Summer Of My Secret Angel (6 page)

The dim bulbs in the restaurant dipped her
bony face in a mystic light. For an instant, I thought a ghost of
the past stared at me through her deep brown eyes, the only color
about her face that had remained as intense as I remembered it over
the years. Distracted by her longing stare, I almost failed to
notice the forward movement of her hand. Just before it could land
on mine, I jerked my arm back and tucked both hands in my lap. The
tablecloth hid them from her touch.

She reached for her glass of water, traced
the brim with her slim finger, and then took a sip. “I’ll be honest
with you. There won’t be an endless chance for us to talk. I’m ill.
Seriously ill. It’s cancer. With no hope for a cure. Julian sa—”
She cleared her throat, stroking the stem of her glass. “The
doctors don’t even give me until the end of the year.”

“Alas, this is the first good news of the
evening,” I exclaimed.

From across the table, strong legs circled
around my crossed ankles, lifting my legs off the ground. The quick
move dragged me lower into my chair, and I clasped the table with a
startled hold. Quinn’s subsequent kick missed my shin.

“That one was predictable,” Julian said, his
eyes as dark as shards of obsidian. He lowered my feet to the
floor, then withdrew his legs, and left me wondering whether he was
referring to the kick from my friend or my cold retort.

Everyone fell silent. Shooting a glance at
Quinn, I realized my mother’s illness wasn’t a surprise to him. She
must have talked to him this morning in the courthouse after my
spectacular failure at fleeing her presence. Probably twirling him
around her little finger with his pity for the helpless. And he
totally fell for it.
Stupid policeman
.

Her days were numbered, so what? All the
better, I’d say.

“You see, Jona.” With her mentioning my
name, my mother drew my eyes away from Quinn. “I don’t want to
leave
without taking the chance of making up for the hard
life you’ve had.”

“You want my forgiveness?” That was
ridiculous. A tight laugh escaped me.

“I beg you to accept your aunt’s offer to
live in her house. She can provide you with all the decent comforts
of life that I never could. She’ll see to you having a good start
in your adult future.” Her lower lip trembled. “And for me, I only
wish you could forgive my weakness in the past.”

“Then I’m afraid you’ll go down with your
only wish denied.” A growl of menace made it up my throat. “I’ll do
as the judge ordered and spend the remaining six weeks till my
birthday in shackles on the vineyards of an aunt I don’t know. Not
quite the time to form a suitable future. As soon as the punishment
is over, I’ll return to London and make my living here. Without
you. As I’ve done during the past twelve years.”

“With the police fast on your heels and Abe
Smith holding a cell free for you?”

It wasn’t so much Quinn’s bantering that
bothered me at this moment as it was Julian’s low chuckle when his
eyes met mine.

“I’m not a half-wit as you all seem to
think.” I squared my shoulders, clenching the table cloth in my
fists. “And if it means I’ll have to wash dishes in a pub like this
ten hours a day to fund my future, then I dare say it’s the lesser
evil compared to the hell I’m going to be sent to tomorrow.”

Tears stung my eyes. Finally coming after
being suppressed for half a lifetime, they couldn’t simply be
blinked away. My abrupt rise from the table knocked the chair
backward, and it landed on the floor with the piercing sound of
wood clattering to stone tiles. If the dragon and her friend
decided to finish their drinks of victory-over-Jona, I needn’t be
part of their celebration.

I made a dash for the exit. The curious
faces that followed me from every table in the room lanced my
heart.

Cool air outside slapped me in the face. The
door slowly closed behind me.

Run
, my mind screamed. But where
would I go? The brave speech inside was nothing but a betrayal to
myself. Hardly able to do the math of a senior high school student,
I didn’t think London had much to offer me. No one would hire me
for a real job just because I was able to recite Jane Austen by
heart.

The sleeves of my sweater soaked up my tears
before they could roll down my cheeks. The solid wall at my back
provided mild comfort. I tilted my head back and studied the night
sky. It couldn’t possibly be my destiny to end up in one of Abe’s
iron-curtained cells one day.

