Impossible Dreams (10 page)

“Of course not, Mr.
Holm
,” she said with
sarcastic emphasis on the formal name. “Everything my family owns is going
to be demolished with that wretched building. That’s no trouble at all.
It just makes it easier to pick up and move.”

A frown knitted the bridge of his nose as he looked at the
collapsed facade of the building. “That could be the mayor’s
intention,” he replied thoughtfully.

Startled, Maya jerked her head around to look at him.
“
What
?”

He caught her elbow and steered her away from the ears of
the interested policeman. “The mayor wants your school closed, remember?
If you have nowhere to live and no reason to stay, you’ll close the
school without his having to make what could conceivably be an unpopular
political decision.”

“You were just
talking
to the man,” she
exclaimed. “Did he tell you this?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. If Ralph was gloating, he
kept it to himself. We were just passing pleasantries about having all these
old buildings inspected before someone gets hurt. We seldom agree on anything,
but we agreed on that much.”

“Well, I should think so.” Maya shook off his
hand and stalked down the alley next to the building, clinging to her cat.
“Maybe they should tear down the whole damned town. But right now, I want
inside that building. Those are my
things
. He doesn’t have any
right to take them away.”

“He has every right, if there’s a danger to
human life. That doesn’t mean he’s right, and that there is a
danger.”

She stopped and swirled to look at him. “What does
that mean?”

Clean-shaven and garbed in his version of casual wear—
blue linen short-sleeved shirt and crisply creased khakis—Axell raised
his hand over his eyes and inspected the roof of the building, then studied the
remaining brick walls. “I think we can find an inspector who will say the
remainder of the building is safe enough to enter to remove the contents. The
brick facade may be weak, but the underlying structure should be sound.”

Maya thought she would kiss him. If her belly weren’t
in the way, she’d throw her arms around this enigmatic Norse god and
plant a smacker square in the middle of his chiseled jaw. That ought to shake
him straight down to his steadfast toes. Instead, she beamed and patted
Axell’s tanned arm. The warmth of his skin startled her, and she hastily
withdrew the gesture. The expression in his eyes was shuttered as he warily
lowered his hand and glanced down at her. Even bigger than she’d ever
been in her life, she felt dainty and fragile in his solid presence.

“Where do we find an inspector?” she asked.

The “we” she had so ingenuously uttered knelled
as loud as church bells between them. All the multifarious implications of
“we” winged through Maya’s mind in the face of his silence.
She didn’t think Axell’s astute businessman’s mind had missed
them either.

“It’s Saturday,” he slowly responded,
tearing his gaze from her to study the building. “I won’t be able
to locate an inspector until Monday, at best. And then there’s the
question of where you’ll transport the items once you’re free to
move them.”

Maya could feel the shark’s teeth closing over her
silly little Pisces head. She should have known better than to play in dangerous
currents instead of placid little ponds. Biting her bottom lip, she let the
tide sweep her straight into the deep blue sea.

“Any suggestions?” she asked gaily, as if that
“we” hadn’t already tolled her doom.

Axell’s eyes narrowed as he caught her elbow again and
steered her around a pile of crumbling brick. “Let’s go to the bar
and talk about it.”

Every time someone in authority wanted to “talk”
about something, it meant being uprooted again. Abandoning all hope, Maya
floated downstream, hopelessly hooked on Axell’s bait.

Fish weren’t supposed to have nests anyway.

***

December, 1945

I don’t remember who seduced whom, but I remember the
night you carried me back to my bed and stayed until daybreak. Don’t you
ever tell me that was just a young man getting his jollies off. It was more
than that, for both of us. We made the birds sing at midnight and the doves cry
at dawn. No one ever made me feel like that before. No one ever can again. Does
she
wrap her legs around you until you roar with hunger? If she’s
got breasts beneath all that binding, I bet you haven’t touched them yet.

If it’s dangerous to talk to yourself, it’s
probably even dicier to listen.

