by Linda Turner
Pushing to her feet, she said simply, “Then I guess there’s nothing I can do now but wait.”
She thanked Emma for making the procedure less of an ordeal than she’d anticipated, then let Sam escort her back to his car. “I want to go home,” she said as soon as they were buckled up. “I’ve put it off long enough.”
He didn’t try to talk her out of it, but drove her right to the café and parked in the alley at the back. When he came around to open her car door for her, however, his face was grave. “No one would think any less of you if you put this off until tomorrow, you know. You don’t have to torture yourself this way.”
“I have to see how bad the damage is,” she said stubbornly and stepped from the car.
But when she started toward the back entrance of the café, it wasn’t damage she saw streaming out the back door, but a crowd of familiar faces coming toward her, led by Molly. Howard and Amos and Tina and a dozen others—customers from the café, people from the homeless shelters she baked bread for on Saturdays, neighbors from the businesses up and down the street. Dressed in their grungiest clothes, their hands and faces filthy with soot, they looked like a bunch of kids who’d been playing in a mud puddle.
Molly, reaching her first, hugged her fiercely, then drew back to frown down at her bandaged hands. “What’s this? I thought you said you weren’t hurt.”
Used to her friend’s scolding, she said, “I’m okay, Mother.” She held up her hands and wiggled her fingers. “See? Just a few superficial bums, nothing to worry about. I didn’t even have to go to the hospital, so don’t scold.”
“You were lucky,” Molly sniffed, then hugged her again.
When she released her, Jennifer was wearing nearly as much soot as Molly was. Glancing down at herself, she looked back up and grinned quizzically at Molly and the motley group assembled behind her. “Would somebody like to tell me what’s going on here? What are you doing?”
“Cleaning up,” Amos Armstrong said, his lined face creased with good cheer. A security guard at the bank down the street, he ate bacon and eggs every weekday morning at the café. “I had some time coming, so I took the day off and came over to see if you could use a strong back.”
“The kids are in school and I’m working the evening shift at the shelter tonight,” Tina Chandler chimed in. A volunteer at one of the city’s homeless shelters and the wife of one of the city’s most successful trial lawyers, she had a blatant weakness for Molly’s banana-cream pie and had been known to drop by several times a week for a slice. “I didn’t have anything to do till school’s out, so here I am. Larry said to tell you he’d try to stop by, too, after court.”
The others, people she’d talked to over coffee and doughnuts and fresh bread without ever knowing too much about their personal lives, had similar stories and didn’t seem to think it was the least unusual that they’d taken time from their busy schedules to help her. Emotion clogged her throat and stung her eyes. “I don’t know what to say,” she whispered, her smile tremulous as she blinked back tears. “You didn’t have to do this.”
“Yes, we did,” Molly said affectionately. “What kind of friends would we be if we let you go through this all by yourself? You’ve been here for all of us and we’re here for you. Now, enough of this maudlin stuff. You’ll be happy to know that the fire never reached downstairs to the café, but we’ve got some serious cleaning up to do before you can even think about getting a crew in here to repair all the smoke and water damage. Why don’t you find a seat inside, put your feet up and supervise?”
She couldn’t of course. Not when there was so much to do. Not when friends she hadn’t known she had were there to help her. “Later,” she promised, and followed Molly inside.
Smoke had blackened most of the dining area, and so much water had leaked through from upstairs that it was two inches deep on the floor. She grabbed a mop and bucket and was trying to mop it up when she remembered Sam.
“Oh, God!” She hadn’t even thanked him for bringing her home!
She whirled, her eyes wide, only to stop short at the sight of him standing on a chair removing soggy ceiling tiles that were in danger of falling. “What are you doing?”
“Taking these down before they hit someone on the head,” he said matter-of-factly.
“But you don’t have to do that. Don’t you have to report back to the station?”
“Not until later. My shift doesn’t start until four.” He glanced down, his eyes steady as they met hers. “You care if I stick around for a while?”
She shouldn’t have let him. For a man who wanted nothing to do with her, he’d already done too much. But when she looked up into his face and felt the almost physical touch of his gaze, she couldn’t for the life of her recall that moment when he’d told her goodbye. Instead, she heard the groan that rumbled through him when he kissed her and the soft reassuring words he’d murmured to her last night when he’d taken care of her better than she could have taken care of herself. He wanted to stay and she couldn’t deny him.
“No,” she said quietly. “But you’ve already done so much. I don’t like imposing.”
Amused, he arched a brow at her. “Are you kidding? Sweetheart, imposing is when you stop to help someone with car trouble and they not only want you to take them to get the damn car fixed, but they want you to pay for it and pick their kids up at school, too.”
“You’re making that up!”
“I’m not.” He chuckled. “I swear. You wouldn’t believe the number of people who think that because cops are public servants, we’re just here for their convenience. This is nothing. Anyway,” he added huskily, “I want to help.”
Something passed between them then, something hot and sweet and breath-stealing that neither of them could look away from. All around, her friends were cleaning up the mess, but all she saw, all she heard, was the drumming of her own heart. Then someone dropped a pan in the kitchen and the moment was gone, shattered like the front window in her living room upstairs.
