by Pat Warren
He turned to face her, searching her eyes, wondering how she would feel if he told her more. In a very short time, her opinion of him had come to matter, perhaps too much. Yet lying wasn’t in his nature nor was it a good way to begin a relationship. If she condemned him for the things he’d done to survive, he might as well know up front.
“Occasionally I stopped in a city long enough to work an odd job or two, lying about my age. There are still a few places that don’t ask too many questions when hiring a strong back. I called myself Michael Smith—fooling no one, I’m sure, but I wanted no connection to Michigan or my past. I washed cars, worked with a construction crew and as a short-order cook. Stuff like that. And, there were times when I couldn’t find work and I was hungry, so I stole. Food and things I could sell in order to eat.” His gaze steady, he waited.
Fallon didn’t blink. “Are you expecting me to look down on you for doing what you had to do in order to survive?” She thought of Laurie, desperately afraid she was facing the same things Michael had faced nearly two decades ago. “I’ve never been in a similar situation, but we have to do what we have to do.” She understood better now why he’d gone to the police station to speak up on Daryl’s behalf.
He could see she meant every word and was surprised how much her reaction pleased him. But he wasn’t finished. He squeezed her fingers, then let go. “There’s more. I finally made it to San Diego and became friends with Paul Ramirez, a kid who was also a runaway.”
“You mean the doctor you use at the house?”
“Right. His parents were migrant workers with four other mouths to feed and not enough work, enough money or food, so Paul left. He was two years younger than me and I sort of looked after him.” He chuckled at the memory. “I showed him how to steal without getting caught. Some friend, eh?”
“The friendship’s lasted, so apparently neither of you was caught.”
“Oh, but you’re wrong. I got pretty good at petty thievery, then got cocky and decided to branch out. I stole a car in downtown San Diego. Stupid. I didn’t even have a driver’s license. I got caught before I’d gone more than a couple of miles. They put me in Juvenile. The cop who caught me was Sam Damien, the sergeant you met last night.” Lord, had it been just last night?
“And now, he’s turning juvenile offenders over to you.” The irony was beautiful.
“That’s right, but he wasn’t any too happy with me back then. Especially when I escaped.”
“You didn’t?”
“Yeah, I did. And it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. It was dusk and I was running along the shoreline next to Harbor Drive, keeping to the trees, ducking every time I heard a car. Suddenly, I heard someone shouting for help. There was this older man frantically waving his arms, yelling for someone, anyone, to help save his grandson. He ran right onto my path, grabbed me and told me the kid had slipped into the water and the poor guy couldn’t swim. I told him to get out of my way, sure that if I stopped, the cops would spot me and haul me back. I left him standing there.”
He saw her frown of disapproval; he’d expected it.
“You’re right. Pretty selfish. However, about a block away, my conscience kicked in and I went back. I dove in and pulled the kid out. He was seven and small for his age. His lips were already blue, and he wasn’t breathing. The old guy was overwrought. I’d learned CPR back when I’d been going to school. It was a requirement in swim class. The kid’s name was Timmy and he finally came around. The grandfather was so grateful he started to cry. I’d done my good deed and I needed to get going, but he grabbed my arm and wouldn’t let go.”
“Judge Jonathan Redfield, right?”
“I thought you’d figure it out. Yeah, Jonathan. He hustled us both into his Lincoln and drove us to his estate in LaJolla. Later, he got it out of me why I hadn’t stopped right away. He got the charges dismissed against me since it was my first offense. Then he took over my life.”
“A lucky break.”
“The best. Jonathan was a widower with no sons and only the one married daughter, Timmy’s mom. He insisted I move in with him, telling me he was lonely in that big old house.” Michael chuckled. “Like he didn’t have loads of friends. From then on, he treated me like family, seeing to my education, paying for everything. I told him about Paul and he found a sponsor for him, one of his lawyer friends who paid for Paul’s schooling and put him through med school. Now do you see why I changed my name to Redfield? He’s one hell of a guy.”
