her. “And I’ll see if I can scare up a jack-in-the-box some place and show you what one looks like.”

  He paused, mentally digging beneath the layers to see what this was really about. Unless she was sick, like last night, Vikki usually remained in bed once he’d tucked her in. Was she jealous because he’d brought someone else into the apartment? He couldn’t see how that was possible, but then, he wasn’t a precocious seven-year-old, either. Maybe she thought he’d paid too much attention to Rebecca, and not enough to her.

  Angus tested his theo
ry. “Would you like me to read you a bedtime story?”

  A spark of light danced through her eyes before she lifted one shoulder in studied nonchalance. “If it makes you feel better to read me one.”

  She was still feeling him out, still trying not to become too attached. It didn’t take a genius to see that the death of the only parent she’d known had left its mark on her—made her afraid to care. Angus was determined to wait her out.

  That meant playing along with her game. “It would make me feel wonderful to read you one.”

  “Okay.” This time, she didn’t succeed in keeping the shine out of her eyes. She wiggled beneath her covers, staking out a place for herself. “How long is she going to stay here? Rebecca,” Vikki clarified, as if there was a need to.

  He hadn’t given it that much thought. As long as it took, he supposed, although he was counting on it not taking too long. He didn’t want to risk disrupting what he was so carefully trying to build between Vikki and himself: Trust.

  “We’ll take that one step at a time.”

  It wasn’t the answer she expected. “Are you going to help her?”

  Yes, he was going to help Rebecca. But, having been left out of every decision the Colonel had ever made, especially the ones that had affected him, Angus knew the value of making Vikki feel a part of what was happening. “Do you think I should?”

  Vikki looked up at him, the tiniest bit of surprise in her eyes. And then it receded, as if she took Angus’s question about her feelings as her due.

  “Yeah, I guess so.” Then, because the heart that she was struggling so hard to protect was large, sympathy played across her face. “It’s pretty terrible, huh? Not remembering stuff.”

  “Yes, it’s pretty terrible,” he agreed. He tried to put it into terms she could understand. “What if you couldn’t remember anything—not your favorite flavor of ice cream, not your birthday?” He looked deeply into her eyes, delivering his best card. “Not anything about your mom.”

  Vikki shivered. It would be awful if she couldn’t remember Momma. “You’d better help her.”

  She really was a terrific little girl, he thought. He grinned at her. “I’ll let her know you said that. I’m sure she’ll appreciate it.” Angus looked at the shelf over Vikki’s bed. He had been steadily adding books to her small library. Books had been what had sustained him when he was her age. Books and a vivid imagination. “Okay, what do you want to hear?”

  In response, Vikki pulled down the small, worn book her mother had given her. It had traveled almost as many miles as she had, and looked every bit of it. The grin on her face was positively impish as she held the book out to Angus. “How about Whose Shoes Are Those?”

  He groaned, taking the book from her. “Aren’t you tired of that yet?”

  Her head moved from side to side in solemn denial. It was her very favorite story in the whole wide world. Because Momma had read it to her every night. “Nope.”

  Angus’s sigh was deep and resigned. Bracing himself for wading through the sugary tale yet again, he opened the book to the first page. “Okay, lie back and close your eyes.”

  He waited until Vikki did as he said. Giggling, she snuggled farther under the covers and squeezed her eyes tightly shut. “Ready.”

  He wished he was, he thought as he began to read—from memory.

  Rebecca dreamed all night.

  She dreamed long, dark dreams that frightened her and made her struggle for consciousness. But sleep kept a tight hold on her, refusing to allow her to surface, to open her eyes and banish the shadows that hung over her like a death shroud.

  Something or someone was chasing her. Gaining on her. Threatening to take her life away.

  Fear ripped into her with a serrated knife, leaving jagged wounds.

  When she finally managed to wake herself up, Rebecca was shaking. She felt as if she’d been running for miles. Fleeing. And not escaping.

  Drawing a deep breath, she sat up and dragged her hand through her hair, trying to steady her tangled nerves. The scent that clung to the jersey, bringing Angus vividly to mind, helped to calm her down a little.

  It was a dream, only a dream. Comprised of all the small, inner fears she’d experienced yesterday. Nothing more.

  Or was it?

  Was she remembering something, something that had happened to her?

  Absorbed, shaken, it took her several beats to realize that she wasn’t alone in the room. That someone was watching her.

  She jerked when she became aware of Vikki in the corner of the room. Her hand spread over her pounding heart, as if to keep it from leaping out of her chest. “Oh, Vikki, you scared me.”

