Tell Me a Story (8 page)

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Ann leaned against the padded wall of the elevator and closed her eyes. It seemed as if her work schedule was getting more and more hectic. From the moment she arrived at the hospital, one thing after another claimed her attention. She used to tell herself that it was exhilarating, but today it had been near to drudgery. She'd always thought she knew what she wanted out of life. She'd become a doctor, work her way up the staff hierarchy in a good hospital and sometime before she grew too old to hear him, her father would tell her that he was proud of her.

Somehow, since letting Becky and Flynn into her life, her goals seemed skewed. Medicine suddenly didn't seem as interesting or exciting. Becoming chief of staff someday held no interest at all. She shook her head. It was a temporary state. She'd wanted this for too long, wanted to prove herself to her father. Once Becky's mother was found, her life would get back to normal and her future would fall into place again.

Ann tried not to think of how impossible the day had seemed. Her heart hadn't been in the job, and that was a dangerous thing for a doctor. She'd gone through all the motions and done all the right things but, in the back of her mind, she'd wondered what Becky and Flynn were doing. She'd wished she were doing it with them.

She was getting too involved.

But it's only for Becky's sake. As soon as her mother is found, I'll be out of the picture.

But what about Flynn? Are you going to back away from him?

Of course. I'm only seeing him because that's where Becky is. It's nothing to do with him personally.

And if she just kept telling herself that, she might believe it. The mental argument came to a halt with the elevator. She opened her eyes as the door slid open.

Never had the peace and quiet of her own apartment held more appeal. She wouldn't even go over to see Becky tonight. She'd give Flynn a call and make sure that the little girl was all right, ask if there was any progress toward finding her mother and then she'd hang up. That was all anyone could possibly expect of her.

Ann stepped out of the elevator, the decision firm in her mind. And then nearly jumped out of her skin as a small red object hurtled toward her across the smooth carpet. She had only a moment of panic before she recognized it. This must be the infamous sophisticated piece of engineering. The toy car that Flynn had bought the day before.

It came to a halt inches from her feet as if to invite her to admire its shiny red paint. Ann had to admit that it looked remarkably like the real thing. It scooted a little forward and then back, reminding her of a small child shifting from one foot to another, impatient with adult slowness. Then she saw the piece of paper threaded onto the antenna. She bent and slid the paper loose, her fingers hesitant. It would be just her luck to break Flynn's new toy. Nothing broke, however, and she looked at the note, finding her name inscribed in a bold script that had to be Flynn's.

Ann,

Becky and I would love to have your company at dinner. No corn dogs. I promise. Becky wants to show off her new dolls. I just want to show off.

Flynn

The signature was a huge scrawl, as fascinating and unconventional as the man himself. Ann stared at the note and then looked down at the little car. She wasn't going to go, of course. She glanced at Flynn's door, which was open a crack. It didn't take a genius to figure out that he was crouched behind the crack, controlling the car. The image was so silly, so appealing that Ann found herself smiling for the first time all day.

She scrambled in her purse for a pen. Balancing the paper on her purse, she scribbled a reply.

Am disappointed at the thought of no corn dogs but will try to bear up. Expect me in half an hour. Looking forward to seeing your and Becky's new toys.

Ann

She threaded the note back onto the antenna and watched as the car made a quick reversing turn and spun for Flynn's door. The door opened just wide enough for the little car to shoot through and then shut, leaving Ann alone.

"So much for being strong-minded and spending a quiet evening at home." But there was no real regret in the muttered words.

Flynn kept his promise. There was not a corn dog in sight when the three of them sat down to dinner. Fried chicken with all the trimmings covered the table to the groaning point. Ann took one look and gave up trying to count the cholesterol content. It was a mea1 chosen to appeal to a child and yet offer something substantial for an adult.

"This looks fabulous." She could say the words with absolute sincerity. In fact, she couldn't remember the last time, a meal had looked quite so good.

Unless it was the breakfast Flynn had prepared the morning before. "You're a wonderful cook, Flynn."

"Thanks. My father thinks it's a wimpy occupation for a man but I enjoy it. 1 get tired of restaurant food. Becky helped tonight."

