MAD DOG AND ANNIE (6 page)

Panic ballooned inside her. She swallowed it.

"I don't want you to call him," she said as calmly as she could.

"Well, gee, Mrs. Cross—"

"I'm responsible for Mitchell's camp bill. I'm responsible for picking him up. And I'll take care of the charges if I'm late. Is that clear?"

The pretty counselor looked wounded. "Well, sure, Mrs. Cross. I just thought I was doing you, like, a favor."

Ann fought the urge to apologize. Rob had obviously already charmed this college girl—she couldn't be more than twenty—to his side. Rob got everybody on his side. Ann couldn't afford to forget that.

"Thank you," she said. "But I don't need any favors." She wrote a check for ten dollars, which she also couldn't afford, to cover the late fee. And then she loaded her hot son into her broken car and nursed both through the drive home.

* * *

Ann tucked the phone beneath her ear and reached for a pencil. "How much?" she asked.

The mechanic told her. Her stomach rolled in dismay.
"For both hoses?
What if you only replace one?"

While the mechanic explained all the reasons why that wouldn't be a good idea, Ann scribbled and nodded and tried to figure what she could do without so that she could afford the repairs to her car. Mitchell drifted into the kitchen, wan with heat.

"All right," Ann said. "Is that the total? Could you possibly do it tonight?"

"What's for dinner?" Mitchell asked.

She held up one finger to hush him. "What about tomorrow? I see. No. No, I'll have to call you back."

"I'm hungry. What's for dinner?"

He looked hot. She felt limp. After being at the restaurant all day, she didn't even want to think about cooking. "How about a salad?" she suggested.

Mitchell pulled a face.

"Well, let me think about it." She scanned the short listing in the yellow pages, wondering who to call next. Rob had always taken care of the car.
Both cars.
He couldn't fix them, but he knew people who could.

Mitchell leaned against the window. "There's a man in our driveway."

"What?" she
asked,
distracted.

"That guy who was here the other night? When dad picked me up? He's in our driveway."

Ann stomped to the window and, sure enough, there was Maddox Palmer with his head under the hood of her car and a streak of oil on the butt of his jeans.

Her heart tripped, like she was fifteen again and he'd come cruising by her parents' farm. Only she wasn't fifteen. When she got her heart back under control, she was surprised to discover she wasn't flattered or anxious or grateful that Maddox was in her driveway making free with her car.

She was… Ann frowned. Well, really, she was pretty darn sure she was angry.

She cherished it, that lovely little lump of anger, as she marched out her kitchen door and parked herself right by the hood of her car, where he couldn't ignore her.

"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded. She could see what he was doing, but it made her feel good to ask.

Maddox lifted his head, not smiling, but with a glow at the back of his eyes that could have been appreciation. Or maybe he was laughing at her.
"Fixing your car."

"Why?"

"Because you're having trouble with it."
A corner of his mouth quirked.
"Didn't you ever hear you should call a policeman when you're in trouble?"

She crossed her arms against the temptation of that curving lip. "I called a repairman. My experience is that the police are not all that helpful."

He narrowed his eyes. "When you were arrested, you mean."

She meant when Rob hit her, but she chickened out of saying so. "I don't think your father likes me very much," she said instead.

"Darlin', the chief doesn't like anybody much.
Including me.
Though I guess you agreeing to testify against
Robbo
doesn't
help."

His wry tone confused her. "Whose side are you on?" He bent over the engine, presenting her with the long line of his back and that inviting smudge on his hip pocket. "I'm not on anybody's side."

"But you're here."

"I'm just doing you a favor."

I don't need any favors
, she'd told Mitchell's camp counselor. But she did. She needed her car repaired.

"I don't want to owe you."

"So…" He looked over his shoulder, a gleam in his heavy-lidded eyes that about stopped her breath. "Make me an offer."

Oh, heavens. She twisted her hands together. "Jimmy's charges fifty dollars for two hoses and a half hour labor."

He shook his head. "I don't want your money."

"Dinner," she said suddenly. "You can stay for dinner."

"Tonight?"

"Yes."

"What are you having?" He sounded amused again.

"Does it matter? Not peanut butter."

He laughed.
"Right.
Okay, dinner. That'll be nice."

"Don't say that."

"Say what?"

"Nice. I am the poster child of nice," Ann said flatly. "I am inoffensive to the point of being a doormat."

He turned and regarded her thoughtfully. "Oh, I don't know," he drawled. "You've been pretty tough on me since I got back."

She was struck.
Cheered.
"I have, haven't I?"

Maddox almost grinned. Damned if he'd known another woman so tickled at the possibility that she might be a bitch. Which she wasn't really, not Annie, with her quick, shy smile and her low, warm voice and her remembering how he was getting tired of peanut butter.

No, Annie was nice, all right. It was good that she was growing a little backbone. When they were kids, she was too tenderhearted, too afraid of giving offense. Maybe now she'd put up some resistance when some low-life punk high on beer and hormones got her out in his car along the river road and went a little crazy on her, smooth and soft and willing in the darkness…

Don't go there, boy.

He cleared his throat. "So, who's been wiping his feet on your back?"

"
Mmm
?" she said. Her eyes were wide and unfocused, and for a second he wondered if she was thinking what he was, if she remembered.

"The doormat thing?" he prompted.

Her gaze cleared. She looked so appalled he figured she remembered, sure enough, and it wasn't good.

