Father Of The Brood. Elizabeth Bevarly

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СКАЧАТЬ bad neighborhood that no one in his right mind would choose to visit if he didn’t have to, Ike might have seen some potential for the place. As it was, he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what someone like Annie Malone was doing living here.

      He had spoken to her briefly on the phone—once—since meeting her backstage the weekend before. The conversation had consisted of a few dozen words and lasted about a minute and a half. Mostly, they had just settled on what time Ike would pick Annie up and bring her home. And with that obligatory exchange out of the way, there had seemed nothing more to say.

      Ike sighed. Man, he was dreading this.

      He climbed out of his bright red sports car, eyed his surroundings and surreptitiously activated the car’s alarm. He didn’t plan on being here any longer than he had to, but in this neighborhood, his car could be stripped professionally in a matter of minutes. He scrubbed his palms over his khaki-clad thighs as he walked toward the front door of Annie’s house, then checked his navy polo for any potential smudges of filth. He was beginning to feel dirty just being in the vicinity.

      He was about to knock when the front door was thrown open wide and he was nearly overrun by children and hockey sticks. Without a notice or care of him, the kids went blustering into the street, shouting and prancing and scrambling for position. Ike was left shaking his head in wonder that children felt so utterly immortal that they didn’t even watch for traffic. Then again, this street didn’t look particularly well traveled, either, he thought as he glanced down one way and then the other. The realization was just something else that put him on edge.

      “Hi.”

      He turned at the sound of a soft, husky, voice—a voice he’d heard on only two occasions, but one he was coming to find oddly familiar and comfortable nonetheless. Annie Malone stood at her front door wearing a white peasant blouse with roomy sleeves, very faded, hip-hugging blue jeans, and huge Birkenstocks on her otherwise bare feet. Her hair was parted in the middle and fell in two braids over her shoulders, and thanks to the thin, gauzy fabric of her shirt, he could clearly see that she was wearing an undershirt instead of a bra.

      Ike didn’t know why no one had bothered to inform Annie that the sixties had ended more than two decades ago, and he had to force himself not to impart the information to her himself. Instead, he decided he may have been a bit rash in dismissing her upper regions so easily last weekend. Although small, Annie had good form. Then he noted the exhausted-looking duffel bag at her feet that appeared to be more empty than full. Annie, it seemed, traveled even more lightly than he.

      “I saw you from my window and decided to come down to meet you,” she said. “I was hoping to make it before the kids trampled you, but…”

      Ike glanced up when her voice trailed off, only to realize that she had once again been observing him as he ogled her. She had arched her left brow in that maddeningly challenging way, as if she were waiting for him to either assault her or offer an explanation for his rudeness. Ike did neither. He just tried to tamp down his irritation before it could become impropriety.

      Hoping to defuse her anger, he glanced over his shoulder at the hastily scrambling children. “Do they all belong to you?” he asked. When Annie’s gaze skittered past him to fall on the children, every ounce of animosity left her eyes, and her lips formed a fond smile. Ike knew then that inquiring about her children had been exactly the right thing to dissolve her exasperation.

      “Yeah, they’re all mine,” she told him.

      “Funny,” he said dryly, “a couple of them look like they’re in high school. You must have been about eight when you gave birth.” Ike wanted to offer the further-wry observation that Annie was in remarkably good shape for someone who had spent most of her adult life pregnant. But he refrained, fearing the comment just might put them back where they started—with him ogling, and her being ogled, and neither of them any too comfortable with the knowledge of it.

      Her smile was still wistful when she said, “I may not have carried them inside me, but they still belong to me.”

      “So then you don’t have any kids of your own?” Ike ventured.

      She looked at him strangely for a moment. “Why do you ask? For some reason, you strike me as the kind of person who doesn’t care much for children.”

      “That’s because I am the kind of person who doesn’t care much for children.”

      She sounded almost disappointed when she replied, “That doesn’t surprise me. And no, I don’t have any kids that are the product of any personal biological workings. But I do have kids. Lots of kids.” Before be could ask anything more, she met his gaze again. “I’m ready to head out whenever you are.”

      Ike nodded. “Good. I didn’t want to leave my car parked out here any longer than I had to.”

      She glanced past him at the bright red convertible and frowned.

      “What?” he asked when he saw her disapproval of the sleek car he’d coveted for years before being able to afford it. “You don’t want to drive to the coast with the top down?”

      She shook her head. “Oh, I love the feel of the wind when I’m driving.”

      “Then why the sour look?”

      “I was just thinking you probably paid more for that car than I spent buying and refinishing and outfitting this whole building.”

      This time it was Ike who frowned, wondering why he felt so damned defensive around this woman. “Yeah, I probably did. Real estate in this area isn’t exactly prime—” He eyed her building deliberately before adding, “—or safe— for commercial or residential use. You know, my partner and I are working with the city on a beautification project that’s leveling neighborhoods like this one and turning them into something useful.”

      She glared at him. “Neighborhoods like this one used to be the backbone of the city.”

      He smiled acidly. “Soon they’ll be parking garages.”

      “And that’s supposed to beautify the city?”

      Ike looked around him again. “A nice, clean parking garage will be a damned sight more attractive than this… this…”

      “Look,” Annie interrupted him, “maybe you don’t see much use for neighborhoods like this, but I see it in a way you obviously don’t. Granted, the area isn’t what it used to be, and yes, a bad element has begun to thrive. But there are still a lot of good people here. Besides that, it’s affordable and suits my needs just fine.”

      Ike wanted to counter that if that was the case, then she was obviously and sadly neglecting her needs. But he kept his mouth shut. For the time being, he decided, he’d just as soon not wonder about Annie Malone’s needs. She probably had way too many of them for any man to be able to satisfy her. And why he should suddenly feel a tingling— and not unpleasant—sexual awareness of her at the idea of such, Ike couldn’t begin to imagine. So he pushed the thought away and bent to retrieve her duffel.

      But someone else had beaten him to it, he realized before completing the action. Clutching the bag that would be nearly as big as he was if it were full, was a young boy with hair the mixed pale yellows of chicken noodle soup and eyes so blue and large and guileless, they almost stopped Ike’s breath.

      “I got it,” the boy said as he stepped past Annie. “I can carry it. СКАЧАТЬ