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  He sank on the cement next to her, not because he wanted to continue this conversation, but because if he was trapped listening, it’d just been too long a day to stand indefinitely in the cold. “You don’t think you could be jumping to conclusions? She doesn’t even know you, Marta.”

  “Merry, not Marta. And it’s Merry as in M-e-r-r-y, not as in M-a-r-y.”

  He dug in his pocket for Kleenex. Because he often jogged on cold mornings, he tended to carry a bunch. Apparently the last time he’d run out and ripped off some paper towels. Whatever. They enabled her to blow her nose. To give her credit, she didn’t waste time apologizing for crying or make it out like it was a big to-do that he’d seen her.

  When she quit blowing, she said, “You said you knew Charlie. So you had to know his daughter, right?”

  “Well, sure. I mean, she was around all the time, but I can’t say how well I knew her. Charlie and I were great buddies, good neighbors together. Shared a beer often enough, bitched about yard work, did some fence talk about raising kids, life, ex-wives. Neither of us pried. We just got along. I liked him.”

  “I did, too. From the first time I met him, there was just this…click. Not a sexual click. Just a friendly one. He was straightforward and funny and bright. And caring—”

  “You liked him so well you never saw him once in the last five years?”

  “I take it that’s how long he lived here.” The faucet had almost quit dripping, but now it gushed again. “No, I never saw him here. And I never imagined that he’d live in a place like this.”

  “Okay.” He washed a hand over his face. “The whole neighborhood’s been asking the same questions. You hadn’t seen him in years. You never met his daughter. You didn’t know anything about his current life, apparently. So how did you end up being Charlene’s guardian?”

  “Well, I’m not ‘the guardian’ exactly. More a guardian trainee. And if I can’t make this work a lot better than it did today, I’ll be flunking the course for sure. Which would be fine, if it was just about me. But darn it, it’s about what happens to Charlene. And the thing is—”

  She seemed to do a lot of emotional talking with her hands, which meant she almost smacked him in the nose. He ducked. “The thing is…what?”

  “The thing is that everyone was against my doing this. My dad. My sisters. My friends. They all kept telling me I was being crazy impulsive to just up and quit my job. Sublet my place. Put all my stuff in storage, except for what I could fit in the car, and just move—”

  So there were intelligent people in her life, Jack thought, but it was the same old story about being able to lead a horse to water. “And you did all this for a stranger? A girl you didn’t know from Adam?” She looked at him, with a fresh bout of diamonds in her eyes. “Hell, I’m not trying to upset you more. I’m trying to understand why you did this.”

  “I did it because she had no one else!”

  “That may be, Merry. But that should have been her father’s problem. Not yours.”

  “Maybe so. But Charlie kind of made it my problem by not handling it himself. After his divorce, he went to the trouble of making a will. That was when I knew him, when he was making that first will, trying to plan for Charlene in case something happened to him. I have no idea why he didn’t change the will in all this time, but as far as I can tell, there simply was no one else he could leave her with.”

  “But that doesn’t make it your problem, Merry.”

  “But it does. Because I can’t imagine abandoning a child to foster care if there’s any choice. And I am a choice. I’m free, no husband or kids, no ties, no job I couldn’t shake loose from. I love people and I love kids. And to tell you the truth, I just assumed that I’d love her, but…” She made an emotional gesture. “I think she sees me as an alien from another planet.”

  He squinted at her. “Trust me, you don’t remotely look like a Klingon.”

  “I’m not kidding! She thought I was talking a foreign language. I couldn’t do anything right, or anything that made any sense to her.” Out poured more froth. “She didn’t even know what a hair scrunchie was.”

  “You’re kidding.” He didn’t have a clue what a hair scrunchie was either, but he finished the last of the mop-up with the edge of his glove. Might be a few tears still glistening from those thick, soft eyelashes, but she was definitely starting to dry up.

