MAD DOG AND ANNIE

by Virginia Kantra

  He scowled. "Hi," he said to Maddox's shoes.

  Maddox nodded. "How's it going?"

  He didn't offer to shake hands. He knew better. The kid had "get away from my mom" written all over his face.

  Maddox couldn't blame him. Since Ann had opened the door for him, slender and graceful and wary, he'd been fighting a swarm of thoughts, most of them lustful and all of them out of line. He felt fourteen and stupid again as she inspected him with eyes that were just as green and much cooler than he remembered.

  She wasn't what he remembered. Did that make her a criminal?

  "Mitchell," she prompted gently.

  "It's going okay," the kid mumbled.

  She touched the back of her son's hand where it rested on the banister, and the light, casual touch shot a shaft of longing through Maddox, devastating in its suddenness. He sucked in his breath. Maybe this visit hadn't been such a good idea. Maybe it was one more bad idea in a long string of them.

  "Why don't you go change for basketball," she suggested. "I'll call you when it's time, okay?" She waited until the kid shuffled upstairs before turning to Maddox, her face closed and her voice resigned. "You might as well come back to the kitchen. I'm doing dishes."

  Which put him way down on her list of things to deal with, he thought. He followed as she led the way briskly down the narrow hall, her long straight skirt pulling with her stride. The house might be slumming, but that khaki skirt and buttoned blouse were pure suburban chic, obviously chosen with an eye to her friends' tastes and her husband's wallet.

  "Your boy was none too happy to see me," he observed.

  "We don't get much company."

  He pulled his attention from the graceful sway of her hips. Company. Did she mean men?

  "Besides," she added, "he was expecting his father tonight."

  "Yeah?" He watched her back carefully for a response. "Rob told me the two of you were getting back together." Bingo. She straightened and turned, her face flushed, her eyes defiant. Her sudden passion quickened the beat of his blood.

  Don't go there, boy, he cautioned himself. You are not involved. You are not getting involved. You're here to ask a few questions, that's all. Easy in, easy out.

  And then he had to battle another inappropriate image conjured by the thought.

  "No," she said.

  "No?"

  "Not a chance. The marriage is over." Her chin set, but her face was flaming. "That doesn't mean, though, that I … I don't know what you've heard since you've been home, but I am not in the market for a white knight or a meal ticket."

  He raised an eyebrow at her directness. She had changed. "Fine by me. I've got enough on my plate right now without a road trip down memory lane."

  "Then … what do you want from me?"

  He leaned against a counter. "How about a drink?"

  She stared. He counted his breaths until her tentative smile flickered. "Should I ask to see your ID first?"

  Her unexpected humor slid into his heart as easily as a knife. Damn. He didn't want to like her so much. "Iced tea is fine. Or water. Although I'll remind you, darlin', I've been drinking longer than you've been wearing lipstick."

  She rounded her eyes teasingly as she reached for a glass. "You were thirteen?"

  "Thirteen when I started smoking. Fourteen for drinking." Fifteen for sex, but he wasn't telling her that. Not when she was almost qualified to remember how very bad he'd been at it. He'd improved since, but there was no way to tell her that, either.

  He sat at her kitchen table, still set with dirty dinner dishes and flowered place mats and some lacy weed sticking from a jar, as she moved efficiently around her tidy kitchen. It felt weird to have her wait on him. Weird, but good. She filled a glass with ice and pulled a brown plastic jug from the refrigerator. He watched her pour, her slender, capable hands, her gentle, serious face, and his mouth parched.

  "There you go." She stepped back after she'd served him, as if he would bite.

  Hell, he might.

  "What did you mean by you have enough on your plate?" she asked.

  "What did you hear?"

  "Do you always answer a question with another question?"

  He grinned, surprising them both. "Pretty nearly. Occupational hazard."

  "I heard—" she stressed the word "—that you'd been fired."

  For a little bit of a thing, she was implacable. "On leave," he said briefly, and reached for his cigarettes.

  She turned from the sink, where she was rinsing pans. "Not in the house," she said.

  He stopped. "Sorry. You didn't used to mind."

