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Sophie smiled. “Not as rewarding as the one this guy could give you,” she said. “Just you wait. One night with him, one little taste of the good life he has to offer, and you’ll want more. And the more you see of his way of life, the more you’ll like it. Just you wait, Annie. You’re in for a treat. Once you’ve sipped his wine, you’ll never go back to that crummy tenement you call home again. I guarantee it.”
Sophie turned then to cut her way through the crowd and pay for her purchase, and Annie followed obediently behind. Her sister was wrong about her life and her life-style, Annie knew. But there would be no arguing with Sophie about that tonight. At the moment, all Annie cared about was the ten thousand dollars she’d be depositing into the Homestead account Monday morning. She decided to start her shopping list with athletic equipment and work her way through the alphabet to the zoo trip she’d always wanted to take with her kids but had considered too frivolous. By the end of the week, she thought with a smile, she was going to have some very happy children on her hands.
She would also be packing for a weekend that was certain to wind up being disastrous. Oh, well, she thought. Ten grand was ten grand. She’d walk over fire to get that much money for her kids. How bad could a weekend in Cape May be, even if her companion would more than likely turn out to be a jerk? If nothing else, the fresh ocean breeze would be a welcome change over the stale, stagnant city air she was so used to breathing. And it would be nice to walk along the beach again, moonlit or not.
Fresh air and a view of the ocean, she marveled as she watched Sophie carelessly write out a check for five thousand dollars and hand it to the cashier. Two things that brought pleasure without costing a dime. It was a lesson her sister could stand to learn, and, judging by the high price tag on his offered date, something the bachelor onstage might benefit from, too.
But it wasn’t up to her to teach that lesson, Annie thought. It was only up to her to watch out for her kids. And like a protective female animal stalking the wild, she’d do whatever she had to do to make sure her brood was protected. Above all else, Annie Malone would always make sure her kids came first.
Ike breezed through the curtain and met his sister backstage feeling buoyant, lusty and full of anticipation. “I owe you,” he told Nora as he embraced her fiercely. “I owe you big. Did you get a load of the woman who bought me?”
He felt Nora nod against his shoulder. “Oh, I got a load, all right.”
Ike sighed wistfully. “I can think of no greater pleasure on earth than to be owned by that woman for an entire night.”
“I told you it would all work out,” Nora said when he released her. She twisted her mouth into a wry grin. “St. Bernadette’s gets five thousand dollars, and you get that great set of hooters you wanted. Well, my, my, my. Isn’t the world a lovely place?”
“Oh, Mr. Guthrie.”
Ike turned to find his new owner passing through the curtain behind him as gracefully as she would if borne on wings. While he was onstage, he had been fearful that in good light some of her dazzle would diminish. But he’d been wrong. Good light only made the woman even more radiant. He didn’t so much approach her as he was drawn to her. All he knew was that he couldn’t wait to take her hand in his.
“Hello, Ms…?” he began as he drew nearer.
“I’m Sophia Marchand,” she said as he reached for her hand.
But she stepped away before he could curl his fingers around hers, then thrust another woman forward to take her place—a drab, colorless creature who faded to nearly nothing beside her iridescent sponsor. Ike’s gaze flickered over the newcomer for scarcely a second before returning to the woman who had launched a variety of previously undiscovered fantasies in his brain.
“And this is my sister, Anna,” she told him. “I’ve bought you for her. She’s so looking forward to the weekend you have planned. Enjoy.”
And with that, the woman smiled and turned away, exiting through the curtain as quickly and completely as a magician’s assistant disappears into the black beyond.
A mouse, Ike thought as he gave the other woman another quick once-over. His gorgeous peacock bad bestowed upon him a mouse to take her place.
“Annie,” the mouse said quietly. Her voice was huskier than he would have thought, but he got the feeling she would indeed squeak when she reached the proper decibel. “My name is Annie. Annie Malone.”
She extended a hand toward him and smiled, a smile that was pleasant and harmless and rather pretty in a wholesome kind of way. In spite of her smile, however, Ike somehow got the impression that she was no more pleased by this turn of events than he was.
