Touched by Lightning [Dreams of You] (Romantic Suspense) (8 page)

She returned to the van, putting those flowers in a cup of water. Because the flowers didn’t smell, she lifted the cap off her Opium perfume bottle and inhaled. Then, for the heck of it, she deposited a tiny drop on her wrist.

She removed the robe, then her silk nightgown, and put on her wool sweater and jeans. Over all that she put on her shawl to hide her braided hair and the overcoat. Grabbing her camera, she rejoined Crackers where she’d tied him to the bumper.

Her main purpose in life was surviving, but beyond that, taking pictures filled the greatest moments. The rest was an empty space that dreams had left behind. If she could spend every waking hour taking photographs, she would, but that was impractical. Last night, as she lay in her bed tossing and turning, she thought of some great shots with a crippled puppy in them. Today, she would turn those thoughts into film.

The cold front had swept through the night before, bringing with it rain and even colder air. Wispy clouds scudded across the sky, leaving streaks of blue where they thinned the most. Soon they would dissipate altogether, leaving a glorious day. For now, the weather would be a good backdrop for her pictures.

Midmorning, when the sun began to dominate the sky, Nikki was still posing Crackers, this time in Seamus’s baby stroller. She knew he allowed it only because he was far into another world today, and hadn’t realized what she’d asked. That was why she wanted to get the shot and be on her way. Now that her creativity was percolating with ideas, she wanted to find Maudine and pose her with Crackers, sharing a treat together. That was what she wanted her photographs to show, that the homeless were people too, and that they enjoyed the same simple pleasures everyone else did.

“You’re going to spoil that puppy crazy,” a low voice said behind her, and she jumped just as she made the exposure.

Whirling around with her hand on her heart, she stood to face Adrian. He looked extraordinarily handsome at that moment, with the sun gleaming off almost black hair and a devilish smile on his face. She looked away, not wanting to notice those things about him.

“I was just posing him.”

Crackers had already struggled out of the stroller and waddled over to Adrian, obviously recognizing him as his savior. Adrian knelt down and scratched the puppy’s chin. In a sweatshirt, his chest looked even larger than before; she could imagine him wrapping his arms about a woman and making her feel very secure. Her hand went to her lips at the feelings that thought invoked. Not this woman, she reminded herself, looking away. The feeling lingered, though. It had been so long since a man had held her. The thought of it seemed like heaven.

“He looks happy. You must be a great nurse.”

“Okay, I am spoiling him rotten, and he loves it.” Her voice grew soft. “I doubt anyone’s ever spoiled him before.” She couldn’t help but smile at Crackers’s tail, wildly swinging every time Adrian spoke.

He held the pup’s chin and said, “You don’t know how lucky you are, fella.”

Nikki pulled on the leash she fashioned from a couple of belts and started walking away.

“Did I say something wrong?” he asked in that rich voice of his.

“No. It’s just that I…have to go now. I have to get Crackers back…” She started to say home but let the sentence hang. “He’s been on his leg all morning.”

“Can I walk with you?”

“It’s probably best if you don’t.” Ulyssis’s warning to be careful floated through her mind. She remembered something he’d said about the man who’d come into the gallery. “Do you like to photograph things, Adrian?” Damn, but she liked the feel of his name on her tongue.

He gave her an odd look. “Yes, but I’m not very good. There wasn’t much to do where I grew up, so when my Uncle Carlos gave me one of his cameras he used in his private investigator practice, it gave me something to do with my time.”

Nikki found herself smiling, picturing him as a kid with a camera. In spite of herself, she wanted to know more about him. “What kinds of things did you take pictures of?”

“At first everything, but my newspaper delivery business could hardly support my habit. I always look for the story behind the photograph.”

Like her. “And you didn’t do anything with it?”

He shrugged. “If you count working with my uncle catching illicit cheaters for rankled spouses. Even then, I always went for the artistic angles.” He reached for the camera in her hands, and she reluctantly let him take it. That he would steal it was the least of her worries.

“A Hasselblad. It’s a good camera, isn’t it?” He looked it over and then handed it back to her.

“I suppose. I’ve had it for a while.” A gift from her mother who always insisted on the best. When her mother thought it was a hobby.