"I made the biscuits."

Ann looked at the lumpy, misshapen masses of dough and forced a smile as she took one. It seemed to weigh a great deal in proportion to its size and, when she tried to cut it open to put butter on it, it took quite a bit of hacking and sawing to get it apart. She stared at the grayed dough inside and swallowed hard.

"They look wonderful, Becky." Her eyes met Flynn's, bright blue with amusement.

"Becky believes in kneading all doughs thoroughly."

"Oh." There didn't seem to be anything else to say. "Aren't you having a biscuit, Becky?"

Becky shook her head, her mouth full of chicken. "I don't like biscuits. They always taste like old rocks when Mama makes them."

"I see." She set the biscuits aside, hoping that Becky would forget about it. There was no way she was going to risk thousands of dollars in orthodontic work by attempting to bite into that ominous mass.

"So what did you two do today?"

"We went to the park. It was a great day for flying kites."

"Mr. Flynn got a big kite and we flew it for a long time only then he got it caught in a tree."

"I prefer to think of it as the tree got in my way."

Ann answered his grin with a smile, surprised to realize how right it felt to be sitting across the table from him. She pushed the thought away. She didn't want to look too closely at where her relationship with Flynn was heading. For once in her life, she didn't want to look at the future. She just wanted to enjoy the present.

After dinner, Ann loaded the dishwasher with only a few token protests from Flynn. She insisted that it was the least she could do, and he didn't argue long. She was afraid to run the biscuits down the disposal. They looked far more deadly than the chicken bones, so she threw them in the trash, burying them deep in the hope that Becky would never find them.

She wandered out into the living room to find Flynn and Becky sitting on the sofa, their attention on a box on the table in front of them. Or at least Becky's attention was on the box. Flynn's attention was on nothing in particular unless Becky was talking to him. Ann crossed the soft carpet and sank onto the sofa on Becky's other side.

"What have you got?"

"Pictures." The succinct answer came from Becky. Flynn appeared to be half dozing.

Ann reached for a handful of the photographs that were scattered across the table. She expected to find family pictures, and she admitted to a mild curiosity to see what Flynn had looked like as a child. But the photos she held weren't your typical family shots.

The first was a picture of the park across the street. A light drizzle gave the background a gray look that could have been depressing. But the focus of the shot wasn't the weather. It was a little boy wearing a bright red raincoat and hat with incongruously bare feet. The camera had caught him in the act of jumping into a shallow puddle, his face ecstatic with anticipation.

Leaning drunkenly against a bench nearby was a pair of red rain boots.

The picture made her smile, but it brought back the feeling of being a child—the intensity with which children lived every minute of every day.

The next photo was of an old woman. Ann assumed it was downtown Los Angeles, but it could have been any city. The woman's clothes were ragged but clean. Her face was weathered with decades of hard living, but there was pride in the set of her chin, in the clarity of her eyes. Pride that wasn't dimmed by the shopping cart of belongings that sat next to her. Her gray hair was pulled back into a bun, and stuck in the thin strands was a bright red carnation, its jaunty color a defiant denial of the circumstances.

Ann blinked back tears and moved to the next picture. Each photo touched the emotions, some happy, some sad, but all of them evocative. They spoke to the heart, more than the mind.

She had no idea how long she'd been looking at them when she looked up. Becky had disappeared and Ann could hear her somewhere behind the sofa, talking to her dolls. Flynn was sitting just where he had been, his long body relaxed back into the deep cushions, only his watchful eyes telling her that he was still awake.

"Did you take these?"

"It's a hobby."

"They're beautiful."

"Thanks. I've got a small darkroom and I enjoy playing with it."

"You've done a lot more than play with these. They're full of emotion. Have you had much published?"

He laughed and leaned forward to gather up the photos scattered on the table, laying them back in the box. "I've never submitted them."

"Never submitted?" Ann looked at him as if he'd just confessed to murder. "How could you not submit them?"

He cocked an eyebrow at her appalled expression. "It's a hobby."

"But they're so good."

"It's still a hobby. Everything in life doesn't have to have a goal, you know."