“Ike Guthrie.” he replied automatically, taking her hand in his.
Her hand was small, a bit rough, and in no way decorated. The woman who had bought him had been wearing rings on nearly every finger, and he’d already begun to indulge in all kinds of salacious imagery about her long, red nails. Annie’s hands didn’t evoke sensual pleasure. They evoked hard work. And her eyes didn’t promise untold realms of erotic discovery. They suggested about as much sexual expertise as an ingenue. Ike’s gaze skittered lower, and he sighed again. And great hooters, he noted with much disappointment, were simply out of the question.
“Nice to meet you, Ms. Malone,” he said as be met her gaze once again.
Too late, he realized she understood completely where his own eyes had been lingering. But instead of blushing and turning away, as an ingenue would have, she had arched one eyebrow and squeezed his hand hard in what he concluded was an unspoken threat.
“Please, call me Annie,” she said, sounding surprisingly hardy in comparison to her slight build. “After all, we will be spending the night together.” The eyebrow fell, but one corner of her mouth lifted in a sardonic grin.
Oh, goody, Ike thought. A weekend with Raggedy Ann’s evil twin, Craggedy Annie. He hadn’t noticed at first that big chip on Annie Malone’s shoulder, and he didn’t know what caused it to sit there so resolutely. But now he could see it clear as day. She might look sweet and innocent—hell, she might look like a kid just freed from college—but there was an angry energy barely coiled within her that was just about to blow. Hastily, Ike dropped her hand before she could drag him down with her, and shoved his own hands deep into his pockets.
Oh, well, he thought further as he noted the sprinkling of pale freckles that dotted her nose and cheeks. Maybe some sun would give her a little more color. And the sea breeze would be good for her. If it didn’t blow her right into the ocean first.
He glanced over his shoulder to find that his sister had been paying close attention to the scene played out. Nora nodded her approval, lifted a hand to circle forefinger and thumb in okay, then left the room laughing.
Two
“Annieee!”
Annie sighed with much frustration and growled under her breath. Now what? she wondered.
The cry had come from Mickey, that much she could determine immediately. But the little guy had a six-year-old’s propensity for wanting just about everything, and right away at that, and his cry of terror at the sight of blood was virtually identical to his urgent plea for just one more cookie. Whatever the problem was, Mickey, at least, would consider it of global importance.
Annie dropped her favorite pair of blue jeans on top of the meager wardrobe selections she was packing for the weekend and went in search of Mickey. She found him with his head caught between the rungs of the stairway banister and rolled her eyes hopelessly as she bent to help him free himself.
“I told you not to do this, didn’t I?” she asked him calmly as she twisted his head carefully to the side.
“Yes,” he whimpered, clearly frightened by his predicament but determined not to show it.
“The last time this happened, what did I say?”
Mickey sniffled. “I don’t remember.”
Annie’s voice softened. “I said, ‘Mickey, if you put your head in the banister railing this way, it’s going to get stuck.’ Isn’t that what I said?”
“I guess so.”
“So why did you do it again?”
He hesitated, biting his lip as Annie carefully extracted his head from the rungs. He remained silent as he stood rubbing his hands furiously over his forehead and through his pale blond hair. His blue eyes were resolute and adorably menacing.
“Well?” Annie prodded.
Mickey thrust his stomach forward, a gesture he probably thought she would find intimidating. Annie only smiled.
“I’m waiting,” she said.
Mickey relaxed and looked down at his feet. “I don’t know.”
She nodded her understanding. “Okay, hotshot. Just try not to do it again, okay?”
He nodded back. “Are you still going away this weekend?” he asked as he followed her to her room.
“Yes.” Annie went back to her packing, resigned to the Spanish Inquisition that she knew would follow. Mickey asked a lot of questions. And she’d discovered long ago that she had no alternative but to answer every one of them if she ever hoped to maintain any kind of balance in her life.
Mickey scrambled up onto her bed and began to remove things from her duffel bag, inspecting each item as if it were the most fascinating scientific specimen he’d ever had the good fortune to encounter. “Where are you going?” he asked.