The same thing Daryl had said of Michael. “Certainly sounds like it.”
“Jonathan wanted me to go into law, to follow in his footsteps, but I had a different leaning. I got my degree in psychology because knowing what makes people tick had always interested me, but I still didn’t know what I wanted to do with my new degree. Until the day I ran across a kid who’d broken into my car looking for something to sell so he could eat. The kid was shoeless, dirty, wearing dingy clothes. I discovered he’d just turned sixteen. His folks were dead and he was living on the streets with no one to help him. He had this tough veneer, but I could see that inside, he was pretty scared. I had this rush of déjà vu and that’s when I decided what I wanted to do was work with kids like him.” He turned again to face her. “Sounds like the plot of a B movie, but there you have it. So now you know all about me.”
Fallon doubted that that was everything. “I have a great deal of admiration for the way you turned your life around. With Jonathan’s help. I’d like to be able to do that for Laurie. You ran away because you had no one you could count on. I don’t know why Laurie left, but I have this gut feeling that if I can just find her, if I can talk with her, it’ll be all right.”
She saw that he was about to contradict her again, and raised her hand to stop him. “I know what you’re going to say, and I agree that kids like Wendy who’ve been traumatized and Daryl who’s been beaten and abandoned need more than a few kind words to straighten out their lives. But Laurie’s not like that. She has people who care. Mom and me. I will find her and I will take care of her.”
Michael hadn’t expected to change her mind with his life story. He had hoped she would get some insight.
One of the things she couldn’t know was how life on the street could change a young person. The daily struggle, the constant fear, the pervasive hopelessness. The Laurie she would find wouldn’t be the same girl who had left home nearly three weeks ago. Some life experiences could bring about huge changes in a very short time. But again, he saw no reason to discourage her further by telling her that right now.
He moved closer, lightly touching the ends of her hair. “I know you’ll find her, too. I’ll help all I can.”
Fallon hadn’t expected him to be so agreeable, so she was taken aback. She studied his suddenly serious face as she felt his fingers move from her hair to curl around her neck, his thumb lightly stroking her skin. The distraction drove their discussion from her thoughts. “What are you doing?”
“Is it me or don’t you like being touched?”
“Yes, to both questions. Michael, I think we should keep this on an impersonal level. You help find runaways. I need to find a runaway. That’s the one and only reason we’re here together.” She saw his eyes darken and felt her pulse quicken.
“Is it?”
“It is on my part and...”
Michael bent his head and took her mouth:
Chapter 6
Fallon didn’t resist. She was too stunned to push him away. For several long seconds, she didn’t respond. She was too shocked to fully comprehend what was happening.
Then, suddenly, her senses were flooded with feelings: a flash fire of desire, an eruption of need, a wave of wanting. She hadn’t been consciously aware of this incredible craving, this raging longing, this terrifying yearning. Yet it had been there, dormant, waiting, ready to explode.
His mouth was hard, demanding, persuasive, yet his hands as he molded her to his powerful body were gentle. He made her
feel soft, feminine, delicate by comparison. With a breathy moan, she wrapped her arms around him.
Michael had done something he hadn’t done in ages: given in to an impulse. He’d had to know if she tasted as intoxicating as she looked, as she smelled. Just a quick taste, he’d told himself. A little kiss. No big deal.
Who was he kidding? he asked himself as his tongue entered her mouth, heating his blood, muddying his mind. She tasted sweet and guileless, yet as hot and heady as forbidden sex. She was a dichotomy of innocence and temptation.
It had been a long time since he’d kissed with such abandon; even longer since he’d wanted to. He prided himself on the fact that if he couldn’t control others, he could damn well control himself. Yet with each soft murmur from her, with the scent and feel of her already driving him mad, he lost a little more control. If he didn’t stop now, Michael knew he would soon be begging.
