by Teresa Hill
Odd that she’d end up with nothing but a business card from an uptight-looking woman she’d just met for the first time that day. Shannon could just imagine Kate Cassidy’s face if she called. In a perverse way, she liked the idea of calling Kate’s bluff. After all, she’d said if Shannon needed anything, all she had to do was call.
Shannon’s stomach rumbled in protest. If anything, the rain was falling harder and faster. There was a café on the corner that looked like it was open. She walked inside, wondering if she’d ever be immune to the stares and whispers that followed her everywhere she went when she was in her Halloween costume, as Kate had put it.
She walked up to the counter and said to the woman who’d just finished ringing up an order, “Do you have a phone book I could use for a minute?”
No attitude at all in her voice now. She couldn’t summon an ounce.
The kind-looking woman in a bright-blue apron and awful glasses pulled one out from under the counter and put it down between them.
“Thanks,” Shannon said, hoping to find Kate’s address. There. K. Cassidy at 41 Sugarcane Lane. It wasn’t even that far from here.
“You need the phone now?” the woman asked.
“No, thanks. I just got turned around, trying to find my friend’s house.”
“Nasty night to be out,” the woman said. “You okay?”
Those few kind words were almost enough to bring Shannon to tears. She was more of a mess than she thought.
“Yeah,” she insisted. “I’m fine.”
“Want some hot chocolate before you go?” the woman asked. “On the house?”
She was already pouring it into a cup, steam rising from it. Shaky all of a sudden and so grateful she couldn’t even stand up anymore, Shannon sank onto a stool. The woman placed the cup in her cold, wet hands, the warmth already seeping through it and inside of her. Next thing she knew, the woman, whose name tag read Rose, had brought her a towel to dry off with and offered her a ride.
“Really. I’m okay. I have a place to go,” Shannon insisted.
Besides, it would be harder for Kate to turn her down if she was standing there, dripping wet and cold, on Kate’s doorstep.
As Shannon finished her hot chocolate, Rose whispered to her that if she ever needed a meal, she could get one here, to just find Rose and she’d take care of it.
Shannon wiped away tears as she slipped out the door. Sometimes people were truly kind. It always surprised her when that happened, and it seemed when she was angriest or feeling the most hopeless, someone like Rose would come along.
Or maybe Kate Cassidy.
Or maybe the priest at the church.
She hurried down the block, then went east for two blocks and then south for one, and there she was, at the door of a neat, modest, pale-brick home. From the looks of things, Kate had brought out a ruler to trim the bushes that lined the front of the house to the exact same height and width, and planted the flowers in regimented rows. There probably wasn’t a single thing out of place in the entire house.
Why had Shannon ever thought she’d even get in the front door?
She ended up walking around the block about six times. Finally she worked up enough nerve to ring the bell.
Footsteps came from inside, and then Kate’s voice saying, “Coming.”
The door swung open in a whish, and there stood Kate, her hair still up, that boxy, black suit still on, a big, furry dog by her side and a silly, little white one by the big one’s side.
“Surprise,” Shannon said.
Kate looked at her blankly. The dogs sniffed, then waited to see if she’d pet them. She hadn’t expected Kate to have dogs, especially not ones like this. Kate would have something with a pedigree that didn’t dare shed or make a mess, one that hardly made a sound. These two looked much too normal to be hers.
“Yeah, I know,” Shannon said. “You didn’t invite me over. But you said if I needed anything… And I know this definitely isn’t what you had in mind, but do you think I could crash here? Just for one night? Because I really don’t have anyplace to go.”
When the doorbell rang, Kate had thought for a moment it was Joe, coming back to say he didn’t mean what he’d said before, that he still wanted to marry her. That they were so well-suited and got along so well.
But it certainly wasn’t Joe.
Kate wouldn’t have been more surprised if the Tooth Fairy had shown up at her door.
Which made her think of Halloween costumes.
It really wasn’t Halloween and yet Shannon still looked dressed for the night, although she’d kind of wilted and gotten smudged in the rain. And she was shivering.
“Come on in,” Kate said, shoving back the thought that once she actually let the girl in, it would be much harder to get her back out.
Immediately she felt guilty for the thought.
If her mother were alive, she’d have let Kate have it, even for thinking of not letting the girl in out of the rain. She’d have been ashamed of Kate. Kate was ashamed, too. Maybe she really had become an uptight witch. Maybe that’s why Joe didn’t love her. Maybe she didn’t deserve to be loved.
Shannon stepped inside, to the delight of the dogs, who grinned up at her, panting and swishing their tails back and forth. Petunia did a little dance, wanting to be picked up. Kate closed the door, thinking from the look on Shannon’s face that she might want to pick up the dog but wouldn’t do it for fear of ruining her tough-girl image.
She probably wouldn’t believe it if Kate admitted it, but she’d spent a good, solid fifteen minutes sitting on the floor with Romeo cuddled against her side and Petunia in her lap, Kate aching with loneliness and the dogs trying to comfort her.
“You’ve got to be freezing,” Kate said, glancing over the girl. “Do you have any clothes in that backpack? Or is it just school stuff?”