She jumped and suddenly realized that she was staring up at him with her heart in her eyes. Revealing color seeping into her cheeks, she quickly glanced away. “Just don’t feel like you have to stay all afternoon. I’m sure you must have other things to do.”
He did, but none of them could have dragged him away from there, from her, at that moment, and he didn’t question why. She hadn’t batted an eye at the damage the fire had wreaked in the café, but she hadn’t been upstairs to her apartment yet. There was no way in hell he was letting her go through that alone. When she headed that way, he planned to be right there at her side.
“A few,” he admitted, “but nothing that can’t be put off until later. I’ll let you know when I have to leave.”
Someone called her away then, and for the next twenty minutes she was busy bailing water and hauling ruined supplies out of the pantry. Staying where he was, Sam continued to pull down the soggy ceiling tiles and never let Jennifer out of his sight. Caught up in the messy work, laughing and talking with her friends, who were determined to keep her spirits up, she seemed, at first glance, to be totally focused on the work that had to be done. But he knew the lady now, knew how she put on a smile for others so they wouldn’t worry about her when in reality she was miserable. From the corner of his eye, he watched her like a hawk and wasn’t surprised when her eyes darted to the café’s back entrance and the outside stairway beyond. She looked away almost immediately and laughed at something Molly said, but Sam wasn’t fooled. Any second now she was going to slip out when no one was looking and go upstairs to her apartment.
It took her another ten minutes before she made her move, but when she did, Sam made his, too. Everything seemed to get in his way, however. By the time he wound his way through her friends and stepped through the back entrance, Jennifer was already at the top of the stairs. He glanced up and saw her push aside the lumber the fire department had put up to block the entrance to the apartment after they destroyed her front door
with an ax. He swore and hurried after her, but he’d only taken two steps when she disappeared inside.
He half expected to find her in tears, but when he quietly followed her into her apartment, she was standing just inside the entrance, tenderly wiping soot from a silver candlestick. She never looked up, but somehow she knew it was him. “This was one of my grandparents’ wedding presents,” she told him. “They got married in 1942, and right after the ceremony my grandfather left to join the army and fight in the war. Gran didn’t see him again for more than two years.”
“Must have been a tough way to start a marriage,” Sam said quietly. “How long were they married?”
“Fifty-four years. Pop went first, then Gran six months later. She went to bed one night and didn’t wake up. I don’t think she could live without him.”
She described a relationship, a marriage, that most people only dreamed of. “They must have loved each other very much.”
“They finished each other’s sentences and never seemed to notice.” She looked up and smiled ruefully. “I guess that says it all, doesn’t it?”
Shaking off her reflective mood, she changed the subject just by looking around. There was no question that the apartment was a daunting sight. The walls were black, the furniture barely recognizable charred masses. The smell of smoke was still strong, and it would be at least a week before the place dried out. Burned floors, woodwork and walls would have to be replaced, but the structure still appeared to be sound and the ceiling and roof were intact. All in all, things could have been considerably worse.
That, Sam knew by the look on her face, was little consolation. True, she’d managed to save her grandmother’s candlesticks, but few of her other treasures. She had insurance for the café and apartment—the money, minus whatever deductible she carried, would be there for any and all repairs necessary to make the place livable again. But even if she’d had the foresight to insure her personal belongings, a generous check from her insurance company couldn’t replace pictures of her parents and grandparents or items that had been in her family long before she’d been born. Those things were priceless—and gone forever.
He wanted to reach for her then, despite the sure knowledge that he shouldn’t, but he buried his hands in his pockets and deliberately drew her attention from her loss to the positive. “This old building’s tougher than it looks—the fire inspector said the beams in the floor are two feet thick, which is one of the reasons it didn’t go up like a pile of matchsticks.” Hitting a solid door frame, he grinned. “See? Built like a stone fort. Once the actual repairs themselves are started, you ought to be able to move back in in a week.”
“A week?” she gasped. “You think all this can be fixed in a week?”
“Once you get estimates from your insurance company and get bids from a couple of reputable contractors? Sure,” he said easily. “I know it doesn’t look like it right now, sweetheart, but it’s going to take longer to get all the bids and paperwork done that it is to do the repairs. You replace the floor and plasterboard, check the wiring and put in new trim and paint, and you’re in business.”
He made it sound so simple. Frowning, she turned to examine the far end of the living room with new eyes and felt his hands settle on her shoulders from behind. “Look,” he urged softly, his warm breath stirring her hair and caressing her ear. “Not at what’s burned, but at what’s not.”
She tried, she really did, but any chance she had of concentrating on what was right there in front of her eyes died the second he touched her. He was behind her—she couldn’t even see his hands—but when she stood still as a doe and stared straight ahead, she saw nothing but Sam. Sam, holding her, his strong hands gentle on her shoulders. Sam, leaning whisper close, his tall hard body brushing hers, setting every nerve ending tingling. Sam, all but surrounding her, warming her, melting her bones one by one. All she had to do was shift the slightest bit and she would be in his arms.