He pulled back and blinked to clear his vision, and saw the arousal in the jade green of her eyes. As his mouth slanted over hers, he knew he was lost, needing more, needing it all.
Outside the shuddering windows, a flash of lightning neither of them saw split the night sky, followed by a crash of thunder. In the grate, a log shifted, sending sparks flying upward, sizzling and spurting. The smoky scent lingered in the room, drifting to the corners. At their feet, King stirred, eyeing them restlessly, then retreated to curl up by the hearth. Michael and Fallon took no notice.
Fallon was jolted into such a sharp awareness that she was able to separate the myriad sensations buffeting her: the feel of his strong hands stroking her back through the thick robe, the touch of his lips caressing hers, the exciting male scent of him seeping into her pores. Nothing she’d ever experienced had prepared her for this onslaught, this overwhelming demand.
This time it was Fallon who pulled back, placing a hand on his bare chest to put some space between them, only to find her fingers tangling in the crisp hair. Taking a deep, hopefully calming breath, she inched back farther. She raised her eyes to his and saw the hunger he seemed unable to hide, and wondered if he could recognize the same need in her.
With a trembling hand, she drew the folds of the robe closer together, waiting for her heart rate to slow. She was shaken to her very core. Her response to Michael had been primitive, elemental and shocking. It simply wasn’t like cool, controlled Fallon McKenzie to react so instantly, so completely, to what amounted to a lusty kiss.
She felt him watching her. She had to say something, to explain, not just to him, but to herself. “I honestly don’t know what came over me,” Fallon said, annoyed that her voice wasn’t quite steady. “That...that isn’t at all like me. I hardly know you. I—”
“Don’t overthink it, Fallon.” He was every bit as baffled as she at how fierce a reaction she evoked in him. It was the tumultuous weather stirring things up, he told himself, and the two glasses of port he’d downed and the emotional reliving of his past through the memories he’d shared with her. All of it had combined to make him vulnerable to a beautiful woman wearing only his robe and sitting very near him.
Yes, that had to be it.
“I won’t deny I wanted to kiss you. And now I have, so that’s that.” The hell, you say, his conscience screamed. Already he’d had to turn away from her in order to keep from reaching for her again. Once, twice — not enough. Not nearly enough.
Apparently he was handling things far better than she. Fallon shifted until she was at the far end of the couch, her legs drawn up protectively under the generous folds of the robe. “Right. 1 won’t deny that there’s a certain attraction between us, but we’re adults. We can ignore that and work together until we get the job done. Besides, relationships haven’t exactly been my strong suit.”
“Mine, either,” Michael agreed. It had been his choice to keep women who might have wanted to get closer at bay. He’d told himself he was too busy, too committed to his work to have enough time and energy left over to commit to a woman, to a family. He’d managed for many years without a serious entanglement. He was a private man, one who liked his life exactly as it was. He cared about the kids under his supervision at Michael’s House. That commitment occupied his time and satisfied his needs. That was enough for him.
He almost believed the lie.
Michael rose, buttoning his shirt. He ran his tongue over his lips and could still taste her. He cleared his throat. “How about that chicken now? You must be hungry.”
She couldn’t have swallowed a mouthful with her emotions in such turmoil. “Actually, I’m not. I had a big lunch. Anyhow, it must be late. My clothes must be dry by now.” He’d thrown them in the washer when they’d first arrived, then the dryer. “Would you mind driving me back to the house?”
He glanced out at the storm still pounding at the windows. “Look, it’s not necessary to go out in this. I have two spare rooms. You can use either one. In the morning, we can make a plan and start our search.” He’d lost his appetite for food, too. Another, stronger hunger had chased it away.
She should probably insist on returning, but it seemed foolish and petulant, given the status of the weather. Slowly, feeling light-headed, she got to her feet. “All right, if you’ll show me which room you prefer I use.”
He led the way upstairs, after gathering her clothes from the dryer, and stopped at the room across from his own. “You’d best shut the door or King will come in and bother you,” he told her.