No, she didn't know. He could see that the very concept was foreign to her. She sat there staring at him as if he were an alien from Venus. There she was on his sofa, her hair pulled back in the inevitable chignon, her green eyes wide with confusion, her chin set with what he suspected was a determination to argue with him. All he wanted to do was pull her across the few feet that separated them and kiss her senseless.

He sighed inaudibly. This was a hell of a time to discover a lust for his uptight neighbor. With Becky playing only a few feet away and Ann ready to chastise him for his worthless life-style, it was unlikely that she'd be receptive to what he really wanted to suggest. But it never hurt to dream.

"These photographs are good, Flynn. Really good. I know you could get them published."

He took the pictures she still held and put them in the box with the others. "I probably could. But I don't want to.''

"Why not?"

"Ann, if I sold some photos, it would cease to be a hobby and become a career. I couldn't play with it anymore. People would expect me to take wonderful photos according to their schedules. It wouldn't be fun anymore."

"But you can't just take pictures like that and not do something with them."

"Why not?"

The simple question seemed to stymie her. She stared at him blankly for a moment. "You just can't."

Flynn sought for another way to explain it to her. "How would you feel if one of your hobbies suddenly became a job?"

"I don't know. I don't have a hobby."

It was his turn to stare at her in stunned silence. "You don't have a hobby? Everybody has a hobby. Do you sew? Crochet? Knit? Paint? Grow African violets?" Ann shook her head in answer to every suggestion and his suggestions became more outrageous. Becky came to lean on the back of the sofa and threw in a few suggestions of her own.

"I've got it. You're a closet taxidermist."

Helpless with laughter, Ann shook her head.

"What's a taxi.. .taxipermist?" Becky's question came out on a yawn, making Flynn realize how late it was.

He stood up, abandoning the subject of Ann's hobbies for the moment. "It's someone who gives permanents to taxi drivers. Time for bed, urchin." He ignored the inevitable protests and herded her toward the bathroom with instructions to wash her hands.

"I'll supervise." Ann followed Becky into the bathroom and he could hear the two of them talking. He turned down the sheets on Becky's bed and then looked around the room. It was funny how just a few nights with Becky sleeping here and already the room felt lived in again. Mark's presence was fading to pleasant memories.

He turned as Becky and Ann entered the room. Becky was tucked into bed with Frankie the giraffe snuggled beside her.

"Tell me a story, Mr. Flynn." Flynn told her a story about a frog who became a prince and the princess who loved him even when he was a frog. Behind him, he could hear Ann moving around, quietly putting away the last of the day's purchases. It felt so right. It felt like... home.

He finished the story and reached up to tuck the covers under Becky's chin. "Good night, Becky."

"Mr. Flynn? Do you think I'll ever see my mama again?"

Flynn was aware of Ann coming to stand behind him, but he knew the question was his to field. What was he supposed to say? Life didn't offer any guarantees. Not even to children.

"We've got a man looking for her, honey. He's very good at finding people. All we can do is cross our fingers that he'll find her soon."

"What's goin' to happen to me if he don't find her?"

Flynn brushed the ragged bangs off her forehead, telling himself not to promise too much. Behind him, he could feel Ann's tension. He looked at Becky, seeing the uncertainty in her eyes, the hint of a quiver that shook her stubborn chin and the absolute trust she gave him. And suddenly the answer was very simple.

"I'll take care of you, Becky. Whatever happens, I'll take care of you."

The uncertainty faded from her eyes. If Flynn said he'd take care of her, she believed him. She yawned. "What are we gonna do tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow, you and I are going to find a hobby for Ann."

"That'll be fun."

"I think so. Now, go to sleep." He dropped a kiss on her forehead and then waited while Ann did the same. They left the room, leaving the door partially open behind them.

"That's an awfully big promise." Ann's voice was carefully noncritical.

Flynn ran his fingers through his hair. "I know, but what else could I say to her? Besides, I meant it."

"I'm sure the detective will find Becky's mother."

"I hope so. But whatever happens, I'm going to make sure Becky doesn't suffer for it."

Ann reached out to touch the back of his hand. "I know you will."