He recognized the rebellious pout of his daughter's lower lip. Warily, Axell glanced at the teacher to see if she'd help. She beamed sunnily as she poured milk into a cup. Following the pattern of her recent behavior, it dawned on him that the gypsy woman didn't believe in confrontation. She had a habit of slipping and sliding out of the most damning tempests with just a smile as her umbrella.
"Did you want warm milk too?" he asked his daughter. Two could play at the game of No Confrontation.
"French toast," Constance replied stubbornly.
Red warning flags waved all over that one. Axell glanced at the gypsy putting the milk into the microwave. Her smile had grown suspiciously wider. Damn, but her mouth looked rosy and ripe even at this gawdawful hour of the morning.
She was eight months pregnant, dammit! Easily eight months. Nervously contemplating babies popping out on the polished tiles of the kitchen floor, Axell rubbed his unshaven jaw and tried to gather his thoughts. He was standing here half-naked, for chrissake. He wasn't used to having guests.
"When the sun comes up," he agreed. "Now go back to bed and let Miss Alyssum drink her milk in peace."
"I want milk." Constance sat her skinny rear end in a kitchen chair.
Why in the name of heaven had he wanted the child to talk? It was a thousand times more peaceful when she kept her mouth shut. Axell glanced helplessly at the teacher again. How could she look even more innocent than his child?
"I believe Constance is worried about where I'm sleeping," she replied with muffled laughter, removing the cup from the microwave and pouring a portion into a smaller cup for his daughter. "Go back to bed. I'll see her back to her room."
Where she was sleeping? Axell sleepily pondered that one until heat flushed up his jaw. He hadn't realized Constance was aware of the women he occasionally entertained in his wing of the house. He tried to hustle most of them home before his daughter woke, but some had indulged their fantasies of homemaking and insisted on staying. He should have thrown them all out. With a sigh, he nodded in acknowledgment of her warning.
"All right. I'll see you in the morning. Constance, behave yourself and do as Miss Alyssum tells you." To hell with women. Staggering back down the hall, Axell left them to themselves. The one blamed day he could get a little sleep...
Chiming laughter exploded in the room he'd left behind. Confounded, know-it-all woman.
* * *
Maya wasn't laughing hours later as she cuddled a meowing Muldoon in her arms while a policeman blocked her path. Through tear-filled eyes, she glared at the blue uniform and yellow police tape cutting off her access to Matty and Cleo's home. She was used to losing homes. It really shouldn't hurt so much. But she'd sort of hoped maybe she could have this one for the baby and Matty—at least until Cleo returned. She bit her lip and tilted her chin up to fight a sob.
"It's for your own safety, miss," the officer insisted. "The place has to be torn down. Fire marshal's orders. It's a death trap. Those walls could fall any minute."
"But there are works of art in there!" she protested, praying she didn't sound whiny. "Hand made, irreplaceable... The artisans deserve compensation for their work. If I don't salvage them..."
The policeman implacably shook his head. "No can do."
Maya thought of all Matty's clothes and toys, Cleo's motley assortment of furniture, all the accouterments they'd gathered in years of careful scrounging, and the tears streamed down her cheeks. They'd been displaced so many times... The teapot! And her china cups! A wrecking ball would demolish their whole lives.
Shaking her head in denial, she hugged Muldoon and sought desperately for some argument to sway the officer. The teapot and cups were all they still owned from the home they barely remembered. She couldn't lose them.
Wiping her eyes with her shirtsleeve, she thought frantically of ways around the catastrophe. She could creep in there in the dead of night... Creep? With her two ton belly? Fat chance. And she couldn't just haul out the china when Matty needed his rabbit and his pajamas, and the artists who'd built the kaleidoscopes and wind chimes needed the income from their work and...
The CD player, with her recordings. Cleo's photographs. Their whole damned lives were in that building. She bit her lip on another hiccuping sob.
"Trouble, Miss Alyssum?"
