She gazed at him while he spoke, watching the play of expressions on his face. Why couldn’t she take her eyes off him? He was just a guy. Yeah, good-looking and kind of … different, but that shouldn’t matter.
Why couldn’t she stop looking at him?
Grady Hospital
Three hours later
“They say Manuel is going to be all right, Eve.” Rosa’s face was wreathed in smiles as she hurried down the corridor to the waiting room, where she’d left Eve. “They said it was a minor bump, a possible concussion or something, but he’s going to be fine.”
“Great. When can we take him home?”
“When my papa comes. They won’t let him go with me. They say they need to ask him questions.” Her expression clouded. “He’s going to be mad at me. He said I could only keep the baby if he didn’t cause trouble.” She frowned. “And those doctors were asking me all kinds of funny questions. If I ever shook Manuel or maybe threw him in his bed when I got mad at him for crying.”
“You told him about Larazo and the others?”
She nodded. “But none of them were still there when the ambulance came. The police said none of the neighbors had seen anything.”
Of course they hadn’t, Eve thought bitterly. It would make them targets of Larazo and his gang. “Well, your papa will tell them how well you treat Manuel.”
“He’s never home. He works all the time. He might tell them he doesn’t know.” She moistened her lips. “And he doesn’t really want me to keep Manuel. He doesn’t like babies. They cry too much. But I know after Manuel gets a little older, he’ll like him much more.”
Providing Rosa got to keep her son, Eve thought. DEFACS sometimes yanked a kid at the first sign of abuse. Though she’d seen them give the child back with equal speed if their budget was cut.
But Rosa didn’t deserve this kind of hassle. She was a good mother and loved that baby. “Talk to your papa as soon as he gets here. Tell him what happened.”
Rosa nodded doubtfully. “But how can I prove it? They won’t believe me. They’ll say I made it up.”
“Tell them to ask me.”
“But you’re my friend.” She paused. “And you’re the same age as me. They won’t believe you, either.”
Eve knew that was true. Not only was she sixteen, but a check would show that her mother was on drugs. She’d be tarred with the same brush. “Then we’ll find another way to convince them. I’ll go to every apartment in the development and talk to the tenants. Someone will be willing to tell the cops the truth.”
“Will you do that?” Rosa’s face lit like a sunrise. “You’ll keep them from taking my baby?”
Eve gazed at her helplessly. Simple question from a simple, loving girl. But nothing was simple in the slums where they had been born and raised. Sometimes the people who were trying to help blundered and managed to destroy every chance of happiness. “I promise, they won’t take Manuel. If they do, we’ll get him back.”
Rosa gave her a hug and whirled. “I’ve got to go back to Manuel. They won’t let me stay in the same room with him without a nurse being there, but they said I could watch him through the window.”
Eve watched her running down the corridor. What were they afraid she’d do to her baby? Smother him? Anyone could see that she adored Manuel. It was a crazy world.
“Hi.” John Gallo was coming toward her from the direction of the elevators. “How’s the kid?”
“He’ll be okay,” she said curtly. “It’s a miracle. They could have killed him.”
“You look like you’re unraveling.” He went to the coffee machine. “Coffee? Or maybe, a Coke?”
She nodded. “Coffee. Black.” She sat back down. “And I’m not unraveling. What are you doing here?”
“I got to thinking about the kid.” He handed her the coffee. Then he went to the soft-drink machine and got a Coke for himself. “I don’t know how anyone drinks black coffee. It tastes like tar to me.”
“It was all my mother kept in the house when I was a kid.”
“You’re not much more than a kid now.”
“Sixteen.”
“That’s what I was afraid of. I was hoping for a little older.” He sat down beside her. “Eve, Rosa called you. Eve what?”
“Eve Duncan.” She took a drink of the coffee. It was strong and generally foul-tasting. She didn’t care. It was hot. “And why do you care how old I am? Are you making a pass at me?”
“No, you’ll know when I do.” He lifted his cup to his lips. “Just a comment. You’re still in high school?”