"I didn't mean… Nobody," she said hastily.

"My father?"

"He's just doing his job," Ann said, which was what the chief claimed, but Maddox thought it was generous of her to say under the circumstances.

He drummed his fingers against the fender of her car. "Rob?"

She turned white. "I need to start dinner. Thirty minutes?"

"Running away?"

She put up her sharp little chin.
"Changing the subject.
I don't discuss my marriage."

"Fine.
It's not up to me to judge."

"Since you can't possibly know anything about it, I think that's fair. You haven't exactly kept in touch."

"Did I have a reason to? As I remember it, you got married pretty damn
quick
after I left town."

"Two years," she said quietly.

"You were eighteen!"

"Are you telling me now you were waiting for me to grow up?
Because I don't believe it.
You never wrote. You never even called."

"You were still in high school."

"Oh, please. Like that made a difference. You didn't have time for me when we were m high school, either."

Because he wanted her too much.
Because she was fifteen to his eighteen, and it was up to him to keep his head, to protect her.
And since he couldn't think straight when she was around, the best he could do was stay away from her,
like a recovering drunk avoiding bars
.

"I didn't want to hurt you."

She gave him a straight look. "I got over it," she said.

The screen door squealed, and then it was too late to explain he'd meant something different. Ann's son slipped out of the house, shoulders tight and eyes watchful.

Maddox frowned. He'd seen street kids stand like that waiting for something bad to go down.

"When's dinner?" the boy asked.

Ann turned to her son, her eyes crinkling as she smiled. The change made Maddox dizzy, made the blood rush from his head to places it didn't belong.

"Is that rude or just wanting to know?" she asked.

The kid's sullen expression melted. "Can it be hungry?"

"Hungry is acceptable," Ann allowed. "Forty minutes? Mr. Palmer is staying."

His gaze flicked to Maddox. Maddox didn't blame the kid for feeling doubtful. He was having second thoughts himself. The last thing he needed was to get involved with a witness. The last thing he wanted was to fall for his former teammate's wife.

But as Ann returned to the house, his eyes tracked her straight, slim back, the shining curve of her hair.

The kid stayed behind. "Did you hurt her?"

Maddox narrowed his eyes. "What?"

Mitchell's face was red, but his eyes were hard and adult. His thin hands closed into fists. "I heard you talking.
Before.
Did you hurt her?"

Maddox remembered.
I didn't want to hurt you
.

I got over it.

And the boy had heard. Hell.

Trying to buy time, Maddox took a step away from the car and shook out a cigarette. He put it in his mouth. Took it out and looked at it. He wasn't supposed to smoke around the kid.

Damn
,
damn
,
damn
.

"I hurt your mother's feelings," he said.
"A long time ago now.
Did she tell you we knew each other a long time ago?"

"She said you rode the same bus."

"Yeah, we did. We were friends, kind of, even if she was younger than me. And a girl, at that," he drawled, hoping to coax the kid's humor.

But the boy didn't smile. "Did you hit her?"

"Hell, no," Maddox snapped, startled.

He saw the way the kid braced himself, and something inside him went "uh-oh." He didn't want to hear it. He didn't want to know. But a cop who didn't learn to pay attention to that small warning voice was just plain stupid.
Or dead.

He tapped the cigarette against the box. "Is that what you thought?" he asked quietly. "That I hit your mom?"

The kid nodded jerkily, still stiff for a blow.

The back of Maddox's neck crawled. He heard Rob's rueful, easy confession the day they'd walked the links together:
You know I've always had a temper.

Aw, man. Aw, hell. The carton crumpled in his hand as the reason for Ann's jumpiness clicked. Maddox choked down his anger, forcing words through his suddenly constricted throat.

"Well, I didn't. I never would. I never will. Okay?"

The boy met his eyes blankly. Not accepting what he said, Maddox thought, but considering it. It was a start.

"You figure you were looking out for her, asking me about it." He made it a statement, not a question.

The kid's head jerked again. Yes. He was obviously terrified. Compassion moved in Maddox, and then respect. Terrified, but determined.

"Good for you," he said.

Confusion widened those green eyes.
Ann's eyes, in the boy's red face.
"Sir?"

"That was the right thing to do," Maddox said, speaking man to man. "Your mother should be proud of you. You should be proud of yourself."

"It—I—" the boy stammered.

"Real proud.
You're doing a good job taking care of her." At least the nine-year-old was trying, which was more than Maddox could say for anybody else around Ann. Including, he thought with a spurt of disgust, himself. "You want to give me a hand getting these hoses in?"

"I…" The boy took a cautious step forward. "I guess.
Yes, sir."

Maddox felt something loosen in his chest. "Okay. Tell you what we're going to do. I'm going to put this new hose on here, see, and then you can screw the clamp in place. Got that?"

The boy squeezed in beside him, his small hands eager and unskilled. Maddox was grateful for the task that needed his hands, the boy who needed his help.
Because the cop in him, the part that sought answers and solutions, wanted to storm the kitchen for a quick-and-dirty interview.
He wanted to back Annie against the sink, into a corner, and interrogate her.

Why did you marry him?

Why did you stay?

What made you leave?

And the rest of him, remembering Rob smiling on the sunlit golf course, didn't give a damn about answers. The rest of him just wanted to find the son of a bitch and tear him in two.