Faithless Angel (2 page)

“Maybe you could at least put in a good word for me,” he said, wanting so much to touch her. Just one slow sweep of his hand. Her skin would be warm and supple beneath his fingertip—

“And maybe you could move your hand.”

Annoyance laced her words, but he heard something else, as well. Desperation.

Yes, she was the one.

Unspoken challenge charged the air between them for several long moments before he finally let go of the door frame. His knuckles brushed her cheek then, a bold move he regretted instantly. She was warmer than he’d expected, and softer.

He watched her stiffen. Fear fought a battle with the anger that blazed in her eyes.

Then again, she was right to fear a man who looked the way he did. She’d be stupid otherwise, and careless. She might have lost her hope, but she hadn’t lost her smarts. Not completely, anyway, despite the fact that she’d answered the doorbell in the first place.

“You said the guy to contact is Bradley Winters?” he asked as she moved to close the door.

She stopped just two inches shy of completely closing it and stared at him through the small space. “He’s the acting administrator right now. Hiring and firing are in his hands.”

“That’s a shame. I hear you’ve got quite a reputation with the kids.”

“Don’t believe everything you hear, Mr. Savage.” An unmistakable bitterness fueled her voice.

“I don’t,” he replied. “And I don’t talk just to talk, Ms. Jansen. Those kids need you.”

He saw something flicker deep in her eyes. Then the shrill ring of a phone sounded somewhere in the house, followed by a quick succession of barks mimicking those he’d heard when he’d first rung her doorbell. Her lips pursed, and her eyes narrowed. “And I need to be left alone, if you don’t mind.”

“But I do mind.”

She stared at him for the space of two heartbeats, a puzzled expression on her face. Then the door shut, the lock clicked, and Jesse found himself
standing alone, the cold swirling around him,
inside
him.

Turning, he stepped off the porch into the steady drizzle that quickly grew to a frenzied shower. He lifted the collar on his jacket and thrust his hands deep in his pockets, his fingers tight around the scrap of newspaper.

Maybe Faith Jansen wanted to be left alone, but that was the last thing she needed. The last thing Jesse intended to allow. He needed her, and she needed him, though she didn’t realize it.

Yet.

“Just drop the papers off here, Bradley,” Faith said into the phone seconds after she closed the front door. She stared past the lace curtains covering her front window.

Her gaze followed the stranger as he headed down the driveway toward the street, the rain pelting him, his faded jeans now drenched. The material clung to his thighs, like a denim skin that outlined the lean perfection of every muscle.

“No can do,” the man on the other end of the phone said. “Megan eloped with that bagel guy last night and I can’t leave a house full of kids unchaperoned. She won’t be back until after the honeymoon. Three weeks minimum.”

“So bring the papers over after she gets back.” She forced her attention higher, to Jesse Savage’s broad shoulders outlined by a faded high school letterman’s jacket. He moved through the downpour, head held high, his body swift and sure, even when the rain came harder. The fiercer the storm grew, the more purposeful his step, until he seemed to blend in with the elements and become one with them.

“… you there?” Bradley’s voice penetrated her thoughts.

“I’m here.” She let the lace curtain fall back into place and bent down to scoop up the tiny puppy she’d unwillingly adopted last week when she’d found him abandoned in a cardboard box behind a nearby trash Dumpster. “What were you saying?”

“I said Children’s Protective Services is bringing the kid today. If you’re not here to sign, CPS will keep him in protective custody for God knows how long. You have to come over here.”

She stroked the puppy’s head, the gesture rewarded with a barrage of ticklish licks to her fingers. “I can’t, Bradley.”

“Dammit, Faith! You leave me high and dry, working my tail end off for the past two weeks while you hibernate at home—”

“I’m sorry. I really am. I wish you could understand.” She held the dog close, absorbing the warmth of his small body, wishing with everything she had that it was enough to penetrate the ice surrounding her heart.

“I understand perfectly. You’re the one out in left field, Faith. You’ve turned into a hermit lady.”

“I have not.”

Silence stretched between them for several seconds before Bradley finally spoke, his voice soft, pleading. “Face reality, Faith. Jane’s gone, but there’s a whole houseful of kids who still need you.”