“I graduate next year. You?”
“I graduated over a year ago. I’ve been moving around the country and raising a little hell with a couple of buddies for the last year. Sort of a last hurrah before I go into the service.”
“You’re joining the Army?”
He nodded. “My parents are dead, and I don’t have money for college. I thought it was my best bet to get more education and move up in the world. The Army’s not a bad deal.” His lips tightened. “And I won’t be caught in the same trap that choked my folks to death. Minimum-wage jobs and kids they never wanted. You think that housing development you live in is bad? I moved down here from Milwaukee, and the place I lived was called the Bricks. We had a killing nearly every two months, and the cops never came near it without a backup.”
“Is that where you learned to— You broke Frank Martinelli’s arm.”
He shrugged. “I learned a little self-defense from living at the Bricks. But my uncle was a Ranger in the Army, and he taught me everything he knew. Uncle Ted is the reason I’m down here. He’s got a back problem, and he moved down here because the VA Hospital has some specialists in Atlanta. I wanted to get him settled before I checked in for basic training.”
“Self-defense?” Eve’s brows rose. “It didn’t look like self-defense to me. They didn’t have a chance.”
He smiled. “If I’d let them move first, it would have been self-defense. It’s all how you look at it.” His smile faded. “And they made me mad. I didn’t like what they were doing to you.”
“Neither did I.” She leaned back in the seat. “I was scared.”
“But you went running in after them anyway.”
“They were hurting the baby.” She lifted her hand and rubbed her neck. “No one has a right to hurt the helpless. Most of us can take care of ourselves. But you have to do something about it if they go after babies or animals or—”
“Is your neck hurting?”
“Aching. That bastard was jerking me backward by my hair.”
“I can help.” He put his Coke down and stood up. “Lean forward a little.”
She looked at him warily. “What?”
“I won’t hurt you.” He stood a little behind her. “My uncle taught me this, too. It helped when I got whiplash from an accident.” His hands were on the back of her neck. “It’s all in the thumbs…” His thumbs were digging into her neck in deep massage. “Relax.”
She couldn’t relax. Her flesh felt hot beneath his touch, and that heat was spreading out in waves throughout her body. The muscles of her stomach were clenching, and her breasts …
What the hell was happening to her?
She knew what was happening. She wasn’t ignorant. It just had never happened to her.
“You’re not relaxing,” he said softly.
“No.” But she didn’t want him to stop. “You’re not … helping me.”
“I’m not helping myself much, either.” His fingers never stopped moving, digging, pressing. “But I want to keep on touching you no matter how much it hurts.” He drew a deep breath, and his hands fell away from her. “I didn’t mean it to happen this way. I didn’t mean it to happen at all. Hell yes, I wanted to get my hands on you. I’ve wanted that ever since I saw you sitting on those steps at—” He dropped down in the chair next to her. “Sorry. I didn’t know you would—”
He didn’t know that she’d respond as she had done. She h
adn’t known it would happen, either. That flash of sensuality had come like a bolt of lightning. Searing, melting, overpowering. She instinctively pushed the knowledge of that response away from her. “It’s okay. I’m … it’s not as if—nothing happened.”
“The hell it didn’t.” He wasn’t looking at her. “But I’m trying to work it out in my head and decide what’s going on. Look, I’m no saint, but I don’t jump every girl I run across. The whole damn night has been crazy. I don’t usually interfere with— But I couldn’t let them hurt you. And then later on the stairs, I couldn’t keep from looking at you.”
And she hadn’t been able to stop looking at him. She still couldn’t. He was staring straight ahead, but her gaze was drawn to him like a magnet. Her gaze fell to his hand, lying on the wood arm of the chair.
His nails were short and clean, and the thumbs, which had dug into her muscles, looked long and strong.
They had been strong. She felt as if she could still feel the imprint on her flesh. Her chest was tightening, and her heartbeat was suddenly faster.
His gaze shifted to her face. “Oh, shit.” His cheeks were flushed, and his dark eyes were narrowing on her throat, then wandering to her breasts.