“School stuff,” Shannon said. “Sorry about this. Really. If I could just stay the night, I could find someplace else tomorrow. Promise.”
Kate grabbed an afghan from across the back of the sofa and held it out to the girl. “Jacket off first. And, tell me. Did you run away from home?”
“No. I got kicked out.” Shannon shrugged out of the jacket.
“Just drop it on the tile. I’ll hang it up later. Why did you get kicked out of your house?”
“Ahhh, you know.” Shannon shrugged and let Kate wrap the afghan around her. “I mean, you’ve met me. You can’t be all that surprised, right?”
This close to the girl, she seemed so short and thin. Like there was nothing to her but leather and attitude and makeup. Fifteen seemed much younger than it had only hours earlier.
“What did you do?” Kate asked.
The girl moved away from her, leaning against the door and one, pale, shaking hand holding the afghan around her. “Made my old man mad. No big deal. He’s always about to stroke out about something.”
“So, he has no idea where you are?”
“Lady, he doesn’t care, as long as I’m not bugging him.”
“Really?” Kate asked.
“Is that so hard for you to understand? Did you grow up in one of those weird families where you had a mother and a father, and they got along and actually stayed together, and you have siblings that you actually still speak to or something? Maybe have dinner with on national holidays?”
“No, my father was shot and killed when I was eight,” Kate said. That usually bought her some ground with anyone who tried to say she’d had it made growing up. “But I do still speak to my siblings, and we do have dinner together. It doesn’t even take a holiday.”
Shannon frowned at that. “Look, I know you’re not supposed to be my mom or anything. I got the lecture about what not to expect from you, and you and I made that deal anyway about just making this look like it’s working out—”
“It’s okay. You can stay,” Kate said.
“Huh?” The girl looked vaguely hopeful and very, very surprised.
“I could see wh
ere you were going with all that and decided I could do without the speech. Plus, you’re shivering. Why don’t you take a hot shower and I’ll find you some pajamas. Nothing nearly as fashionable as the stuff dripping onto my floor, of course, but warm, I promise.”
The girl blinked back up at her and, for once, said nothing. Romeo woofed happily, seeming to know she was staying. He loved company.
“Could we make a deal about the makeup, too?” Kate asked. “Maybe you could take it off? Just while you’re here? You might frighten my sister.”
“Your sister’s here?”
Kate nodded. “We live together. Sweet, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yeah. She scares easily?”
“Yes.”
“How old is she, because if you’ve got a little kid around—”
“Twenty-four.”
Shannon frowned, as if she couldn’t be sure whether Kate was teasing her or serious, as if there might really be something wrong with her sister Kathie.
Kate’s mouth twitched as she fought a smile. “Don’t worry. She’s normal as can be, and she won’t bother you.
“My brother has his own place, and so does my other sister, Kim.”
“Wait, your parents named you Kate, Kathie and Kim?”
“Yeah, I know. It’s a miracle anyone can keep us straight. My father’s family had a thing about alliteration and daughter’s names. Some kind of tradition I’ve never understood.” Kate sighed. “Try not to make a joke about it. I’ve heard them all. I was about to make some dinner. Want some?”
Shannon said no, but her stomach chose that moment to growl loudly.
“I’ll take that as a yes. One more thing. No smoking in my house,” Kate said.
“Okay.”
“Come on. I’ll show you the bathroom and get you a fresh set of towels.”
Kate turned over the supplies, then went into the kitchen and stood there, gazing around the room as if she wasn’t sure she recognized the place.
Actually, it looked like her place, nice sturdy furnishings, pretty, pale colors on the walls, stark-white cabinets with a black granite countertop she’d had installed last year, because it would raise the value of the house, of course, and not a thing sitting on the countertops. There wasn’t an object out of place or an ounce of clutter, except maybe in her sister’s room.
This was her house. It just wasn’t her life.
She’d lost a fiancé in this room, less than an hour ago, and she’d somehow gained a sullen, gaunt-looking, sad-eyed teenager who could hardly stand Kate but obviously had no place to go.
What kind of a trade was that?
As she stood there, something her mother always said popped into Kate’s head—that we might not get what we want in life, but we usually got what we needed.
Kate couldn’t see how she might need a teenage girl more than Joe. But then, her mother’s faith had always been much stronger than Kate’s. All Kate was certain of was that life was hard, really hard. It didn’t make much sense, and it kept surprising her, often in unpleasant ways.
Kate heard the shower come on and remembered she had a guest to feed. Looking through her cabinets, she saw that canned soup was her best bet, and maybe some bread. She had frozen dough that turned into warm rolls fairly quickly and smelled fabulous, even if they did come out of a freezer bag. Her mother always said the world never looked quite so bad over a good meal.
While she started the soup and the bread, she grabbed the phone and called her brother, Jax, who was a policeman.
“Hi, it’s me. I have a quick question,” she said. “You don’t have any reports of missing teenagers in town, do you?”
“Why? Did you find one?”
“No.” Shannon had found her, Kate reasoned. “I just want to know if anyone’s reported a teenage girl missing today?”
“Not today,” her brother said. “And I’m on duty, so I’d know.”
