Nobody's Angel (22 page)

She and Adrian had already covered this ground thrice over. They'd argued half the night. She turned away, deciding she didn't want a beer bad enough to be trapped into repeating the argument.

“Stupid crooks and kids don't systematically turn a place upside down, then terrorize a homeless shelter and some harmless musicians. They're looking for Faith.”

Faith froze.

Juan whistled and Cesar sat upright.

Unaware of her presence, Adrian crumpled his can and hefted it toward a wastebasket. The can cleared the hoop easily but he'd already turned his back on it. “I don't want to tell her about Annie and the band, okay?”

“When did all this happen?” Cesar demanded.

“A little while ago. Annie left a message at the house, and Dolores called me with it while you were out. Annie was pitching a wholesale fit. She wanted to come after me with a shotgun.”

“I don't blame her.” Caught between fury and fear, Faith stalked into the room and stopped in front of Adrian. He stood nearly a head taller than she, and the eye-level contact with his wide shoulders ought to terrify her. It didn't. “I'd punch you, but I'm not up to repeating Dolores's performance. Who the damn hell do you think you are?”

Both Juan and Cesar eased to their feet and glanced nervously toward the escape hatch of the door. Adrian propped his fists on his hips and glared back at her.

“Want me to help you get to sleep?” he taunted.

She hauled her hand back and would have smacked the smirk off his face if Juan hadn't caught her wrist.

“His jaw is as hard as the rest of his head. Ask him sometime how he worked his way through law school.”

Faith dropped her hand and fought the overwhelming urge to break into tears. She would not fall back on that age-old weakness. “How's Annie?” she demanded. “And the boys?”

Since neither Cesar nor Juan could answer that, they turned to Adrian, who shrugged. “Annie's furious. The guy pulled a knife on her from behind. The police figure it was a wino gone berserk and told her she needed a bodyguard or a safer job. Winos don't demand to know where Miss Rich Bitch lives.”

“Rich Bitch?” That sounded like a bad B movie, not like Tony or any of the sophisticated lawyers he'd hung out with.

“The band said he used the same term when he locked them in the bathroom at the bar. He might be thorough in tracking down all your identities, but I guess he can't remember your name.”

“The guys know I'm as perpetually broke as they are. They must have wondered who the heck he was talking about.” She was calming down now. None of this seemed quite real.

Adrian stalked to the window without speaking. Cesar offered her a beer. Juan offered his chair.

“Adrian doesn't like sharing,” Cesar confided as Faith took both the beer and chair.

“Swell. Then he should have left me out of this from the start. It's a little late to start the lone gunman act now.” She sipped the beer and ignored Adrian's back. All riled with anger, eyes flashing as he donned his protective male armor, Adrian looked sexier than all Satan's angels put together.

“But Annie and the guys are okay?” she demanded.

“Once your musical friends climbed down off their cloud and figured who their jailer was talking about, they lied through their pretty white teeth. Told him you'd run off to Hollywood with a hot agent who promised to put you in movies. Even gave him an L.A. address. From what I gather,
they were having so much fun making up stories, they didn't even know when the guy gave up and went away until someone unlocked the door and let them out.”

Faith grinned. Whoever was after her hadn't spent much time investigating her friends.

But Annie … She closed her eyes as she came off that brief high. “Annie told him about you, didn't she?”

Adrian shook his head as Cesar offered him another beer. “She thinks I'm a homeless vagrant who's fast-talked you into trouble. It doesn't matter. He had to know about me already.”

“And thought Faith was an easier target?” Juan suggested from his perch on the couch arm.

“Probably. He's hoping to get his hands on the money without going through me.”

Faith didn't like the way he said that. She didn't like the way Adrian's eyes lit with the holy fires of hell or the way his fingers balled into fists. And she definitely did not like his defiant stance as he stared at her.

“I think it's time I visit my parents in Mexico,” she said brightly, lifting her beer can to her lips.

“Over my dead body,
señorita
.”

She'd been afraid he would say something like that.

“Maybe everyone else should visit family in Mexico,” Juan suggested dryly.

“If you can figure out how to afford that, be my guest.” Adrian returned to pacing. Faith looked defiant enough to do something stupid, like running away. He couldn't let her do that. He needed her here, where he could keep her safe. The crook might know where her parents lived—especially if the crook was Tony. He simply couldn't overlook that possibility, no matter how much Faith rejected the idea.

Tony wouldn't be personally capable of terrorism, but he might have considered hiring stupid thugs for the occasion.

“He's after me and Faith,” Adrian continued curtly. “The coward is evidently trying to work around me, but he sounds desperate enough to consider women and children. Belinda's husband still works nights, doesn't he?” At Cesar's tentative
nod, Adrian plowed on. “Jim's police cruiser parked in front of the house all day should deter the stupidest of crooks. Can you and your roommate move into the house with Mama at night?”

“Caveman thinks he can protect everyone?” Faith asked sarcastically. “What about you and me? Did you think we're invisible?”

She grated on his nerves. He didn't like his authority challenged. He was in charge here and whatever he—

“She's right,” Juan said quietly. “This person has no need to go through your family if they know where to find you and Faith.”

Adrian fought the idea that he couldn't keep everyone safe by himself. He'd worked and scraped and … Botched everything. Admit it, he was a complete failure. Obviously, he didn't have the sense God gave a taco.

“The cruiser and Cesar and his roommate staying overnight are probably a good precaution,” Faith said thoughtfully.

Adrian refused to look at her. She sat there all silver and gold and angelic, as if her whole world hadn't burned to the ground not once, but twice. If he looked hard enough, he could probably find ways to blame himself for both times. He ought to buzz out of her life now, while she was still almost in one piece.