They’d been through this a million times already, so Annie had the routine down pat. She continued to pack as she obediently replied, “Cape May.”
“That’s in New Jersey, isn’t it?”
She nodded again. “Yes.”
“And New Jersey is across the river, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
He grinned, clearly pleased to be able to show her just how much he knew of the world. Then he plucked a pair of her socks out of the duffel, unrolled them and asked, “How long will you be gone?”
“I’ll be back Sunday night.”
“When will you be leaving?”
“Saturday morning.”
“That’s tomorrow, right?”
“Right.”
“Who are you going with?”
“A friend.”
“His name is Ike, right?”
“Right.”
“And he lives in Philadelphia, like we do, right?”
“Right.”
“Are you going to marry him?”
Annie stopped packing and gaped at Mickey. Well, that was a question that hadn’t cropped up in their earlier interviews. Where on earth had he picked up an interest in marriage?
“Why would you think I was going to marry him?” she asked cautiously.
“Cause that’s what grown-ups do, isn’t it? Molly says when you grow up and become an adult you have to get married. It’s the law.”
“Molly said that, did she?”
Mickey nodded furiously. “And she’s older than me, so she knows what she’s talking about.”
Annie bit her lip. “Um, Molly’s only seven, Mickey. She’s not that much older than you.”
“But she said grown-ups—”
“Not all grown-ups get married,” Annie interrupted him gently. “Only the ones who fall in love.”
The little boy thought about that for a moment, then asked, “Are you going to fall in love with Ike?”
She chuckled. “I can safely say no to that.”
“Why not?”
She ruffled his hair. “Because he’s not my type, kiddo.”
“What’s your type?”
Annie thought about her husband. She recalled Mark’s unruly black hair and bittersweet chocolate eyes, his tattered jeans and sweatshirts, and how much he loved coaching little league baseball. She remembered how he had always talked back to the network news and secretly devoured true-crime books. She smiled as she reminisced about his expertise in bandaging scraped knees so the BandAid wouldn’t pull, and about how he could bake absolutely perfect Toll-House cookies. And she realized she would never, not in a million years, meet another man like him.
“I don’t have a type, Mickey,” she said wistfully, “Not anymore.”
Mickey nodded his approval. “Good. Because when I grow up, I’m going to marry you.”
She smiled and bent to place a quick peck on his forehead. “Okay, palomino. I’ll wait for you.”
As quickly as he had taken an interest in her activities, the little boy’s fascination abated. “I’m going outside,” he announced as he launched himself off the bed. “See ya.”
Annie watched him leave, marveling that such a sweet kid had come out of such a crummy situation. She knew she had no business picking favorites when she had ten kids ranging in age from six to sixteen living under her roof. But Mickey Reeser was Annie’s favorite. No question about it.
She stuffed the last of her toiletries into the well-worn, army green duffel bag that had belonged to her husband, then placed it by her bedroom door. It was going to be a lousy weekend, she thought. Not only was she going to be spending it with someone she had no desire to get to know better, but she always became anxious when she had to leave her kids for any length of time.
True, she had two graduate students from local universities who volunteered part-time to help her out. But Annie was the one responsible for the children at Homestead House. She was the only human being in the world who was there for them twenty-four hours a day. She didn’t like being gone overnight, even if Nancy and Jamal, her two volunteers, would be staying at the house with the kids. She just didn’t feel right being away. She didn’t feel as if she were being a good mother.
And although she reminded herself over and over again that she wasn’t anyone’s mother, she couldn’t help but to have fallen into the role. The children of Homestead House had no parents or families, either because they had been orphaned or abandoned or worse. Annie was it for them. She was their mother, father, sister and brother. She was their role model, their caretaker, their rock. She was all they had in a world that had turned its back on them. And she didn’t like leaving them alone.
Nevertheless, she reassured herself, it was only a weekend. Two days and one night that were of no consequence whatever in the scheme of things. And what could one simple weekend possibly do to screw up her very satisfying life-style?
