Lovers and Strangers (10 page)

"Medicine." She said it defensively, as if she expected to be ridiculed. "I'm going to be a doctor. An obstetrician."

Jack merely nodded. "Is that a lifelong ambition?" he asked, and picked up a water chestnut between the tips of his chopsticks.

"Yes, in a way. I've wanted to be a nurse since I was a little girl." She didn't say that her choice had been influenced by the belief that nursing was the only medical career a woman could aspire to. Or that the choice had been, in reality, only a dream, anyway, because her father didn't believe in higher education for women. He wouldn't have let her attend school beyond the eighth grade if the law hadn't required it, despite the fact that she'd been a straight A student from kindergarten on.

"I never actually thought about becoming a doctor, though, until Sammie-Jo suggested it," she admitted.
Don't ever let other people's expectations limit you,
is what Sammie-Jo had said. "I was planning to study nursing. But I knew the minute she brought up the idea of applying to medical school instead that it was what I'd really wanted all along."

"You and Sammie-Jo are good friends, aren't you? Not just roommates."

"She's one of my best friends."

"Is she from Pine Hollow, too?" he asked, recalling the other woman's faint Southern accent. "Is that where you know her from?"

"Um-hmm." Faith paused a minute to savor a bite of shrimp toast. "We went to school together. Well, not exactly
together,"
she amended. "We were in a lot of the same classes because we were both in the gifted students program, but we weren't really part of the same crowd." She laughed softly, remembering. "It's still a wonder to me how we ever became friends in the first place. Sammie-Jo's people are Catholic," she added, as if that explained everything.

Jack raised an eyebrow. "And Catholics don't mix with hard-shell Christians in Pine Hollow?"

Faith considered that. "Well, some do, I guess, even in Pine Hollow. But not my family. My father says Catholics are idol worshipers."

"He sounds like a stern man," Jack said, wondering if she realized how revealing her comments were. From what she'd said yesterday and today, he was beginning to form a very unflattering picture of Faith's father. "Is that why you ran away from home?"

Faith flushed and put her half-eaten shrimp toast down on her plate. "I know I sort of agreed with you when you said that yesterday—about me running away, I mean. But it wasn't really like that. I may be a hick but I'm not a child," she said with quiet dignity. "And only children run away from home. I packed up my things and moved away."

Jack could have argued the point with her; he'd left his childhood behind years ago but had only just stopped running. Maybe for good. And maybe not. It all depended on what happened with the script he was working on. "Okay, you moved away," he agreed, tacitly apologizing for his blunder. "Why now? Why not before?"

Faith shrugged uneasily. "There were a lot of reasons."
Guilt. Shame. Duty. Fear.
"But, mostly, I guess, because my main reason for staying was gone. My mother died last winter," she explained.

"I'm sorry," Jack murmured, instantly contrite. He wanted suddenly, desperately, to reach across the table and offer her the comfort of his touch. And, because he wanted to so badly, he didn't. "I shouldn't have asked."

"No, it's all right. It wasn't unexpected. Or even unwelcome on her part, I think. Mama'd been sick for an awfully long time."
Sick of living, mainly.
"She'd always been kind of delicate and poorly. Her death was very peaceful. Very—" she groped for a word "—serene. But when she was gone, well, I was finally free to go, too," she said musingly, speaking more to herself than to him. "There was nothing to keep me there any longer."

Jack was beginning to form a
very
unflattering picture of Faith's father. "Did he beat you?" he asked savagely, feeling his gut twist at the thought of anyone hurting her.

"No. Oh, no, of course not," she said quickly. Vehemently. "My father is a stern God-fearing man, and he disciplined all of us when he thought it was necessary, but he never
beat
us. Not the way you mean."

Jack wondered if she realized that she hadn't had to ask who he meant before she answered the question. "But he hit you, didn't he? Spare the rod, spoil the child?"

"Well , yes, but—" she paused, pressing a hand to her chest. Her father was three thousand miles away and he could still cause her chest to tighten with anxiety. "My goodness, how did we get on this subject?" she said, distressed by the ugly look in Jack's eyes. She could see pity there. And disgust. It made her feel small and insignificant. "It's really not very interesting."

"Everything about you is interesting," Jack said, surprised to realize he meant it sincerely. For some inexplicable reason, he found the subject of Faith McCray fascinating in the extreme. And it scared the hell out of him.

"No." She shook her head. "No, trust me. It isn't. I really don't want to talk about it anymore." She curled her hands into fists on her lap. "Please."

"All right," Jack agreed instantly, willing to do anything to erase that pinched, unhappy look from her face. Wanting, too, to back away from the intense attraction he felt for her—and from the anger that welled up at the thought of anyone laying a hand on his angel. "We'll talk about something else. How 'bout those Dodgers?"

Faith blinked. "Dodgers?"

"They keep playing the way they're doing, they're bound to make the play-offs this year."

"Play-offs?"

"If the injuries don't knock them out of the running, that is. Lasorda's pitching staff isn't as deep as it should be." He pointed at her plate with his chopsticks. "Are you going to eat that pork dumpling?"

"Ah... no," she said, taken aback by his abrupt change of subject. "No, I'm not going to eat it." She pushed the plate toward him. "It's all yours," she said, watching as he reached across the table and deftly pinched it between the ends of his chopsticks.

Her expression softened as she watched him carry the tasty little tidbit to his lips. Her own lips turned up in a small, secret, very female smile.

