LITMIR.BIZ

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eyes were sparkling with unshed tears.

      He swore again. She was shaking now, and the baby looked anxiously at her mother, screwed up her face and began to howl.

      The noise seemed to reverberate in the fog, and he glanced uneasily at the neighbor’s houses again.

      “Promise you won’t scream,” he said. “Or yell fire.” Fire. All right. She was beautiful, but obviously deranged.

      She nodded.

      He moved his hand fractionally, and she backed away from him until she could back away no more, her shoulder blades right up against his front door, her eyes wide, her arms folded protectively around the baby. It wasn’t a small baby. In fact, she was quite sturdy looking, possibly two.

      “Stay away from us, you pervert.”

      “Pervert?” he sputtered. “Pervert?”

      “Hiding in the bushes in your undershorts waiting for a defenseless woman to come home. That’s called a pervert.”

      “Home?” He stared at her. Her voice was shaking but her eyes were flashing. She probably weighed less than him by at least eighty pounds. And he knew she was going to take him on if he came one step closer.

      She nodded, licked her lips nervously. Her eyes darted by him, looking for an escape.

      He folded his arms over his chest. “This happens to be my home. I thought you were a prowler.”

      Her mouth fell open, and then her eyes narrowed with suspicion.

      He could see what she was thinking: that perverts were damnably clever. But he could also see the confusion in her face, her eyes searching for and finding the black iron house number over the wall-mounted porch light.

      He was not sure he’d ever been quite so insulted. A pervert? Him? And she didn’t seem really deranged. Just exhausted. He could see dark crescents bruising the skin under those beautiful eyes.

      She studied him a moment longer, and then he could see some finely held tension ease slightly.

      “Oh, God,” she said. “I’ve made a mistake. I’m very tired. I—”

      To his horror, little tears were slipping down her cheeks now, too. She wasn’t wearing any mascara, which he liked for some foolishly irrational reason. Her shoulders were shaking under a jacket that looked too thin to offer any kind of protection from the penetrating chill of the night.

      The baby’s howls intensified when she saw the tears dribbling down her mother’s cheeks.

      Striving for dignity, the woman pulled back her shoulders, lifted her chin. The gestures wrenched oddly at a heart that he would have sworn, only moments ago, had been cast in pure iron.

      “Could you just direct me to a motel?”

      “I could, but you won’t have any luck.” This did not seem to surprise her. “Why fire?”

      “Pardon?”

      “You yelled fire,” he reminded her. “Are perverts scared of it? Like holding a cross up to a vampire?”

      She laughed nervously. “I read once that nobody listens when a woman calls for help. But they will if someone calls fire.”

      She wasn’t from around here, he decided. Not even close. Survival tactics of a big city woman. Her voice was intriguing. It wasn’t sweet, like her face. It had a little raspy edge to it.

      “Why aren’t there any motels? There were ‘No Vacancy’ signs on every motel for the last fifty miles it seemed.” She wiped impatiently at her eyes with the back of her sleeve, and then wiped the baby’s face, and kissed her on the nose.

      A magical effect. The baby, an exact replica of her mother, except with blonder hair that was, wildly curly and unruly, ceased howling. The girl turned her head enough to look solemnly at him out of the corner of one eye, but apparently the glance failed to reassure, and she began to cry again, louder than before.

      “There’s a major resort going up on the edge of town. We have contractors, carpenters, plumbers…you name it they’re here.”

      He doubted there was a room to be had anywhere this night.

      Unless you counted his empty house. Three bedrooms. One up, two down. The place had been a duplex until a few months ago when, with his landlord’s permission, he had turned the upstairs kitchen into a workroom.

      Don’t, he told himself.

      But he did, feeling slightly put out that he’d frightened her so badly, but even more put out that the baby was going to wake up the whole bloody neighborhood.

      “Look, maybe you better come in for a minute.”

      He reached past her for the door. Which was locked. The baby’s crying was affecting him so badly, he considered a well-placed kick to the old wood, but contained himself.

      “No,” she said, firmly, her suspicion leaping back in her eyes. “I’m leaving. It’s all right. Really. I’m tired. I drove too long. I must have the wrong address.”

      She went to move by him and then stopped, the porch opening onto the stairs too small for her to squeeze by without touching him. It was when he saw the delicate blush rising in her cheeks that he remembered he was in a state of undress.

      “Wait right here,” he said sternly, using his no-nonsense cop voice, a man to be taken seriously, even in his underwear. Boxers, thank God. The plaid kind that could be mistaken for a pair of gym shorts in a thick fog. Maybe.

      She was scared still, it was written all over her face.

      Scared that if he was not a pervert that had been hiding in the bushes, she had accidentally knocked on the door of Miracle Harbor’s only axe-murderer.

      “I’m a cop,” he said reluctantly, “Retired.” He knew she’d see it. The stance, the look in his eyes, the cut of his hair.

      Her eyes wide on his face, she nodded, then as soon as he stepped back, she flew by him, and scurried down the walk. He let her go, listening to the snap of the locks on her car doors when she was safely inside it.

      Then he listened to the unhealthy grind as she turned the ignition.

      Not his problem, he thought, at all. Thank God.

      He went back down the sidewalk, and in his back door. He ordered himself up the steps and into bed. He made it up the steps, but his mind, never disciplined at this time of night, listened for the sound of the car pulling away. Nothing.

      He opened his window, took a look out, and heard again the grind of the starter.

      “Hell,” he said, and picked up a pair of jeans off the end of his bed. “Double hell.”

      Despite a shin that should have told him otherwise, the woman had a vulnerable quality in her eyes. He wanted to leave her to her fate, and couldn’t. She wasn’t dressed warmly enough to be sitting out there in a freezing car, and the child probably wasn’t either.

      Minutes later, snapping up his jeans, he turned on the porch light and flung open the front door.

      She could come in if she wanted to.

      But she didn’t.

      Stubborn. That was written all over her face. Beautiful, yes, but stubborn, too. He snuck a glance out the door.

      The wind lifted the fog enough for him to see her. She had her forehead resting against the steering wheel. She was probably crying. But she wasn’t going to ask for his help. Not him. The pervert.

      Sighing, he pulled a jacket over his naked chest. He’d taken an oath, years ago, to protect and serve. And retired or not, that oath was as much a part of his makeup as anything else. It ran through his blood, and he found himself almost relieved at the discovery that his personal tragedy had not stolen that part of his nature from him.

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