She sat quietly, considering his demands—no, his requests. No matter how he phrased them, that was what they really were. She had spent plenty of time alone in her life—long hours while Evan had worked during their marriage, dark days privately grieving after his death. She really didn’t mind giving up her solitude for a time. And, although she hated to admit it, the extra security sounded pretty good. It had been easy to talk about not being afraid, about taking care of herself, when nothing was happening, when no threats were being carried out. After last night, though, the mere idea of a strong, solid, unbreachable door between her and the Ryan Morgans of the world gave her a sense of added protection. Besides, Jamey was right about the prospective clients of Kathy’s House. Eventually, she hoped to turn one or two of the smaller rooms into an emergency shelter. Any woman who had finally found the courage to flee an abusive man, even if only for one night, would surely feel safer behind locked gates and steel bars.
Kathy’s House could be inviting, open and friendly on the inside, the sort of place where any woman could feel at home. On the outside, though, she owed it to herself, to her clients, and yes, to Jamey to make it a fortress.
“All right,” she said at last. “If you could call a security company and make arrangements...”
Relief darkening his blue eyes, he nodded.
“You expected an argument, didn’t you?”
“You’ve given me one every other time we’ve talked.”
She carefully slid to the end of the bench, one hand braced protectively across her ribs, then stood up. “It’s kind of hard to argue about security when you’re black, blue and hurting. I think I’ll hobble back upstairs and crawl into bed.” She got a few feet away, then came back and claimed the saucer holding the rest of the apple pie.
“You’re going to eat that pie in bed?” he teased, following patiently as she slowly made her way toward the stairs.
“It’s comfort food,” she retorted over her shoulder. “It’s best eaten in bed.”
“Yeah, well, keep your crumbs on your side. I don’t want to sleep with bits of crust all over.”
She reached the bottom of the stairs, transferred the plate to her left hand so she could use her right hand on the banister, then gave him a disdainful look. “Obviously, you’ve never seen me eat pie. There are no crumbs when I’m finished.”
For a moment, she stood where she was, gazing at the hallway up above. She ran up and down these stairs a dozen times a day. She’d carried loaded baskets of laundry, gallons of paint, armloads of supplies and a sturdy eight-foot ladder up and down again. This afternoon she couldn’t even find the energy to lift her foot to the first step.
Jamey’s sweet, sympathetic voice came from behind her. “Hold on to your pie, darlin’.” He lifted her carefully, one arm around her back, the other under her knees, and started up the stairs. Last night he’d managed masterfully. Of course, she admitted with a mischievous smile in thought if not in reality, last night he’d been operating on adrenaline. This afternoon, as they neared the top of the steps, she could feel his muscles straining.
“This is the last time you’ll have to carry me,” she promised as he turned down the hall toward her room. “I’ll be fine tomorrow.”
Bless his heart, he didn’t argue with her. He didn’t remind her what she’d been through, didn’t point out every one of the bruises Ryan had given her. He very gently laid her on the bed, then collapsed face down beside her. After setting her pie aside, she brushed her fingers through his hair. “Why don’t you lock up downstairs, come back up here, take your clothes off and lie down?”
He opened one eye to look at her. “I don’t believe I’ve ever gotten an invitation from a beautiful woman to get naked with less chance of getting lucky than I’ve got right now.”
“You got lucky the day you met me,” she teased, but he didn’t smile. He didn’t offer that sweet grin. He reached for her hand and pressed a kiss to the center, a light, damp, erotic kiss, and he agreed.
“Darlin’, I surely did.”
Jamey stood on the veranda, hands on the railing, staring out at the street. It was Monday, the first day of September, Labor Day. The month on the calendar might have changed, but the weather remained the same—hot and muggy. It was a day fit for sitting in an air-conditioned room and doing not much of anything, but nobody on Serenity had air-conditioning, and there was always too much of something to keep a body busy.
Behind him by the side door, the women were keeping busy—Karen, Cassie Wade, Shawntae and Marina. It was a holiday, and holidays, according to Karen, were meant for celebrating. He had tried to talk her out of this cookout. It was too soon after her run-in with Morgan. She should be resting. She should forget the parties until cooler weather, until the police caught the local hotheads and locked them away from her. Of course she hadn’t listened. He would have been disappointed if she had.
