He groaned softly. God, he was drunk. He hadn't been this badly smashed in years. Not since he and Mark... No. He didn't want to remember that. Not now. Not when his defenses were at an all-time low.
The memories faded and were replaced by tiny features capped with a mop of raggedly cut sandy hair. His mouth tilted up. Cute little thing. Who was she? Good Lord, he didn't even know her name! Oh well, in the morning he could find out her name and find her parents and get her back where she belonged.
The mists of drink and exhaustion gradually thickened, creating swirling pockets of peace in his tired thoughts. The faint lines beside his mouth smoothed out as his breathing deepened and slowed, his long body relaxing into the cozy comfort of the bedspread.
He stirred once a few minutes later, some half-buried sense telling him that something was different. But he didn't wake even when the door closed quietly behind a tiny figure.
She froze just inside the door as the man on the bed stirred, and then breathed a silent sigh of relief when he relaxed again. Small bare feet moved quietly across the plush carpet until she stood at the edge of the bed. Moving ever so slowly and quietly, she turned back the corner of the bedspread and eased onto the bed.
The other room was pretty, but it was awfully big and lonely and, for the moment, this strange man offered safety in an unknown world.
She curled up against the pillow, one thin arm encircling a battered toy giraffe, the other hand tucked up under her cheek.
By the time the grandfather clock struck seven, man and child were fast asleep, the arms of Morpheus holding them both safe and secure.
Chapter 2
Flynn's nose twitched and his eyelids flickered. A muffled groan was smothered in the pillow as he buried his face deeper in the soft down. If the pillow were just a little bigger, he could find a way to sink his whole body into it and pull it shut behind him.
He was dying. That was the only possible excuse for this much pain.
His head hurt with a relentless, pounding throb that moved from the top of his skull all the way down his body. Even his toes ached. It was unfortunate that amnesia didn't go along with the ache. Then he wouldn't have been able to remember drinking himself into a stupor. At least he'd had the sense to take a taxi home.
He was getting too old for this kind of nonsense. At thirty-three he ought to know better than to try and lose himself in a bottle. It didn't make the memories go away and it didn't bring back the dead. Well, Mark's birthday had come and gone. Another year past and he still hadn't managed to put his brother's death behind him. But then, maybe that kind of thing was never really behind you.
His head hurt too much for philosophical questions. Right now he wasn't sure he could deal with the present problems, let alone the past. Present problems ... There was something nagging at the back of his mind. Something he should remember about the previous night.
He frowned and then wished he hadn't. Changing expressions only made the pain worse. He could remember paying the taxi off, and then he'd wandered into the alley and there'd been something there__The newspapers—and the little girl.
He gathered what little strength remained in his body and rolled onto his back. For the moment, he didn't try to open his eyes. His nose twitched again. What was that smell? Acrid and smoky. Was the apartment on fire? The thought forced his eyes open. No sign of smoke. The soft light hurt his eyes and he had to narrow his eyelids. He sniffed again. What was that smell?
"Are you awake, mister?" He rolled onto his side toward the voice. The little girl from the night before was perched on the edge of a chair she'd pulled next to the bed.
"I'm awake but I'm not sure I'm alive." His voice came out in a scratchy growl, which pretty much described how he felt.
"I made you some coffee. Mom always wants coffee when she has a hangover."
"Bless you." He dragged himself into a sitting position, propping his back against the headboard. His clothes seemed to crackle when he moved or maybe that was his bones. He really was getting too old for all-night binges.
The child got up, lifted a cup off the night table and handed it to him, holding it carefully with both hands. Flynn took it from her the same way, hoping the tremor in his right hand would counteract the quiver in his left.
He lifted the cup to his mouth and took a sip. If the synapses in his brain hadn't been so saturated with alcohol, they would have had time to warn him. As it was, by the time the message had gotten from his nose to his hands that the acrid smell was coming from the cup he held, he'd already taken a hearty mouthful of the liquid inside.
As a method of waking someone up, the brew was probably unequaled. Flynn's eyes sprang from half-mast to wide open. He sat up straighter in bed and, for an instant, he forgot about his headache.
The substance in his mouth might have been a primeval predecessor to coffee, but it bore only a vague resemblance to the smooth brew usually associated with the word. The acrid, smoky scent that had led him to wonder if the apartment was on fire was amplified in the taste. The liquid was thick, slightly rancid in flavor and so strong that it threatened to dissolve the enamel on his teeth.
He was about to spit the foul liquid back into the cup when his eyes fell on his small houseguest. Wide gray eyes peered from beneath ragged, sandy bangs. Their expression reminded him of a puppy who'd just performed a difficult trick and was hoping for a reward. Without another thought, he swallowed the liquid, praying that his stomach lining was tougher than it felt. He smiled, wondering if his teeth had actually been etched by their contact with the alleged coffee.
"It's wonderful."
His companion smiled. The beaming expression changed her from waiflike to almost angelic. Just for that look, it was worth the suspicion that his stomach would never be the same.
"Mom says you can't start a day without coffee."
"I... ah... feel the same way." Flynn tried to look casual as he held the cup in his lap, as far from his nose as possible. Would the stuff eat through the porcelain? "Could you get me a damp washcloth, do you think? The bathroom is through there."
