Annie's Neighborhood (Harlequin Heartwarming) (11 page)

But she had a softer side, too. Her hair was soft, and so was what he’d touched of her skin. He flopped over onto his side, and smiled about that. He was getting close to sleep when the strong, pungent odor of smoke curled past his nose. Thinking he must have been dreaming, he checked the time on his cell phone. According to the backlit display, it was after 3:00 a.m. He no longer thought he was dreaming the strong acrid scent of smoke in the room.

Shooting up off the couch, Sky yelled out to Annie. She materialized at his side so fast he knew the smoke had awakened her, too. She snapped on the floor lamp that stood at the foot of the overstuffed couch. It gave off enough light that Sky was able to see smoke rolling into the room from under the front door.

He snatched up his gun and unfastened the locks. “Stand back,” he ordered Annie, who pressed the length of her slender frame against his back. She moved slightly. Not wanting to wait, Sky turned on the porch light. Smoke continued to billow through the sides of the door, but the middle wasn’t hot to his touch. “Go to the kitchen and get me a pitcher of water.”

She complied at once, and though some water slopped out onto his stocking feet, she’d gotten back with most of it. He yanked open the door and immediately spotted a pile of newspapers smoldering right in front of the door. Sky doused the burning papers.

Wrinkling her nose against the acrid odor, Annie took back the pitcher, ran to the kitchen again and returned with it full to the brim.

Sky had jumped over the bundle. “I think whoever did this is long gone,” he said, emptying the pitcher, and making sure the whole bundle was out. “It’s another warning,” he muttered, glaring at her.

For the first time he noticed what Annie, who hovered in the doorway, had on. She wore an oversize Dodgers T-shirt that doubled as a nightgown, and big slippers on her feet that looked like alligators. In her left hand she clutched, of all things, a rolling pin. Seeing her so exposed touched a soft spot in Sky that up to now he’d reserved for Zack. It seemed natural to gather Annie into his arms. He smoothed his hands up her taut back, then tucked her head under his chin, and realized he needed a shave when her hair rasped on his whiskers. “This is too much, Annie. I want you to get dressed, and I don’t care what you say, we’re spending what’s left of the night at my place. The smell of smoke will linger here for hours.”

“No, Sky.” She felt him tense, and she wrapped her arms around his waist. “Listen, I’m not being contrary, I swear,” she said against his solid shoulder. “This home of Gran’s is all I have of my past. And it meant everything to my grandmother. I don’t know if I told you she raised me. I’m scared to death the firebug will come back. But what kind of caretaker, what kind of
person,
would I be if I left for the sake of my safety, but risked the home that represents my whole history? Not only that, I’d be risking the lives of innocent neighbors who own tinderbox houses next door.”

Sky touched his forehead to hers. “I can’t argue with that kind of logic, Annie.” Tucking his Glock into the back waistband of his jeans, he brushed both thumbs over her cheeks. “It’s possible that someone planned to burn this house down and I scared them off when I got up and shouted for you. Or maybe they hoped to smoke you out. I didn’t hear scampering feet, but I may have been just groggy enough to miss any sound. I was scared to death you’d be overcome by the smoke.”

Annie took her arms from around his waist and wedged a space between them. She sensed a shift in him, in his attitude toward her, which she wasn’t prepared to deal with. She didn’t know what to do about a warm, protective man who loosened her tightly bound and controlled desires. She’d been dumped by one guy she’d loved. And looking at the track record of the women in her family...most of the relationships hadn’t panned out. Gran Ida’s only love had died, leaving her alone to raise their child—a child who grew up and ran off with an unreliable man. That had broken Gran Ida’s heart.

Annie had decided that giving your heart to any man was risky. She’d systematically avoided the possible perils of falling for anyone again—successfully, too, until Police Chief Sky Cordova appeared and disrupted her well-ordered world. And why
him?
Heaven knew she’d tried to discourage him. He continued to show up and show his concern for her. And darn it all, he left big, muddy tracks across her wounded heart.

“I guess sleep is out of the question,” he said. “I’ll go make a pot of coffee. Do you play poker?” he asked hopefully.

“I play cribbage.”

“Good, you can teach me.”

“I’m wide awake. You don’t need to stay.”

“Ah, yes, if the firebugs come back for a second try, you’ll hit them with your rolling pin and bite them with your alligator slippers.”

She looked down at her feet. “I like my slippers. A pair of abused twins I got into a great foster home bought these for me last Christmas. They said the alligators reminded them of how hard I fought to help them.”

“Hmm. That says a lot about your work ethic—and your compassion. Out of curiosity, did you leave behind a brokenhearted Dodgers fan when you moved here from L.A.?”

