The doors to her kitchen cabinets had recently been replaced with light, blond wood. The gleaming white countertop looked new, too. But he only spared it half a glance, instead watching Mia as she stood on tiptoes to reach up into one of the cabinets for her bottle of aspirin. She was a blinding mixture of muscles and curves. He couldn’t look away, even when she turned around. Great, just what she needed. Some loser leering at her in her own kitchen. He could see her apprehension and discomfort in her eyes.
She set the bottle of aspirin down in front of him on the table and disappeared, murmuring some excuse about checking on Natasha.
Frisco pressed the cold soda can against his forehead. When Mia returned, she was wearing a T-shirt over her running gear. It helped, but not a lot.
He cleared his throat. A million years ago, he had been so good at small talk. “So…how far do you run?” Cripes, he sounded like some kind of idiot.
“Usually three miles,” she answered, opening the refrigerator again and taking out a pitcher of ice tea. She poured herself a glass. “But today I only went about two and a half.”
“You gotta be careful when it’s hot like this.” Man, could he sound any more lame? Lame? Yeah, that was the perfect word to describe him, in more ways than one.
She nodded, turning to look at him as she leaned back against the kitchen counter and took a sip of her tea.
“So…your mother’s an artist.”
Mia smiled. Damn, she had a beautiful smile. Had he really thought that it was goofy-looking just two days ago?
“Yeah,” she said. “She has a studio near Malibu. That’s where I grew up.”
Frisco nodded. This was where he was supposed to counter by telling her where he came from. “I grew up right here in San Felipe, the armpit of California.”
Her smile deepened. “Armpits have their purpose—not that I agree with you and think that San Felipe is one.”
“You’re entitled to your opinion,” he said with a shrug. “To me, San Felipe will always be an armpit.”
“So sell your condo and move to Hawaii.”
“Is that where your family’s from?” he asked.
She looked down into her glass. “To tell you the truth, I’m not really sure. I think I must have some Hawaiian or Polynesian blood, but I’m not certain.”
“Your parents don’t know?”
“I was adopted from an overseas agency. The records were extremely sketchy.” She looked up at him. “I went through a phase, you know, when I tried to find my birth parents.”
“Birth parents aren’t always worth finding. I would’ve been better off without knowing mine.”
“I’m sorry,” Mia said quietly. “There was a time when I might’ve said that you can’t possibly mean that, or that that couldn’t possibly be true. But I’ve been teaching at an urban high school for over five years, and I’m well aware that most people didn’t have the kind of childhood or the kind of parents that I did.” Her eyes were a beautiful mixture of brown and green and compassion. “I don’t know what you might have gone through, but…I am sorry.”
“I’ve heard that teaching high school is a pretty dangerous job these days, what with guns and drugs and violence,” Frisco said, trying desperately to bring the conversation out of this dark and ultrapersonal area. “Did they give you any special kind of commando training when you took the job?”
Mia laughed. “No, we’re on our own. Thrown to the wolves naked, so to speak. Some of the teachers have compensated by becoming real drill sergeants. I’ve found that positive reinforcement works far better than punishment.” She took another sip of her ice tea, gazing at him speculatively over the top of her glass. “In fact, you might want to consider that when you’re dealing with Natasha.”
Frisco shook his head. “What? Give her a cookie for running away? I don’t think so.”
“But what kind of punishment will possibly get through to her?” Mia persisted. “Think about it. The poor kid’s already been given the ultimate punishment for a five-year-old—her mommy’s gone. There’s probably nothing else that you can take away from her that will matter. You can yell at her and make her cry. You can even frighten her and make her afraid of you, and maybe even give her worse nightmares. But if you reward her when she does follow your rules, if you make a really big deal about it and make her feel as if she’s worth a million bucks, well, she’ll catch on much more quickly.”
He ran his fingers through his hair. “But I can’t just ignore what she did this morning.”