Those kids need you
. Jesse Savage’s words echoed in her head, and oddly enough she felt a small pang of guilt. Strange, considering she’d been numb for the past two weeks—ever since she’d watched them lower the coffin into the ground, heard the first plop of dirt hit the lid.

“Aren’t you advertising for someone to help out?”
She put the puppy on the carpeted floor and watched him waddle toward the pallet of blankets in the corner. She glanced at her fingertips and saw they were still smudged with newsprint from Jesse’s soggy want ad.

“Yeah, but that won’t solve today’s dilemma. CPS won’t release a child to anyone’s custody but yours. I’m your official assistant, but you’re the foster mother. Unless you want to send this kid back where he came from—and I hear he’s been living the past few weeks at that hellhole Booker Hall—then you’d better pull yourself together and come down here.”

“Okay,” she said after a hesitant moment. “I’ll be there, but just to sign the papers. In and out of my office; then I’m gone. And … don’t tell the kids.”

“Thank heavens, there is a God,” Bradley said, letting loose a relieved sigh.

“I wouldn’t bet on it.”

“Try to cheer up, honey. What happened to Jane was no one’s fault.” Bradley’s voice filled with sympathy. “It was a tragic accident, Faith. These things happen.”

“That’s the problem. What happened to—” Her throat closed around the name and she swallowed, but there was no ache in her chest. Nothing. She wouldn’t let herself feel anything.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“Forget it, Bradley. What time should I be there?”

“Around three. I’ll leave your office unlocked, the papers on your desk.”

“Where will you be?”

“Neck-deep in kids, as usual, and hunting like hell for an assistant of my own, since you haven’t decided to come back to the land of the living.”

But how could she live when she’d already died inside?

The question stuck in her brain as she placed the receiver in its cradle. Shoving aside a pile of throw pillows, she sank down onto her cream-colored sofa and stared at the chaos that had once been her living room.

Newspapers blanketed most of the champagne-colored carpet. Old pizza boxes cluttered the coffee table. Balls of wadded tissue overflowed from the brass trash can near one end table. Silver bits and pieces of what had once been her prized CD collection littered the corner of the room near a virtual forest of dying ferns.

Grubby waddled across the floor from his pallet, nudging papers and trash with his nose. Cocoa-colored with white speckles sprinkled across his fat tummy, he was the only redeeming thing in the entire room, and she almost smiled.

Instead, she closed her eyes and concentrated on the rain that beat a steady tattoo on the roof, the sound almost deafening, numbing….

Yes, numb was much better. Easier. Much easier than those few days she’d spent at the hospital, crying and praying and urging Jane to fight for her life. Her words had been wasted, her tears for nothing, her prayers meaningless. Like everything now.

Those kids need you
.

Little did Jesse Savage know that those kids were better off without her. What could she possibly offer them?

A roof over their heads. Food in their stomachs. Someone to care for them
, her conscience answered for an instant before her cynicism kicked in.

So what? In the end, none of that mattered. It hadn’t mattered that Jane had been like her own
daughter, that Faith had nursed her through nightmares, fed her, clothed her, loved her. It hadn’t mattered a bit. Jane was dead, despite everything.

Shoving a strand of hair back from her face, she let her fingers linger at her cheek. She could still feel the brush of warm male skin, the sudden heat that had spread through her and thawed her insides for the split second when Jesse Savage had touched her.

Dangerous. That was what she’d first thought the moment she’d pulled open the front door and seen him standing there, filling the empty space of her porch.

With an overgrowth of stubble, dark, piercing brown eyes, and even darker hair brushing his collar, he’d looked more than simply dangerous. He’d looked downright deadly. She’d been a fool to open the door to someone like him, especially in this neighborhood, even with the burglar bars she’d installed last year.

Then again, cautious people died as quickly, as easily as fools did. Everyone died. Dumb and not so dumb. Rich and poor. Young and old. Everyone. No reason, no rhyme.