As he looked into her eyes, she felt such a poignancy she could hardly pull her gaze away from his. Once again she forced herself to walk away from him, wondering if he was lying about his mild interest in photography. The man who’d gone into Ulyssis’s gallery said he was a photographer. She kept her camera in the folds of her coat to hide it from any other interested individuals who wanted to do more than compliment her taste in equipment.

When he spoke, his voice was a short distance behind her, and she knew he had remained where he was. Crackers was straining against his homemade collar, trying to go back to him.

“Nikki, let me buy you lunch. Crackers, too.”

“I don’t need your charity,” she said, still looking ahead. Her voice trembled, and she cleared her throat. “But thank you anyway.”

He laughed, though not in a mocking way. “I’m not offering you charity. You can tell me about your hobby.”

When she turned around, he was standing with his hands in his pockets, leaning his weight on one leg. He smiled, such an innocent smile. If he were hired to find her, or to kill her, he was probably the best in the business. And her brother, Devlin, would hire the best.

Crackers continued to strain as she fought with herself over something as silly as whether to have lunch with this man. The two belts came undone, and the pup hobbled eagerly over to Adrian. She found herself ironically glad that she’d given Crackers a sponge bath now that Adrian was rubbing his cheek against the top of the dog’s head. Something in that small action tugged at her resistance, and she stepped forward to retrieve her puppy.

“I guess I’m outvoted.”

He smiled. “Looks like it.” He reattached the belts and carried the dog several blocks to a restaurant called Mama Jam’s. She paused warily outside, already smelling the jerk spices.

“Haven’t you ever eaten here?” he asked. “Or have you, and that’s why you’re looking like that?”

“No, I’ve never eaten here.”

He looked up at the peeling paint of the sideboards and the jaunty sign over the door depicting a round black woman with fruit on her head. “I didn’t think I’d ever eat at a place like this either, but Seamus talked me into it. They have great Jamaican meat patties.” Adrian tied Crackers up to the black bars on the window in a shady spot.

Her eyes widened. “Seamus? You and Seamus had lunch here?”

“Sure. What’s so strange about that?”

She shook her head, walking closer. “I can’t imagine you and him having lunch together. Does he talk to you?”

“He told me about his wife and little girl, and how they died in a car accident.”

“I didn’t know,” she said softly, walking inside as he held the door for her.

Island music played in the background, and a large black lady waved them to sit wherever they wanted. Nikki wondered if the woman was a model for the sign, though she wasn’t wearing any fruit. Adrian led her to a small homemade table near the front window where they could see Crackers.

Once the hot tea had been brought to the table, Nikki was glad to occupy herself with preparing it. Adrian dumped one packet of sugar in his and stirred it, but he was watching her. She could tell, even as she stared into her cup and watched the amber liquid make little whirlpools. He was leaned back in the simple wooden chair, one leg stretched out so that it extended to her side of the table. His presence seemed to overwhelm the tiny place. When she finally had to look up at him, he didn’t quickly look away. Instead, he smiled. The strange feeling in her stomach made her wish he would have glanced away.

“I thought you’d be gone by now,” she said, trying hard not to make it sound like she cared one way or the other.

“Not yet. I’m looking for work in the area. I like it here.”

So, he wasn’t going away anytime soon. A tiny feeling of elation overruled her sense of security.

“Where do you go at night?” She found herself asking. “To sleep.”

He looked surprised at her question. For a second, she panicked. Damn, it had been so long since she had a conversation like this. She’d forgotten the rules. Then again, there were no rules on the streets.

He shrugged. “Sometimes at the shelter. Sometimes they’re full, so I go elsewhere. Where do you go? You said you didn’t stay at the shelter.”

“Here and there,” she said quickly. Too quickly, but she didn’t add anything else.

“Tell me about your photography. How long have you been doing it?”

It seemed so strange to be asked about herself, her hobby. With Maudine, she shared tidbits of her days. With Ulyssis, she was vague so he didn’t worry too much about her.

“Since I was a teenager.” Like Adrian, she had used it as an escape.