He grew still, considering that last thought. It would have been nice if she had agreed, if she had postponed the party until she was completely recovered, but that wasn’t Karen’s way. Backing down, doing only what was safe, not taking chances—if that was the way she did business, he never would have met her. He never would have fallen in love with her.
Turning, he leaned against the rail and watched the women. Karen claimed all of his attention, of course, in a yellow sundress, her hair pulled back from her face with a matching yellow headband. She was as bright, beautiful and welcome a sight as the first daffodil must be after a long, hard winter. She was so beautiful that the injuries on her face—the fading bruise, the healing lip, the improving scrape—weren’t even noticeable until the second or third look.
Feeling his gaze, she paused in the task of arranging the table, looked up and slowly smiled. It was a sweetly intimate gesture, as potent as the afternoon sun, as full of promise as the most solemn vow, as lovely and vital as anything he’d ever seen. It made the muscles in his stomach tighten, made his breath catch and brought his blood to a slow simmer. It made him wonder what excuse could entice her away from her friends and upstairs for an hour—or two or three—of his exclusive company.
None at the moment, he admitted regretfully as she turned away in response to one of the other women; then slowly his own smile came. There was always the night. Tonight and tomorrow night and twenty thousand nights to come.
Footsteps on the porch drew his attention toward the front of the house. Rosa Gutierrez had arrived. Behind her, Reid was carrying her contributions to the meal. The kid took them to the table, then came back to lean against the next section of railing. “I started on Karen’s mural this morning.”
Jamey smiled faintly. Karen’s mural, Karen’s party and Karen’s friends. Soon it would be Karen’s neighborhood. In no time at all, she would have transformed a bleak, miserable little corner of the city into her very own perfect place to belong. “She’ll be happy to hear it.”
After a brief silence, Reid spoke again. “Alicia had her baby this morning. A boy. She named him after Ryan.”
Labor on Labor Day, Jamey thought. Fitting. “Any word from him?”
“No.” Reid looked around, uncomfortable with what he was about to say. Finally, his gaze on floarboards badly in need of painting, he got the words out. “That offer the other day...about the apartment... Did you mean it?”
He’d had plenty of time over the weekend to decide that letting Reid move into his building was a bad idea, but he hadn’t. Considering that he’d never provided a home for his son when he was a kid and needed one, doing so now was the least he could do. “Yeah. Come over when this is finished and I’ll give you a key.”
Looking relieved—and embarrassed by it—Reid simply nodded, then silence settled again as they watched the women. The grill was smoking, J.T. and Marina’s kids were playing near the back wall, and the others were exclaiming over Polaroids of Rosa’s great-grandson. How hard was it for Karen to be happy for Alicia, he wondered, when she’d been denied the same pleasure herself?
It said something for her strength that her excitement was genuine, though tinged with well-hidden sorrow.
Over the next half hour, more guests arrived. Some were his regulars—Eldin and his wife, who rarely set foot outside their apartment since the drive-by shooting last year that had killed their little girl, old Thomas and Virgil, who lived next door and thought Karen was a pretty little thing, and Pat, celebrating an extra day off from his job over at the wharf. There were a few of Alicia’s friends, a half-dozen people from Marina’s building and neighbors from Shawntae’s. Some came empty-handed, but others brought food, six-packs of soda or folding chairs from their longunused porches. By two-thirty, more than forty people filled the side yard, mostly women, some children, only a few men.
That was the makeup of the neighborhood, Jamey acknowledged. Women trying to hold their lives and their families together without the help of the men responsible for those families. Men seemed to leave Serenity first. Kids left, too, if they grew up, if they weren’t shot to death playing on their own front porch, if they didn’t end up in juvenile detention or dead from drug use, abuse, gang violence or despair. But the women stayed. They held on. They kept trying.
Karen intended to stay, to hold on and keep trying. How long would it take him to accept that? she had asked. Watching her now with her neighbors—neighbors, in a place where before there had been only strangers and enemies—he knew. Unlike everyone else he had ever known, she wasn’t going to give in, give up and leave him behind. She was making a place for herself here on Serenity, and she was never going to leave—not her home, not the street, not him.
