Not Quite an Angel (13 page)

While they waited for their orders, Troy and Cougar went to the washroom, taking their grubby packs with them. Adam took advantage of their absence to ask Sameh exactly how and where she'd met them. She told him, and then added, “Cougar was terribly sick. He's feeling better just now—I used healing energy—but I'm not sure it'll last.”

The kid didn't look healthy, but Adam figured Sameh must be exaggerating the sick part of the story. Cougar looked as healthy as Troy, which wasn't saying much.

Sameh was looking at him with a pleading expression on her face that was starting to make him nervous. “They don't have anywhere to stay, Adam.” Sameh's brow furrowed with anxiety. “They've been sleeping in that park, and the attendant came along while I was there and told them they had to leave.” She was outraged. “I thought parks were public property.”

He didn't answer, waiting for whatever catastrophic idea she was going to propose next. It wasn't long in coming. She looked at him from under her lashes, and against his better judgment, he felt himself melting.

“Adam, I was wondering if maybe you could let them sleep at your house for a couple of days?”

He almost choked on a mouthful of coffee. “You want me to—to take those two home? To my place?” He couldn't believe he'd heard her right.

“Please, Adam? You do have that extra bedroom.”

Why couldn't she beg him that way for all the things he ached to do to her instead of for something as preposterous as this?

“Cougar needs to eat and sleep and be able to relax in order to really get over whatever infection he had. I can't take them home with me—Violet would be…” Sameh paused and then added in what Adam figured was the understatement of the century, “Violet would be upset. I
thought of asking Frances and Bernie, but I don't want to take any chances that Corey or Kate might pick up the infection Cougar had.”

She saw the expression on Adam's face and hurriedly explained, “Not that I think he's at all infectious, Adam. Not now. I just don't want to take the slightest chance, you understand. And I've checked on both of them. They're not on drugs.” She sounded definite.

This was more than he could swallow. “C'mon, Sameh. I told you I know about kids like this. Those two have done drugs, I guarantee it. They're probably just coming off some trip right now.”

She looked a little guilty and countered in a small voice, “Maybe in the past they might have, but they're not on drugs at the moment. I think they might have taken drugs at some point—there's a slight disruption in their auras—but right now they're uncontaminated.”

Uncontaminated. Well, whoopee, he'd be sure to mark one down for the good guys.

He just wished to God she didn't look so appealing. He just wished she had more on than those ridiculous shorts. And he didn't think she was wearing a bra under the flimsy nylon top. “I can't turn those two loose alone in my house, Sameh. Surely you can understand that.” He could tell right off the bat that she couldn't understand. Damn. Why had he ever taken up with such an exasperating woman?

“Well, we can't just walk away and leave them after they've eaten, can we, Adam?”

That was pretty much what he had been hoping to do, but considering the expression of horror on her face, he decided perhaps he'd better revert to plan B. Whatever the hell that was. He thought fast. “Look, I know of shelters where these kids can stay, pretty decent places. I'll try to locate something for them later.” She didn't look con
vinced, but there wasn't time to say any more because the boys came back just then.

They looked marginally cleaner than before; they'd scrubbed their hands and faces, and Troy had slicked down his wild black hair with water, but both of them still smelled less than pleasant. The air-conditioning helped, but didn't entirely take away their stale, sweaty odor.

They'd barely slid back into the booth when the food arrived, and Adam couldn't help but feel upset when he saw the almost frantic way they attacked it. He'd been through plenty of things as a boy, but he'd never been this hungry. Even when he'd run away from one of the schools he was enrolled in, he'd always had enough money to feed himself and rent a place to sleep at night.

The dismal reality of Troy's and Cougar's lives—of the life of any of the street kids in L.A.—wasn't one Adam had dwelled upon. He'd seen these kids around on the streets, he'd even had a close and uncomfortable look at their world during an investigation he and Bernie had once conducted, but after that unpleasant job was over, he'd turned a blind eye to the entire problem of homeless youths. After all, what could he do about it? The problem was enormous, and he had his own life to live.

Now he felt as if his nose was being rubbed in his own indifference, and it wasn't a pleasant sensation.

