Some kind of wonderful (5 page)

Not exactly the image of a congenial tenant.

"Look, Chief or Captain or—"

"Just Reilly'll do."

She arched one eyebrow. "One name. Like Cher?"

His lips tightened into a grim slash across his face.

"Fine," she said. "Reilly. I don't even know you."

Now one of his black eyebrows lifted briefly. "Is that a prerequisite for renting your apartment?"

"It'd help."

"You know my family."

True. And the Reillys were a nice family. She shot him a look. Well, most of them were.

"I even like your family."

He gave her a grim smile. "You don't have to like me and I don't have to like you," he said through gritted teeth. "I'm looking for a place. You need a tenant."

"Not this bad, I don't."

He unfolded his arms, exhaled in a rush of frustration, then shoved one hand through his hair. "I'm quiet, I'll pay you in advance, and you won't even have to know I'm here."

Oh, she'd know. It'd be impossible to not know. Heck, he took up half the hallway just standing there. Seeing him every day. Hearing him every night. The apartments were so close, they'd be living in each other's pockets.

On the other hand, she thought, it was just temporary. And he had been nice—grudgingly—tonight. He'd helped her out. The least she could do was return the favor. Especially since it would be good to have someone close by who knew a little something about infants.

Abruptly, she nodded. "The rent's eight hundred a month."

"Deal."

She held out one hand to shake on it.

Quinn's rumbling growl filled the hall.

Jack enfolded her hand in his.

Heat slammed into her and Carol almost felt every one of her nerve endings standing straight up to sing the "Hallelujah Chorus."

Oh, this was so not a good idea.

Mary Alice Reilly plopped down in a chair and watched her son throw his clothes into a bag. She knew her children. And even grown, they were still and always would be her children. Her gaze slid from Jack to the room where he'd grown up. His baseball trophies still lined the shelf that circled the room just below the ceiling. Posters of now retired athletes decorated the sky blue walls and the white curtains she'd made herself still fluttered in the breeze at the windows. It hardly seemed possible that so many years had gone by. If she closed her eyes, she could still see Jack, tall, gangly, with a shock of black hair continually falling into his eyes. Her firstborn and the one most like his father.

Stubborn.

Though, if she were to be honest, he'd gotten a little of his hardheadedness from her, too. She lifted one hand to smooth her graying red hair and told herself to be patient. Of all five of her kids, Jack had always been the hardest one of them to get to open up. When he closed up, you couldn't get anything out of him with a crowbar.

But that had never stopped her from trying.

And she'd never been known for her patience.

"I don't understand why you have to leave."

"I'm not leaving," Jack told her and tossed shirts into his duffel bag from across the room. "I'm moving."

"Leaving, moving." She waved a hand. "What's the difference?"

"Distance," he muttered and pitched some socks after the shirts. "I'll still be in town until Sheriff Thompson recovers."

"But you don't want to be."

He stopped, laid both hands on top of the dresser that had been his for the first eighteen years of his life, and slowly turned his head to look at her. Her knowing blue eyes stared back at him and Jack remembered that he'd never been able to fool her. Even when he was a kid, she'd been able to spot a lie at a hundred paces. "I said I'd do it. I'm going to."

"Then you'll leave again."

"Yeah." He shifted his gaze back to the pitifully few garments left in his drawer. He was traveling light these days.

"How far?"

"Huh?"

"I asked," she repeated, "how far? How far will you have to run to get away from yourself?"

"Let it go, Mom."

"That's not gonna happen," she said calmly and pushed up out of the chair. At fifty-five, she was as trim as she'd always been and moved just as quickly. In a few brisk steps, she was standing beside him, staring up into his eyes, silently daring him to look away. "It wasn't your fault, Jack. When are you going to see that?"

Jack sighed. This was why he had to move out.

His mother's understanding and concern were just too damn hard to take. She loved him, so she wasn't

willing to see the truth. The truth that Jack lived with every damn day.

That it had all been his fault.

And he didn't deserve redemption.

"What's the deal?"