"Sure." She hopped off her chair and trotted away. Flynn looked frantically for a place to dispose of the cup's contents. He didn't dare drink the stuff. He might survive a swallow, but a full cup would certainly be fatal. Water was running in the bathroom. He had only a moment. A quick tilt of his wrist dumped the liquid into the base of the philodendron that sat under a plant light next to the bed.
Was it his imagination, or did the plant shudder with the impact of the brew?
His guest came back into the bedroom carrying a dripping cloth, and Flynn set the empty cup down, trying to look as if he'd drained it and felt much better for the experience. He held out his hand, trying not to grimace at the icy cold, sopping wet cloth that landed in his palm. With an apology to the innocent philodendron, he wrung the cloth out in the pot before wiping his face with it.
The cold cloth didn't help much. His head still pounded and his eyes were still gritty. But his miseries were going to have to wait.
"I don't think we were properly introduced last night. I'm Flynn McCallister."
"I'm Rebecca Antoinette Sinclair."
Flynn's brows arched, meeting the black hair that fell onto his forehead. "Good grief. That's a mouthful. Do I have to use the whole thing every time?" He looked so appalled that she giggled.
"You can call me Becky." She picked up the empty cup and peered into it. Flynn wouldn't have been surprised to see that the bottom had been eaten away. "Do you want some more coffee?"
"No! I mean, it was delicious but one cup is my limit." He hoped his smile wasn't as sickly as it felt. The pounding in his head had returned a hundredfold. All he wanted to do was roll over in bed and die. Barring that, he was willing to try a long, steaming hot shower. He looked at Becky and knew that both plans were out of the question.
"I was not quite myself last night—"
"You were drunker than a waltzin' pissant." She said it so firmly th
at Flynn gave up any thought of arguing his condition.
"All right. I was drunk." He caught her eye and amended the statement. "Very drunk. But that's neither here nor there." He hurried on before she could argue the point. "I seem to recall that you were sleeping in the alley. Now, it's been a while since I was your age, but I'm sure I'd remember if sleeping in alleys was normal. Where's your morn and dad?"
"I don't have a daddy." Her chin thrust out, defying him to say anything. "He left when I was real little, but Mom and me don't need him. We do just fine on our own."
"Okay. What about your mom? Where is she? She must be worried sick about you."
The tough little chin quivered. "I don't know. She was s'posed to come home a couple weeks ago. Only she didn't."
Flynn swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. He wished his head would quit hurting. "Where did she go?"
"She went away with one of her boyfriends. She's real pretty and she has lots of boyfriends. She was supposed to come back on Monday. Only she didn't."
"Don't you think you should have stayed at home, so she'd know where to find you?"
"I did for a while. But then Mrs. Castle said she was going to report me to the welfare people 'cause I'd been left. But Mama didn't leave, and if the welfare people take me away, I'll never see her again. Mama told me all about them. And I'm scared that some-thin' may have happened to her. Only Mrs. Castle wouldn't listen to me. She told me I was just a kid and I didn't know nothin'. But I know Mama wouldn't leave me."
"Who is Mrs. Castle?"
It took a while and some judicious questioning but eventually Flynn pieced together what he thought was a fairly accurate picture. Apparently, Becky's mother frequently left Becky on her own for the weekend while she went off with one of her many boyfriends. This was an established pattern, and Becky saw nothing wrong with it. She was very good at taking care of herself, she informed him.
Two weeks ago her mother had left as usual. To Becky, the boyfriend was just a faceless man named John. This, too, was normal. Becky never met her mother's escorts, which made Flynn wonder just what kind of boyfriends her mother had. This time her mother hadn't come back from the weekend trip.
Mrs. Castle managed the apartment building where Becky and her mother lived. She'd become alarmed by the mother's continued absence. Flynn couldn't help but wonder if her alarm hadn't been sparked by the fact that the rent had come due. She told Becky she was going to call the welfare department, and Becky packed a paper bag with her most important belongings and ran away. The welfare people and the bogeyman were apparently much the same in Becky's young mind. She'd been living on the streets for the past three days, and Flynn shuddered to think of what could have happened to her.
"You know, you can't just disappear like that, Becky. What's going to happen when your mom goes home and you aren't there? She's going to be worried."
Becky's brows came together. "I know. But I couldn't let the welfare people take me away. They'd never let me see her again."
Flynn rubbed a hand over the stubble on his chin. He felt unwashed, unkempt and unfit to handle this problem. He closed his eyes, half hoping Becky would turn out to be a figment of an alcohol-soaked imagination. But when he opened them again, she was still sitting there, her eyes fixed on him.
He sighed.
"You won't call the welfare people, will you, Mr. Flynn?"
He looked at her, wondering what imp of fate had chosen to drop her into his lap. Was fate testing him or her? Of the two of them, she was probably getting the worse bargain.
"It's just Flynn. And, no, I won't call the welfare people."
"What are you going to do with me?" She looked at him with absolute trust, clearly depending on him to make the best decision about her future. Flynn wanted to scream. Instead, he thrust his fingers through his hair and stood.
