Apple Pie Angel (2 page)

The hurt feelings were evident in Loopy’s voice.  “I’m going, murderer!
Big fat turderer!
”

Jailbird? Murderer?
Oh God, please don’t let the best-looking man she had ever laid eyes on be a murdering ex-con. 

 
Chance growled low and menacingly, taking her by the shoulders.  “I would have thought you were the smart sort.  Coming here alone at night was
real
stupid.”

Lacey wrinkled her nose.  Her savior smelled only slightly better than Jock but, to her surprise, his breath was minty fresh.  His teeth were white and perfectly straight as if he had worn braces on them at some point in time.  A subtle yet blatant reminder that he hadn’t always been homeless.  She was pretty sure each of these poor people at one time or another had lived with roofs over their heads instead of under a damp, musty old train trestle.

Her heart bled as she looked around at all the destitution.  More than ever she was convinced these apple pies would be a bright spot in the ongoing dimness of their despair.

Stubbornly, she stiffened her spine.  “Maybe it wasn’t the best idea, but it was far from stupid.  I come bearing a bedtime treat.  You don’t serve those during daylight hours.”

“You don’t serve them at all if you’re being raped and beaten half to death.”

Death
.  She had a feeling Chance knew a lot about that.  Loopy had called him a murderer.  She shivered.  The warmth of her heavy Sherpa-lined coat did nothing to protect against those thoughts or the iciness of his voice.  She knew he would definitely think her dumb for asking, but she couldn’t resist.  She had to know if it was true.  “Did you really go to jail for murdering someone?”

“Yes.”

She tried to hide the shock but couldn’t keep her eyes from growing wide.  “But it was in self-defense, right?”

“Self? No.”

She sucked in a sharp breath and slowly let it out as if a carefully-controlled exhale could calm the hammering of her heart.  “Then you must have been defending someone else.  I—I mean you wouldn’t just kill someone in cold blood, right?”

His jaw muscles clenched.  Her heart did the same.

“Stop trying to find any good in me, Lacey.  There is none.”

His words hit her in the gut, stark and real. They held a harshness born of something she didn’t understand.  Yet the hands that continued to hold her shoulders were gentle, belying a tenderness evil could never know.  He had saved her from Jock.  Chance didn’t like it that she had put herself in harm’s way tonight.  He was worried about her welfare, and that was not only sweet, it spoke volumes to the goodness he had inside him.  Even if he could no longer recognize his value as a human being, she could.

“You know my name?” she asked, blushing.  Lacey hadn’t known his before tonight.  She had tried to find out from Eva but was advised that many on the streets preferred to remain anonymous. 

Although making the apple pies had come from the purest of intentions, Lacey had to admit there was another reason she had come to the trestle tonight.  She had wanted to see
him
again—to see Chance.  She liked his name a lot.  Somehow it suited him.  Exactly how, she wasn’t sure yet.

He didn’t answer her question.  Instead, he offered up a warning. 

“Don’t come back out here again.  It’s not safe.  No amount of light can penetrate this kind darkness.”

Lacey’s eyes pricked with tears.  She had never witnessed up close this degree of despair and hopelessness.  She couldn’t begin to imagine what horror had brought Chance to this place in his life or what set of circumstances would have made him take someone else’s.  Maybe someday, after she had gained his trust, he would tell her why he had killed and what was now killing
his
soul.

Searching his eyes for a flicker of anything she could grab onto, she asked, “Would you like a piece of apple pie?”

He frowned down at her with a stern look. “No.”

“Don’t you like it?”

“I love it.   Apple pie is my favorite,” he said, smiling sadly.

“Then why won’t you eat any?”

“You sure do ask a lot of questions.”

“And you don’t give me many answers.”

He dropped his hands from her shoulders and shoved them into the pockets of his tattered jeans but didn’t move away from her.  Still, she suddenly felt colder than she had ever felt in her life.  The hot, tingly touch of his fingers digging into her arms had been electrifying.  She couldn’t help but mourn the loss of his touch.  Inwardly, she vowed to feel his hands on her again.  And soon.

