From The Ashes. Sharon Mignerey

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СКАЧАТЬ two things for sure. She wanted that part of her life behind her and she never wanted to see Tommy again.

      She shouldn’t have been surprised that he’d shown up today, she decided. Usually, the events of her day were a reflection of her daily Bible study. This morning’s reading had been from the first book of Proverbs, a warning of what happens to those who throw in with bad company. My child, if sinners try to seduce you, do not go with them. Only, a lifetime ago she had, and, caught in the lure of money and drugs, she had deliberately harmed her best friend. That simple, awful act had come back to her tenfold. Now, she doubted she would ever be able to make things right again. God might have forgiven her sins, but she was a long way from forgiving herself.

      She might have paid her debt to society as defined by her prison term and her just-ended year of parole, but she still had debts to repay and would for the rest of her life, the least of them monetary. As always, that thought was nearly overwhelming, which made the idea of her having the money Tommy wanted all the more ludicrous.

      One day at a time, she whispered to herself. One minute at a time.

      She went outside and immediately wished she had remembered to put on a coat when she had dashed out of the house hours ago. The summerlike temperatures this morning had disappeared into the more typical November day in Denver—blustery with the scent of snow in the air, the cold biting right through her. The walk to the bus stop was going to be cold, as was the walk the rest of the way home on the other end.

      A couple of hotel workers, bundled against the cold, were wrapping Christmas lights around the trunks of the trees flanking the entrance.

      To her surprise, Brian Ramsey was coming toward the door, smiling—that same warm-down-to-her-toes smile that he had given her before.

      “I was hoping I’d catch you before you took off,” Brian said. “I know you said you’d call, but if we could talk today, that would be better.”

      Angela shivered as a gust of wind hit them, and Brian immediately noticed she wasn’t wearing a coat.

      Her expression had gone from distracted to interested when her gaze lit on him. That at least was something.

      “Is your car far?” He shrugged out of his cashmere top coat and settled it over her shoulders. The coat was huge on her, but somehow looked right, too. When she shivered once more, he reached out and closed the top button to keep the coat from slipping off her slim shoulders.

      “Actually, we rode the bus today. I was headed for the Park and Ride across the street.” She glanced at him. “I should have known better than to leave home without a coat.”

      “The weather can turn on a dime,” he agreed, looking from her to her destination, turning his head to compensate for his lack of peripheral vision. “Across the street” didn’t come close to describing the long walk across the hotel parking lot, up a hill and across another parking lot to the bus stop. There, she still wouldn’t have any protection from the weather except for a glass-enclosed lean-to.

      “Look, you don’t know me from Adam,” he said, “but I’d be happy to give you a lift wherever you’d like to go.” This close, he became aware of her fragrance—soft, mysterious. Her soft brown hair had slipped from the clip holding it up, and tendrils curled around her face. When he’d watched her demonstration, he’d thought she was in her early twenties. Now he pegged her age at least ten years older, though nothing about those years made her any less appealing.

      “And you’d be able to tell me what’s on your mind,” she allowed, “since you said you needed a dog.”

      “That’s right.” He waited while she searched his face without any apparent recognition. Given all the notoriety he’d recently had, finding one person who didn’t know him on sight was a relief. “I’m harmless, I promise.”

      She grinned. “So said the spider to the fly.”

      He liked her sense of humor. “Probably. But if you’re not going to go with me, I want my coat back. It’s cold.”

      Once more her eyes danced, and she patted the dog on the head. “What do you think, Polly? A warm ride or a cold walk?”

      The dog wagged its tail, and Angela looked back at him. He heard the quick beep of a horn, and he turned his head, taking in the vehicle he had stopped driving two months ago easing up to the curb. “My car is here,” Brian said, pointing at his Escalade. His driver waved.

      “Okay,” she said, stepping off the curb. “I am supposed to know you from somewhere, though, aren’t I?”

      He waited until they had reached the vehicle and opened the back door for her before saying, “That depends, I guess, on whether you read the sports pages.”

      She gave him another of those considering glances with her expressive brown eyes. “Not usually.”

      He opened the back door, and as the dog jumped in, motioned to Sam. “Say hi to Sam Waite.”

      “Hey,” Sam said.

      “Hi,” Angela responded, taking the arm Brian offered for support as she climbed into the backseat.

      He went around the vehicle to sit in the backseat with her, and, realizing his intention, she signaled the dog to climb into the back of the vehicle.

      “Where are we off to?” Sam asked after they were settled.

      “The lady’s pleasure,” Brian said.

      “In that case San Diego. At least it would be warmer there.” She smiled at Sam’s raised eyebrows and cheerful expression, then gave him her address, adding the directions.

      The address was far enough out in Denver’s northeast suburbs that Brian doubted it was on any direct bus routes. He wondered if the choice was part of the dog’s training.

      After they were underway, he figured she’d ask why he had a driver, but she didn’t. Instead, she said, “That sounded rude. You know, saying I don’t usually read about sports.”

      “Not rude.” He didn’t like that he had put his career behind him on something less than his own terms, but he also knew that simply because sports had consumed him from the day he could walk, it wasn’t so for many others. “Truthful.”

      “You’re a ball player?”

      He nodded, allowing a grin. Ball player left a lot of room.

      “Football?” she ventured.

      “What makes you say so?” he asked.

      “You’re tall, but you don’t have that seven-foot height that seems to go these days with basketball players.” Her gaze left him and strayed to the gray day outside.

      “You left off baseball or soccer.”

      She shook her head with a good-natured grin. “I’m sticking to my first guess.”

      “You’re right. I played football.”

      “What team? Or maybe I’m supposed to ask what position.”

      “I’m a quarterback. Was a quarterback,” he said.

      “Are СКАЧАТЬ