And that was exactly the type of person she was, too.
“Everything you’ve investigated will be useful. Knowing where not to look is just as important as knowing where to look. The files and the computer will be helpful, but we may have to do some legwork as well.” Now, why did the prospect of going somewhere with Collin sound so very, very appealing? “People are more comfortable with face-to-face questions about these kinds of things.”
“Whatever it takes.”
“I can’t make promises, but I’ll do what I can.”
“Fair enough.”
“Then I guess we have a deal. Will you go out and talk to Mitchell or do you want me to?”
Reluctance radiated from him in waves, but he’d made a deal and he was the kind of man who would keep it. Wasn’t he still trying to keep a promise he’d made when he was ten years old? A man like that didn’t back off from responsibility.
“I can contact him tomorrow,” she offered.
“We could both tell him now. You know what’s involved more than I do.”
She shook her head, more disappointed than was wise, considering how little she knew about Collin as a person.
“I’m slammed with extra work tonight. I’ll be here until seven at least.” And Mitch was a lot more interested in Collin that he was in Mia.
“Too bad,” he said. His expression was unreadable as usual so Mia didn’t know what to make of his comment. Too bad she couldn’t go with him? Or too bad she had so much work to do?
Either way, she watched him turn and stride out of her office and suffered a twinge of regret that she hadn’t gone along anyway. She could be dishonest and say she wanted another look at Mitchell’s living situation or that she needed to explain the program in more detail. But Mia was not dishonest. Even with herself. She had wanted to spend time with her enigmatic policeman.
And the notion was disturbing to say the least. She hadn’t dated anyone in a while. To find her interest piqued by a man who didn’t even seem to like her was a real puzzle.
He was a good cop, had a good reputation, and she’d had a sneak peek at the kindness he kept safely hidden. But he also carried a personal history that sometimes meant major emotional issues. Issues that might require counseling and work and, most importantly, healing from God.
And that was the big issue for Mia. Was Collin Grace a believer?
She reached for another Snickers.
Chapter Five
Sometimes Collin felt as if he spent his life inside a vehicle. He’d driven from Mia’s office directly to Mitch’s place, only to find the little twerp wasn’t there. After driving through the neighborhood, he’d spotted him in a park shooting hoops with three other boys.
When Collin got out of the cruiser, Mitchell passed the ball off and headed toward him. The other boys quickly faded into the twilight and disappeared.
“Why are your friends in such a rush?” Collin leaned against the side of the car and folded his arms, watching the shadowy figures with a mixture of amusement and suspicion.
“You scared them off.”
“They have reason to be scared of a cop?”
“Maybe.”
Which meant yes in eleven-year-old talk.
“It’s getting dark. Come on. I’ll take you home.”
“Am I in trouble?” Mitch asked, climbing readily into the front seat of the cruiser.
“No more than usual.”
Streetlights had come on but made little dent in the shadowy time between day and night. This part of town was a haven for the unsavory. Gang types, thugs, druggies, thieves all came sneaking out like cockroaches as soon as the sun went down. No place at all for a young boy.
Collin had to admit Mia was right about one thing. This kid needed a mentor before he fell into the cesspool that surrounded him. Though he still wasn’t sure he wanted to be the one, Collin had begun to feel a certain responsibility toward Mitchell. He hated that, but he did. Who better than him to understand what this kid was going through? And that was all he planned to do. Understand and guide. He wasn’t letting the kid get to him.
“Why’re you here?” Mitch slouched down into the seat and stared out the window at the passing cars with studied disinterest.
“Miss Carano sent me.”
Mitch sat up. “No kidding? You gonna be my CAP?”
So, she’d already prepared the kid for this. How had she known he would agree? He hadn’t even known himself.
“What do you think about that?”
The kid hitched a shoulder. “I got plenty of other stuff to do.”
“Yeah. Including a lot of community service. At least ten hours at the store where you jacked the stuff. The rest is up to you and me and Miss Carano.”
“I guess I could come out to your place. Help with the animals. I’m good at that.”
“Up to you.” Mitch had to make the decision. Otherwise, he’d only resent Collin’s interference.
“Panda probably misses me a lot. She doesn’t trust many people.”
“With good reason.” A lot of people had let the cat—and the kid—down. The cruiser eased to a stop at the light. “You work for me, you’ll have to lose the cigarettes.”
The denial came fast. “I don’t smoke.”
One hand draped over the steering wheel, Collin just looked at him, long and steady. The boy’s eyes shifted sideways. He swallowed and hitched a shoulder. “How’d you know?”
“I have a nose.” The light changed. “Gonna lose them or not?”
“Whatever.”
“Your choice.”
“Why do you care?”
“The animals at my place depend on me.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“You think about it and let me know which is more important. The animals or the smokes.”
Collin slowed and turned into the drive-through of a Mickey D’s. “Want a burger?”
He rolled down his window. The smell of hot vegetable oil surrounded the place.
“Miss Carano said you didn’t eat junk food.”
“She did?” The fact that she’d mentioned him to the boy in any way other than as a court-appointed advocate sent a warm feeling through him. Warm, like her sunny smile.