The door of the pub opened, and out stepped
a tall figure. Through the mist of moisture pooling in my eyes, it
took me a second to recognize Quinn.

“Oh, there you are,” he said softly, as he
leaned against the wall the same way I did. “I almost feared I’d
have to spend the night on the streets searching for you.”

After a few blinks, my gaze moved to his
face and back to the sky. “There’s no place for me to go. No one
wants to have me.”

He took my hand. “I just met someone who
does. And I’ve heard of a handful more people who’d be delighted to
welcome you to their home. Kiddo, look past your pride for once and
see the great chance they’re offering.”

“Why are you so willing to shove me down the
lion’s gorge? You heard all her false words,” I spat. “The only
thing this woman wants is peace for her soul before she kicks the
bucket.”

“And is that really such a bad thing?”

I jerked my hand out of his. “Damnit, Quinn,
whose side are you on?”

“Yours, Jona. Can’t you see?” Without
warning he pulled me into an embrace that knocked the air out of my
lungs. “I’ve hoped for a twist like this ever since you first
strode up to my desk at the office and planted your butt on my
stack of case files. You were the cheekiest brat I’d ever come
across, but I saw the hurt in your frightened eyes when you tried
to mock us both with your snappy talk.”

He brushed strands of my hair out of my
face. “Why don’t you give your mother and her family a chance to
meet the great girl I know must be hiding somewhere deep in there?”
The hint of a grin appeared on his lips while his finger stabbed
the spot between my collarbones.

If there was any great bit of me, then I
would make a double effort not to let my goddamn mother get within
reach of it. “Want to know why I told everyone my mother died in a
car crash?” I sniffed.

Quinn’s eyes held mine as he nodded.

“Because I was too ashamed for them to know
the truth. That she abandoned me for the sake of her violent lover
who whacked the shit out of me anew every night. She gave me away.
She chose her sick boyfriend over her own child.” My throat
constricted as the words wrenched out. “I couldn’t bear people’s
disdainful glances any longer. Their whispered taunts behind cupped
hands about what a miserable daughter I must have been that my own
mother refused to keep me.” With the back of my hand, I wiped my
nose and twisted away from Quinn’s hold. A moth circled around the
beam of light from the streetlamp. I watched it land on the bulb
then flutter away. “So I invented her honorable death.”

Strong arms closed around my shoulders and
turned me back. Quinn pressed me to his chest. “I didn’t know.”

“Of course you didn’t.” The cotton of his
t-shirt muffled my words. “Your disgust would have been the least
bearable of all.”

1. SHIPPED OFF TO THE CONTINENT
   

THE LAST NIGHT in the orphanage seemed like
the longest in my life. After Quinn had returned to the pub to give
our excuses to my mother and her weird attendant, he drove me back
to the place I still called home. Not until he promised to come see
me off at the airport the next morning did I let go of my only
friend’s arm.

Fear of the coming weeks clamped like a fist
in my stomach and kept me from falling asleep till the early
morning hours.

I had seen all kinds of emotional farewells
on the small TV in the common room, but none of those applied to my
leave-taking that day. Apart from Quinn, Debby would have been the
only person worth a goodbye—if she hadn’t sold me to the devil the
other day and brought about my unholy punishment.

At seven forty-five, I returned to my room
after my last shower in the common bathing area. Pulling back my
wet hair, I fixed it with an old rubber band I’d found in the
pocket of my jeans when they had been handed down to me. As I
slipped through the door, I yelped, and my heart shot to my throat
at the sight of Julian sitting on my bed.

Elbows braced on his knees, he leaned
forward. His blond hair gleamed like minted gold in the sun
streaming in through the window. “Not quite the welcome I had hoped
for.”

Frantically, I scanned the room for the
other intruder, but the dragon was nowhere to be found. “What are
you doing here?”

“Summoning you. Your mother is settling your
check-out with the headmistress.” The bedsprings squeaked when he
rose from my cot, then he glanced around the room.

Crap
, not what I wanted him to do,
especially when he focused on the cobwebs in the corner above his
head.

“Isn’t this a lovely place?” he
murmured.