“What? No! Why would you ask such a thing?”

“That’s definitely a man’s T-shirt you’re wearing. A big man.”

For all of two seconds Annie thought about lying. She thought about inventing a pining lover. However, she didn’t lie well. “I’m a huge Dodgers fan,” she tossed over her shoulder as she stomped toward her room on her floppy alligator feet. “By the way, you might do well to heed one of Gran’s favorite sayings, namely that curiosity killed the cat.”

“Uh-huh, but satisfaction brought him back to life.”

Sky laughed as she threw up a hand and said, “Pfft!” She slammed her bedroom door. Unable to stop chuckling, he stepped into his boots and collected his shirt from the couch. She was one of a kind. Despite his concern that the Stingers had it in for her, Sky almost had pity to spare for the unsuspecting gang leaders.

Chapter Six

A
NNIE
SNIFFED
THE
air as she walked into the kitchen after changing into jeans, a clean T-shirt and sneakers. “The smell of coffee almost wipes out the smoke. Maybe it won’t take as long to air out the house as you thought.”

Sky held up one of two mugs sitting on the counter. He waggled the glass coffee carafe at Annie. “I can’t recall if you put anything in your coffee. Should I leave room at the top or fill it up?”

“I prefer cream, but I’ve been known to drink it straight up in a pinch.”

“Your house, your coffee, your call.” He left room in her mug and watched her rummage in the fridge for a jug of milk. Even though he chided himself, he ogled her nicely rounded derriere. In his appreciation for how snugly her jeans fit, he overfilled his cup and burned his fingers while trying to wipe up the spill.

Annie straightened, saw his dilemma and tore off two paper towels that she handed him. “Do you need ice for your fingers? What happened? Did you misjudge the size of the mug?”

“Something like that,” he muttered, and mopped harder.

Annie added milk to her coffee, then set the jug back in the fridge. She carried her mug to the table and sat at the end, where she’d been eating her meals since Gran Ida’s death. “I started thinking about your zoo trip,” she said. “Will you manage okay on next to no sleep?”

Sky sat beside her. “On this job and others I’ve had, it’s common to work around the clock. You adjust.”

“Those don’t sound like fun jobs. What others have you had? I assume you were a cop before coming to Briar Run.”

“Yes. When I got out of college, which I’d gone to on an ROTC scholarship, I went to the police academy, then stepped into a job with the Baltimore P.D. Big city, big force, lots of crime. Kept us busy. I also served in the Maryland Army Reserve. It took some juggling to keep up with my reserve duties, but my supervisors were good about the schedules. At first I only had me to worry about, so I was footloose. I advanced through the ranks and was promoted to sergeant, then lieutenant. I was in line for captain when I met Corrine. I look back now and see that we married too quickly. Six months after our wedding I was called into active military duty.” Sky let a few minutes tick by as he ran a finger around the rim of his mug.

“About four months into our marriage, we learned Corrine was pregnant,” he finally said. “I left an unhappy, pregnant wife behind, and Uncle Sam tapped me for three back-to-back tours. Rotations stateside were brief at best. Corrine was ready to go out and socialize, but all I wanted to do was sleep.” Taking a drink, Sky set his mug down and gazed into space.

Annie waited for him to go on. She’d deduced, of course, that his marriage hadn’t ended well. But hearing how he’d been forced to leave a pregnant wife to fend for herself reinforced her own skepticism about marriage. Sky’s ex had remarried. Not all widows or women left to their own devices did—at least not in her family.

Sky planted his elbows on the table. “You’ve heard enough about me. Let’s talk about you.”

“Boring!” Annie idly shuffled the deck of cards she’d set out, along with a cribbage board. Suddenly she asked another question. “So, is being police chief of Briar Run is a nice step up from being an almost-captain back in Baltimore?”

“Not necessarily. Oh, I know how attached you are to this town, but I head up a skeleton crew charged with protecting folks who feel terrified and don’t really care what we do. The factory closed and that paralyzed everyone. They choose to live in apathy. Compared to families struggling to survive in other parts of the world, life here is still pretty cushy.”

“What other choices are there for the residents?”

“They could move to where there’s jobs or pool their resources and keep the small businesses operating. What the average Joe doesn’t understand is that this city’s going broke. It’s a matter of time before all services are cut, and the town dies.”

Annie eyed him a moment. “Pardon me for saying it, but that sounds defeatist on your part, too. I don’t believe anyone likes living in poverty. Picking up and moving, like you did, may have been easy for a single guy. Not so easy for a family with three or four kids and a family dog―oh, and with a run-down house to sell. When life beats good people down, Sky, they find it nearly impossible to get back up. Not being able to support your family causes loss of self-esteem. You feel isolated, as well as defeated. That’s why I believe that if I can help paint homes, it may reboot people’s community spirit. I see you’re looking skeptical again. I’m not so naive as to think that’s the whole answer. But improving the look of their surroundings may boost people’s initiative, their willingness to dig in and find ways to solve other problems.”