They both turned to face Peggy, standing in the open doorway. At eighteen, she was the last of the Reilly kids and the only one still living at home. Her short red hair peaked in jagged points around an elfin face with a dusting of gold freckles across her nose and cheeks. Short and slim, she looked just like he imagined fairies or pixies would. Born when Jack was a senior in high school, their father had called Peggy his little bonus—unexpected, but more than welcome. It had been a little embarrassing at the time for Jack to be forced to accept the fact that his parents were actually still having sex. But from the moment she was born, he'd been wrapped around her finger.

That didn't mean he wanted to talk to her at the moment, though. "Beat it, brat."

"Wow." Peggy grinned up at him, slapping one hand to her chest. "Be still, my heart."

"Go away, Peggy, your brother and I are talking."

"On second thought," Jack told his sister, "stay."

Peggy slipped into the room, flopped onto his bed, then rolled onto her stomach, swinging both legs in the air. "Is this the great escape?" she asked, reaching for the duffel bag and peeking inside.

Their mother sighed and narrowed her eyes. "Aren't you supposed to be at the hotel?"

"Eileen's covering for me," Peggy said.

"Eileen should be at home lying down," Mary Alice countered, thinking of her third child, very pregnant with her third child. "That baby's due any day."

Peggy grinned. "How tough is it to pick up the phone and say, 'Ho-Ho-Hotel, how can I help you?'"

Jack groaned. The hotel. He'd put in his time at the family-owned business. Surrounded by Christmas trees, stockings hung by the fireplace, and year-round carolers. He didn't blame Peggy a bit for sneaking out.

"So what's going on with this baby thing?" the girl asked, propping her chin in her cupped hands. "Everybody in town's talking about it, but nobody knows anything."

Jack wasn't eager to discuss the baby, but it beat the hell out of the talk his mother was determined to have. "Not much to report," he said and carried two pairs of jeans to the duffel. Smacking Peggy's hand aside, he shoved them into the bag, then headed back to the dresser. "Somebody abandoned a newborn girl last night."

"Just awful," Mary Alice muttered. "When Maggie called to tell me that you and that nice Carol Baker were taking care of the poor little thing, I could hardly believe it. Why, things like that don't happen in Christmas."

"God, Mom," Peggy said, rolling onto her side to prop her head on one hand. "Don't you watch the news? Stuff like that happens everywhere."

"Listen to the world traveler," her mother said.

Jack ignored the bickering. In the Reilly household, if you weren't arguing, you weren't talking. "Peggy, have you noticed any pregnant women around town?"

"You mean besides Eileen?" She grinned again and he found himself answering that smile. Impossible not to. Another good reason for getting out of the house.

"Yeah, since Eileen's still cooking hers."

"Nope."

"What about the girls at school?" Mary Alice asked, frowning. "Wasn't there something a few months ago about Lyssa Devon ... ?"

Peggy pushed up to kneel on the mattress and rolled her eyes dramatically enough to send them cartwheeling right out of her head. "God, Mom. That was mono. Lyssa had mono. Not a baby. Something like that I would have noticed."

"So none of your girlfriends have been putting on weight the last few months?" Jack asked.

Peggy sniffed and lifted her chin. "If they were, I wouldn't rat them out. But they're not. I mean, please. We're not stupid. We have to go to all of those health classes and listen to all the lectures about AIDS and STDs and stuff. And how condoms are the eighth wonder of the world and no one should leave home without one."

"Condoms don't always work, you know," Mary Alice pointed out.

"I know," Peggy said, interrupting the lecture she'd already heard dozens of times. "Don't worry, Mom. I'm not doing anything. And when I do, I'll be careful. I mean I wouldn't let some high school sleazoid touch me anyway and besides—"

"Okay, now you can shut up," Jack said. It was one thing to know that his parents had had sex. It was something else again to think about his little sister rolling around in the back seat of some fast-talking teenager's car.

"Geezzz," Peggy complained, scooting off the bed and slouching toward the door. "You guys asked the questions, remember?"

"Go to the hotel," her mother called as Peggy slipped into the hallway. "Send Eileen home to rest."

"Yeah, yeah." The resigned voice floated back to them from the end of the hall. "It is summer vacation, you know."