Which meant that whoever Shannon had left behind wasn’t looking for her. Did that mean it was okay to keep her?
“Want to tell me what’s going on?” Kate’s brother asked.
“Not really. But will you tell me if anyone does file a report on a missing girl?”
Her brother made an irritated sound that meant he didn’t understand why his sisters didn’t just tell him everything he wanted to know, right away, without any argument. “Want to give me a name?”
“Shannon. She’s fifteen.”
“Does that mean if I needed to find her, you could be of help?”
“Maybe,” Kate said. If the girl stayed.
“Katie, what are you doing?”
“I don’t know. She said her father kicked her out, and that she needed a place to stay, just for the night.”
“Her parents could be going crazy trying to find her, and just not have called the cops yet.”
“I know.”
“Want me to call?”
“No. I can’t have her thinking I went to the police—”
“I don’t have to tell them I’m a cop. I’ll just call and ask for her, and see what her father says. Or I’ll get Pete Simmons to. He sounds like he’s about sixteen.”
“Okay. That would be good. But no cop stuff. Her name is Shannon Delaney. I don’t even have a phone number for her yet.”
“It’s all right. I’ll find her.”
Kate thanked him and hung up the phone. Having a brother for a cop came in handy at times. He’d been a rock to her, her sisters and their mother growing up, but now that he was getting married soon, she felt he was slipping away from them. She was happy for him, but uneasy about all the changes taking place. Her baby sister had just graduated from college, and her mother had died. Kathie, with her, was still blessedly normal and Kate was—unsettled wasn’t the right word. It wasn’t big enough or messy enough to describe how she was feeling.
Lost? That worked.
Sad? Bigger than that.
Alone? Very, very alone. That was the worst word of all, and it fit perfectly.
Before she died, Kate’s mother had said Kate kept her feelings locked up too tight and that one day, they were going to come pouring out.
And then what?
She’d drown, she feared. If they all came pouring out at once, she’d drown.
Kate’s sister Kathie walked into the kitchen a few minutes later, frowning as she saw her sister. “I thought you were in the shower. If you’re here, who’s there?”
“Company. My little sister. Shannon. She just showed up, cold and dripping wet, saying she didn’t have anywhere else to go. She’s spending the night.”
“Oh. Okay. You do that kind of thing with the Big Sisters program?”
“I don’t think we’re supposed to.” At least not without the parent’s permission.
Kathie did a double take. “You mean…you’re breaking a rule?”
She said it as if Kate might have just announced she was flying to the moon.
“Yes,” Kate said defensively, as she stirred the soup.
Kathie put her hand on Kate’s forehead. “Do you feel all right?”
“Not really, but what am I supposed to do?” Kate pushed her sister’s hand away. “It’s late. It’s raining. It’s cold. And I’m not going to call Social Services at this hour. She probably just had a little spat with her dad. I mean, come on… I told you what she was like. If you were her mother, and she looked like that, can you imagine the fights you’d get into?”
“Yes, but still…”
“I’ll probably just take her home in the morning and they’ll patch things up and everything will be fine.”
“And if not?”
The phone rang, saving her from having to answer. Kate grabbed it. It was her brother. “What did you find out?”
“Her father said he doesn’t know where she is and doesn’t care, that he doesn’t expect her back anytime soon. And then—are you sitting down?”
“No. Should I be?”
“Definitely,” her brother said.
“After he told Pete he didn’t expect her back anytime soon—”
“Yes?”
“He asked if Pete was the father of the baby she’s carrying.”
“She’s fifteen,” Kate said, as if that meant the other wasn’t possible.
“Yeah. It happens. More often than you’d think and to girls even younger than she is. What are you going to do with her now?”
“I have no idea.” She thanked him, hung up the phone and told her sister. “Well, I guess we’re keeping her for a while, because she’s pregnant.”
“Wow. You know, there are agencies that take care of kids at times like this.”
“I know, but she came to me, and I…kept thinking of mom. She would never have turned Shannon away.”
“Of course not.”
Kate opened up the oven to look inside to check on the rolls. They were done. She pulled them out and turned the oven off, then blurted out. “Am I such a bad person that you’re shocked that I’d try to help this girl?”
“No. Not bad. Never bad.”
“Just judgmental and too hung up on rules to ever ignore them in order to help a cold, wet, homeless, pregnant teenager?”
“I didn’t say that.”
No. Her sister didn’t have to say it.
“I have to help her,” Kate said.
“That’s fine. Really.” Kathie looked around, puzzled. “I forgot—where’s Joe?”
Oh, hell. Joe. Kate felt weary just thinking of him. “He left.”
Her sister looked puzzled by that, either because of the tone Kate used or the brevity of her answer. Kathie looked as though she had a lot of questions about Joe, questions Kate didn’t feel up to answering at the moment. She had to think, to figure out what she was going to say to people. How did one announce an unengagement?
“Okay,” Kathie said, when no explanation was forthcoming.
“Anything else going on?” Kate hid her face behind the refrigerator door, looking for butter. How long could she sell the idea of looking for butter, when the refrigerator was as organized as the rest of the house?