“I think you
are
naive, Annie. Fewer than one in five home owners in Briar Run can afford to paint. Renters don’t care, and wouldn’t buy paint even if they had the money. If landlords cared, they’d have spiffed up their properties long before now.”

She sat silently, and had to glance away from the cynicism in his eyes. As she wrapped her hands around her coffee mug, she looked up again. “Gran Ida left me the means to do a lot of the work that needs to be done, Sky.”

“You can’t... You’re paying?” Sky rubbed the back of his neck. “Annie, now I’m doubly worried about your safety. If that news ever leaked out...” Breaking off, he continued to stare blankly at her.

“I shared the information with you because you just said you understand the issues, yet you continue to try to dissuade me. I let the neighbors think I negotiated a ridiculously low price per gallon of paint. Last night I started thinking that maybe I could tell the next set of home owners I found a store going out of business and they practically gave me the paint.”

“Annie, Annie, Annie...even little white lies told for a good cause have a way of coming back to bite you.”

“And that worries me. I’ve never been good at lying. Gran Ida always knew if I was trying to put something over on her.”

“You said she raised you. What happened to your parents?”

“My mother was a teen runaway,” she said, her voice laced with sadness. “Her history is pretty much lost. I only recently learned that my grandmother hired a private investigator who found Mary Louise living on the street in L.A., but she refused to come home. I knew she ran away and maybe lived on the street somewhere in southern California. I didn’t know Gran had located her. All she ever told me was that one rainy night my mother showed up at her door, deathly ill and nine months pregnant.”

“I take it she was married, since your last name is different from your grandmother’s.”

“So she claimed. Her supposed husband is another empty limb on my family tree,” Annie said with a shrug. “My birth certificate is blank where his name belongs. But my mom is listed as Mary Louise Emerson. Don’t get me wrong, Sky, Gran was wonderful, and I’d never want to hurt her. I never told her I spent years phoning Emersons in and around L.A.” Annie sighed. “Even lacking a first name, I made a gazillion calls asking if the person answering the phone at a particular Emerson household knew Mary Louise Vance. No one ever did. I’m sure Gran suspected that was why I applied for scholarships in southern California and stayed there to work. I hit so many dead ends, ultimately I gave up. Gran Ida never stopped hoping I’d come home. It was too late for her, but I eventually figured out that this is where I belong.”

Uncharacteristically, Sky reached out and caught hold of her restless fingers. “As a Johnny-come-lately outsider, it strikes me that you turned out okay. Better than okay.” He skimmed a finger over her nose. Then, as if embarrassed, he pulled back and stumbled a little on his next statement. “I, uh...it’s just as well you didn’t run the guy to ground. No one who’s fit father material—or a decent human being―would abandon a woman he got pregnant.”

Annie nodded. “You’re probably right. As a social worker, I found food and beds for a lot of homeless men. Most were like fog that dissipated when the morning sun came out. I can’t understand the appeal for living in the moment like that. The constant drifting, often bunking in culverts or under bridges. Their lives are anathema to the way society expects grown-ups to act. A few of them were rehabilitated. Most didn’t want to be. Even if my biological dad fell into that category, it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t prefer to know if he was an alcoholic, prone to addictions, mentally challenged or just a jerk, since I carry some of his genes.”

Sky started to say something, but stopped and half rose out of his chair. He put a finger to his lips, and pulled out his Glock with his other hand. “Shh. I think we have uninvited visitors in your backyard.”

Annie strained to hear, and sure enough there was a slight rustle, as if someone was shuffling through her flower bed. She glanced at the clock and saw that she and Sky had been talking for nearly two hours. Oddly, instead of concern that a new form of trouble was about to descend, what popped into Annie’s head was that she hadn’t taught Sky how to play cribbage. And another thing―how he seemed to accept her background.

Sky dropped into a crouch and duck-walked past the sink, staying out of sight under the window.

Slipping out of her chair, Annie followed his lead.

The minute he noticed, he motioned for her to stay back. But when he moved, so did she. “This is serious, Annie,” he whispered. “I heard a rattle―could be a gas can. I’m going out. Stay back. Please.” He stood up, threw open the back door and made a flying leap off the back porch. He landed in the flower bed where he’d gauged the culprit to be, and took a would-be arsonist by surprise.