She had to stop this. She hunted wildly for something to break the web of sensuality that was tightening around her.
Rosa. The reason she was here. Talk about Rosa.
She jerked her eyes away from his. “Rosa’s afraid they’re going to try to take her baby away.”
“I don’t want to talk about Rosa right now.” His voice was soft and with a note in it that sent a shiver through her. She hadn’t realized that a shiver could be hot as well as cold. Then he paused. “But you need to back away from me, don’t you? Okay, I’ll try not to think about—but it won’t be easy.” He combed his fingers through his thick, dark hair. “What did you say? Oh, yeah. Why do they want to take the kid away from her?”
“They think she might be the one who hurt Manuel. It’s nuts. She loves that baby.”
He nodded. “I could tell.”
“None of the neighbors will talk to the police about what Rick Larazo and the rest of the gang did. And the guys were gone by the time the ambulance came. They’re not going to believe me, either. I’m too young.” She added in disgust, “They never believe anyone under thirty.”
“And you’re just a little over halfway there.” He grimaced. “Dammit.”
“I’ll get around it.” She finished her coffee. “I promised Rosa I’d go talk to some of the neighbors and try to persuade them to tell the truth about what they saw.”
“You really want to help her, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. Any way I can.”
“Then, if you can’t find someone to tell the truth because Larazo’s got them scared, get one of the potheads in the place to lie and say they saw it. It shouldn’t be hard. Just slip them a joint. There are addicts in half the apartments in the building.”
“I don’t deal drugs,” she said sharply.
“Whew.” His eyes narrowed on her face. “Did I hit a nerve?”
She ignored the question. “Do you deal?”
He shook his head. “But if it came to a choice of paying someone a few joints to help your friend keep her kid, I’d do it in a heartbeat. It’s a shitty world, and you have to pick both the weapons and the battles.”
“Not drugs.”
He nodded. “Whatever you say.” He was silent a moment. “But you have to know that I’m not like you. I won’t lie. I’m not what you’d call a good guy. I do whatever I have to do to survive and get what I want.” He paused. “It’s not always safe to trust me.”
She couldn’t look away from him. He was telling her the truth. She could see it in the intensity of his eyes, the tautness of his lips. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t have to trust you.” With an effort she managed to pull her gaze away. “You’re nothing to me.”
He chuckled. “Liar. Telling the truth should go both ways, Eve.” His smiled faded. “But maybe I’m asking too much. This is hard for you, isn’t it? Sometimes I think you’re tough as nails, then you surprise me.” He reached out and touched the soft hair at her temple. “How many guys have you made out with, Eve?”
His fingers were warm against the sensitive skin of her temple and were causing her pulse to leap as if to reach out to that touch.
He muttered a curse. “Dammit to hell.”
She could feel the heat rise to her face. “I don’t want to talk about this. It makes me feel … It’s none of your business.” She moved her head so that he was no longer touching her. She jumped to her feet. “I’m going to go back to the development and ring some doorbells.”
“I’ve got wheels. I’ll take you.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to go with you. I don’t want this. It’s not a good idea.”
He rose slowly to his feet. “Maybe not. Probably not. But I’m not going to stop. I need it too much. I told you I wasn’t a good guy.” His eyes were suddenly glittering recklessly. “What the hell. If I wasn’t the first, someone else would be. I don’t know what’s happened to me, but I’m going to go on until we’re both drunk and dizzy with each other.”
Drunk and dizzy. Eve felt that way already, and it was scaring her. “You listen to me,” she said fiercely. “You’ve been telling me all the things you want to do with your life. That’s fine, go do them. I’m not going to be a play toy for anyone. You think I don’t want to get out of the slums and make something of myself? I’ve worked at all kinds of jobs since I was twelve years old, and nothing is going to keep me down.” She started down the hall toward the bank of elevators. “Not my mother, not you, not anyone.”
“I wouldn’t keep you down. I’d help you fly, Eve.” He held her gaze as he added softly as she got on the elevator, “We’d both fly. It might not be for long, but how we’d soar.”