Joining her on the veranda near the dessert table, he wrapped his arms around her from behind and pressed a kiss to one exposed ear. “You know how to throw a good party.”
She smiled up at him, then, with a sigh, settled against him, her hands clasping his. “There are nice people on this street.”
Years ago he had known that, but lately he’d needed the reminder. He had come to view Serenity as a place not worth saving, filled with people beyond saving. But everyone was worth saving. Everyone had some decent quality, some decent purpose. Well, almost everyone, he amended as the sound of slamming car doors drew his attention, and everyone else’s, to the street. The Morgans’ old Impala was pulled across the sidewalk, partway through the open gate, and Ryan, his brother, Vinnie Marino and Elpidio Rodriguez were lined up in front of the car, facing the crowd, looking every bit as dangerous as Jamey knew they were. “Tell the redheaded bitch to come on down here,” Ryan shouted.
“Stay here.” Jamey released Karen and started toward the steps, passing Cassie on the way. “Call the police and tell them the punks they’re after are here and looking for trouble,” he said quietly. As she quickly obeyed, Karen pushed past them and walked down the steps. The crowd parted, people leaving their chairs and food behind, the mothers gathering their children and edging away, leaving Karen in the open.
“You already forgot the rules for the parties,” she said, her voice betraying no hint of the fear that Jamey was feeling and knew she must be. His blood was cold, his heart was barely beating, and his chest was painfully tight. “No weapons, no trouble, no bullies.”
“I came for Alicia.”
Jamey took the steps in one great stride and stopped in front of Karen. She stubbornly moved to his side. “She’s not here,” he said coldly, “but the police will be soon.”
As a group all four young men moved forward a few yards. “Maybe I don’t believe she’s not here,” Morgan responded. “Maybe I’ll go inside and look around.”
“And maybe you’ll get off my property,” Karen retorted.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t lie to me!” He moved closer still. “You’ve been telling her lies about me, filling her head with all kinds of stuff, making her think I’m no good for her. You took her someplace, didn’t you? I want to know where.”
“I don’t know where she is.” Karen’s voice was strong, her words clearly and carefully enunciated.
“Then maybe this will help you remember.” Morgan raised his left arm, extending it straight out, pointing the pistol he held directly at Karen.
Without taking his gaze from the other man, Jamey edged toward Karen, intending to pull her behind him, for whatever good it would do. The gun was a semi-automatic, no doubt loaded for a sure kill. At this distance, if he fired, he would probably succeed at killing them both.
“Where is she, bitch?” Morgan asked once more, his voice deadly cold, all the more menacing for the lack of emotion it held.
Movement beyond Karen caught Jamey’s eye. It was Reid, coming to stand beside her. It made Morgan smile. “You think I won’t kill you, too, and enjoy doing it? You betrayed us. You were one of us until she came. You lived with us, you worked with us, you partied with us. You were just like us.”
“I was never just like you,” Reid denied mildly. “You’re already in trouble, Ryan. You think killing us in front of all these people will make it better?”
“These are my people,” he boasted, waving the gun in a broad gesture. “I own this neighborhood. I own these people. You think they’d talk to the police about me?” He spat out a curse. “They’re scared little mice—scared of me. They know that if they don’t do what I say, they’ll be sorry. They’ll be dead.”
From somewhere behind them a strong voice spoke out in disagreement. “You don’t own me, Morgan.” Shawntae Williams separated herself from the crowd and came to stand with them.
As he moved close enough to slide his arm around Karen, Jamey glanced at Shawntae with equal measures of admiration and frustration. He appreciated the show of support for Karen’s sake, but didn’t the woman realize the danger? Didn’t she realize that putting her life at risk wouldn’t make saving Karen’s any easier? Then her mother joined her, and admiration turned to amazement. Alicia’s grandmother came, too, and old Thomas, Cassie, Marina, everyone, until a crowd had formed around them, with Karen at the center.