Annie hummed as she closed her door behind her and headed down the stairs, an old Cat Stevens tune about the wild world. She decided not to dwell on the couple of days she’d be spending with Isaac Guthrie, prominent architect and indecent bachelor. Instead, she thought, she’d just look forward to Monday morning.
When her life would return to normal.
Ike glanced down at the piece of paper he had tossed onto the passenger seat when he’d climbed into his car that morning, then looked up at the red brick building again. Yep, this was the correct address all right. Though the place hardly looked habitable to him. There were bars on all the first story windows and a security door that was, at the moment, thrown open in welcome. The paint on the front shutters and door frame was stained and peeling, and what was left of the front stoop was a cracked, crumbling mass of concrete. A simple metal plaque affixed to the brick beside the front door read, Homestead House. And like everything else about the place, it looked old, tired and overused.
In contrast to the decay of the building—or perhaps in spite of it, Ike thought wryly—a bright cache of well-tended marigolds, petunias and geraniums had sprouted along the walkway that led to the sidewalk and street. They bestowed a certain humanity on the building it wouldn’t have claimed otherwise, and he couldn’t help but smile. The sky providing a backdrop for the place was blue and flawless, the warm spring afternoon balmy and full of promise.
If it wasn’t for the fact that this was a remarkably bad neighborhood that no one in his right mind would choose to visit if he didn’t have to, Ike might have seen some potential for the place. As it was, he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what someone like Annie Malone was doing living here.
He had spoken to her briefly on the phone—once—since meeting her backstage the weekend before. The conversation had consisted of a few dozen words and lasted about a minute and a half. Mostly, they had just settled on what time Ike would pick Annie up and bring her home. And with that obligatory exchange out of the way, there had seemed nothing more to say.
Ike sighed. Man, he was dreading this.
He climbed out of his bright red sports car, eyed his surroundings and surreptitiously activated the car’s alarm. He didn’t plan on being here any longer than he had to, but in this neighborhood, his car could be stripped professionally in a matter of minutes. He scrubbed his palms over his khaki-clad thighs as he walked toward the front door of Annie’s house, then checked his navy polo for any potential smudges of filth. He was beginning to feel dirty just being in the vicinity.
He was about to knock when the front door was thrown open wide and he was nearly overrun by children and hockey sticks. Without a notice or care of him, the kids went blustering into the street, shouting and prancing and scrambling for position. Ike was left shaking his head in wonder that children felt so utterly immortal that they didn’t even watch for traffic. Then again, this street didn’t look particularly well traveled, either, he thought as he glanced down one way and then the other. The realization was just something else that put him on edge.
“Hi.”
He turned at the sound of a soft, husky, voice—a voice he’d heard on only two occasions, but one he was coming to find oddly familiar and comfortable nonetheless. Annie Malone stood at her front door wearing a white peasant blouse with roomy sleeves, very faded, hip-hugging blue jeans, and huge Birkenstocks on her otherwise bare feet. Her hair was parted in the middle and fell in two braids over her shoulders, and thanks to the thin, gauzy fabric of her shirt, he could clearly see that she was wearing an undershirt instead of a bra.
Ike didn’t know why no one had bothered to inform Annie that the sixties had ended more than two decades ago, and he had to force himself not to impart the information to her himself. Instead, he decided he may have been a bit rash in dismissing her upper regions so easily last weekend. Although small, Annie had good form. Then he noted the exhausted-looking duffel bag at her feet that appeared to be more empty than full. Annie, it seemed, traveled even more lightly than he.
“I saw you from my window and decided to come down to meet you,” she said. “I was hoping to make it before the kids trampled you, but…”
Ike glanced up when her voice trailed off, only to realize that she had once again been observing him as he ogled her. She had arched her left brow in that maddeningly challenging way, as if she were waiting for him to either assault her or offer an explanation for his rudeness. Ike did neither. He just tried to tamp down his irritation before it could become impropriety.
Hoping to defuse her anger, he glanced over his shoulder at the hastily scrambling children. “Do they all belong to you?” he asked. When Annie’s gaze skittered past him to fall on the children, every ounce of animosity left her eyes, and her lips formed a fond smile. Ike knew then that inquiring about her children had been exactly the right thing to dissolve her exasperation.
