Long pause. “Is that grape?”
“Uh-huh. My favorite.”
Longer pause. “Luke’s too.”
Katie cocked her head. “Really? I thought he liked orange.” She took another drink.
“Sometimes, but mostly grape. Like me.”
Katie’s brows inched up in surprise. “No kidding, you too? Grape Nehi has been my favorite since I was knee-high to the nuns, no pun intended. I used to close my eyes and pray that the water fountain at school would be grape Nehi.” Katie frowned. “Regrettably, it never was.” She put the bottle to her lips, ready for another glug.
“You gonna drink that whole blasted bottle?”
Katie hesitated, the bottle propped against her lower lip. “You shouldn’t talk like that.”
A thick crop of freckles bunched up in a scowl. “Well, are ya?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether you want to join me, sitting in a chair like a human being.”
The brown eyes squinted again. “Is this a trick?”
Katie sat back in the chair and put a hand to her chest, eyebrows dipped in obvious offense. She flattened her lips to ward off a smile. “No, I’d rather be typing forms like I’ve been doing for the last eight hours, how ’bout you?”
Seconds passed before the ball of limbs and freckles began to move, disentangling beneath the desk in calculated and cautious movement. Katie scooted back and stood while a slip of a little girl unfolded to barely three foot high, revealing spindly legs skinned and scarred. She couldn’t be more than five years old, and her patched navy blue jumper was wrinkled and bunched. Katie’s heart squeezed at the tightlipped look of suspicion on her sweet little face, a face that sported traces of soot and more freckles than the law allowed. Tresses of dark brown hair framed her heart-shaped face, both of which were badly in need of a wash.
The little tyke eyed Katie up and down. “You ain’t very tall.”
Katie squared her shoulders and stood up straight, thinking this was one tough, little orphan for only five years old. She folded her arms, going for intimidation. “I’m taller than you.”
The half-pint strolled to the side and studied her, folding her arms like a junior version of Katie. “Not by much. Who the devil are you, anyway?”
“You shouldn’t talk like that.”
“I can talk any way I want – you ain’t my mama. And it’s a good thing too, ’cause if you was, I’d be punier than I am.”
Katie snatched the plate of cookies from the desk with a lift of her chin. She draped her hand over the back of Luke’s chair. “I may not be your mama, young lady, but I am the one holding the cookies, so I suggest you set your little carcass in this chair and watch your tongue.”
“You’re mean!” the little brat said, lips ground tight.
“So are you,” Katie replied, taking a bite of a cookie. “So what’s it going to be?” She chewed and the little brat glared, but the moment Katie tipped another swig of Nehi, the battle was won. The ragamuffin plopped in the chair with her nastiest look yet. Katie held out the plate with a smug smile. “Mark my words, Gabriella Smith, these are the best cookies you’ll ever eat.”
Gabe grunted and filched a big one. “Shore better be, for all the trouble they cost. How’d you know my name, anyway? From Luke?”
“Yep.” Katie bent to pull a new Nehi out of Luke’s drawer. Her teeth scraped her bottom lip. “Uh-oh, the last grape.” A devious smile sprouted on her lips. “Somebody won’t be happy.”
Gabe smiled for the very first time. “Luke ain’t never happy, least when it comes to me. He thinks I’m a bother.”
Katie popped the lid off with the opener. “Well, aren’t you?” She poured half of it in a cup and handed it to Gabe with a lift of her brow before taking another sip of her own.
Gabe grabbed it and guzzled, a full-fledged grin on her face as she wiped her mouth with her sleeve. “Yep. Only way I can get him to notice me. We’re gonna get married.”
Grape Nehi spewed from Katie’s mouth, spraying Gabe with a fine mist of pop.
“Lucifer’s nightgown!” Gabe croaked, jumping out of the chair. “You just spit all over me.”
Katie gaped and snatched the cookie from Gabe’s hand. “I don’t think I want my cookies going into a trash heap like your mouth, young lady. Apologize!”
Gabe gummed her lips in defiance.
With lightning speed, Katie seized the girl’s cup. “No apology, no Nehi, it’s that simple.”
“You’re a bully!” Gabe shouted.
“Takes one to know one,” Katie countered with a sneer. They stood nose to nose, locked in silent seething for several seconds until Katie won out. Gabe flopped into the chair, arms crossed and lower lip protruding. “Sorry,” she whispered, barely audible.
“I can’t hear you . . . ,” Katie said in a singsong voice.
“Sorry!” she screamed, wildfire burning in her eyes.
Katie stifled a smile and held out the Nehi and cookie. “Now, one more time, and I’ll bind and gag you like Luke suggested.”