  "I didn't used to mind a lot of things. But Mitchell has asthma. I have to look out for him."

  "Sure. I've been meaning to quit anyway."

  He respected the way she did a mother's job. Not that he had much experience with mothers. His own died when he was six, and the domestic disputes he saw on the job tended to skew a guy's perceptions. Annie, though, seemed to be doing a good job. Too bad he wanted that cigarette.

  Her eyes were sympathetic. "Was it hard?"

  "Quitting smoking?"

  "Leaving your job."

  It was the hardest thing he'd ever done. Being ordered off the streets had stripped him of the credentials and identity he'd worked twelve years to acquire. Routine, the department insisted. But it felt like punishment.

  He shrugged. "It's not like I had a choice." Damn, he wanted that smoke.

  "Was it an accident?" she asked.

  He narrowed his eyes. "Was what an accident?"

  Her hands twisted in a tea towel, but she drew herself up to her full five-feet-not-very-many-inches. "I heard you shot somebody. A boy. I heard you shot a boy in Atlanta."

  Hell. The doubt in her eyes hurt worse than any accusation. "Yeah, well, you heard right."

  "Who was it?"

  "Does it matter?"

  "It might." She tilted her head. "You're doing that question thing again."

  "Maybe I just don't want you to throw me out before I finish my drink."

  She squirted soap into the sink and turned on the tap. "Then, tell me. How old was he? Was he armed?"

  He'd faced the same questions before. From himself, from his peers, from the press. A clean shoot, the inquiry had concluded. But the judgments didn't stop.

  The nightmares didn't, either.

  "Fourteen," he told her roughly. "He was fourteen. And yeah, he had a gun. But it was my job to get him to lay it down, and I didn't."

  Ann watched the bubbles rising in the sink. His admission should frighten her. He should frighten her. She glanced sideways at his guarded face, his passionate mouth, and a shiver ran down the backs of her arms.

  He did.

  She shut off the water. At least he took responsibility for his action. No excuses. No fixing the blame on someone else. The counselor at the women's shelter would have approved. Healthy adults, she liked to say, did not insist that the people they hurt were "asking for it."

  But then, Mad Dog had never had a problem accepting the consequences of his actions. He'd been too proud to plead off trouble or deny his crimes. He'd spent a lot of lunch periods in detention.

  "Let me give you a hand." He stood, picking up a dirty plate.

  "You don't need to do that."

  He shrugged. "Might as well."

  Confusion washed her face. She wasn't used to men taking on the tasks she accepted as a matter of course. Oh, Val's husband, Con, was quick enough to lend a hand around the restaurant. But it felt different, Ann discovered, when it was her own kitchen.

  When it was Maddox.

  He was so big, for one thing, and so, well, male, she supposed. Those muscled forearms and strong hands didn't look right carrying her dirty dishes. He prowled from table to sink, clearing as she washed.

  So big, she thought, and so close. She could smell the soap that he used and the faint tang of his cigarettes. Not unpleasant smells, she decided, hiding her shaking hands in the soapy water. But unfamiliar, and
very masculine. Still, she had to admit the work went quicker with two.

  He came up unexpectedly behind her, and she yelped.

  "You all right?"

  "Fine," she croaked.

  His strong hands closed on her shoulders and turned her. "Sure?"

  Her breath stopped at his nearness, his intensity. But it wasn't hurting. It wasn't awful, though her heart pounded and her knees quaked and his hands were really big and close to her face.

  She ordered herself not to squeak. "Sure. You startled me, that's all."

  "Sorry about that." His hooded gaze searched her face. His hands still lingered at the tops of her arms, his thumbs absently smoothing her blouse. "Okay now?"

  She nodded, speechless. There was a dip in his upper lip where the razor had missed and a tiny white scar by his left eyebrow.

  His eyes darkened. His thumbs stopped.

  And the doorbell thunked in broken warning.

  She jumped.

  Maddox's big hands tightened protectively on her shoulders. "Will the kid get it?"

  "No."

  He frowned. "You want me to—"

  "No!"

