Authors: Catherine Palmer
Awash in agony, Ana sank into Sam, burying her face against his shoulder and choking on the sobs. His hand caressed her back, soothing and warm.
“Stop blaming yourself, Ana,” he murmured. “You couldn’t have saved your sister. When people want to die badly enough, they find a way. Something drove her to end her life, a blackness she couldn’t see through, a hopelessness…”
He fell silent, his arms wrapped around Ana so tightly she could hardly breathe, and she sensed that he, too, had known such blackness. He heaved a shuddering sigh.
“Bad things happen,” he said. “Things that set us up for even more pain. I blamed myself for what happened with my mother. When I was a kid, she got this crazy idea that she wanted to go to Hollywood. She met up with some man who turned her head. He convinced her she was too beautiful, too special to live in a trailer in Wyoming with a drunk, out-of-work cowboy and three little snot-nosed kids. So, they decided to take off. I remember that day…the wind was blowing through Cheyenne like it does, and my mom’s long blond hair was whipping around her face. She knelt down in the dirt to kiss me and my little brothers, and she was crying. But she got into that man’s car, and they drove away, and I didn’t say a word. Didn’t beg her to stay. Didn’t pitch a fit. I just stood there watching as the car left the trailer park and disappeared around a bend in the road.”
“How can you blame yourself for what your mother did?” Ana asked. “Leaving was her choice, not yours.”
“Somehow I thought that if I had been a better son—smarter, more obedient, a better athlete—she’d have loved me more. And she would have stayed. I figured if I’d thrown a tantrum and clung to her leg, she would have known I didn’t want her to leave. I kept thinking I could have done something. If only I could have figured out that one perfect thing—whatever it was—then she never would have gone off with that man and gotten killed in a car wreck in Nevada.”
“Oh, Sam. She never made it to California?”
“Nope. She just left us and went off and died.”
“So it was like my sister—you had no chance to fix it. No way to close the wound. You couldn’t bring her back.”
He stroked his hand down Ana’s hair. She shivered and snuggled closer into the cocoon of his embrace. For the first time in her life, Ana relished the nearness of a man, the faint scent of spicy soap on his skin, the unyielding mass of biceps beneath his shirtsleeve, the heat of his breath against her ear.
“That’s why I don’t look back, Ana,” he said in a low voice. “I can’t change what happened. And the pain is…it’s bad.”
“Maybe now that I know, I can bear it with you a little bit.”
“Bear one another’s burdens,” he murmured. “It’s in the Bible. I suppose you could be right about facing the past. Reliving the nightmare again and again doesn’t help, but talking about it to someone. A person you can trust…”
His blue eyes were depthless as he bent and kissed her lips. It was a soft, almost imperceptible touch, and Ana held her breath at its sweetness. Her heart throbbed, her fingers tightening on his arms as she waited for a second kiss. But he drew away and released her.
“I’d better get over to Haven,” he said, getting to his feet. “Terell will wonder what’s up.”
“Of course.” She swallowed down her regret and folded the blanket. Sam took the trash, tossed it into a receptacle and started for the car.
Ana followed, clutching her purse tightly. She couldn’t understand why he had broken away from her. Or why she was so unhappy about it. What was it about this man?
As the car started back out into the street, she trained her attention on the passing scenery. It was impossible to feel this way. She never had before. She’d told herself she never would. Physical affection repulsed her. People got too close, too pushy, too clingy. She had accepted and tried to enjoy the light, playful romance of the first few dates with a man. But she never let anyone close enough to touch her heart. Yet, a few moments alone with Sam Hawke, and she was aching for his touch and mourning the loss of time she could spend with him.
“So, Ana,” he said as he steered the car into the small parking area near the recreation center. “Do you think you’ll be coming back to teach your—”
“Yes,” she blurted. “Well, I thought I might. I like the kids, and they seemed to respond well.”
“Good.” The blue light in his eyes flashed in her direction.