  “I put some fresh flowers in her room. She took them back to the kitchen. I got her to open the other presents, but when she saw the rhinestone tee, she looked at me as if I’d sprouted a third head. Apparently she doesn’t listen to music. At least not ’tweenie music. And I happened to get lost driving from the rest home this morning. She thinks I’m dumb. She thinks I’d get lost in a closet. And you know what?”

  “What?”

  “I do. Get lost in closets. I admit I’m not the most logical card in the deck, but that doesn’t make me a cream puff, Jack. She looks like a marine.”

  The way she said “Jack” triggered a buck in his pulse. A sexual buck.

  He felt the first fringe of fear.

  She was not a woman he wanted to feel that buck for…but he couldn’t seem to help it. She was talking to him as if she knew him. As if they were friends. As if she inherently assumed he was someone she could be honest with. He couldn’t think of way to respond except straight. “She’s grieving.”

  “Oh, God. I know that. But that’s also the terrifying part. Because I want to help her, and I’m afraid if we don’t get along, that I could make it worse.”

  He’d waited as long as he could, but now he motioned to the back door. “You want me to close the door there?”

  “No, no. I deliberately left it open. She fell asleep. But I’m afraid she could wake up, think no one was there, that she’d been abandoned. I want to be able to hear her.”

  So at least this time there was a reason why they were heating the entire outdoors, even if he didn’t buy it as a logical choice himself. He cut back to the chase, understanding that she needed direct information. “About the clothes she’s wearing…first off, the uniform’s army, not marine. But to put a general frame on that picture, when Charles first died, a teacher of hers came over to stay at the house until the funeral. Authorities had already figured out that she had no one, got the lawyer and court system involved. I don’t know exactly how it all went down, but when the funeral was over, a social worker had become part of the story, and had decided that she could camp out for another week at the rest home where her great-grandmother is. The idea was to buy enough time for the lawyers to do their thing. Hell, I’m bogging this down with the side details, but I’m just trying to explain the timetable of how things happened—”

  “And I want to know. In fact, I’d like to know anything you’re willing to tell me. I’ve really been batting in the dark.” The tears had definitely stopped now.

  “Well, getting back to the issue of the army uniform business. After the funeral, the social worker went in the house with her, waited while she packed some things. I was at the funeral, although honestly, I don’t remember what she wore. I can’t say I ever paid any attention to her clothes or things like that. I mean she’s just a child, so whatever. But the thing is…when she came back outside, she was wearing her dad’s clothes. Not straight army, but army reserves.”

  Merry brightened up as if a lightbulb dawned in her head. “So,” she said thoughtfully, “She’s wearing her dad’s clothes. Not hers.”

  “Yeah. At least, that’s what it sounds like.”

  “And the brush cut? Did she always wear her hair in a brush cut?”

  “Um, no. Truthfully, I don’t remember how she wore her hair. Kind of short, I guess. But not buzz-cut short.” He had to think. “But, Charlie—”

  “He wore it military short? I never saw it that way.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t think guys change their hairstyles the way women do. They kind of stay with what they start with. But a few years back—well, I guess he got fe
d up, was annoyed because his hair tended to curl or something, said it was just easier to shave it off.”

  “So her hairstyle is mimicking his, too.” Merry’s mind appeared to be racing now. Jack wasn’t sure if that was a good idea—not when her mind was already on the capricious and unpredictable side. “And she wants to be called Charlie. Not Charlene. Like her dad was called Charlie. So…it’s all starting to add up. Of course, that doesn’t make her behavior any less serious. But at least it’s better than worrying the child wants a sex-change operation at age eleven.”

  He wanted to laugh. “Um, I don’t think you’ll find she was ever on the girly-girl side.”

  “That has to be the understatement of the century.”

  “She adored her dad. They did tons of stuff together. He really enjoyed time with her. And she just loved him from here to hell.” With alarm he saw her eyes well again, and chose a different topic at jet speed. “Hey, for the record, I don’t know what a scrunchie is, either. Is that some kind of code? Vocab or intel for a specific kind of initiation or something like that?”