The woman brought plates of meat patties and red beans and rice to the table. The fried pastry and spicy beans smelled delicious, and she dug in. Aside from her occasional meals at the diner, the rest of her food she cooked on her portable burner.

“Did you grow up around here?” Adrian asked her.

“Yes.” She didn’t want to give him too much information

“You don’t talk much,” he said, diffusing the words with a smile.

“No.”

That only made him smile more. He picked at his food while she ate, more out of nervousness than hunger. She wondered if he had a gun hidden beneath his sweatshirt. Like the little Davis thirty-two caliber hidden in the pocket of her coat, the one Ulyssis insisted she take after she’d been robbed early on.

“Nikki, what’s wrong?”

She blinked, wondering what expression had been on her face. “Nothing.”
Are you here to kill me? Did Devlin send you here?
She wanted to occupy her attention with food, but it was all gone.

“Are you uncomfortable?”

“Yes,” she answered honestly.

He leaned forward, only a foot away from her face. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” It was too complicated to explain, even to herself. She leaned back, uneasy with his closeness.
You’re too close, too handsome, too dangerous. It scares me to feel this way.

He leaned back again, but his voice retained that intimate softness. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. Tell me what I’m doing, and I’ll stop.”

“I think I should go.” She stood, gathering her coat and slipping it over her arms. “Thank you for lunch.”

She walked out of the restaurant, hoping to gain time while he paid the bill. Unfortunately, the clever knot Adrian had tied to secure Crackers kept her standing there long enough for him to walk over.

“Wait a minute.” Instead of demanding to know why she’d walked out so suddenly, he knelt down and opened a package of crinkly white paper. “I promised the pup lunch, remember?”

She looked down at him, holding the meat patty for Crackers to take, which he did in two bites. How could a man who remembered promises to dogs be a hired killer? She felt a tug at her heart, watching him. He stood, wiping his hands on his pants. In half a second, he freed the belt and handed it to her. She felt warmth creeping up her cheeks at her rudeness. How long had it been since she’d had to apologize to someone? Probably two years. She smiled, as close as she could come to an apology, and turned away. Crackers still gave resistance, tugging back toward Adrian.

Exasperated, she said, “I’m going to leave you here if you don’t behave.” She yanked on the leash, and the belts came apart again.

Adrian put them together, then nodded toward the small general store one block up. “Why don’t we get him a real leash?”

“No, I can’t afford it. That’s why I’m using this…thing.”

“I’ll buy one. They can’t be that much.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You spend a lot of money for someone down here.”

That smile of his was disarming, and he knew it. “I’m not a drug runner, if that’s what you’re thinking. Actually, I had a bartending job last night. Made a few extra bucks because their regular guy was sick.”

Nikki wasn’t sure whether to buy that or not, but decided it didn’t matter. He probably wasn’t a hired killer, but it was silly to pursue a relationship with a stranger. Still, she found herself walking with him to the general store to buy a leash for a dog she wouldn’t have around much longer. How could two different creatures ingrain themselves in her very private life like this? Adrian with his smiles, and Crackers with his puppyish self. Except for Maudine and Ulyssis, Nikki had let no one near her.

“Be right back.” Adrian walked into the store.

She pretended not to watch him through the dusty panes of glass fitted with metal bars. He studied the different leashes on a far aisle, then walked to the register. He emerged with a purple leash and collar to match. She held tight to the belts, even as he knelt down and freed Crackers from the makeshift leash. When he stood, she was staring right at his chest. Despite her wish not to, she met those brown eyes of his. Her heart tightened, aching from some need she refused to acknowledge. A cool breeze ruffled his dark waves and caused a strand of her own hair to tickle her cheek.

He reached slowly out and brushed it away, his fingers lingering against her skin, then moving to beneath her chin. She knew she must move, turn away, and leave. If she could breathe or swallow. If her heart hadn’t stopped beating altogether.

“You are beautiful,” he said, his voice almost a whisper. “Too beautiful to be down here.”

The warmth from his fingers spread to her entire body, and his words caressed her soul. To be touched, to be beautiful again…to be held in those strong arms, against that strong chest, and be held, just held. She shivered, and his hands moved away. She wrapped her coat around her, looking everywhere but him.