"What?" he said, looking up to catch her staring at him as if he were Prince Charming and her very own brilliant baby boy all rolled into one.

"You're an awfully nice man, Jack Shannon." She smiled at him with her whole heart in her eyes. "I don't think you want anybody to know it, but you are."

Jack felt the dumpling lodge itself in his throat. He had to swallow again—hard—before he could answer her. "No, I'm not," he said, holding her gaze with his. "I'm not a nice man at all. If I were a nice man I wouldn't be here with you now."

Her gaze wavered a bit, but she didn't look away. "Why?" she murmured, steeling herself to hear him tell her she wasn't a nice woman. She'd heard it before.

"Because you're as innocent as a baby and I'm old enough to be your father, that's why."

"Oh, no, I-"

"I turned forty-three last month, Faith," he said, cutting off whatever argument she was about to make. "And you're only twenty-four. I know that for a fact because Tim told me it was on your job application. That's nearly twenty years difference in our ages."

"Nineteen," Faith said, shaving off the year he'd added. "And I'll be twenty-five in September, which means there's really only eighteen years between us. My father was almost ten years older than that when I was born." She smiled with sweet triumph. "So you're not nearly old enough to qualify for the position."

"Don't bet on it, Angel. It was the sixties, remember, the era of 'free love' and 'do your own thing.'" His eyebrow slid up, sardonic this time. "And I was always a precocious little bugger."

Faith took a deep breath and looked him straight in the eyes. "Well, we have more in common than I thought, then," she said brightly, trying to make a joke of it even though it still hurt to think about. "Because so was I."

Chapter 5

There was a party going on when they arrived back at the Wilshire Arms. A makeshift buffet had been set up on a couple of the glass-topped patio tables in the courtyard. There were big bowls of dips and chips, a large aluminum tray full of finger-size empanadas and burritos from the Mexican take-out restaurant down the street, a tray of spiced chicken wings and appetizer-size baby back ribs from a local barbecue joint and another tray piled high with little triangles of spanikopita and tiny filo-wrapped cheese tarts from the family-owned Greek place located behind the apartment building. A deli tray of cut-up vegetables sat, practically untouched amid the high-fat, fast-food feast, while a jumbo-size cardboard tub of Mrs. Fields chocolate chip cookies was already half-empty.

The bar was set up on a third table, with four cartons of cheap wine, a metal washtub full of crushed ice and beer, and several large bottles of soft drinks and designer water. A hodgepodge collection of Dixie cups, plastic drinking glasses and cocktail napkins filched from various local establishments, was stacked conveniently beside them.

Music was being provided via a long orange extension cord snaking out of one of the windows of a ground floor apartment. It was attached to a multidisc CD player turned up full blast. Jack recognized the song playing as Three Dog Night's "Mama Told Me Not To Come." It had been at the top of the charts back in 1970.

For a moment, Jack felt as if he had stepped into a time machine. The music was the same. The laughter. The beautiful young people, so many of them Hollywood hopefuls, chatting and dancing and flirting, flitting in and out of the shadows cast by the flowering plants and the overhanging balconies above the courtyard.

The ageless Madame Markova was there, looking much the same as she had twenty-five years ago, in her full gypsy skirts with her thick white hair pinned up in a drooping Gibson girl bun, deep in conversation with a young man wearing a cropped mesh T-shirt and a navel ring. Carl Mueller, the building super, was quietly watching everything from a shadowed corner, just as he had always done.

Jack half expected to look up and see his brother and their two roommates, Zeke and Ethan, up on one of the balconies overlooking the courtyard, laughing uproariously as they tossed potato chips and lewd suggestions at the girls below. But the balcony was empty and silent.

Zeke Blackstone was a famous director now, twice divorced and living in the South of France with his current mistress. Ethan Roberts was a respected actor with a beautiful trophy wife, two perfect yuppie kids and political aspirations. And Eric was dead.

He had died during a party very much like this one.

Jack thought for a minute that he wasn't going to be able to stand it. For just a split second, he was deathly afraid he would break and run, just like he had before, after the police had informed him that his brother had committed suicide. And then Faith reached out and touched his arm, breaking the spell and bringing him back to the present.

"A party," she said, the delight evident in her voice.

Jack turned his head and looked down at her. She was gawking like the small town hick she'd accused herself of being, trying to take in everything at once.

"Don't tell me you've never been to a party before," Jack said, but he knew by her reaction that she hadn't. Her father, he thought, had a hell of a lot to answer for.

"Church socials," she said, her gaze still darting from point to point, trying to see everything there was to see. "My cousin Mary Ruth's sweet sixteen slumber party. And a few wedding and baby showers. But never anything like this." She looked up at him, excitement shining in her eyes. "It looks like
such fun,
doesn't it, Jack?"

It looked like a giant headache in the making to him but he smiled and agreed. "Are you just going to stand there and watch, or are you going to join all this—" his eyebrow slid up "—fun?"

"I wasn't invited."

"This isn't a private party, Angel. It'd be inside someone's apartment if it was, not out here in the courtyard. Trust me," he said drily, "if you live here, even temporarily, you're invited."

At least, that had been the rule when he'd lived here before. Looking around, he didn't think the rule had changed. The two doors to the interior hallways had been propped open, tacitly inviting revelers to wander in and out of any open apartments at will. Not, he realized with some surprise, that anybody was actually doing all that much reveling. By the partying standards of 1970, this was a pretty tame gathering.