I let a casual shrug roll off my shoulders
to cover how much his words offended me. “Cobwebs, dust, it’s still
home.”

“After the dramatic end of last evening, I
wasn’t sure if you’d still be here today.”

“What a terrible shock for you to find my
room empty then. Especially after all the trust you put in me at
the courthouse.” I picked up the book I had been reading last night
from my nightstand and withdrew my only pen, which had served as a
bookmark last night. I dropped the pen into my backpack. “I’m sure
you and the dragon wouldn’t have hesitated a minute to search the
city for me.”

Quite nonchalantly, Julian stepped into my
space. Biting the inside of my lip, I remained where I stood when
he lowered his lips to my ear. “With that tongue of yours, we
wouldn’t have had any trouble finding you.” His warm breath brushed
my hair as he spoke.

I sighed, inhaling his scent. His skin
smelled of wild wind and ocean, and that melted my armor. A memory
surfaced in my mind of the one day last spring when Miss Mulligan
had taken us to the sea and I had waded through the gentle waves
rolling to the shore. Closing my eyes, I could still feel the wet
sand between my toes.

“Are you ready to go?” Julian’s question
came from behind me.

I opened my eyes, blinking against the
bright light from outside. It seemed even the sun chided me for the
moment where I’d let down my guard. I straightened and turned. “As
ready as one in this sick situation can be.”

“Good.” His impudent grin mocked me from
three feet away. “Let’s not waste any more time in this nasty place
then.”

He bent, picked up my bursting backpack from
the floor, and headed out. It was nice that he carried my heavy
bag. Although, compared to my mother’s inescapable presence, it was
only a small burden.

My gaze swept over my small room a final
time. It felt as if I was leaving a part of me behind. After all,
this had been my home for so long. Listlessly, I closed the
door.

“The lift seems to be out of order today. We
have to take the stairs,” Julian informed me when I caught up with
his long strides.

“That lift has been out of order ever since
I moved in.”

He looked at me, his gaze filled with sudden
irritation.

“What did you expect to find here?” I
sneered. “The Grand Plaza?”

Julian shook his head and walked a little
faster. Even though I didn’t see his face, I could just picture him
rolling his eyes.

Three flights of stairs gave me plenty of
opportunity to study his backside. The muscles flexed with every
step he took. Never being one to stare at a boy’s butt, it
surprised me how hard I found it to tear my eyes away from the
stunning view.

Between the first and second landing, he
shot me a suspicious glance over his shoulder. Throughout the
years, I’d become an expert at muffling the sound of my footfalls
while wandering through the building at night to find a book in the
library.

“Thought I was going to run?

“Just checking,” he murmured, facing the
steps again.

Downstairs, my backpack landed with a dull
thud on the floor. Julian planted his nice bottom on the second
step, his elbows propped on his knees. A spider made its busy way
past his shoes and disappeared into a crack in the brittle
wall.

Julian angled his head to gaze at me. “Don’t
tell me you’re going to miss this place.”

I shrugged and folded my arms over my chest.
“You should come here in the winter when the mice move in for a
warmer place to stay and a nice meal in the cafeteria.”

His brows arched and seemed to plead with me
to confess I was only joking. I didn’t bother, but shifted my
weight to my other foot, mimicked his raised brow, and dared him to
call me a liar. He didn’t take the bait.

“Well, in your new home you will have to do
without your speedy companions. The only furry thing there will be
the giant hound.”

A dog? A giant dog?
“No one said I’d
have to share a house with a monster other than my mother.” The
image of Rusty the Rottweiler ran screaming through my head. When I
still lived with the dragon, that stupid dog had flashed his fangs
at me whenever I walked by our neighbor’s garden. A hint of
wariness crept into my voice. “And just how big would that dog
be?”

Julian waited a second before he answered.
“I know people who mistook it for a horse.” His quiet tone released
a shudder down my spine. “But don’t worry. They keep the dog well
fed, so it should restrain from eating a snotty brat like you.”

The door behind me squeaked open, and I
nearly jumped out of my skin, half expecting to find myself staring
into the open maw of a giant ogre. The beaming face of my mother
was just as shocking.