That warmth, that genuine caring both drew and repelled him. He didn’t understand it. But he couldn’t deny how good it had felt to dump his burden on her desk and to believe she would do exactly what she promised. Maybe she’d have no better luck than he’d had in finding Drew and Ian. But for the first time in years, he felt renewed hope.
Hanging out with a social worker might not be so bad after all.
* * *
Little more than a week later, Collin considered changing his mind.
He stood in the last stall of his barn showing Mitchell how to measure horse feed. The smell of hay and horses circled around his head.
The kid was all right most of the time. The social worker was a different matter.
He did okay on the days Mia dropped Mitch off as planned, said hello and goodbye and drove away in her power suit and speedy little yellow Mustang. The days she climbed out of that Mustang wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt gave him trouble. Regardless that she was here on business to assess the CAP arrangement, dressed like that, she was a woman, not a social worker. It was hard to dislike one and like the other, so he tried to keep his distance.
Trouble was, Mia didn’t understand the concept of personal space. She was in his, talking a mile a minute, smile warm, attitude sweet. The more he retreated, the more she advanced.
Over the clatter of horse pellets hitting metal, he could hear her talking in soft, soothing tones to Happy, the pup with the lousy luck and the cheerful outlook.
“How much feed does Smokey get?” Mitch’s question pulled Collin back to the horse feed.
“None of the pellets. Just some of this alfalfa.”
Mitch frowned, dubious. “He’s awful skinny.”
“Too much at first can k
ill him.”
“How come somebody let him get like that? I can see his ribs.”
The buckskin colt stood quivering in the stall, head down, so depressed Collin wondered if he’d survive.
“Some people don’t care.”
It was a cold, hard fact that both he and the boy knew all too well. “Yeah.”
In the few days Mitch had been here, Collin had ferreted out a few unsavory facts about his home life. The stepdad wasn’t exactly father-of-the-year material. And mom wouldn’t win any prizes either, although the kid was loyal to her anyway. Collin didn’t press him about his mother. He’d been the same once, until the woman who’d birthed him walked away and never looked back. He hoped that never happened to Mitchell.
Hand full of green, scented hay, the kid knelt in front of the little horse. “Come on, Smokey. It’s okay.”
The colt nuzzled the outstretched fingers, then nibbled a bit of grass.
Mitch had a way with all the creatures on the farm. Even Doc had commented on that. Like a magnet, he was drawn to the sickest ones, the most wounded, the near-hopeless. Street-kid wariness melted into incredible tenderness when he approached the animals. Not one of them shied away from the boy’s tenacious determination to make them all well.
“I promised Happy I’d soak his foot later. Is that okay?” Mitchell was on a mission to save the crippled little collie. Every day, he went to Happy’s stall first and last with some extra time in between.
“What did Doc say?”
“She said extra soaks can’t hurt nothing.”
She was right about that. Happy’s foot had reached the point when hope was all but gone. Soaking couldn’t make the wound any worse, and any action at all made them feel as if they were doing something. “All right then.”
Collin moved down the corridor, taking care of the menial tasks so necessary for the survival of these wounded creatures who depended on him. Cleaning pens, scooping waste, lining stalls and boxes with fresh straw.
Mia was inside the cat pen.
He frowned at her. “I thought you left.” He hadn’t really, but he didn’t know what else to say.
“You wish.” With a laugh, she lifted one of Panda’s kittens from the box and draped the fur ball over her shoulder. “What’s wrong? Rough day?”
Yeah, he’d had a lousy day, but how did she know? He didn’t like having some woman, a social worker at that, inside his head.
“I’m all right.” He ducked into Happy’s stall to escape her. She followed, but didn’t press him about his gray mood.
“Mitch seems to be doing a good job for you, don’t you agree?”
“Yeah.” The dog wobbled up from his straw bed, tail wagging. The smell of antiseptic and dying flesh was hard to ignore.
“Has he opened up at all about why he runs away so much?”
“A little.”
“But you’re not going to tell me.”
“Confidential.”
She rolled her big eyes at him. She had interesting eyes. Huge and almond-shaped, soft and sparkly. He didn’t know how a person made her eyes sparkly, but she did.
Mia knelt to stroke the pup while still holding the kitten against her shoulder. Happy, tail thumping a mile a minute, didn’t seem to mind having a cat invade his territory. Dumb dog didn’t seem to mind much of anything.
“What’s going to happen to him?”
“Happy? Or Mitch?”
She gave him another of her wide-eyed looks. He wanted to laugh. “The dog.”
“If things don’t improve this week, Doc’s going to amputate the other foot on Monday.”
“Oh, Collin.” Her face was stricken. She glanced toward the stall door. “Does Mitch know?”
“No.”
“No wonder you’re in a bad mood tonight. I thought maybe you’d had to shoot somebody today.”
“That would have made me feel better.”
She looked up. “Not funny.”
“Sorry. Bad cop joke.” Using force was the last thing he ever wanted.
“How do you cops do that, anyway? Shoot somebody, I mean.”
“We pretend they’re lawyers.” He shook kibble into Happy’s bowl. “Or social workers.”