Jack, sensing his mother was about to jump back

into their previous conversation, took advantage of her momentary distraction. Zipping up the duffel, he slung the strap over his shoulder and headed for the door himself. "See you later, Mom."

"Sunday dinner. Here."

"Right."

Once her kids were gone and the old house had settled into quiet again, Mary Alice glanced around her son's old room and sighed. The years went by too quickly, that was the trouble. By the time you figured out that the times you were living were the best, they were over and nothing more remained than a few blurry snapshots and a handful of memories.

Frowning, she remembered the flash of old pain in Jack's eyes and wished she knew a way to combat it. Why was it, she wondered, that the older your kids got, the harder it was to see them hurt?

When they were little, a kiss and a Band-Aid would do the trick.

But as scraped knees gave way to broken hearts and troubled souls, it was so much harder to find the words to help.

walking to the gallows. Gee, he seemed real happy about the prospect, too.

Her own, tall, black-haired, blue-eyed ray of sunshine.

"Sure," she said, glancing at the baby, lying in her drawer atop the counter, "this is gonna work out fine. Mr. Charm. I can see it now. We'll share late-night coffees. Have picnics in the backyard." Carol laughed to herself, but couldn't quite squash the flash of pure female interest that rose up in her as she watched him move.

So tall. His legs looked impossibly long in worn, faded jeans. His running shoes were battered and the dark red short-sleeved shirt he wore emphasized the width of his shoulders. His black hair gleamed in the morning sunlight and the frown on his face deepened with every step that brought him closer to the front porch.

Carol's stomach jittered, but she hid it well when he took a sharp left after entering the building and pushed open the door to the shop. Bells on the door jangled a welcome that was clearly lost on him.

"Look who's here, Liz," she said, smiling briefly at the sleeping baby. "It's Sir Charm-a-lot."

"Cute." He grimaced, but at least his features showed some kind of animation. She'd begun to think his face was frozen into that scowl.

'*T 4-OTT >»

1 try.

He pulled off his sunglasses and reached into his shirt pocket. "Here's the rent check. One month. In advance."

Quinn stood up behind the counter and his low, deep-throated rumble rolled out into the room.

Jack shot the dog a quick look as he handed the check over. She took it, her gaze landing on the upper left-hand corner. Plain, gray paper. Boring. No designs. No funky little sayings or artwork. Nothing to tell her anything

about his personality. Plus, he'd drawn lines through his address. Apparently, he'd left LA behind him permanently. He'd made it clear that he could hardly wait to get out of Christmas, so where, she wondered, was he actually headed? Then she wondered if even he knew the answer to that question.

Tapping the check against her fingertips, she asked, "Do you have any ED?"

"Trying for cute again, huh?"

"I've been told I'm very cute," she assured him.

"Uh-huh. By your coven, no doubt."

"Well, sure. If you can't count on your own coven to support you ..."

He leaned one hand on the counter. "Maybe you don't remember, lady, but I'm working on about twenty minutes' sleep here."

"Yeah, me too." Carol'd been working on caffeine and nerves all morning. But she wasn't snarling at people. A damn shame that a man as amazing-looking as he was had such a sucky personality. "But I'm not taking it out on you."

His mouth twitched. "You're obviously a much better human being than I am. Congratulations. Can I have the key?"

She sighed, hit a button on her antique cash register, and when the drawer slid out, she snatched up a key from the till. Slamming the drawer shut again, she handed him the key. "You're really going to have to work on those people skills."

"I'll make a note." He took the key from her, his fingertips scraping along her palm.

She snatched her hand back as if it had been burned, and stuffed it into the pocket of her short denim skirt. But tucking her hand away didn't get rid of the sizzle

still humming through her skin. When it had happened at the clinic, she'd told herself she was just tired. Imagining things.

Now that that little flash of heat when he touched her had happened again, she figured the safest way to deal with it was to ignore it. Forcing a laugh, she talked to the baby, but aimed her comments at the tall man watching her. "There you go, Liz. You were right. If he's taking notes, he can read and write."

"You're a laugh a minute, aren't you?"

"You laughed? And I missed it?" she countered, studying the scowl seemingly etched into his features.