“It’s difficult,” Mia admitted. “You have to achieve a balance between letting a child know her behavior is unacceptable, and not wanting to reward the child’s bad behavior by giving her too much attention. Kids who crave attention often misbehave. It’s the easiest way to get a parent or teacher to notice them.”
Frisco pushed his mouth up into another smile. “I know some so-called grown-ups who operate on the same principle.”
Mia gazed at the man sitting at her kitchen table. It was amazing. He looked as if he’d been rolled from a park bench, yet she still found him attractive. What would he look like, she wondered, shiny clean and dressed in that uniform she’d found in his closet?
He’d probably look like someone she’d go out of her way to avoid. She’d never been impressed by men in uniform. It wasn’t likely that she’d be impressed now.
Still, all those medals…
Mia set her empty glass down and pushed herself off the counter. “I’ll get Tasha out of the tub,” she told Frisco. “You probably have things to do—she told me you promised to take her shopping for furniture for her bedroom.”
“Yeah.” Frisco nodded and pulled himself clumsily to his feet. “Thanks again for bringing her home.”
Mia smiled and slipped down the hall toward the bathroom. Considering their rocky start, they’d actually achieved quite a nice, neighborly relationship.
Nice and neighborly—that’s exactly where they were going to leave it, too. Despite the fact that this man had the ability to make her blood heat with a single look, despite the fact that she genuinely liked him more and more each time they met, she was going to be careful to keep her distance.
Because the more Mia found out about her neighbor, the more she was convinced that they were absolute polar opposites.
CHAPTER SEVEN
IT WAS PINK. It was definitely, undeniably pink. Its back was reminiscent of a scallop shell, and its arms were scrolled. Its cushions were decorated with shiny silver buttons that absolutely, positively could not have been comfortable to sit upon.
It was far too fancy to be called a couch or even a sofa. It was advertised as a “settee.”
For Natasha, it was love at first sight.
Fortunately for Frisco, she didn’t spot it until they were on their way out of the furniture store.
She sat down on it and went into Russian princess mode. Frisco was so tired, and his knee and head ached so badly, he sat down, too.
“Kneel in front of the Russian princess,” Tash commanded him sternly.
Frisco put his head back and closed his eyes. “Not a chance, babe,” he mumbled.
After Tash’s bath at Mia’s place, he’d taken her home, then they’d both suited up and headed to the beach for the kid’s first swimming lesson. The current had still been quite strong, and he’d kept his fingers solidly locked on Tash’s bathing suit the entire time.
The kid was fearless. Considering that she hadn’t even seen the ocean before yesterday, she was entirely enthusiastic about the water. At the end of the week, she’d be well on her way to swimming like a fish.
Frisco shook his head. How on earth had Sharon’s kid managed to live to the ripe old age of five without having even seen the ocean? Historically, the Franciscos were coastline people. His old man had worked on a fishing boat for years. Vacations were spent at the water. Frisco and his two older brothers had loved the beach. But not Sharon, he remembered suddenly. Sharon had damn near drowned when she w
as hardly any older than Natasha was now. As an adult, Sharon moved inland, spending much of her time in Las Vegas and Reno. Tash had been born in Tucson, Arizona. Not much beachfront property there.
After the swimming lesson and a forty-five-minute lecture on why Tash had to follow Frisco’s rules, they’d dragged themselves home, had lunch, changed and gone shopping for furniture for Frisco’s second bedroom.
They’d found this particular store in the Yellow Pages. It was right around the corner, and—the advertisement boasted—it had free, same-day delivery. Frisco had picked out a simple mattress, box spring and metal-framed bed, and Tash had chosen a pint-size bright yellow chest of drawers. Together, they’d found a small desk and chair and a petite bookshelf.
“Can we get this, Frisco?” Tash now asked hopefully.
He snorted as he opened his eyes. “A pink couch? Man, are you kidding?”
As usual, she answered his rhetorical question as if he’d asked it seriously. “No.”
“Where the hell would we put it?” He glanced at the price tag. It was supposedly on sale, marked down to a mere small fortune.