T
HE FRANTIC SPEED
with which the boys shoveled in their first order of food slowed somewhat when the second batch arrived at the table. Troy was forking up his syrup-soaked pancakes with a more relaxed rhythm by the time Cougar laid his fork down, his face whiter than his napkin, and scrambled out of the booth and bolted for the washroom.

“Jeez, he's sick again.” Troy dropped his fork and started to follow his friend, but Adam put a hand on his shoulder.

“Stay here and finish eating. I'll go check on him.”

Troy stayed at the table, but he dropped his utensils onto his half-finished food and his shoulders slumped. After a few minutes of silence, he said, “I thought he was all over it. I thought you fixed him.” There was both worry and accusation in his voice and in his eyes when he looked across at Sameh.

She felt a total failure. She reached across to touch his hand, knocking over the container of maple syrup in the process. She piled paper napkins on top of the spreading pool. “I did the best I could to help Cougar, but I'm not very good at healing, Troy,” she said. “I try, but a lot of the time what I do doesn't work.”

He thought that over and then shrugged. “Yeah, well, I guess it's not your fault he's sick, anyways.” It was evident from his tone that he'd learned not to expect anything from adults.

Not her fault, Sameh thought, but her responsibility. “Isn't there anyone to take care of Cougar? Where are his parents, his relatives?”

He shrugged. “His dad's dead. His stepfather hated him—he used to beat him up real bad, and his mother didn't care. They moved away and Cougar doesn't even know where they went. He gets real low sometimes—he even tried to hang himself once.” His young voice took on a hard edge. “Anyhow, it's not your problem. We'll manage okay. We're tough, Cougar and me.”

Sameh could sense the insecurity and fear that surrounded him, and the intensity of it made her shudder.

When Adam and Cougar finally returned to the table, it was all too evident that Cougar was having a severe recurrence of fever. His face was flushed and his entire body trembled violently. He was unsteady on his feet, and Adam had to support him. “We'd better get this kid to a doctor.” Adam paid the bill, and he and Troy supported Cougar between them as they made their way to the car.

Sameh made a quick call to Delilah, explaining what was happening. Sameh had the feeling that Delilah hardly listened to what she was saying. “Take the rest of the day off,” she said in a distracted tone. “I have an appointment, so I won't be working on the book today, anyway.” Frowning, Sameh replaced the receiver. Delilah wasn't her usual self.

She hurried out to the car. Cougar was slumped across Troy's lap in the back seat. “If we go to Emergency, it's going to take hours,” Adam growled, glancing at his watch. “There's a doctor in the building next to Blue Knights we could try. I did some work for his, uh…” He glanced at Sameh and she sensed his uneasiness. “For his nurse.”

Adam seemed to be reconsidering the idea of using the doctor, but finally he looked at his watch again and made
an exasperated noise in his throat. “I've got a meeting I have to attend in less than an hour, Bernie's out on a job, and there isn't time to take this kid anywhere else.” He nosed his way into traffic and headed for Blue Knights. Unfortunately the motion made Cougar sick all over again. He stuck his head out the window and vomited down the side of the car.

Adam pulled into the parking lot behind Blue Knights with a screech of tires. “You and Troy go wait in my office. I'll take care of Cougar,” he ordered, half lifting Cougar out of the car.

“I'm going with Cougar.” Troy was adamant.

“I'll come along, too.” Sameh ignored Adam's objections and followed the others. It was rather like a parade.

As soon as they trailed into the doctor's office, Sameh knew that the voluptuous blond nurse seated behind the desk had had much more than a business relationship with Adam. Her pretty face flushed bright pink when she first saw him, and her brown eyes widened with pleasure. Her lavish breasts heaved beneath the pristine white uniform.

“Hello, Joyce.” Adam's voice sounded strained.

“Adam, honey, I've tried to call you so many times. Where've you been, lover?” Her voice was liquid honey. Smiling a knowing smile, moistening her full lips with the tip of her tongue, she got to her feet a second before she caught sight of Sameh, half-hidden behind the others. Her gaze slid slowly from Sameh's jogging shoes up to her headband. She looked at Adam, and something in his expression must have alerted her. “Are you together?” There was still a glimmer of hope in her eyes, but when Adam confirmed that they were, and introduced Sameh and the boys, her face became stiff.