“Ha-ha. I’m laughing.” But she did giggle. “When are you going to tell him?”
He crumpled an empty feed sack into an oversize ball. “I don’t know.”
“Want me to do it?”
“My responsibility.” He tossed the sack into a trash bin and knelt beside the pup. “I wish I knew who did this to him.”
The little dog licked his outstretched hand, liquid brown eyes delighted by the attention. Anger and helplessness pushed inside Collin’s chest. He hated feeling helpless.
“I ran a computer search of the system today on you and your brothers.”
His pulse quickened though he told himself to expect nothing. “And came up empty?”
“Mostly.”
“Figures.” Refusing to be disappointed, he stood and took the kitten from her. The soft, warm body wiggled in protest. As many years as he’d searched he couldn’t expect miracles from Mia in a week.
“There’s some information about you, but the facts on Drew and Ian seem to be the same that you already have. A couple of foster placements. Some medical records.”
He wanted to ask what she’d found on him, but didn’t bother. She’d probably tell him anyway. Mia already knew too much about him and she was likely to learn more. Opening his sordid background to anyone always made him feel vulnerable, and nothing scared him like vulnerability.
He led the way out of Happy’s stall to take the kitten back to Panda. A glance toward the horses told him Mitch was busy mucking out stalls. A perverse part of him figured that particular job was adequate punishment for shoplifting.
“Collin.”
He lowered the tiny tabby to her mother. Panda’s burns were healing, but she didn’t let anyone except Mitch touch her. Even Doc had had to sedate the cat before treating the wounds, an unusual turn of events.
“Collin,” she said again, this time from beneath his elbow.
With a sigh, he turned. “What?”
She wrinkled her nose at him, fully aware her chatter bothered him. She looked cute, and he didn’t like it. Social workers weren’t supposed to be cute.
“I brought the file of information with me. Do you want to see it?”
“Might as well.”
Nothing like cold, hard welfare facts to make a man stop thinking about a pretty woman.
* * *
Inside Collin’s house for the first time, Mia thought the interior of the unfinished, basically unfurnished house was exactly what she expected of him. Neat and tidy to a fault, one long room served as kitchen, living room, and dining room. The furniture consisted of an easy chair, a TV and a small dining-room set. There were no pictures on the walls, no curtains on the shaded windows, no plants or other decorating touches. Collin lived a neatly Spartan lifestyle.
To Mia, who lived in a veritable jungle of plants, terra-cotta pots and pieces of Tuscan decor jammed into a tiny apartment, the house was sadly bare but filled with potential. A pot here. A plant there.
“I live simply,” he said when he caught her looking.
“The place has great potential.”
“It’s not even finished.”
“That’s why it has great potential.”
He shook his head and pulled out two chairs. “Sit. I’ll move the laptop.”
She eyed the animated screen saver. “Did Mitchell do that?”
“Yeah. He loves the thing.”
Mia knew the boy didn’t have a computer at home. “His teacher says he’s a regular whiz kid.”
“He knows keystroke shortcuts I didn’t know existed and can navigate sites I can’t get into. I’m afraid to ask if he’s ever tried hacking.”
“The answer is probably yes.”
“I know.” With a self-deprecating laugh that surprised her, Collin admitted,
“He even offered to teach me keyboarding.”
“You should let him. Teaching you would be good for his self-esteem.”
“It wouldn’t be too good for mine.” He wiggled his two index fingers. “Old habits die hard.”
A large brown envelope lay on the table beside the computer. She reached for it. “Is that more information about your brothers?”
“No. Just another problem I’m working on.”
“Anything I can help with?”
“Not unless you’re a lawyer. My neighbor,” he said, his lips twisted, “is suing me.”
“What for?” She couldn’t imagine Collin Grace ever being intrusive enough for any neighbor even to know him, much less be at cross-purposes.
“He claims one of my animals has attacked his prize sheep on more than one occasion.”
“They couldn’t.” All the animals here were both too sick and too well-confined to bother anything.
“Cecil Slokum has found something to complain about ever since I bought this place.”
“Why?”
“Don’t know. This time though,” he waved the envelope in the air, “I ran a background check on him.”
“Oooh, suspicious. Remind me never to tick you off.”
“Too late.”
There was that wicked sense of humor again, coming out of nowhere.
“Have you hired an attorney?”
“No.”
“You should.”
“And I suppose you just happen to know one. Or two. Maybe you even know the judge.”
“Well…” She cupped her hands under her chin and leaned toward him. “As a matter of fact, one of my brothers is an attorney. He’s also a city councilman.”
Collin leaned back his chair. “So he’s the one.”
“Don’t look like that. If my brother hadn’t spoken to the chief, you might never have agreed to mentor Mitch. And you like having him out here. You know you do.”
“The kid’s all right. He’s good for the animals.”
She laughed. If Collin wanted to pretend he cared nothing about the boy, fine. But he did.
“You’ve made more progress with Mitchell in a week than anyone else has made in a year.”
The boy basked in the policeman’s attention, eager to please him, ready to listen to his few, terse words. According to his fifth-grade teacher, Mitch had even turned in all his homework this week, a first.
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