He exhaled hard, and the warmth of his breath tickled her neck, sending a pulse of pleasure through her body.  His deep voice echoed through that most intimate place between her thighs.

“I won’t eat it because I don’t deserve it.”

Lacey couldn’t stand his self-deprecation any longer.  It was the last straw.

“Now
that’s
the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.  How can anyone not deserve a piece of apple pie?”

He hung his head.  “Apple pie is America and freedom on a plate.  I’m not free, and I haven’t been for a long time.  Your dessert symbolizes the clean-cut and well-behaved.”  He rubbed a dirty hand across his full, unkempt beard.  “Do I strike you as being either?”

She refused to allow her sympathy to diffuse her anger.  Although she wasn’t privy to all he had been through, it was obvious that whatever it was, he had wallowed in it for way too long.

Setting the box down on the ground, she reached inside, grabbed some paper plates, plastic forks and napkins and shoved them at him.

“No more whining, Chance.  You’re as free as you choose to be.  Your behavior is whatever you make it.  As for being clean-cut, I can trim your beard for you, and you are welcome to use my shower any time.  Now give everyone a plate while I slice the pies.”

He shook his head.  “You’re something else, Lacey Burke.  If we weren’t standing in the middle of hell, I might believe you were an angel.”

CHANCE HADN’T MEANT TO make her mad, but hot-a-mighty if she wasn’t sexy as all get out when her temper flared.  Not many things—truthfully, not
anything
—had been able to shock him in the last five years.  But seeing
her
last night underneath this filthy trestle had effectively shocked the shit out of him. 

Lacey was the woman of his dreams, ones he thought were long dead.  Visions of her had been infiltrating his sleep for over a month now.  Her natural beauty and vitality stimulated his mind and body, pulling them from a depth of despair so dark and cold it could only lead to death.  But it wasn’t just the overwhelming physical attraction and animal lust or the intense urgency he felt to fuck her; it was who she was on the inside that drew him like a magnet. 

The woman was courageous.  It took balls to come to this part of town during the day, much less at night.  She obviously had a heart of gold, wanting to bring a bedtime snack to strangers, some of whom were dangerous. But since Chance had forbidden her from coming to the trestle again, Jock or nobody else would be bothering her.

Even though he had accused her of behaving stupidly, he could clearly see she was intelligent.  Someone he could really talk to about the important things in life.  Until he saw her serving at the soup kitchen, he had almost forgotten what those important things were. He had wanted to ask her why she had suddenly stopped coming to Eva’s, but there was no time.  After they finished serving pie to everyone, it was pretty late.  She had mentioned having to be at work early the next morning.  So he made sure she got to her car safely and then watched despondently as she drove away.

It killed him to see her taillights disappear into the night.  He had made it clear she was never to come back, and he didn’t think he could ever leave.  Knowing he wouldn’t see her again tore what was left of his heart into shreds.  And God knew there wasn’t much of the barely-beating muscle left in his chest to start with.  Charlotte had taken most of it with her when she left him all alone in this shitty world.  Not a day passed by that he didn’t think about her.  He could still see her pretty, sweet face. Hear her silly laughter—it always dissolved into snorting which made her laugh even harder. He missed her so damn much.  Chance had killed for Charlotte.  He had gone to jail for it. Yet, he still lost her as well as his will to live.  To try. 

Lacey Burke had stirred a desire in him to stand up again.  She had all but asked him to give life another chance.  But he wouldn’t answer her precious plea.  He didn’t have it in him to suffer another loss.  Even if he could have Lacey, he couldn’t hold onto her.  She wouldn’t want a broken man, and he wouldn’t want that for her.  A woman like Lacey Burke deserved way better than a man like Chance Taggert.

FINN THREW A PLATE of meatballs up against the far wall of the kitchen.  Whoever said Italians had bad tempers had obviously never been around any Swedes.  Lacey nearly jumped out of her skin when the dish shattered into a million pieces.  Noodles flew through the air, and marinara sauce splattered her waitressing uniform.

Finn shook his fists in the air.  “For one month I am patient when you miss the lunch-hour rush.  But now you show up late for the breakfast crowd, too.  I am finished with you!  You are fired!” he bellowed before turning on his heel and stomping out the kitchen door.