Axell knew better than to get involved. He especially knew
better than to get involved with a female with “trouble” written
all over her. Some people lived from one disaster to another, and Maya Alyssum
struck him as that kind of person. Her vulnerability would eventually expose
his deficiencies, and nothing good could come of either.

But he had an inherent need to help the town of his birth,
and to give back to the community some of the wealth it had so generously
provided him. Angela had claimed he just liked controlling people, but that
wasn’t so. Of course, in this case, helping — or controlling — Maya would
ultimately solve his worst fear: losing Constance.

He sat Maya down in a booth at the back of the restaurant
and signaled his bartender to bring them sweet tea. Matty and Constance were
occupying themselves in the employee break room, well looked after by his
doting staff. He could safely concentrate on bending this tear-stained waif of
a woman to his will. He’d already noted she bent remarkably easily. He
had experience and determination on his side. Surely he could keep a safe
enough distance between them that emotions wouldn’t play a factor in
their relationship, even if Maya was prone to all the usual female
complexities.

“If I hire an inspector,” Axell paused to let
the implication of her obligation sink in, “and he allows you to move
your things, where will you move them?”

She twisted a red paper napkin between her fingers and
didn’t look up. “We haven’t remodeled the upper story of the
school yet. I thought Matty and I could move our things there. But we really
need to keep Cleo’s shop open. She has to have somewhere to go
when...” She hesitated, apparently not wanting to say the word
“prison” out loud. “If only the mayor understood the
awfulness Cleo went through to get this far, maybe he’d listen?”

Axell had looked up the sister. She’d been busted for
chronic possession and shoplifting a teddy bear, not the act of a hardened
criminal. Still, selling drugs was usually the logical next step for an addict.
He had to be cautious here, but he didn’t think a schoolteacher would
condone the behavior of junkies, even if one was her sister.

“Besides, the artisans who designed the stuff in there
deserve an outlet for their creativity and some reward for their work,”
Maya continued. “Some of it would sell for a fortune in California. Cleo
had a brilliant idea. She just didn’t know how to make it work.”

Axell sat back as the bartender set the teas in front of
them. Crossing his arms on the wooden table, he studied his companion.
He’d read her credentials. She had a Masters in childhood education, four
years teaching experience, and an extremely high grade-point average at an
excellent state university. He knew nothing of her prior life. He didn’t
even know where the damned father of her child was. Maybe that was a starting
point.

“Do you have any income other than the school?”
he asked pointedly. “Child support, alimony?”

She shook her wavy curls, and the purple streak fell forward
across her brow with a will of its own. Since she couldn’t reclaim her
clothes, she wore the same outfit she’d worn the day before. Somehow, the
outlandish gauzy pleats and silky shirt looked exotic and expensive, even
though he knew damned well she’d bought them at some thrift store.

“Stephen and I aren’t married. We were more or
less separated when I heard about Cleo...” She skipped over that part
with a wave of her hand. “I didn’t even know for certain I was
pregnant when I flew out here. He travels a lot. I’ve left messages, but
he hasn’t any money. I can’t expect any help from that quarter. I
can make it on my own,” she said defiantly, “I just need to get my
stuff out of that building.”

“I’ve been through the Pfeiffer place.” He
hadn’t blindly sent Constance to a school he knew nothing about. When it
had opened, he’d had every aspect of it checked thoroughly, except the
finances, which weren’t a matter of public record. He wondered if he
ought to probe that angle further but decided against it. Selene
Blackburn’s family had money. They would probably invest in anything to
keep their rattle-brained daughter off the streets. “The upper story
hasn’t been refurbished in decades. You don’t even have working
plumbing up there. No heat, no air; it’s not fit for habitation.”

She stirred the sweet tea with her straw and watched the ice
cubes swirl. “I’ve lived in worse. The plumbing downstairs is just
fine. We can open the windows upstairs in the summer. By winter, maybe
something better will come along.”