“We could put it where that other icky one is.”
“Great. Just what that condo needs.” Shaking his head, Frisco pulled himself to his feet. “Come on. If we don’t hurry, the delivery truck is going to beat us home. We don’t want them to deliver your new furniture to some other kid.”
That got Tasha moving, but not without one final lovelorn glance at the pink sofa.
They were only two blocks from home, but Frisco flagged down a cab. The sun was merciless, and his knee was damn near making him scream with pain. His head wasn’t feeling too great, either.
There was no sign of Mia out in her garden in the condo courtyard. Her door was tightly shut, and Frisco found himself wondering where she had gone.
Bad mistake, he told himself. She had been making it clear that she didn’t want to be anything more than a neighbor. She didn’t want the likes of him sniffing around her door.
Mia actually thought he was a drunk, like his old man and his sister. It was entirely possible that if he wasn’t careful, she would be proven right.
No more, he vowed, pulling himself up the stairs. Tonight, if insomnia struck, he’d tough it out. He’d face the demons who were at their ugliest in the wee hours of the morning by spitting in their faces. If he awoke in the middle of the night, he’d spend the time working out, doing exercises that would strengthen his leg and support his injured knee.
He unlocked the door to his condo and Tasha went inside first, dashing through the living room and down the hall to the bedrooms.
Frisco followed more slowly, each painful step making him grit his teeth. He needed to sit down and get his weight off his knee, elevate the damn thing and ice the hell out of it.
Tasha was in her bedroom, lying down on the wall-to-wall carpeting. She was flat on her back on the floor, staring up at the ceiling.
As Frisco stood in the doorway and watched, she scrambled to her feet and then lay down on the floor in another part of the room.
“What are you doing?” he asked as she did the exact same thing yet a third time.
“I’m picking where to put the bed,” Tash told him from her position on the floor.
Frisco couldn’t hide his smile. “Good idea,” he said. “Why don’t you work on that for a while? I’m gonna chill for a few minutes before the delivery truck comes, okay?”
“’Kay.”
He headed back into the kitchen and grabbed an ice pack from the freezer. He moved into the living room and sat on his old plaid couch, swinging his injured leg up and onto the cushions. The ice felt good, and he put his head back and closed his eyes.
He had to figure out a way to move those boxes out of Tash’s room. There were a half a dozen of them, and they were all too ungainly for him to carry with only one arm. But he could drag ’em, though. That would work. He could use a blanket or sheet, and wrestle the boxes on top of it, one at a time. With the box firmly trapped in the sheet like a fish in a fishing net, he could pull the sheet, sliding the box along the rug out of Tash’s room and into his own and…
Frisco held his breath. He’d sensed more than heard the movement of Tasha crossing the living room floor, but now he heard the telltale squeak of the front door being opened.
He opened his eyes and sat up, but she was already out the door.
“Natasha! Damn it!”
His cane had slipped underneath the couch and he scrambled for it, grabbing it and moving quickly to the door.
“Tash!”
He supported himself on the railing near his rope and pulley setup. Natasha looked up at him from the courtyard, eyes wide. “Where the hell are you going?” he growled.
“To see if Thomas is home.”
She didn’t get it. Frisco could tell just from looking at the little girl that she honestly didn’t understand why he was upset with her.
He took a deep breath and forced his racing pulse to slow. “You forgot to tell me where you were going.”
“You were asleep.”
“No, I wasn’t. And even if I was, that doesn’t mean you can just break the rules.”
She was silent, gazing up at him.
Frisco went down the stairs. “Come here.” He gestured with his head toward one of the courtyard benches. He sat down and she sat next to him. Her feet didn’t touch the ground, and she swung them back and forth. “Do you know what a rule is?” he asked.
Tasha chewed on her lower lip. She shook her head.
“Take a guess,” Frisco told her. “What’s a rule?”
“Something you want me to do that I don’t want to do?” she asked.