  Breaking free, she hurried down the hall, her flat shoes slapping in rhythm with her heart. The two sour notes clanked again.

  "Mom?" Mitchell quavered down the stairs.

  "I've got it, honey."

  She stopped before she looked through the peephole, her hands pressed to the cool flat wall and the sturdy door.

  I am a worthwhile human being. The therapist's mantra sang in her head. I do have power over my own life.

  "Ann?" Her ex-husband's voice penetrated the door clearly. The tarnished knob jiggled as he shook it from the outside. "I know you're home. I can see your car."

  I can use my power to take good care of myself and my child.

  "Ann!"

  She took a deep breath and opened the door. Rob scowled at her, handsome even in displeasure. "What took you so long?"

  "I was in the kitchen." She was proud of her steady voice. She did not apologize for keeping him waiting. "Please come in. Mitchell will be right down."

  He stepped over the threshold, jingling his keys in the pocket of his pressed khaki shorts. His knit shirt cost more than her week's groceries.

  "MD!" She watched his surprise give way to suspicion and then the bland social face he used to cover it all. "Great to see you. You looking into that little matter we discussed?"

  Maddox stalked up the short hallway to stand at her back. She stepped away. She wanted to see his face.

  What little matter?

  "Just stopped by to say hello, Rob."

  "Stopped by, huh? Yeah, why not?" He leaned closer, speaking man to man. "I always felt a little chat with Ann would make this whole thing go away. You straighten her out?"

  A chill crawled up her back. She hugged her arms, but it didn't make her warm.

  Maddox's face blanked. "The subject didn't come up."

  Rob frowned. "Oh, I get it. Well…"

  Well, at least she had the answer to her question. It was pretty clear now what Maddox wanted of her, and it was her own stupid fault if the answer made her as miserable at twenty-eight as it had at fifteen.

  She moved to the bottom of the stairs, shrinking to avoid brushing against either one of them, her ex-husband or his friend. "Mitchell! Your father's here."

  Rob grinned amiably at Maddox. "Kind of like old times, all of us together. Remember third quarter, the big state game? You threw that great block, and I ran a touchdown to win. I would have made it into the end zone either way, but it was good to know I could count on you. Remember that?"

  "I remember."

  "Do you remember, Ann?"

  She twisted her hands together to hide their trembling. "I don't pay much attention to football, Rob."

  "You used to. Bet you remember that night, anyway."

  That night in Maddox's car, out on the river road. Oh, she remembered. Rob had seen them leaving the party together. He'd reminded her of that often enough in the last twelve years.

  The cold was deep inside her now. Dinner—meat loaf—congealed like cold lard in her stomach.

  Mitchell trailed down the stairs in mesh shorts and a UNC T-shirt, his face pinched, his eyes watchful.

  She brushed his hair back from his forehead, seeking and giving comfort. "Do you have your water bottle?"

  He nodded.

  "Guess it's time for us to go, then," Rob said. He clapped his hand on his son's shoulder. Mitchell leaned away from the touch. Rob turned on his way out the door to wink at Maddox.

  "Remember, Mad Dog, your first job is to protect the quarterback. 'Night, all."

  The door closed behind them.

  "Annie…" Maddox reached for her. She shrank.

  He was a liar.

  And she was a fool.

  She reached inside and found her anger, used it to warm the icy lump inside her and thaw her frozen voice. "I think it's time for you to go, too."

  He took a step toward her. "Look, it's not like what you're thinking."

  She folded her arms over her stomach—in an attack, protect your head and middle—letting the anger out in a welcome geyser of heat. "You have no idea what I'm thinking. You have no clue what I'm feeling right now. Just leave. Please."

  He stopped, his hooded gaze intent on her face, and then he nodded slowly. "All right. I'm going. But I'll be back."

  * * *

  Chapter 4

  «^»

  The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. Maddox grimaced through the windshield at the town s main drag. That was a song or something. And Cutler, North Carolina, could have been the set of the music video.

  The video store had obviously replaced the record aisle at Woolworth's as the teen hangout of choice. A new bench supported the old regulars in front of the hardware store. The model head in the window of Barb's Beauty Salon—now Unicuts—still sported a honey-colored perm.