She’d lived in worse? Axell didn’t want to
imagine it. Old man Pfieffer had pulled the upper story apart in the process of
renovation, then lost interest after his wife died. Wallpaper hung in ragged
strips. Plaster had been ripped from the lathes. Molding for the unfinished
floors above the school lay in jagged lengths full of nails that invited
tetanus. The mayor was probably right. The building should be demolished. He
shook his head.

“You’re not thinking, Miss Alyssum,” he
admonished. “You not only have a son, but an infant on the way. They
can’t live like that.”

She shot him an angry look. “The name is Maya, Matty
is my nephew, and my sister and I lived like that more times than I can count.
Not everyone in this world was born with a silver spoon in their mouth.”

Back off, Axell
. He retreated against the booth seat
and signaled for more tea. Don’t provoke emotional outbursts, he reminded
himself. Matty was her nephew. Cleo’s kid. Things were getting clearer
now. He’d thought her a bit young to have two kids, but what did he know
about how the other half lived? After all, he’d been born with a silver
spoon in his mouth.

“Having lived like that, I’m sure you’d
prefer Matty and your child to live otherwise.” Dumb, he realized as soon
as he said it. Now he’d really raise her hackles. How in hell did one go
about approaching this topic carefully? Already, his deficiencies were showing.

Maya’s brave smile faded, and she shrugged.
“There are a lot of things I’d like. Not many of them are
attainable. Kids don’t really notice their surroundings too much. What
they notice is how much they’re loved. Just tell me what I have to do to
get you to hire the inspector. I have no idea what one costs or how to go about
hiring one. I just know I can’t afford him.”

Amazed at how easily she cut to the chase, Axell raised his
glass in salute to her astuteness. She offered a wry grin and a lift of her
glass in return. He admired a woman who could speak his language.

“My interest in all this is Constance. I don’t
want you returning to California. I don’t know how you do it, but
you’re bringing my daughter out of her shell. If you leave, she might
regress and give my mother-in-law the means to pry her out of my hands.
I’ll do whatever it takes to prevent that.”

He’d considered offering her a place in his home
again, but the incident this morning had given him second thoughts on that. He
didn’t need wide-eyed waifs in his kitchen at four in the morning. He
didn’t need women giving birth on his kitchen floor. He had all he could
handle already without adding the dangerous complications a female would
bring — particularly after Constance’s revelations about the other women in
his life. He’d never have any privacy. “I own the building next
door to this one.”

Her head jerked up, her eyes widened, and she stared at him
with an awakening hope and fascination that shot Axell’s hormones into
overdrive. She was pregnant, dammit! She was little better than a helpless
child. Just because she looked at him as if he’d handed her the moon
didn’t mean he was free to lose control.

His libido never had listened to reason. That’s why
he’d ended up married to Angela. He learned from his mistakes.

Shifting uncomfortably, Axell gulped his iced tea before
continuing. “The last tenant left it in fairly reasonable condition.
It’s not earning any money sitting there empty. Maybe we could make some
kind of deal.”

“If we can get the inspector’s approval to move
my stuff,” she reminded him. “What kind of a deal did you have in
mind?”

Had she not been twenty-months pregnant, all kinds of
possibilities would have danced through his lecherous mind. He’d always
been a sucker for helpless women, and this one not only appealed to his
wretched need to protect, but with that wisp of uncontrollable purple hair and
huge, wounded eyes, she appealed to his baser instincts as well.

But her pregnancy ruled out all his low-minded thoughts,
simplifying his answer. “You can move into the upstairs apartment, set up
shop downstairs, and pay me a percentage of your gross every month. My only
stipulation is that you be available to Constance as much as possible. Keep her
with you as you do Matty while I work. Except on busy nights like Friday and
Saturday, I try to get away from the bar around nine or ten. If she’s
right next door, I might be able to get out to see her more often.”

Her eyes lit up like a child with a new toy as she
contemplated his promises. He’d never seen anything like it. Grown women
should be a damned sight more wary of men offering candy. This one just seemed
to slip off into her own little dream world.

“We’ll have to move the counter. Do you think I
could hire someone to help me dust all that stuff before we put it back out
again? Could we go look at the building now? I want to tell Matty...”