He was the last thing she saw as the elevator doors closed.
He stood with legs slightly parted, worn, faded jeans hugging his muscular thighs. He was tall, strong, but there was nothing bulky about that strength. He looked graceful, yet … tight. Sensual and wired and completely in tune with his body. Like a powerful machine, tensed and ready to move.
Ready to perform.
And heat was tingling through her as she stared at him. She wanted the door to close and block out the sight of him.
Yet when it did, she felt as if he was still with her. She didn’t want to feel like this. It bewildered her. It wasn’t as if she wasn’t familiar with sex. Sex was everywhere. She had seen sex on street corners, on the landings of the development, heard the sounds in the next room when Sandra brought home one of her men. Sex was what had drawn all those boys to Rosa and given her a child to raise. But it had never affected Eve. She hadn’t understood it.
She understood it now. It had a name.
John Gallo.
CHAPTER
3
“I DIDN’T SEE NOTHIN’.” Mrs. Smythe scowled. “I told the cops. Leave me alone.” She slammed the door in Eve’s face.
Eve drew a deep breath. It was the ninth door that she’d knocked on. Two of the occupants had been too stoned to even understand what she was talking about. The others had been either indifferent or clearly afraid. All of them were very annoyed to be disturbed in the middle of the night.
Too bad. If she’d waited for morning, the hospital might have already made a decision to turn the baby over to DEFACS. She had to get Manuel away from them right away.
She turned away. Don’t get discouraged. She still had other doors to try, other people to try to persuade. All it would take was one person, one witness, and Rosa would be safe.
“Eve!”
She turned to see Rosa running up the stairs. Her face was glowing and she was carrying a sleeping Manuel in her arms.
“They let you take him?” Eve smiled jubilantly. “That’s wonderful. Did your papa convince them what a great mom you are?”
&
nbsp; She shook her head. “He signed the release papers and left.” She was stroking the baby’s silky hair as she balanced him against her shoulder. “But I prayed and prayed, and God must have heard me.”
“Those doctors changed their minds?”
“They had to do it when the police called them.” Her brown eyes were dancing with happiness. “They couldn’t keep my baby.”
“Police?” She shook her head. “Slowly, Rosa. Why did the police call the hospital?”
“Because God answered my prayer.”
“How?”
“Rick Larazo went into the Third Street Police Station and told them that he was the one who threw my baby on the ground.”
“What?” Eve shook her head. “No way, Rosa. He wouldn’t have done that in a million years.”
“I know,” she said simply. “That’s why it had to be God who made him do it.”
“I don’t want to shake your faith in God, but I think there has to be some other explanation. I don’t think he would bother to deal—”
“But you can’t give me any other reason.” Her smile was brilliant. “God must just love my Manuel and knew he’d be happy with me.”
Give up. It was as good a reason as any other that she could think of, and it was making Rosa happy. “Who wouldn’t love your baby?” she asked gently. “I’m glad he decided to intercede.” Her tone hardened. “And I hope he used his influence to throw Rick Larazo into the hoosegow for the next twenty years.”
Rosa giggled and started up the next flight of stairs to her apartment. “I’ll pray, Eve. Maybe it will happen. He’s listening to me right now.”
As she heard Rosa’s door close behind her, Eve sank down on the bottom step. Lord, she was tired, and she had only a few hours before she had to shower and get ready for school.
It had been a strange and terrible night. But the ending had not been as bad as the beginning. Rosa would be able to keep her Manuel, and if God continued to be good to her, then maybe she’d soften her father’s heart enough to accept the little boy.
He answered my prayers.
Maybe he had, but by what means? Rick Larazo was an addict, and he’d been wild tonight. Even if he’d come down off whatever he was on, he wouldn’t have waltzed into a police station to confess. He would have known that they’d book him. Being locked away from drugs was a nightmare he wouldn’t have risked. He would have had to have been more afraid of what was outside than what awaited him inside that jail. What would that be?
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