Walking from the corner where he'd been talking with a man Maya recognized as the mayor, Axell Holm stopped beside her with that puzzled expression men assumed when confronted with female emotion. Maya glared back at him.
"Of course not, Mr. Holm," she said with sarcastic emphasis on the formal name. "Everything my family owns is going to be demolished with that wretched building. That's no trouble at all. It just makes it easier to pick up and move."
A frown knitted the bridge of his nose as he looked at the collapsed facade of the building. "That could be the mayor's intention," he replied thoughtfully.
Startled, Maya jerked her head around to look at him. "What?"
He caught her elbow and steered her away from the ears of the interested policeman. "The mayor wants your school closed, remember? If you have nowhere to live and no reason to stay, you'll close the school without his having to make what could conceivably be an unpopular political decision."
"You were just talking to the man," she exclaimed. "Did he tell you this?"
"Don't be ridiculous. If Ralph was gloating, he kept it to himself. We were just passing pleasantries about having all these old buildings inspected before someone gets hurt. We seldom agree on anything, but we agreed on that much."
"Well, I should think so." Maya shook off his hand and stalked down the alley next to the building, clinging to her cat. "Maybe they should tear down the whole damned town. But right now, I want inside that building. Those are my things. He doesn't have any right to take them away."
"He has every right, if there's a danger to human life. That doesn't mean he's right, and that there is a danger."
She stopped and swirled to look at him. "What does that mean?"
Clean-shaven and garbed in his version of casual wear—blue linen short-sleeved shirt and crisply creased khakis—Axell raised his hand over his eyes and inspected the roof of the building, then studied the remaining brick walls. "I think we can find an inspector who will say the remainder of the building is safe enough to enter to remove the contents. The brick facade may be weak, but the underlying structure should be sound."
Maya thought she would kiss him. If her belly weren't in the way, she'd throw her arms around this enigmatic Norse god and plant a smacker square in the middle of his chiseled jaw. That ought to shake him straight down to his steadfast toes. Instead, she beamed and patted Axell's tanned arm. The warmth of his skin startled her, and she hastily withdrew the gesture. The expression in his eyes was shuttered as he warily lowered his hand and glanced down at her. Even bigger than she'd ever been in her life, she felt dainty and fragile in his solid presence.
"Where do we find an inspector?" she asked.
The we she had so ingenuously uttered knelled as loud as church bells between them. All the multifarious implications of we winged through Maya's mind in the face of his silence. She didn't think Axell's astute businessman's mind had missed them either.
"It's Saturday," he slowly responded, tearing his gaze from her to study the building. "I won't be able to locate an inspector until Monday, at best. And then there's the question of where you'll transport the items once you're free to move them."
Maya could feel the shark's teeth closing over her silly little Pisces head. She should have known better than to play in dangerous currents instead of placid little ponds. Biting her bottom lip, she let the tide sweep her straight into the deep blue sea.
"Any suggestions?" she asked gaily, as if that we hadn't already tolled her doom.
Axell's eyes narrowed as he caught her elbow again and steered her around a pile of crumbling brick. "Let's go to the bar and talk about it."
Every time someone in authority want
ed to "talk" about something, it meant being uprooted again. Abandoning all hope, Maya floated downstream, hopelessly hooked on Axell's bait.
Fish weren't supposed to have nests anyway.
December, 1945
I don't remember who seduced whom, but I remember the night you carried me back to my bed and stayed until daybreak. Don't you ever tell me that was just a young man getting his jollies off. It was more than that, for both of us. We made the birds sing at midnight and the doves cry at dawn. No one ever made me feel like that before. No one ever can again. Does she wrap her legs around you until you roar with hunger? If she's got breasts beneath all that binding, I bet you haven't touched them yet.
Chapter 8
If it's dangerous to talk to yourself, it's probably even dicier to listen.