She sank down into the seat, hugging her purse tighter. She shouldn’t have agreed. Didn’t have time. The lead paint series was due, and she had barely begun to write. She would turn it in to Carl on Friday, and it would be all wrong, and she would lose her job and have to move back to Brownsville. Absolutely, she should not teach that class.
“When do you want me?” she asked. “To come over and work with the writers, I mean.”
He smiled, and the parentheses at the sides of his mouth deepened. “When do I want you?” he asked, glancing at her with another flash of sapphire. Then he shrugged. “Always.”
“Well, what do you know?” Sam said as he and Ana stepped through the metal detector. “Jim Slater and Jack Smith are here.”
She spotted the two men at a distance. “Maybe they’re asking Flora about Honduras.”
He peered into the far corner. “Nope, she’s not there.”
“She’s not?” The huddled figure in the tight green skirt and pink plastic sandals was absent from her usual spot. Ana’s stomach constricted. “Doesn’t Flora come on Sundays?”
“I don’t think she’s missed a day. Sunday afternoon would be a busy time for her young friend.”
Horrified at the thought, Ana saw Sam lift a hand in greeting as Terell strode out of the office and headed in their direction. As usual, the man was laden with children who clung to him like barnacles to the sides of a fishing boat.
“What’s up, T-Rex?” Sam asked. “I see Slater’s here.”
“He and that other guy showed up a while back. Maybe an hour ago…Just a sec, Sam.” The towering man set down one little boy who had been riding on his shoulders and another who hung on his back. Then he pried little golden-haired Brandy loose from her stranglehold on his leg. He gave each of the children a pat on the back and a dime and sent them off to get popcorn.
“Anyhow,” Terell continued. “I figured Slater and his pal were here to deliver that check, so I took them on a tour and explained about our lead paint problem.”
“Someone actually got to see this infamous lead paint?” Ana piped up. “How nice for them.”
Terell ignored her. “Slater never got around to giving me the money. About halfway through the tour, when we’re up on the third floor, he tells me to go ahead and get back to what I was doing. He says they’ll finish looking around the building by themselves. So, I leave, thinking that’s cool. Okay, so I go back downstairs to work on next week’s schedule—which is all messed up, by the way, because Granny’s got a head cold, and no way can she come tomorrow or Tuesday—and I get to remembering that place where the rain’s been coming through the roof upstairs. You know what I’m talking about?”
“Where the floor is rotted out.”
“You’re with me, man. So, I double-time it back up there to warn those dudes against falling through the floor, and guess what they’re doing? They’ve been down to the second floor where one of the volunteer groups is rehabbing Lulu’s new dance studio, and they found themselves a hammer. And now they’re pounding away, trying to break the padlock off that fire escape door.”
“Break the lock? I paid good money for that padlock.”
“I know, and I said to them, ‘Hey, what’re you guys doing?’ And Slater looks shocked that I caught him, like a crack dealer just been spotted by the police, you know. So then he says, well, it’s a fire escape, so the door ought to be unlocked.”
“Did you tell him we keep the key in the office?”
“I told him everything, man. I said the third floor isn’t in public use yet, and we don’t need that fire escape. I explained how the fire inspector came over and looked at the building and said we ought to keep a padlock on that door until we can get one of those self-locking handles installed. And you know what Slater did? He just turned around and gave that lock one more whack, and busted it clean off the door!”
“No way!”
“I was so mad, I could have punched him. I started yelling at him, man, just letting him have it. I know I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t help it. You know all we’ve done to get this place going, and we don’t have two dollars to spare, and then he up and smashes our lock! And those vandals are probably gonna get back in, and spray-paint gang signs on everything we did.”
“What did Slater say?” Sam demanded. “How did he justify that?”
“He tells me, well, a little girl came running up the stairs past them, right up to the third floor, and they were worried about her. They didn’t know where she went. They figured maybe she jumped out a window or something, so they decided they’d climb down the fire escape and look for her. But when they found it locked—”
“Which little girl?” Ana cut in. “Who was it?”