As dangerous as he’d looked, he’d also struck her as oddly familiar, as if she’d seen him somewhere before. But where—

The crash of trash-can lids brought her eyes wide open. She bolted from the couch and rushed to the kitchen, reaching the back door in time to see one large silver trash can, newly purchased just last week, take a tumble off her back steps. At the same time, a grungy teen wearing a tattered pair of jeans and a shabby T-shirt snatched up the other gleaming can.

Instead of pulling open the door as she used to, and giving the thieving adolescent a piece of her
mind, she simply turned away. She shut out the noise and the sight of garbage littering her back steps and headed for the bedroom to change.

She wouldn’t care.

The firm vow didn’t bring a smile to her lips, or tears to her eyes. There was no freedom, or even guilt. Nothing except the image of a dark and dangerous and disturbingly familiar stranger, his deep voice echoing,
Those kids need you
….

And for a fraction of a heartbeat, Faith wanted to believe him. But her beliefs, her faith, were now as dead as her dear, sweet Jane.

“Take it easy, Emily.”

The boy’s familiar voice stopped Faith’s hand in midair. She glanced up from the stack of papers she’d been signing, her gaze sweeping from the back door of Faith’s House, which she’d entered only minutes ago, to the closed door that led to the rest of the building. Her attention riveted to the knob and she silently damned herself for not thinking to lock the door when she’d first come inside.

But she’d never locked her door. She’d never shut it, even when the house had been full of noise and chaos. But she’d never slipped in the back way, either.

“It isn’t your CD, you pighead,” another voice, this one female, replied. “Bradley told you to keep your slimy paws off my stuff. Now give it back!”

A loud thud and the door trembled.

“Hey, watch it,” Ricky grumbled. “That hurt.”

“Good. Touch my stuff again and I’ll do more than that, understand?”

Ricky grumbled a “Geez, Em”; then rubber soles squeaked against the polished hardwood floor. Everything fell silent again.

Faith breathed a sigh of relief and went back to signing the stack of documents on her cluttered desk. As she stared at the pile of work, she almost felt sorry for Bradley. She hoped he could find a proficient assistant, because she meant today to be her last day at Faith’s House.

She took a small sip of black coffee and stared at the folded blue-bound set of legal papers protruding from the outside pocket of her purse. Once she signed and presented the forms to Bradley and he signed on the dotted line, he would be the official foster parent—CPS had already approved him—and she would be free and clear to “hibernate” at home, as he’d called it. Faith’s House would no longer be Faith’s House, but Bradley’s House.

You’re home, Jane. Home
—

Faith slammed her mind shut to that memory. This wasn’t a home. Home was where the heart was, and Faith had lost hers.

The sound of voices penetrated her thoughts. Voices turned to shouts, and she reasoned that Emily and Pighead were going at it. Then she heard it—a vicious bellow of anger that brought her out of her chair.

Her Styrofoam cup of coffee tipped over. Steaming black liquid spread across her desktop. She shoved her papers aside so they wouldn’t get soaked and flew to the door. Yanking it open, she rushed down the hallway. That was when she saw him.

“I ain’t staying here!” cried a skinny, teenage boy who headed straight for her. Long, tangled blond hair hung past his shoulders. His pale blue eyes were slightly swollen, as if he’d been crying, or was coming off the wagon, the second being more likely.

“Calm down, Daniel,” said the woman behind him. Estelle Adams, the foster-home development
worker from CPS, held a small, battered suitcase in one hand, and her black imitation alligator purse in the other. “This is the only place that will take you—”

“Come on, man. Give us a chance,” Bradley cut in, following on Estelle’s heels. “You’ll like it here. Promise.”

“Go to hell,” Daniel said in a hiss, his skinny frame shooting past Faith, making her cling to the wall to avoid being trampled. “I ain’t staying in this hellhole, do you hear? I ain’t.” But instead of heading for the back hallway, he whirled and reached for Faith. One wiry arm wrapped around her neck, while the other hauled her up hard against him.

“Anyone comes near me and I’ll cut her,” he said.

And with his words came the feel of cold steel at Faith’s neck. The blade bit into her skin and chased the air from her lungs, and Death himself breathed down her neck.

Faith watched, the knife at her throat, as Estelle and Bradley stopped short, along with the cluster of kids who now followed them.

“He’s got a blade, Mr. Winters,” one small voice said.