  Annie Barclay was thinner, tougher, jumpier than he remembered, but he still had a major jones for her.

  Maddox shook his head. So, he was still an idiot. And she was still all wrong for him.

  But she was free now, a sly whisper teased inside his head. Separated. The marriage is over, she'd insisted, her voice flat and hard.

  Maddox rummaged on the seat beside him for his cigarettes. Yeah, and she thought he was somewhere below troglodytes on the evolutionary scale.

  What had happened to the slim, shy girl with hopeful eyes and an elusive laugh? Something. Was it the trial? The separation? Rob?

  Maddox scowled as he headed toward the outskirts of town and an end-of-shift beer with Tom Creech. He didn't like the way Golden Boy had finessed things last night to make it appear that Maddox was acting as his personal junior deputy. No, he didn't like that at all. He ought to throw this whole damn investigation back in the chief's lap and haul ass to Atlanta.

  Only in Atlanta, he had the same old problems to think about and even less to do. He didn't like the picture he got of an innocent Annie up against his father and Rob. And innocent or guilty, he didn't want her thinking he'd shown up on her doorstep last night just to pump her for answers.

  He drew on his cigarette. Even if he'd told himself that's what he was there to do.

  He expelled smoke in a moody cloud. Maybe especially because he'd told himself that's what he was there to do.

  On the road ahead, an old black Toyota was pulled up on the shoulder, its raised hood a warning to motorists.

  Not his jurisdiction, Maddox reminded himself as he switched lanes. A sheriff's patrol would be by any minute. Or a state trooper. Somebody. But he slowed as he passed, checking in the rearview mirror, anyway, making sure everything was all right. A lone woman in a long skirt bent over the engine.

  And then he identified that slim back, that smooth brown hair.

  Annie.

  His heart beat faster. He pulled onto the verge in front of her car.

  * * *


  Ann stared into the black bowels of her wounded car. She'd opened the hood without the slightest idea what she was doing, but the problem was depressingly easy to see. Right there, smack in the middle of the greasy, confusing tangle, a thick black hose sputtered and steamed. She had a hole in her … well, she didn't know what to call it, but it definitely had a hole.

  Oh … drat. Could she drive with it? She didn't think so. Determined to pick up Mitchell when his camp day ended at four-thirty, she had ignored the temperature gauge's stubborn climb to red. She'd pulled over only when steam started gusting over the hood. She eyed the hissing, spitting hose. She was going to be late for sure.

  She pressed her lips together, fighting the too-familiar demons of helplessness and frustration. I do have power over my own life, she recited silently, invoking one of her therapist's favorite mantras. I can use my power to take care of myself.

  A thin stream of green fluid puddled by her shoes. It was just too bad she didn't have any power over her car.

  She barely registered the dark blue sedan that swept by until she heard it stop behind her.

  Tension coiled her stomach. She thought of the horrible things that could happen, monsters who preyed on stranded motorists, before giving herself a mental shake. Her car had broken down in broad daylight on a well-trafficked road. Probably someone had stopped to offer help.

  She turned to thank her well-intentioned rescuer. The driver's door opened. A man got out. And a different kind of tension gripped her.

  Maddox.

  She recognized the shape of his broad shoulders, the rough silhouette of his head, before she saw his face. His eyes were unreadable behind dark glasses. He cast a long shadow in the late afternoon sun. Something about the way he moved toward her, the contained awareness of his body, his unthinking masculine competence in the face of her mini-disaster, triggered a rush of feelings: Gladness. Attraction. Relief. And a deep, residual anger.

  She squared her shoulders. "Rob send you to 'straighten me out'?"

  The sharp words surprised them both. Maddox halted a yard away. "No."

  "So, why did you stop? To gloat?"

  He pitched his cigarette to the ground. "To help." Shame squiggled inside her. She knew that. Of course she knew it. He had a man's tendency to meddle, a cop's training. He probably would have stopped for anyone. But she was still stinging over the way she'd nearly fallen for his show of concern last night. "And what will this help cost me?"