“How should I know? I never saw anything but the usual activities we’ve got going on, and all the regular kids. And I’m just trying to keep the place running smooth, and…where’ve you been, anyhow, Sam? We opened up more than an hour ago, and Raydell didn’t show up, and Granny’s grandson called in about her sore throat, and—”
“Where’s Raydell?” Sam glanced back at the front door. “I saw Ahmed out there. I figured Raydell had taken the day off.”
“No, man, Raydell signed himself up for Sundays from now till kingdom come. I had to put Ahmed outside on guard duty, even though he was bound and determined to play ball. He’s spittin’ nails about the whole thing, but he agreed to it anyhow.”
“Here comes Slater,” Sam said in a low voice. “He and his pal have got some explaining to do.”
Ana touched his arm. “I’m going up to look for Flora. Maybe she’s the girl they saw.”
“Stay put for a minute,” Sam said under his breath.
Lacking his usual warmth, he greeted the two men. As Jim shook Ana’s hand, she noted how clammy his palm felt. Sam had been right. He was ill.
“I’m sure Terell told you about the little problem we had,” Jim said, taking a handkerchief from his back pocket and blotting his brow. “My, it’s muggy in here, isn’t it?”
“The air conditioner doesn’t work right,” Terell groused. “A lot of things are broke around here.”
Sam shot his friend a look of caution. “What’s this I hear about a child on the third floor and you breaking our fire escape lock?”
“We saw a little girl. She was a small child, seemingly quite frightened. We followed her, but we lost track of her on the third floor. We checked in all the rooms. Then we decided we ought to try to see if she had gone down the fire escape.”
“Why?” Ana asked. “If the girl wanted to leave Haven, she was free to go.”
Jim stared at her for a moment. “Well, we were concerned, of course, Ana. We still are, in fact. Jack and I would very much like to find this child to make certain she’s safe.”
“That’s right,” Jack Smith put in.
“Was this the girl you saw in the corner the other day, Jim?” Ana asked. “I mentioned her to you at church this morning. The child from La Ceiba, Honduras.”
He closed his eyes, brow furrowed. “I believe so. Yes, now that I think about it, I’m sure it was that girl. What did you say her name was?”
“Flora.”
“Flora—that’s it! Yes, she was running up the stairs, and we called out to her. But she kept going all the way to the third floor.”
Sam let out a breath of frustration. “She probably went out through a window. We’ve tried to board them up, but I’m sure there are some she could have gotten through, especially on that third floor. Did you see anyone chasing the girl?”
“No,” Jim said. “We’d have stopped him at once if we had. But no, there was no one following her. I just hope she’s all right.”
“I want to go up and look for her, Sam,” Ana said.
“We searched everywhere,” Jack Smith spoke up. “She’s not up there. She’s probably long gone.”
“Which is exactly where we need to be.” Jim nodded at Sam. “I’ll be back later this week with your check. I wanted to bring Jack by first. He has several connections who may be interested in helping fund the paint removal project.”
“That would be great.” Sam turned to the other man. “I’m glad you dropped by.”
“It’s a great place you got here,” Jack said. “Real nice. I’ll talk to my friends and see what they can do.”
Ana studied the two men again as they headed for the door. Terell gave a snort of disgust.
“Bustin’ our lock is about all they’ve done for us so far,” he said. “If we get one penny out of Jim Slater, I’ll be amazed.”
“He paid for the new tiles we’re putting in the bathroom, T-Rex,” Sam reminded him. “And he comes here to work with the kids as often as he can. He’s a good man. He’ll give us that five grand, I guarantee.”
“And I’m Santy Claus,” Terell said, walking away. “I’m outta here.”
“Be with you in a sec,” Sam called after him. “Listen, Ana—”
“I’m going upstairs to search for Flora,” she repeated. “Please don’t say no to this, Sam. I need to find her.”
“Ana, she may not have been here today. You don’t know. Don’t go up there. It’s not safe, and I’m not talking about lead paint. That door is probably wide-open.” He caught her shoulders. “Look, Ana, you went through a lot last night. Why don’t you go back to your apartment and rest your arm? I’ll walk you to your car.”