  She laughed. It wasn’t a big laugh, more on the tepid side, but it was obviously a mood changer for her. She was over the crying.

  And something else changed at that moment. He didn’t know what. But until that instant, he’d just been sitting there, on the cold cement porch step, the heat from the house reaching his back, the streetlights down the neighborhood the only real illumination except for moonlight.

  Suddenly, he was conscious of sitting close to her. Not hip-bumping close—not intrusive close, exactly, but close. She suddenly turned, facing him eye to eye, and abrupt as a slap he realized something else.

  Possibly he’d recognized there was chemistry before this. Why wouldn’t there be? She was gorgeous. And he’d always had a hefty dose of testosterone. It didn’t matter if she was on the flaky, ditzy side; his body was always going to respond to a beautiful woman. Still, a guy on the experienced side of thirty-five knew enough to ignore the bulge in his zipper.

  Like in her case.

  One look and he’d known she was trouble clear through. Nothing he’d seen or heard from her since had changed his mind.

  So he wasn’t looking at her that way. She was the one who was suddenly looking at him. Her expression changed. A quick frown furrowed her brow, almost gone before it started, as if she’d discovered something curious that she wasn’t expecting. And then, swift as a spring breeze, she suddenly leaned closer to him. Suddenly put a hand on his shoulder to brace herself. Suddenly tilted her head.

  Suddenly kissed him.

  Hell, was a guy ever prepared for Armageddon? Her mouth was satin-soft, the scent of her dizzying. His body perked up as if he hadn’t been laid in a blue moon. His heart abruptly remembered that it was lonesome. Beyond lonesome. And she was exactly the one it’d been lonesome for all this time.

  More mortifying yet, she wasn’t coming onto him. It was just a kiss. A kiss where she touched his shoulder, then cupped his head, then simply laid those irresistible lips on him for a single miraculous second. Maybe two.

  Then she eased back, still looking at him. “Thank you, Jack,” she said quietly, and then stood up, smiled. And simply went in the house. Even closed the door.

  Hokay, he told himself. Hokay. But it wasn’t okay or hokay. Slowly he lurched to his feet and hiked back to his place. He told himself there was nothing wrong with what just happened, no reason to make more of that kiss than it was. She’d just apparently been trying to express a thank-you for talking to her. And that was just fine.

  It was just…he’d never expected to feel anything honest and real with her.

  He stomped in through his back door, hung up his jacket and abruptly caught the smell of his burned dinner. His very burned dinner. His inedible—very burned dinner.

  Eventually the smoke cleared out, but Jack stayed fuming a while longer.

  The new neighbor wasn’t working out at all well.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE INSTANT SHE HAD a spare second, Merry wanted to analyze the confounding range of emotions her neighbor had aroused in her. Last night, she’d mused quite a while about that kiss. About the kind of man who went out in the cold to help a stranger. About how honest he’d come across. And, yeah, how sexy.

  Merry believed in listening to her instincts. Believed that it wasn’t impulsiveness, but natural good sense, to be aware when her body perked up near a certain man. It wasn’t as if she’d slept with hordes. But every time her body sent out warning signals—and she’d talked herself out of listening—it turned out that the guy was a dog and her initial instinct had been correct.

  Last night there had been none of that dog stuff. It had been all lights-turned-on, whew-where-did-that-heat-come-from, this guy is unbelievably-good-news instinct stuff.

  Right now, though, God knows, she had to shake him completely from her mind.

  Charlene had just joined her in the kitchen. So far things weren’t going too stellar. Partially Merry blamed the gray breakfast counter between them, because the gray counter/black sink kitchen décor was enough to depress anybody. The modern art all over the place was even worse—not just depressing but weird enough to give a girl the willies.

  Right now, the chicklet sitting across from her was the scariest problem, though.

  Charlene had emerged from the bedroom this morning, ostensibly ready for her first day going back to school, wearing the combat gear again. The newly-waxed brush cut looked awful silly on that tiny, feminine little face. The pants had been cuffed up a half dozen times, but the shirt collar was still buttoned tight enough to choke the throat. The clothes dwarfed her skinny little frame—especially the combat boots—but the saddest part was that closed-in, closed-up expression.