Gabe glanced up through slitted eyes. “He said that?”
“Yep. Says you’re bossy and obnoxious.” Katie parked herself on the corner of the desk and upended more Nehi.
Gabe popped the rest of the cookie in her mouth and snitched another two, a grudging hint of respect in her tone. “Humph. Bet he says the same about you.”
“Yes he does, as a matter of fact. So you see, we have a lot in common.”
“Why, you wanna marry him too?” Gabe eyed her with suspicion, chewing her cookie.
Katie choked again, but this time she kept the spray to herself. She pressed a hand to her mouth. “Good heavens, no. He’s not my type.”
That seemed to relax the little spitfire as she sank deeper into the chair. An elfin grin puckered on her little lips. “Well, he sure is mine. I think he’s gor-geous.”
Katie scrunched her nose and chewed. “You think?”
“Heck yeah, don’t you?” The brown eyes suddenly widened with the wonder of a child.
“I suppose,” Katie said with a squint. “If you like the tall, arrogant, magnetic type.”
“What’s mag-net-tick mean?”
Katie jumped up, quite sure her face was flame red from the sudden surge of heat she felt in her cheeks. She pulled a chair around the desk next to Gabe’s, hoping the little smart aleck wouldn’t notice. “It means to draw people like a magnet.”
A surprisingly low chuckle rolled from the little girl’s mouth. “Booooy-oh-boy, that’s for dead sure. Why, half the ladies at the society are loopy over him and most of us kids too. Not to mention the teachers.”
“The society?” Katie nibbled on the edge of her cookie.
“Yeah, the Boston So-ci-e-ty for the Care of Girls. Sounds real snooty, don’t it? But it’s nothing but an orphanage, although it’s better than most. Lots of gals just like me who nobody wants. And I can tell ya right now, that every last one of ’em thinks Luke is the cat’s meow.” A smug smile tipped Gabe’s mouth as she reached for another cookie and shimmied back in her chair. “But he likes me the best, which is why we’re gonna get married someday.” She paused and wheeled the chair back several inches, wrinkling her nose as she spied Katie’s blush. “Hey, you ain’t gonna spit again, are ya? Your face is red like you’re gonna puke.”
Katie narrowed her eyes. The little squirt suddenly reminded her of Cluny McGee. She nursed her pride with a deep breath of air, then exhaled. “So, why’d you run away?”
Gabe gulped her Nehi while eyeing Katie over the rim. “You ever meet Mrs. Merkle?”
Katie shook her head and took a final bite of her cookie.
“Well, she’s old and whiney and smells like VapoRub.” A faint shiver rippled through the little girl. “I can’t stand VapoRub. And the old coot she’s married to who coughs up spit? Passes wind like it was a fine talent.” She scrunched her nose as if the smell suddenly permeated the room. “You ever live in a crackerbox that reeks with Vapo and gas? Trust me. It ain’t a feast for the senses, if you know what I mean.”
Katie did, and slowly gulped the last of her cookie, her appetite suddenly gone with the wind. “The Merkles – are they your foster parents?”
“Shoot, no – ” Her eyes darted to Katie’s face as she slowly scooted away, obviously concerned about her slip of the tongue. “Sorry, I forgot. Anyways, they’re too old, but I guess Luke’s desperate. Carmichael don’t like me, ya see, ’cause I stir up things at the pokey – ”
Katie blinked. “The pokey?”
“The so-ci-e-ty,” Gabe said with pained enunciation. “Keep up with me, will ya? Anyways, I’ve been in eight foster homes inside of six months,” she said with a gleam of pride in her eyes. “So, it’s just a matter of time before I get to live with him.”
“With Luke?” Katie latched a hand on Gabe’s chair, jerking her close.
“Well, not Luke exactly, at least not right away, me being a girl and him being a boy. But I’m bankin’ on living with that tall drink of water he lives with ’cause that way I can stay nice and close until we get married, ya know?”
A squint furrowed Katie’s brow. “The tall drink of water?”
“The giant redhead . . .
Gull-let-tee
.” The name came out like a sneer. “Shoot, I hate big women, ’specially when they slink around all hotsy-totsy like her. I think Luke used to be sweet on her, you know, back in New York, but now they’re just friends.” Gabe’s skinny legs did a little shuffle as her chair scooted even closer to Katie’s. Gossip gleamed bright in her eyes. “Although it don’t take a genius to see she wishes it were more.”