“Jennifer? You still with me, sweetheart?”
No, she almost groaned, jerking back to attention. She was way ahead of him.
Thankful he couldn’t see the hot color that rushed from her toes to the roots of her hair, she nodded. “Don’t mind me,” she told him in a raspy voice that made her wince. “I’ve been drifting off all day.”
Instantly sympathetic, he kneaded her shoulders and had no idea how close she came to dissolving into a puddle at his feet. “You did have a rough night,” he murmured. “Maybe you should go back to my place and take a nap. Molly can keep the crowd downstairs in line.”
She wanted to. God, how she wanted to! But she couldn’t forget why he was back in her life. If it hadn’t been for the fire, he wouldn’t even be speaking to her right now, let alone offering her his bed.
Galvanized by the thought, she never remembered making a conscious decision to move, but suddenly she was all the way across the room and words were tumbling unchecked from her tongue. “No! I can’t. You’re used to having your space, and the apartment’s too small. The bed...”
Unable to finish that thought, she shied away from it and blurted, “Alice has invited me to stay with her until I can move back in here. I’m going to do it, so you can have your bed back. I’ll move in tonight.”
His eyes as dark as midnight, he didn’t so much as blink at her announcement. “I don’t remember saying I wanted my bed back.”
He hadn’t, and they both knew he wouldn’t. He would let her have his bed for as long as she needed it while he made do with a couch that was four inches too short for his frame. And they’d both lie alone in the dark, aching, until one of them did something about it.
Looking anywhere but at him, she said, “You didn’t, but this is for the best. Please don’t give me a hard time about it.”
There were a dozen things she wasn’t saying, and he heard every one of them. The attraction between them wasn’t going to go away—that was a given. With every day it grew stronger, and to even think about living together, even for a short time, was asking for trouble. He’d kept his distance last night, but only because she’d been injured and he’d had to work. But he had to come home eventually, and she needed to be gone before he did.
He knew he should thank his lucky stars that she was being so sensible. But just the idea of letting her walk away from him made him want to throw something. God, he was pathetic! He’d already told her goodbye once. Why did he have such a hard time remembering that?
His jaw rigid, he said in a reasonable tone, which didn’t come nearly as easily as he would have liked, “Just because I took you to my place last night doesn’t mean you’re under any obligation to continue to stay there. It was late, I didn’t think you should be alone, and frankly, I didn’t know where else to take you. But it was only intended as a temporary measure. You don’t have to apologize because you found somewhere else to stay.”
“I’m not apologizing,” she said, then grimaced. “Well, not exactly. It’s just that what you did went above and beyond the call of duty, and I don’t want you to be offended.”
“Do I look offended?” He held his arms wide and gave her a crooked smile. “You’ll enjoy Alice, and she’s going to love having you. She doesn’t get much company. I’m glad you decided to take her up on her invitation. It’ll be good for both of you.”
Her eyes searching his, Jennifer had to admit that he hardly looked like a man who was nursing injured feelings. But later it struck her that he hadn’t hung around long after their conversation. They’d gone back downstairs to the café to join the others, and he’d left with the excuse that he needed to get some sleep before he reported to work.
Missing him already, needing some time to herself, she escaped to her office, but she’d barely settled into the chair behind her desk when there was a tap at the door. Expecting Molly, she glanced up with a smile only to gasp at the sight of Rosa standing hesitantly in the open doorway. “Can I come in?” she asked diffidently.
“Of course!” A pleased smile stret
ching across her face, Jennifer jumped up to give her a fierce hug. “What are you doing here?”
“I heard about the fire.” Returning her hug, Rosa drew back and frowned worriedly. “Are you okay? On the news they said you were hurt.”
With a wave of her hand, Jennifer dismissed the injuries that rarely now even gave her a twinge. “It was just a few minor bums and some cuts, nothing serious. So how have you been? I thought about calling you a dozen times, but I figured you were busy, and you’d call when you could. Is everything okay at home? Sit down and tell me.”
“Everything’s fine. I’m still in school. And passing.” She sank onto a chrome chair that was relatively free of soot. “Graduation’s June second. We order our caps and gowns in January.”
“That’s great! Are you excited?”
“Yeah,” she said softly. “It’s going to be pretty neat.” But her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes and she couldn’t seem to sit still. At last she jumped up like a jack-in-the-box and began to prowl around the office.
Jennifer leaned back in her chair and watched her. Rosa wasn’t one of those teenagers who was always flitting around and couldn’t sit still. Extremely self-possessed for a girl her age. she was seldom, if ever, restless.
Jennifer arched a brow at her. “You want to tell me what’s wrong, or do I have to guess?”
“I...” Apparently unable to find the words she was looking for, Rosa hesitated, and suddenly her eyes flooded with tears. “God, I’m sorry.”
“For crying? Don’t be ridiculous, silly,” Jennifer scolded. She got up and placed an arm around the girl’s shoulders, then steered her back to her chair. Snatching a tissue from the box on her desk, she pressed it into her hand. “There’s plenty more where that came from, so if you need to cry, you cry. But it might help to talk about it.”