Except it was too late for him to back out. Whoever was after Faith could find her now, thanks to him. And that person had waited four years to get what he was looking for. He wouldn't give up easily.

“You and Adrian would stay here?” Cesar asked dubiously.

Adrian almost snorted aloud at that thought. Faith would rather stay in a homeless shelter than this pigsty. She'd rather live with derelicts than with him. Faith was not a stupid woman. She probably had lots of rich friends she could move in with if she decided to stay in Charlotte, and who was he to stop her?

“If I can throw out your beer cans,” she answered dryly.

Adrian dropped his head against the cool glass. He didn't want her living here. His pride screamed to give a woman like
Faith a fancy house and fancy car, and if he couldn't do that, he didn't want her at all.

Like hell he didn't want her.

He didn't think he could honestly survive living under the same roof with Faith Hope. He wanted her so badly it set his teeth on edge.

“Whoever is looking for us will probably be on his way back from Knoxville now,” she said calmly, as if she didn't speak the voice of doom. “Cesar had better go back to the kids. If Adrian and I are visible enough, they should be safe, but let's not take chances.”

“You'd better install stronger bolts for the doors and windows,” Juan advised.

“We'll have to tell Jim what this is all about if we ask him to park his police car at the house,” Cesar warned. “He's bound to report it. Word will get back to the D.A.”

Adrian could hear his half brother and cousin heading cautiously for the door, waiting for him to argue, but he couldn't move. He'd been rendered powerless. Faith didn't seem to be leaving with them.

“Someone will have to pick up the stuff Annie gathers for me,” Faith said. “We'll need that checkbook before we can install locks.”

We.
She'd said
we.
They would be living here together. Alone. Under the same roof. She was volunteering to stay with
him
, the monster who had ruined her life. Maybe she was as crazy as he was.

The door closed, and Adrian knew they were alone. Still, he didn't turn around. He didn't want to see that luscious raspberry mouth, those grave gray eyes as they accused him of bringing her down to his level.

“I guess I'll look for a job in the morning,” she said into the ensuing silence. “I don't suppose any of the bars want a singer with a bum knee.”

He listened as she limped away.

The crazy woman had just offered him heaven and hell on a platter. She was trusting him to protect her, when his only
rational thought at the moment was getting her naked and jumping her bones. Did the damned woman have no sense at all?

He was more desperate than the damned thug who'd driven them off the road. She'd be safer anywhere else but here.

Closing the bedroom door against the sight of the weary man in the other room, Faith leaned against it, caught her elbows in a nervous grip and took a shaky breath.

She was out of her mind. She should be running for the door right now, driving as fast and far as she could go. She was an intelligent woman perfectly capable of taking care of herself. She'd proved that once.

She'd run away last time. This time she'd built a life she didn't want to lose. She'd have to stand and fight.

Okay, a little harmless insanity. Take another breath.

The image of Adrian staring out the window, all the burdens of the world crashing down on his shoulders, haunted her. He'd stood straight, hands in pockets, head thrown back, as one blow after another hit him. He hadn't cringed or whined or blamed anyone else. He'd just accepted the responsibility and looked for some means of handling it.

That he'd chosen the macho route of assuming he had to do it all himself didn't surprise her at all, but she couldn't let him bear the entire burden. He wasn't responsible for her.

But he was right. She couldn't fight criminals on her own, and the police here couldn't do anything until a crime was committed. Besides, she felt safer with Adrian. She didn't want to go home with monsters at the door. She was a selfish coward.

She heard him coming down the hall, halting in front of the other door. She trembled, desperately wanting the company of strong arms and the reassuring murmurs she knew he
would provide if she opened her door. She couldn't afford to be that weak again.

She listened to him enter the other room and shut the door. Slumping against the wood panel, she buried her face in her hands. What in hell had she done?

She was standing here wanting to fling herself into the arms of the man who had kidnapped her. She'd just offered to help him find the evidence to clear his name at the risk of her own health and security.

And she knew damned well she'd done it because she wanted to go to bed with him—with still another man who didn't want children and didn't really want her.

As soon as she got herself out of this, she would have her head examined.

The apartment was empty when Faith finally dragged herself from the uncomfortable cot the next morning. Without much expectation, she blearily opened the ancient rounded refrigerator and discovered a pristine bottle of milk, a carton of orange juice, and a box of cereal. Considering what might be lurking in the dark recesses of the cabinets, the refrigerator seemed like an excellent place to store cereal.

Adrian must have used the last of his money to buy groceries, and then he hadn't eaten.

Glancing around at the stacks of dirty dishes, she could understand why.

Well, she had absolutely no clue what else to do.

The familiar twang of country music pouring through the apartment door greeted Adrian when he returned at noon. He could hear water running and Faith's voice accompanying the chorus as he stepped inside. He wondered if she'd just gotten out of bed and was in the shower.

The image of Faith naked and glistening nearly crippled him.

He couldn't have her, he told himself ruthlessly. He couldn't take advantage of her vulnerability when he had absolutely nothing to offer except sex.

So he'd better solve their problems before testosterone poisoning set in and his balls rotted off.

His lascivious images of Faith naked in the tub disintegrated the instant he entered the kitchen to see her blue-jeaned rear end stuck in the air and her head hidden in a cabinet beneath the sink. Faint echoes of song emerged as her tight posterior swung in time with the music from Cesar's boom box. Adrian thought it was almost worth being hunted by a stupid crook to have this vision to carry with him for the rest of his life.