For some perverse reason she didn't understand, Sameh
moved to stand beside Adam. She even put a proprietary hand on his arm.

“What seems to be the problem?” Joyce's welcoming manner had disappeared. She ignored Cougar, slumped in one of the orange plastic chairs, choosing instead to glare at Sameh, obviously hoping against hope that she was terminally ill.

The doctor had just arrived and wasn't busy yet, so within half an hour, he took Cougar into his office and examined him. His prescription was bed rest, plenty of fluids and a course of high-potency vitamins.

While Adam paid the doctor's bill and went to buy the vitamins at a nearby drugstore, Sameh and Troy helped Cougar up the steps and into Blue Knights' offices. “You didn't say this Hawkins dude was, like, some private detective,” Troy hissed at Sameh when he saw the sign on the door. “That's almost the same as a cop, y'know. Cougar's not gonna want to stay here.”

Sameh was losing patience. “Cougar's too sick to care, Troy, and he's got to stay somewhere. Now stop complaining and help me get him into the office. It looks as if he might be getting sick to his stomach again.” Janice came hurrying over when they barged in the door, and Sameh explained as best she could what was going on. Janice, completely unperturbed by the boys' grungy appearance, Sameh's running gear or the horrified stares of several over-dressed women waiting in the reception area, immediately got Cougar settled on the couch. She made him stretch out full length, and she covered him with an overcoat Adam had forgotten in the closet. Two clients got up and moved as far away as possible, which wasn't far—the reception area wasn't large.

Janice gave Troy a ten-dollar bill from her purse and sent him out to get fruit juice. “Get the pure kind, with no
sugar,” she ordered. “And buy an extra bottle of vitamin C, as well. This kid needs all the help he can get.”

Sameh helped settle Cougar, filling Janice in on how she'd met Troy in the first place, but the whole time she talked, a part of her was trying to make sense of the intense and puzzling emotions she'd experienced when she realized that Adam and the nurse, Joyce, had been lovers.

It had felt as if a hand were squeezing her heart so she couldn't breathe. She'd actually experienced intense rage, directed toward the nurse, and an infantile desire to stake some sort of claim to Adam. For an instant, she'd even wanted to use a bolt of energy to wipe the simpering smile off the other woman's face—a woman she didn't even know, for Jupiter's sake, and one she had no reason in the world to dislike.

Slowly it dawned on her that she was jealous.

Jealousy was an emotion she was totally unfamiliar with, and one that she found profoundly disturbing. Her brain and her training told her that jealousy was a neurotic response, signaling dependency and insecurity and a host of other immature emotions that she, as a student Adept, should have overcome and outgrown long before.

But what her brain said and what her heart felt were poles apart.

 

A
DAM HURRIED BACK
to the office, aware that he was still unshaven and already late for his nine o'clock meeting with Mrs. St. James and her middle-aged daughter. The mother wanted Blue Knights to investigate the man who wanted to marry her daughter, just in case he wasn't quite what he appeared to be. They were important clients; Mrs. St. James was from one of Los Angeles's oldest and richest families. A good word from her would result in lucrative referrals.

Troy was just going in the door when Adam arrived. The
boy had a grocery bag in one arm and his tattered backpack in the other. The air-conditioning wasn't doing well at wafting away the pungent odor both boys gave off. It had obviously hit the fastidious nostrils of the silk-clad women now tapping their elegant sandals with visible impatience. They held lace-edged handkerchiefs to their noses, and they sat as far as they could get from Cougar, who was stretched out on the couch and making soft moaning noises.

Troy plopped down into a seat right beside Mrs. St. James. The glare she shot Adam told him she was on the verge of vacating the premises and taking her daughter with her. Hoping to contain the damage, Adam gave them both what he hoped looked like a welcoming smile. “Good morning, ladies. I'm Adam Hawkins. I spoke to you on the phone.”

He turned to Janice. She and Sameh were bending over Cougar, trying to get several tablets down his throat. He was making ominous gagging sounds. “Janice, would you take Mrs. St. James and—” what the hell was the daughter's name? “—and her daughter into my office and get them some coffee?”