Axell knew better than to get involved. He especially knew better than to get involved with a female with trouble written all over her. Some people lived from one disaster to another, and Maya Alyssum struck him as that kind of person. Her vulnerability would eventually expose his deficiencies, and nothing good could come of either.
He sat Maya down in a booth at the back of the restaurant and signaled his bartender to bring them sweet tea. Matty and Constance were occupying themselves in the employee break room, well looked after by his doting staff. He could safely concentrate on bending this tear-stained waif of a woman to his will.
"If I hire an inspector," Axell paused to let the implication of her obligation sink in, "and he allows you to move your things, where will you move them?"
She twisted a red paper napkin between her fingers and didn't look up. "We haven't remodeled the upper story of the school yet. I thought Matty and I could move our things there. But we really need to keep Cleo's shop open. She has to have somewhere to go when..." She hesitated, apparently not wanting to say prison out loud. "If only the mayor understood the awfulness Cleo went through to get this far, maybe he'd listen?"
Axell had looked up the sister. She'd been busted for chronic possession and shoplifting a teddy bear, not the act of a hardened criminal. Still, selling drugs was usually the logical next step for an addict. He had to be cautious here, but he didn't think a schoolteacher would condone the behavior of junkies, even if one was her sister.
"Besides, the artisans who designed the stuff in there deserve an outlet for their creativity and some reward for their work," Maya continued. "Some of it would sell for a fortune in California. Cleo had a brilliant idea. She just didn't know how to make it work."
Axell sat back as the bartender set the teas in front of them. Crossing his arms on the wooden table, he studied his companion. He'd read her credentials. She had a Masters in childhood education, four years teaching experience, and an extremely high grade-point average at an excellent state university. He knew nothing of her prior life. He didn't even know where the damned father of her child was. Maybe that was a starting point.
"Do you have any income other than the school?" he asked pointedly. "Child support, alimony?"
She shook her wavy curls, and the purple streak fell forward across her brow with a will of its own. Since she couldn't reclaim her clothes, she wore the same outfit she'd worn the day before. Somehow, the outlandish gauzy pleats and silky shirt looked exotic and expensive, even though he knew damned well she'd bought them at some thrift store.
"Stephen and I aren't married. We were more or less separated when I heard about Cleo..." She skipped over that part with a wave of her hand. "I didn't even know for certain I was pregnant when I flew out here. He travels a lot. I've left messages, but he hasn't any money. I can't expect any help from that quarter. I can make it on my own," she said defiantly, "I just need to get my stuff out of that building."
"I've been through the Pfeiffer place." He hadn't blindly sent Constance to a school he knew nothing about. When it had opened, he'd had every aspect of it checked, except the finances, which weren't a matter of public record. He wondered if he ought to probe that angle but decided against it. Selene Blackburn's family had money. They would probably invest in anything to keep their rattle-brained daughter off the streets. "The upper story hasn't been refurbished in decades. You don't even have working plumbing up there. No heat, no air; it's not fit for habitation."
She stirred the sweet tea with her straw and watched the ice cubes swirl. "I've lived in worse. The plumbing downstairs is just fine. We can open the windows upstairs in the summer. By winter, maybe something better will come along."
She'd lived in worse? Axell didn't want to imagine it. Old man Pfieffer had pulled the upper story apart in the process of renovation, then lost interest after his wife died. Wallpaper hung in ragged strips. Plaster had been ripped from the lathes. Molding for the unfinished floors above the school lay in jagged lengths full of nails that invited tetanus. The mayor was probably right. The building should be demolished. He shook his head.
"You're not thinking, Miss Alyssum," he admonished. "You not only have a son, but an infant on the way. They can't live like that."
She shot him an angry look. "The name is Maya, Matty is my nephew, and my sister and I lived like that more times than I can count. Not everyone in this world was born with a silver spoon in their mouth."