Lacey said nothing.  She had no defense.  She had overslept this morning, and there had been no way she was going to speed to make up the time.  The last thing she needed was another traffic ticket.  Although she wouldn’t mind being sentenced to another thirty days at Eva’s Soup Kitchen, especially if it meant seeing Chance again.  He had told her in no uncertain terms she was to stay away from the train trestle, but she had no intention of obeying.  If she was going to be jobless for a while, then she would have plenty of time for pie baking.  And, she could easily be at the trestle each evening before dark.  Surely Chance couldn’t find fault with that.

Alice—a gum-smacking, chain-smoking waitress who had been working tables since the invention of electricity—walked up and placed her boney arm around Lacey’s fleshy shoulders.  “Finn’s such a blow hole.  Him firin’ you had nothin’ to do with you bein’ a few minutes late.  He’s got himself an ulterior motive.”

Lacey furrowed her brow.  “What makes you say that?”

“Before you got here, I heard him on the phone with his sister, Heidi.  Apparently, her brat of a teenage daughter is givin’ her a fit.  So, she’s sendin’ her to live with Finn.  Figures workin’ for him in this shithole will straighten her little rebellious ass out somethin’ fast.”

“Ah,” Lacey nodded.  “He’s giving my job to his niece who he doesn’t have to pay wages.”

“You got it, honey! He’s a real ass-wipin’ sonofabitch if I’ve ever seen one.”

While she untied her apron and reached for her purse, Lacey couldn’t help but smile at Alice’s crude language.  She was a sweet old woman with a foul mouth and an endearing sense of protectiveness toward those she loved.  And Lacey had no doubt Alice loved her. 

The two had become fast friends when Lacey first arrived in Stanton.  After she had run away from her childhood home, desperate to escape her highly-dysfunctional parents, Finn’s Diner was the first place Lacey had stopped at on her way to wherever. 

But then she got some delicious Swedish meatballs in her belly and met Alice.  The next thing she knew, the HELP WANTED sign in the window was taken down, and Lacey was staying with the old waitress.  The two were roommates for about a month until Lacey found an apartment of her own.  That was three years ago.  And, as they say, the rest is history. Now, she was, too.  

Lacey would miss seeing Alice every day at work, but they could still visit each other.  This wasn’t the end of their friendship.  It was the beginning of a new adventure.  Another chapter in Lacey’s life.

Smiling brightly, she grabbed Alice in a tight hug.  “I’ll see you soon, my friend.”

“What will you do now, honey?”

“I’m going to do what I started out to do three years ago.”

“Lord, help us all.  That dream of yours is mighty lofty, and it ain’t comin’ cheap.”

“Nope, but it will come.  I can feel it.”

Leaving Alice standing behind the counter, shaking her head, Lacey stepped out onto the sidewalk.  She inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with fresh, crisp October air.  In her soul, she knew she had reached a turning point—a red-letter day full of promise and hope.  Specifically, the promise she had made to herself to see Chance that evening, and the hope of living her dream.  Maybe even living it out with him.

WHAT THE FUCK
? CHANCE jumped to his feet.  He knew it was her before spotting the peeling silver paint of her Honda Accord.  He could hear the loud, dangling muffler.  He just hoped to God it didn’t backfire.  Anything sounding like gunfire around these parts drew more in return.  She could easily start an all-out gang war with the rattletrap she was driving.  Damn it! She wasn’t supposed to be here.  He had given her a direct order to stay away.  He would need to make a mental note:
Lacey Burke does not take orders well.

He lunged out from under the trestle and sprinted like mad toward her car.  Something in the sound of her engine alerted him to the impending backfire.  Chance had barely reached the driver’s side door when sparks flew out the tail pipe.  It was followed by an ear-cracking explosion that emulated a gunshot.  In less than a heartbeat, bullets started flying from opposite sides of the bridge.  The damn Snakeheads and Hammerskins were exchanging ammunition. A thick billow of smoke from the backend of her car offered him enough coverage to jerk the door open, push Lacey down across the front seat and shield her with his body.