  Vikki moved closer to her. “I didn’t mean to. You were making noises.”

  She was surprised she wasn’t screaming and waking up everyone on the block.

  “I’m sorry. Did I wake you?” It didn’t look likely. The little girl was completely dressed. If she’d just woken Vikki up, she would still have been in her pajamas or nightgown.

  Vikki shook her head. “You have a bad dream?”

  She could still feel her heart throbbing in her throat. “Lots of bad dreams.”

  Vikki saw nothing unusual in that. “Momma used to have them, too. She said daylight made them go away.”

  Beginning to calm down, Rebecca smiled at the girl. “Your momma was a very smart lady.”

  The approval pleased her. One of the fences between them came down. Vikki returned Rebecca’s smile. “Yeah, she was.”

  It was daylight now. The sun streamed in through the window as if yesterday’s rainstorm was only a figment of her imagination. Rebecca looked back at Vikki. “How long have you been sitting there?”

  Time meant very little to her. It was something that only grown-ups seemed to worry about. “Since Angus left. He told me to keep an eye on you.” She said it as if she’d been entrusted with a special assignment.

  There was a clock beside the telephone on the night-stand. Rebecca looked at it, her vision still blurry. It was ten after eight. Something vague and formless registered. She had a feeling that it was late. Was she an early riser? Or was it just that she had to be in to work early?

  The same void she’d endured yesterday met her.

  Rebecca sighed. “Did I say anything in my sleep while you were sitting here?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  So much for that. Rebecca threw back the covers and swung her legs out of the bed. “Where did your father go?” The slim shoulders rose and fell carelessly in response. “Do you know when he’ll be back?” The question drew the same silent response. Rebecca tried again. “Have you eaten yet?”

  Watching her intently, Vikki shook her head.

  At last, something to do besides just exist. “Okay, I’ll make us breakfast.”

  Getting up, Rebecca looked around for the shoes Angus had given her. They were haphazardly kicked off, one on top of the other, on the floor beneath the window. If possible, the shoes looked even larger than they had the night before. She decided to go barefoot.

  “There’s only Chinese food and ice cubes,” Vikki informed her.

  She’d forgotten about his empty refrigerator. Rebecca smiled ruefully as she tugged the sheet and comforter back into place on the bed. She reached for the pillow and fluffed it up. “That’s a little more of a challenge than I can manage.”

  “What is?”

  Still holding the pillow to her, she turned around at the sound of his voice. A sense of relief flooded her. He was back.

  “Making breakfast out of ice cubes and leftover Chinese food.”

  Angus had walked into his room, guided by the sound of their voices, assuming that there was no need to announce himself. His assumption had rewarded him with a rich view of a very enticing long leg as Rebecca had reached over to smooth out the comforter. His grip on the bag almost ripped through the paper.

  “No need. I brought a Jingles breakfast.” He indicated the bag that he was holding from the fast-food restaura
nt. He was surprised he was capable of forming whole sentences, seeing as how he’d almost swallowed his tongue.

  In all the time he’d had his lucky jersey, he’d never seen it look this good. The edge of the shirt flirted with the tops of two incredibly firm thighs, leaving it to his active imagination to fill in what was being covered. Angus had to concentrate so that he didn’t drift off completely and sound like some blithering idiot. It wasn’t easy.

  Rebecca seemed oblivious to the effect she was having on him as she came forward. She looked at the bag he’d brought back with less than high regard. “Wouldn’t it have been easier just to go to the store and get some eggs and bread?”

  She was making noises like a typical woman. That was a good sign, he thought. His mouth curved. “The bread part might have been, but you obviously have never seen me with a frying pan.”

  She took his disclaimer as a sign of modesty. “You can’t be that bad.”

  “Oh, yes, he can,” Vikki testified, moving in between them. It wasn’t evident to Angus just whose side his daughter was on.

  Rebecca capitulated. “Okay, as long as you do the shopping, I’ll take care of making lunch.”

  Vikki regarded her with awe and a little wariness. Home cooking wasn’t something she was accustomed to from either parent. “You know how to cook?”

  Something else she hadn’t thought about, Rebecca realized. She did now—and smiled.

  “Yes,” she declared happily, as if this piece of information were a long-lost friend. “I know how to cook.”

  Chapter 5

  It was getting way too warm for him in this room, Angus thought. He seemed to be feeling overheated a lot since Rebecca had come into his life.

  Leaning out into the hall, he picked up and produced another, much larger bag in an effort to liberate himself from the situation and from thoughts that were growing increasingly less professional. Who would have known that Rebecca could make an almost threadbare jersey look so damn good?