Back off, Axell. He retreated against the booth seat and signaled for more tea. Matty was her nephew. Cleo's kid. Things were getting clearer now. He'd thought her a bit young to have two kids, but what did he know about how the other half lived? After all, he'd been born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
"Having lived like that, I'm sure you'd prefer Matty and your child to live otherwise." Dumb, he realized as soon as he said it. Now he'd really raise her hackles. How in hell did one go about approaching this topic carefully?
Maya's brave smile faded, and she shrugged. "There are a lot of things I'd like. Not many of them are attainable. Kids don't really notice their surroundings too much. What they notice is how much they're loved. Just tell me what I have to do to get you to hire the inspector. I have no idea what one costs or how to go about hiring one. I just know I can't afford him."
Amazed at how easily she cut to the chase, Axell raised his glass in salute to her astuteness. She offered a wry grin and a lift of her glass in return. He admired a woman who could speak his language.
"My interest in all this is Constance. I don't want you returning to California. I don't know how you do it, but you're bringing my daughter out of her shell. If you leave, she might regress and give my mother-in-law the means to pry her out of my hands. I'll do whatever it takes to prevent that."
He'd considered offering her a place in his home again, but the incident this morning had given him second thoughts on that. He didn't need wide-eyed waifs in his kitchen at four in the morning. He didn't need women giving birth on his kitchen floor. He'd never have any privacy. "I own the building next door to this one."
Her head jerked up, her eyes widened, and she stared at him with an awakening hope and fascination that shot Axell's hormones into overdrive. She was pregnant, dammit! Just because she looked at him as if he'd handed her the moon didn't mean he was free to lose control.
His libido never had listened to reason. That's why he'd ended up married to Angela.
Shifting uncomfortably, Axell gulped his iced tea before continuing. "The last tenant left it in fairly reasonable condition. It's not earning any money sitting there empty. Maybe we could make some kind of deal."
"If we can get the inspector's approval to move my stuff," she reminded him. "What kind of a deal did you have in mind?"
Had she not been twenty-months pregnant, all kinds of possibilities would have danced through his lecherous mind. But her pregnancy ruled out all his low-minded thoughts, simplifying his answer. "You can move into the upstairs apartment, set up shop downstairs, and pay me a percentage of your gross every month. My only stipulation is that you be available to Constance as much as possible. Keep her with you as you do Matty while I work. Except on busy nights like Friday and Saturday, I'm
usually away from the bar around nine or ten. If she's right next door, I might be able to see her more often."
Her eyes lit up like a child with a new toy as she contemplated his promises. Grown women should be a damned sight more wary of men offering candy.
"We'll have to move the counter. Do you think I could hire someone to help me dust all that stuff before we put it back out again? Could we look at the building now? I want to tell Matty..."
She was already across the booth and almost out of her seat before Axell could help her. Like quicksilver, she shimmered and glided and disappeared before his eyes. His front door closed after her before he could cross the restaurant.
Feeling considerably less burdened now that he had the problem with Constance solved, Axell loped after her, whistling a happy tune.
* * *
"This is marvelous! This is gorgeous." Maya whirled around in the vast open space of the downstairs shop of the restored old building. "The light from here is heavenly."
"The foot traffic outside is heavier and should draw more customers," Axell added.
Ignoring him, Maya ran her fingers over the mahogany banister to the upstairs. "Someone treated this place with respect. There's a much happier aura in here."
"It's called profit." Axell examined the ceiling tile twelve feet above them. "Heating and cooling is a problem though."
"There's a ceiling fan. And look at the floor! If I could just have it waxed..." Seeing that Axell was counting pennies, Maya slipped up the stairs. She really shouldn't take another place with stairs, but what choice did she have? The baby would come when it was ready. Ignoring a frisson of fear at her lack of preparation for that event, she peeked around the corner at the living quarters. She didn't own a crib or baby clothes. She had no nesting instincts to rely on. So she ignored the future in favor of the present.
Dixie Rebel (The Carolina Magnolia Series, Book 1) Page 7