Feeling very “ungenius” and just a little stupid, Katie bent close, knee to knobby knee. “You mean to tell me that Betty and Luke were – ”
The freckles bobbed up and down. “Stuck on each other in a big way, tighter than tar paper.”
Katie swallowed hard, for once unconcerned about the heat in her cheeks. She could barely get the next words out. “And now they . . . live together?”
“Yep, all three of ’em – Luke, Parker, and the broad.”
The blood drained from Katie’s cheeks. “Sweet mother of Job.”
Gabe stared, then broke into a grin that curved from ear to ear, obviously thinking Katie was short on brains as well as height. “Not together in the same room, you goose, in the same house, at Mrs. Cox’s Boarding House.”
“Oh!” The blood returned to her cheeks . . . this time with reinforcements.
“Anyways, whenever I run away, Luke usually lets me stay with Galetti for a night or two ’cause he feels guilty about shipping me back to the pokey.” She winked. “But the way I see it, it’s just a matter of time before I get to live with her – and Luke – all the time. I turn eight next month, you know, and Luke promised he’d find me a family before then.”
It was Katie’s turn to stare, her brain desperately trying to process all of this information. She suddenly blinked in shock, hand to her chest. “Eight? You’re almost eight?”
The almond eyes thinned considerably, as did the tight press of her rosebud lips. “You ain’t no prize in the height department, either, ya know. At least I’ll have a chance to grow.” A smirk lifted the corners of her mouth. “You’re as good as done.”
“Ahem.”
Both Katie and Gabe jerked in their chairs, wide-eyed as they turned toward the door. Luke stood, arms folded and shoulder cocked against the doorframe, the tight smile on his face anything but friendly as his eyes honed in on Gabe with a menacing glare.
Which
had absolutely no effect as Gabe shot to her feet. “Luke!” she cried, bubbly enough to put a Nehi to shame.
“Don’t you ‘Luke’ me, you little troublemaker. I’ve been searching for you for the last hour.” He strolled in with a testy look on his face and tossed his coat on his desk. His eyes took in the two empty bottles of grape Nehi and narrowed considerably. “What’s this, a tea party? With
my
Nehis?”
Gabe hiked a thumb in Katie’s direction. “It was the runt’s idea, not mine,” she said with a cherubic smile, distancing herself from Katie several feet. She leaned forward and lowered her voice to a whisper, hand to her mouth. “She tried to bribe me.”
Katie folded her arms and gave Gabe the evil eye. “
Runt
? You wolf down three of my cookies and call me a runt?”
Luke strode around the desk, clamped a muscled arm to Gabe’s skinny one, and pushed her into the chair with not-so-gentle force. He butted back on the edge of his desk and folded his arms, his eyes as steely as the night at Robinson’s. “So help me, Gabe, this has got to stop. You’re burning bridges faster than I can put the fires out. Carmichael’s gunning to put you on the next train to the Midwest, and I’m not all that sure I won’t let him.”
For the first time, Katie saw fear in Gabe’s eyes, which were glazed with a sudden sheen of tears. She jumped up and thrust herself into Luke’s arms with a sob, softening the hard line of his jaw. “Luke, no! Please don’t make me leave. I want to live with you, you know that.”
Arms stiff at his sides, he seemed paralyzed for several painful seconds and then with a low groan, he swallowed the little girl whole in a ferocious hug. He tucked his head against hers, but not before Katie saw the pain in his eyes. “Gabe, you know you can’t live with me – we’ve been over this again and again. You need a family to love you, a mother and father who will raise you the way you deserve.”
Heart-wrenching sobs shook her small frame. The sound was muffled against Luke’s chest but still pierced the air . . .
and
Katie’s heart. “But I d-don’t want a f-family – I love you!”
He pulled away and cradled her little chin in his massive hands. “And I love you too, kiddo, you know that. Which is why I want the best for you – a mother who’s there for you day and night to get you through these formative years. Not an unmarried man who’s never home.”
Her little fists knuckled white as she clutched his wrists with all of her might. “Then l-let me live with G-Galetti, please! At least th-then I c-can be close to you.”
He squatted low and put his hands on her shoulders, his voice raspy with regret. “Gabe, you need a mother who’s home all the time, to be there for you, to take care of you. Betty works hours as long as mine. Besides, you know as well as I do that Mrs. Cox doesn’t allow kids.”
Gabe sniffed and jutted her lower lip. “She would if you asked her, the old b-battle-ax.”
A hint of a smile pulled at his mouth. He fished a handkerchief from his pocket and pinched it to her nose. “She has two worthless sons that she doesn’t trust around kids, so she’s only looking out for you.” His face softened with concern. “As am I. Blow.”