Or perhaps he himself would.
Fallon’s bare feet hit the damp sand, sending small clumps flying as she ran along the beach, with King racing ahead of her. The ecstatic dog stopped to pick up the stick she’d thrown and hurried back to her. Slowing, she pulled it from his mouth and threw it again. Tongue hanging out, he took off.
The thermometer gauge on Michael’s patio had read sixty-five degrees at six when she’d stepped out with the eager dog, surprised that her host wasn’t up yet. Instead of rushing to brew coffee, she’d decided that a run on the beach was just what she and King needed. The sun was shining and, except for some clusters of seaweed that had washed ashore, there was little evidence of last night’s storm.
Fallon shook back her hair and turned her face up to the sun, wondering if Laurie was out somewhere nearby gazing up at the same bright day. Where had she been during the downpour? Where had she slept, how was she eating and getting by? Who was she with and, most important of all, was she all right?
Fallon felt a wave of guilt at having spent a cozy evening by a warm fire while her sister had been God only knew where. Laurie, after all, was the purpose for her trip, the reason for her being here. She should have looked longer yesterday, tried harder, passed out more flyers. The search, only just begun, was already taking its toll on her nerves. How long before she had Laurie safely home?
Slowing, she jogged to a halt and bent from the waist, placing her hands on her knees, breathing deeply and cooling down. She was out of shape, for she’d run scarcely a mile and was winded. Of course, she hadn’t eaten dinner last night and she hadn’t had her start-up cup of coffee yet this morning.
And she’d been converted into a pile of mush last evening by a couple of soul-shattering kisses.
King came charging over, the stick in his mouth, and waited.
“Aren’t you tired, fella?” she asked him. He cocked his head at her expectantly. No, he didn’t appear ready to end their exercise program. Gamely, she threw the stick again, this time in the direction of Michael’s home.
It was beautiful here, Fallon acknowledged, gazing around at the stately homes facing the ocean, the sloping lawns, the fenced-in pools, the dazzling bougainvillea seemingly growing wild in bright splashes of red and pink. She liked her small apartment in Denver, but it would fit into one corner of Michael’s place. She passed a neighbor’s tennis court and another’s putting green, and wondered what the owners did to be able to afford such homes.
Quite a contrast to the neighborhood where Michael’s House for runaways was and the s
ection where she’d been roaming about taping up flyers. He seemed to live in two very different worlds and handled both with ease. She caught sight of him seated on his patio alongside the pool and adjacent hot tub. A fascinating man.
And a dangerous man.
A man who could kiss like that, who could empty her mind and undoubtedly fulfill her wildest dreams, was dangerous to her health and well-being. He could divert her from her goals, weaken her resolve to stay uninvolved with strong, controlling men and destroy her best intentions. She would do well to remember that and to be wary in his presence.
As King came bounding over, she took the stick from him and climbed the grassy bank one last time.
Wearing only blue cotton drawstring pants, Michael sipped his orange juice and watched her approach. Her hair was windblown, her cheeks ruddy, her shirt billowing in a sea breeze and her jeans were rolled up on her slender calves, her feet sandy. She was fresh-faced and free of makeup, her eyes a deep sea-green. She was laughing at the dog’s antics as he danced around her in his best effort to persuade her to resume their game.
She was a knockout and appeared not to know it.
Fallon flopped into the chair across the glass-topped wrought-iron table and ran a hand through her hair. “It’s gorgeous out here. I don’t know how you tear yourself away every day.” And part of the appeal was the man himself—everyone’s idea of the all-American male with his hair bleached blond by the sun and his eyes a vivid blue in his tanned face. And that mouth that could turn a woman’s knees to water.
He poured orange juice from a frosty pitcher and held the glass out to her. “It is great, isn’t it?”
She’d brazenly toured the downstairs rooms before her run and found sleek modern lines and lots of glass, yet decor in warm, restful colors. A dichotomy, like the man himself. “Did you have the house built?”