Annie emerged with a flashlight she’d stopped to retrieve from a kitchen drawer. She snapped it on and the beam bounced off a red gasoline can still rolling on the ground. She swung the light in Sky’s direction. He’d trained his weapon on the guilty party, a scared kid with a box of matches at his feet.

“Police!” Sky yelled. “Turn around. I’m cuffing you. You have the right to remain silent, and the right to engage an attorney. Outside of that, buddy, you’re in a heap of trouble.”

“Sky, stop. He’s shaking in his shoes. Can’t you see he’s just a boy?”

“Yeah,” Sky said, turning to scowl at her. “He’s a boy, all right. A juvenile delinquent planning to burn your house down.”

“I didn’t want to,” the kid babbled. “Please. Some older guys said they’d hurt my sister if I didn’t pour gas around this house and set it on fire. They left the gas and matches here. Oh, my mama’s gonna kill me.”

“Bring him inside, Sky. All of this commotion will wake my neighbors.”

“Annie, for Pete’s sake, he’s a felon. I’m calling Joe Morales, who’s on midnight to eight, to transport and book him. You go back in. I’ll handle this and ride to the station with Joe.”

“He’d only be a felon if he’d actually sprinkled gas and lit the match. He’s a child, and he’s going to die of fright before you take him anywhere. What’s your name? How old are you?” she asked the boy, shifting the light away from his eyes.

The kid’s teeth chattered so much, it was all he could do to get the words out. “I’m De...Deshawn Cul...ver. I’m ta...twelve, ma’am.”

“See, Sky? He has manners. I don’t want to be the cause of the boy’s mama killing him over this, do you?” She gestured toward her open back door with the flashlight.

Sky said something she couldn’t really hear. But he hooked the cuffs back on his belt, grabbed the collar at the back of the kid’s too-big plaid shirt and marched him up the porch steps. “One wrong move, kid, and you’re toast. You got that?” He gave the kid a sound shake as they entered the kitchen.

All the boy seemed able to do was bob his head, which was tucked turtlelike between thin shoulders that shook. His whole body shook, Annie noticed. She shut the back door. “Now then,” she said, bending to get a better look at him. “Deshawn, where do you live?”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Sky said, repeating himself. “Annie, you can’t interrogate my suspect.”

“What suspect? He’s twelve!” She shot Sky a dark frown.

“Sheesh! Come on. Next you’ll be handing our young hoodlum a plate and inviting him to join us for breakfast.”

The skinny kid seemed so hopeful, Annie darted a glance from him to her stove and then to Sky, who still held on to the boy’s shirt. “Well, Chief, that’s an excellent suggestion. You two sit at the table. I’ll whip something up. How do pancakes, bacon and spicy apples sound?”

“An...nie!” Sky stretched out her name, revealing his frustration, and threw up his gun arm in disgust.

“What? You don’t like the menu? I can do French toast or waffles.”

“I love pancakes,” Deshawn ventured, gazing worshipfully at Annie. “We ain’t had no breakfast at home most all week. It’s the end of the month, and Mama’s paycheck done got shorted ’cause the bus she takes to work broke down. She missed most of one day cleaning rooms at the hotel, so she didn’t get tips, either.”

Sky’s eyes clashed with Annie’s over the boy’s bent head. This time he released Deshawn’s collar and threw up both arms in defeat. He tucked his weapon back into his belt and nudged his young perpetrator toward the chair where Annie had been sitting earlier. “There’s no reason I can’t question Deshawn over breakfast,” he said, pulling out another chair. “I’ll ask the questions and, Annie, you butt out.”

She smiled and said sweetly, “Ask away. I’m just going to cook.” Opening a cupboard, she pulled out a skillet and pancake fixings.

“Where do you live, and who all lives there?”

“Me, Mama and my sister, Chantal, she’s fifteen,” Deshawn said. “We, uh, live at the far end of Dusty Rose Street, down from you,” he told Sky.

That seemed to shock Sky, who traded surprised looks with Annie as she handed him plates, napkins and flatware. “Why don’t you start at the beginning and tell me the whole story. How did you happen to be sneaking around this neighborhood before sunup, aiming to set fire to this lady’s house? A lady I’ll guess you don’t even know.”

“I don’t know her,” the boy admitted, his words laced with guilt. “That’s why I figured I could do what those two guys said. They beat me up after school. If I didn’t, they told me they’d hurt my sister.” Tears sprang to his dark eyes. “She’s smart, and the choir director at our church says Chantal’s got loads of singing talent. We don’t got no dad. He’s dead. Since the glove factory shut down, Mama works two jobs in Louisville. She used to have a good job, and she was always home before and after school. Back then we had food to eat all month long, mister. Uh, am I s’posed to call you Chief Cordova?”