  Merry had started out with a bubbly, “Hey, g’morning, cupcake!” But that went over like a double homework assignment, and since then, the silence in the kitchen had built up to deafening proportions.

  The differences between them, Merry realized, were a lot more complicated than just combat boots versus rhinestone-studded flip-flops. For breakfast, Charlie had chosen a bowl of Wheaties—no milk, no sugar—and an apple. A tidy paper napkin was folded with the edges just so.

  Merry was eating breakfast, too, but she’d chosen a gooey cinnamon roll, tomato juice with a bit of pepper, two Oreos, and a highly sugared cereal with fresh blueberries on it.

  It was unnatural to eat that healthily, Merry fretted, and even more frighteningly unnatural to be so damned quiet and obedient. The other differences contrasting them were even more pronounced. She was wearing comfortable old frayed jeans with a hole above the knee. The kid had actually ironed her khakis. Repeat, ironed. Whoever ironed unless threatened at knifepoint?

  And the child’s brush cut might look goofy, but it was certainly ultra tidy compared to her own tumble of dark chestnut hair that hadn’t even seen a brush yet.

  Charlie looked ready to run the world.

  Merry didn’t figure anyone should be expected to seriously wake up until midmorning. On the other hand, she might not be thinking clearly yet, but she was definitely cheery enough for two. Good thing, since ole stone-face on the other side of the counter looked as if a smile might crack her cheeks.

  “So,” Merry said, starting a conversation for maybe the fourth time in the last ten minutes. “You need to be at school by eight-fifteen. How do you usually get there—walk, bus, what?”

  Charlie didn’t look up from her fascinating bowl of Wheaties, but at least she answered. “My dad drives me. It’s on his way to work, so he always said it was no trouble.”

  “Is there a bus, though?”

  “Probably. I don’t know. It’s like a mile. I could walk it.”

  “I’ll take you, Charlie. I just wondered if there was a regular school bus in case there was a day I was sick or something.”

  “Yeah, I guess there is. I’ll find out. You don’t have to do anything about it.”

  Merry heard
the unspoken message. I won’t bother you. Just let me be home. You don’t have to even pretend I exist. Darn kid was breaking her heart even when she said nothing at all. “What time do you want me to pick you up after school?”

  “No reason to pick me up. There’s a car pool thing. Because my dad worked. So, like there are four moms. He always paid the gas. They rotate who’s driving. Mrs. Sheinfeld picks me up today. The phone numbers are all in the Rolodex.”

  “Okay. And then you get home by what time?”

  “Depends on the day. Usually before four. Unless there’s soccer practice or something like that. Until I was ten, my dad had, like, a babysitter here until he got home, but that was stupid, I told him. There’s always somebody around the neighborhood if I needed something. And he trusts me.”

  Merry felt her heart lurch. Her heart had been regularly doing that lurching thing since she got here. The military looks and the taciturn expressions were worrying and disconcerting, for damn sure, but somewhere under all that attitude was an awfully miserable kid. Tight as a drum. She sure didn’t seem to want nurturing—at least not from Merry—but Merry couldn’t help feeling that she’d never met a kid who needed more plain old loving affection.

  On the legal pad next to her—and Merry was not one into making lists—she was on the third page just this morning. She needed the names of the moms who drove Charlene, besides today’s Mrs. Sheinfeld. And they needed to know her. Cripes, maybe she was supposed to be part of that car pool now? How many kids was she supposed to be able to fit in her Mini Cooper? Who was the kid’s doctor? Her dentist? Who picked up the trash?

  Truth to tell, the list thing was scaring the hell out of her—but at least yesterday’s overwhelming panic was gone. She was up and ready to boogie, all renewed and charged to take this on again, all because of Jack, she thought. It helped so much to have another adult to talk to. To vent on.