It took all that he had in him not to laugh. “It’s more than that,” he said. “It’s something that you have to do, whether or not you want to. And it’s always the same, whether I’m asleep or awake.”
She didn’t get it. He could see her confusion and disbelief written clearly on her face.
He ran one hand down his face, trying to clear his cobweb-encrusted mind. He was tired. He couldn’t think how to explain to Natasha that she had to follow his rules all of the time. He couldn’t figure out how to get through to her.
“Hi, guys.”
Frisco looked up to see Mia Summerton walking toward them. She was wearing a summery, sleeveless, flower-print dress with a long, sweeping skirt that reached almost all the way to the ground. She had sandals on her feet and a large-brimmed straw hat on her head and a friendly smile on her pretty face. She looked cool and fresh, like a long-awaited evening breeze in the suffocating late-afternoon heat.
Where had she been, all dressed up like that? On a lunch date with some boyfriend? Or maybe she wasn’t coming, maybe she was going. Maybe she was waiting for her dinner date to arrive. Lucky bastard. Frisco scowled, letting himself hate the guy, allowing himself that small luxury.
“There’s a furniture truck unloading in the driveway,” Mia said, ignoring his dark look. In fact, she was ignoring him completely. She spoke directly to Tash. “Does that pretty yellow dresser belong to you, by any chance?”
Natasha jumped up, their conversation all but forgotten. “Me,” she said, dashing toward the parking lot. “It belongs to me!”
“Don’t run too far ahead,” Frisco called out warningly, pulling himself to his feet. He tightened his mouth as he put his weight on his knee, resisting the urge to wince, not wanting to show Mia how much he was hurting. “And do not step off that sidewalk.”
But Mia somehow knew. “Are you all right?” she asked him, no longer ignoring him, her eyes filled with concern. She followed him after Natasha, back toward the parking lot.
“I’m fine,” he said brusquely.
“Have you been chasing around after her all day?”
“I’m fine,” he repeated.
“You’re allowed to be tired,” she said with a musical laugh. “I babysat a friend’s four-year-old last week, and I practically had
to be carried out on a stretcher afterward.”
Frisco glanced at her. She gazed back at him innocently. She was giving him an out, pretending that the lines of pain and fatigue on his face were due to the fact that he wasn’t used to keeping up with the high energy of a young child, rather than the result of his old injury. “Yeah, right.”
Mia knew better than to show her disappointment at Frisco’s terse reply. She wanted to be this man’s friend, and she’d assumed they’d continue to build a friendship on the shaky foundation they’d recently established. But whatever understanding they’d reached this morning seemed to have been forgotten. The old, angry, tight-lipped Frisco had returned with a vengeance.
Unless…
It was possible his knee was hurting worse than she thought.
A delivery man approached. “You Alan Francisco?” he asked, not waiting for a reply before he held out his clipboard. “Sign at the X.”
Frisco signed. “It’s going up to Unit 2C. It’s right at the top of the stairs—”
“Sorry, pal, this is as far as I go.” The man didn’t sound even remotely apologetic. “My instructions are to get it off the truck. You’ve got to take it from here.”
“You’re kidding.” Frisco’s voice was flat, unbelieving. The furniture was standing there on the asphalt, next to the delivery vehicle.
The man closed the sliding back door of his truck with a crash. “Read the small print on your receipt. It’s free delivery—and you got exactly what you paid for.”
How was Frisco supposed to get all this up a flight of stairs? Mia saw the frustration and anger in his eyes and in the tight set of his mouth.
The man climbed into the cab and closed the door behind him.
“I bought this stuff from your store because you advertise a free delivery,” Frisco said roughly. “If you’re not going to deliver it, you can damn well load it up and take it back.”
“First of all, it’s not my store,” the man told him, starting the engine with a roar and grinding the gears as he put it into first, “and secondly, you already signed for it.”
Tall, Dark and Dangerous Vol 1: Tall, Dark and FearlessTall, Dark and Devastating Page 59