The women rose quickly to their feet, obviously relieved to be moving anywhere away from the reception area, and Adam tried for the smile again. It felt more like a grimace. “I'll be along in just a few moments. Thank you for being so patient,” he said, waiting for Janice to move. “Janice?” There was steel in his tone.

Janice got up with obvious reluctance, her miniskirt revealing amazing portions of her bottom. Troy swallowed and averted his eyes. Mrs. St. James raised her eyebrows and sniffed. “On top of everything else, this poor kid's got a doozy of a stomachache,” Janice announced loudly, giving Adam an accusing look. “I wouldn't be surprised but what he gets a major case of diarrhea.” Mrs. St. James and
daughter sidled toward the door as if this new horror was about to happen right under their refined noses.

Janice was impervious to their discomfort. “Sameh told me what you fed them for breakfast. It's a wonder both these kids aren't dead, eating all that heavy food when they're practically starved. You oughta know better than that, boss.” Without waiting for a response from him, she marched off down the hall, herding the two women ahead of her like a pair of geese.

“Delilah said I could take the day off, Adam. I can stay with the boys.” Sameh was giving him a hopeful, expectant look. It didn't take a health-care expert to figure out that the couch of Blue Knights' reception area wasn't the ideal spot for Cougar to recuperate, and Adam had no time to phone all over the city and find a shelter willing to take Cougar and Troy in right away.

He could rent them a motel room. He imagined the kind of sleazebag place that would even consider two kids like these and rejected the idea. He reviewed his options and found there weren't many. There was, in fact, just one. He could let them stay at his place, as Sameh had suggested.

Just before he caved in, he gave serious thought to walking out the front door and heading for the nearest bar. The only thing that stopped him was the fact that it was still only ten-fifteen in the morning, and he was pretty sure the bars in the neighborhood didn't open that early.

“All right, damn it, my place it is. Just until I can figure something else out.” He raked a hand through his hair. “I'll call a cab.” He took two steps that put him nose-to-nose with Troy and said in a soft voice, “I'm trusting you and Cougar with my house.” My sound system, my water bed, my surfboard, my microwave.
My woman.
With every ounce of menace he could inject into his tone, he said, “Don't let me down, will you, Troy?”

“No, sir. Thanks, sir.” Troy all but saluted.

“Oh, thank you, Adam.” Sameh's eyes were shining. “This is so generous of you. You're such a nice man.”

Nice, hell. He was a total idiot, Adam fumed, his temper barely under control. But then she skipped over to him, reached up and linked her hands behind his head and drew his face down to hers. She planted a moist kiss right on his lips, her mouth sweet and warm and delicious, and every single one of his reservations fell in a shattered heap at his feet.

God, he'd sign the damn lease on his house over to a street gang if only she thanked him this way every time he was nice.

 

I
T WASN'T EASY TO GET
the boys into any sort of shelter. Adam, Janice and Sameh all worked on the problem, making dozens of calls during the next few days, putting their names on countless lists, talking to one sympathetic social worker after another—all without results. The fact was, the number of shelters for street kids was woefully inadequate. The ones that existed were overcrowded, short of staff and seriously underfunded.

A full week passed and they were still living with Adam. Cougar made a miraculous recovery within the first twenty-four hours; just as Janice had suspected, his illness was probably more a combination of malnutrition and an overloaded stomach than an infection.

By the end of the first five days, Adam's patience was stretched to the limit. As houseguests, the two left a great deal to be desired. Adam drew up a strict list of rules governing cleanliness, laundry and housekeeping chores, but the boys had little or no experience with even the rudiments of family living.

They tried. With well-meant zeal, they ruined four of his
printed cotton shirts and three sets of Levi's by pouring most of a bottle of bleach into the washing machine. They set fire to the stove by trying to broil an entire pound of bacon two inches from the element. The whole house and all Adam's expensive suits smelled of smoke, and the white ceilings needed to be repainted. As if that wasn't enough, Adam's neighbors on either side complained about the music that played full volume from the moment Adam left for work until five minutes before he arrived home in the evening.