“Yeah, they’re all mine,” she told him.
“Funny,” he said dryly, “a couple of them look like they’re in high school. You must have been about eight when you gave birth.” Ike wanted to offer the further-wry observation that Annie was in remarkably good shape for someone who had spent most of her adult life pregnant. But he refrained, fearing the comment just might put them back where they started—with him ogling, and her being ogled, and neither of them any too comfortable with the knowledge of it.
Her smile was still wistful when she said, “I may not have carried them inside me, but they still belong to me.”
“So then you don’t have any kids of your own?” Ike ventured.
She looked at him strangely for a moment. “Why do you ask? For some reason, you strike me as the kind of person who doesn’t care much for children.”
“That’s because I am the kind of person who doesn’t care much for children.”
She sounded almost disappointed when she replied, “That doesn’t surprise me. And no, I don’t have any kids that are the product of any personal biological workings. But I do have kids. Lots of kids.” Before be could ask anything more, she met his gaze again. “I’m ready to head out whenever you are.”
Ike nodded. “Good. I didn’t want to leave my car parked out here any longer than I had to.”
She glanced past him at the bright red convertible and frowned.
“What?” he asked when he saw her disapproval of the sleek car he’d coveted for years before being able to afford it. “You don’t want to drive to the coast with the top down?”
She shook her head. “Oh, I love the feel of the wind when I’m driving.”
“Then why the sour look?”
“I was just thinking you probably paid more for that car than I spent buying and refinishing and outfitting this whole building.”
This time it was Ike who frowned, wondering why he felt so damned defensive around this woman. “Yeah, I probably did. Real estate in this area isn’t exactly prime—” He eyed her building deliberately before adding, “—or safe— for commercial or residential use. You know, my partner and I are working with the city on a beautification project that’s leveling neighborhoods like this one and turning them into something useful.”
She glared at him. “Neighborhoods like this one used to be the backbone of the city.”
He smiled acidly. “Soon they’ll be parking garages.”
“And that’s supposed to beautify the city?”
Ike looked around him again. “A nice, clean parking garage will be a damned sight more attractive than this… this…”
“Look,” Annie interrupted him, “maybe you don’t see much use for neighborhoods like this, but I see it in a way you obviously don’t. Granted, the area isn’t what it used to be, and yes, a bad element has begun to thrive. But there are still a lot of good people here. Besides that, it’s affordable and suits my needs just fine.”
Ike wanted to counter that if that was the case, then she was obviously and sadly neglecting her needs. But he kept his mouth shut. For the time being, he decided, he’d just as soon not wonder about Annie Malone’s needs. She probably had way too many of them for any man to be able to satisfy her. And why he should suddenly feel a tingling— and not unpleasant—sexual awareness of her at the idea of such, Ike couldn’t begin to imagine. So he pushed the thought away and bent to retrieve her duffel.
But someone else had beaten him to it, he realized before completing the action. Clutching the bag that would be nearly as big as he was if it were full, was a young boy with hair the mixed pale yellows of chicken noodle soup and eyes so blue and large and guileless, they almost stopped Ike’s breath.
“I got it,” the boy said as he stepped past Annie. “I can carry it. Where do you want it?”
So transfixed was he still by the child’s round-eyed expression that Ike could only thrust a thumb over his shoulder. The boy looked past him at the car parked at the curb, and his huge eyes grew even larger with admiration.
“Cool!”
He slapped down the steps and stumbled down the walk, weaving first one way and then the other under the weight of the duffel. He dropped the bag by the trunk and, before Ike could stop him, hauled himself over the side of the car and into the driver’s seat. Immediately the alarm erupted, as loud and raucous as an air raid siren. And the little boy’s expression—the one that had been so utterly open and carefree—transformed into a grimace of unadulterated terror. When his gaze met Ike’s, the boy actually began to cower as if he were about to be sucked down into hell’s darkest core. Ike had never seen anyone look so scared before in his life.