"The first thing I'm going to do is clean up and then we'll consider our options before we make any rash decisions."
"Does that mean I can stay here for a while?" "That means you can stay here for a while." "Do you think I could have something to eat?" Flynn was almost to the bathroom door and the nirvana of a hot shower when the question reached him. He stopped and turned to look at his small guest. She was so independent and self-sufficient that it was hard to remember she was only a child. He swallowed a surge of self-directed anger.
"Didn't you get something while you were making coffee?"
"I wasn't sure if it would be okay. Mom says you should always wait to be invited."
"Consider this a permanent invitation. My home is open to you, madam. Feel free to avail yourself of all its facilities." He bowed low, and the sound of her giggle almost made him forget that his head was threatening to fall off his shoulders.
"Let's go see what the cupboard holds." Luckily for the state of his stomach, Becky opted for cold cereal. Unfortunately, the remains of her coffee-brewing venture still sat in a pan on the stove. Flynn approached it cautiously, half expecting a scaled monster to rise up over the rim of the pot. Surely, the primordial goo from which life sprang must have smelled something like this.
Nothing lunged at him and, once he got a look in the pot, he could see why. No life form could possibly survive in the sullen black murk in the pot. He thought of the philodendron and winced. Not even a plant deserved a death like that.
"How did you make the coffee, Becky?" He grasped the handle of the pot with two fingers and inched it off the burner in the direction of the sink.
Becky looked up from her cereal. "Well, I couldn't find the regular stuff. But there was this jar in your 'frigerator and it said coffee. I can read," she interjected, clearly proud of this fact. Flynn made an appropriate noise and tilted the pot's contents into the sink, half expecting the stainless steel to melt on contact.
"Anyway, it didn't look like coffee but it said coffee so I tried to make some like I always make Mom. I boiled some water real careful 'cause Mom says you always got to be careful with stoves. And then I put some of that stuff in a cup. It was all in big lumps instead of powdery like real coffee. I tried to mash it with a spoon but it didn't work so I poured the water over it. I thought maybe the lumps would melt. Only they didn't and it didn't look right so I dumped it all back in the pan and boiled it for a long time. Those lumps never did go away but it turned the right color. You really ought to buy some new coffee, Mr. Flynn. I think that stuff's gotten old."
Flynn thought of the twenty-five-dollar-a-pound Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee beans that she'd massacred. The laugh started deep in his belly and worked its way out. Becky looked up from her food as
Flynn leaned against the counter and gave in to the laughter, clutching at his pounding head. She looked at him for a moment and then shrugged.
It was several minutes before Flynn regained control. "I'm going to pick up the paper and the mail and then I'm going to take a hot shower. Then we'll sit down and talk about what we're going to do with you." She nodded, more interested in trying to find a way through the maze on the back of the cereal box.
Flynn left her to the puzzle and went to the front door. His mouth was still curved in a smile. Sometimes it took a child to put things into clear perspective. He unbuttoned his shirt. As soon as he picked up the paper, he was going to spend at least an hour under steaming hot water.
He stepped into the hall just as the elevator slid to a halt. Since he wasn't expecting any visitors, there was only one person it could be—his neighbor. His smile took on a wicked edge.
Ann Perry had lived in the apartment across from him. for two years. She was young, attractive, single, and she sternly disapproved of him. She made that clear every time their paths happened to cross. She was a doctor at a local hospital, and the fact that he was sometimes arriving home just as she was going to work obviously offended her sensibilities.
It was unkind, but he could never quite resist the urge to reinforce her image of him as a worthless, womanizing playboy. When those green eyes looked at him as if e
xpecting him to sprout horns and a tail, it brought out a particularly wicked streak. He stopped short of throwing an orgy just to confirm her opinions, but he doubted that she needed any additional proof of his worthlessness.
He turned toward the elevator and leaned one shoulder against the doorjamb. He knew exactly the picture he presented. It was four o'clock in the afternoon. He was unshaven. His hair was tousled. His feet were bare. His shirt was unbuttoned to the waist and his belt was unbuckled. He looked the very picture of worthless masculinity. It was perfect.
The elevator doors slid open, and Flynn felt a twinge of guilt. In the instant before she saw him, she looked tired. There was a vulnerable droop to her shoulders that made him want to offer her a place to rest her head. But it was only a momentary illusion. The moment her eyes fell on him, her shoulders stiffened into a military stance and her eyes turned a frosty shade of green.
Flynn slumped against the wall, letting his eyes trail insolently over her, from the tips of her neat black pumps—the heels a sensible two inches—over the gray suit—still crisp after a day spent at the hospital—to fine-boned features set in rigid disapproval and finally stopped on fiery red hair pulled into a smooth chignon.
When she'd first moved in, he'd had more than one fantasy about seeing that hair spread across his pillow, but it hadn't taken long for the message to come across that the fire in her hair didn't melt the ice in her eyes.
"Ms. Perry. Home from a day of saving lives?"
She tilted her head, her shoulders absolutely rigid as she stepped out of the elevator. "Mr. McCallister. Home from a night of drinking?"
Tell Me a Story Page 2