Uneasy with this turn of events, Morgan looked over his shoulder for guidance, and Trevor made an insistent motion toward the crowd. He was telling his brother to do something, Jamey knew, to take some sort of decisive action. There wasn’t much, though, that he could do. Open fire or back down—those were his choices. He had to realize, even in his anger, that shooting into the crowd would seal his own fate—there would be no avoiding prison, maybe even execution—while backing down would cost him the respect of his boys and the grudging, fear-based deference of the people in the community. He would lose his stature as the meanest, toughest son of a bitch on Serenity. He would be giving in to—accepting defeat from—this ragged bunch of powerless, unprotected people whom he’d made a career of terrorizing.
In the distance sirens sounded, three, maybe four, distinct wails. Marino looked toward Decatur, then commanded, “Come on, Ryan, let’s get out of here.”
The young man whirled around. “I give the orders here!” he shouted, venting his rage on his friend. “I tell you what to do! I tell everyone what to do! Understand?”
Marino muttered a curse, started to turn away, then turned back with his own weapon pointed at Morgan. “Start the car, Trevor,” he commanded, and the younger Morgan hustled to obey. “We’re not following your orders anymore, Ryan. We’re not going to jail because you can’t keep your little girlfriend under control. You want to stay? Go ahead. But we’re outta’ here.”
As the motor caught, Marino and Rodriguez backed away, through the gate, to the back doors. Morgan screamed obscenities as Trevor backed out, tires squealing, then gunned the engine. Less than three blocks away the tires squealed again, the noise ending in a terrific crash of metal against metal, followed by the dying warble of a siren. One of New Orleans’s finest had just met three of the city’s worst, Jamey thought with a hint of relief.
“I’ll be back, O’Shea,” Morgan said, keeping the gun pointed their way as he retreated towa
rd the sidewalk. “I’ll be back, and she’ll be dead.”
“She’ll be waiting,” Jamey replied. “And so will L”
At the sidewalk, Morgan tucked the gun in his waistband, then took off at a dead run toward the end of the street. Moments later a patrol car raced by in the same direction. Maybe they would corner him on one of these dead-end streets or in an alley, Jamey thought. If they did, Morgan, being the punk he was, would probably force a standoff. Maybe he would get himself killed.
Beside him Karen gave a soft, heartfelt sigh, then wrapped her arms around his middle. She was shaking like a leaf in a hurricane, and he swore he could feel her heart beating in time with his. He held her tightly for a moment, then tilted her head back. “Are you all right?”
She smiled shakily. “Oh, darlin’,I’m better than all right. Can you believe these people?”
Around them everyone was reacting—laughing, sharing fears, patting each other on the shoulder or arm. They were pleased with themselves for standing up to Morgan—proud of themselves for the first time in far too long—and it was Karen’s doing.
She had been right all along. These people did need her—not as a social worker, not as a do-gooder, but just for herself. They needed her bright, Pollyanna outlook and her no-strings-attached offer of friendship, her unbroken spirit, her optimism and her dreams. Most of all they needed her extraordinary faith—in herself, in them, in the community as a whole.
He needed her faith. He needed her dreams. He needed her.
And as soon as they were alone, he intended to tell her.
The party broke up around six. Everyone pitched in to clean up, the women claimed their dishes, and Karen and Jamey said goodbye to them all. Quiet settled over the yard, the house and its three occupants as they relaxed on the porch. Jamey sat in the rocker, Karen on his lap, and Jethro, exhausted from an unaccustomed afternoon’s play, snored underneath the bench.
This had been her best day since coming to Serenity, she decided as the floor squeaked in time to their rocking. For the first time she’d seen hard and fast evidence that she just might be able to make a difference here. Not only had her neighbors come out in force for the cookout, but they had protected her. They had faced down Ryan Morgan, their greatest nightmare, and he had fled. Other than that incident, everyone had enjoyed themselves—not even the interviews conducted by the police officers had been enough to dampen their spirits—and Jamey hadn’t once mentioned better security, impenetrable walls, an alligator-filled moat or anything of that nature. He hadn’t even objected when she’d suggested that they sit out on the veranda this evening.
Convincing Jamey Page 23