Eve (3 page)

She felt dazed, and her head was still spinning. “Yes.”

He was younger than she had thought at first glance. She had thought he might be in his twenties. He was tall and powerfully built, but was probably no more than eighteen or nineteen. Olive skin, dark hair, dark eyes, full lips, and an indentation in his chin that made him look vaguely exotic. He was wearing a blue-and-white jacket, jeans, and black T-shirt. “Who are you? I’ve never seen you around the neighborhood.”

“John Gallo. My uncle just moved into the project two blocks down two days ago.” He was close to her, and his hand reached out to touch her cheek. “Bad bruise.”

She instinctively moved away, and his hand dropped.

She hadn’t wanted to move away, she realized in surprise. Why …

“I’m fine.” Then the shock left her as she remembered Rosa and the baby. Manuel had been lying so still … “But Rosa’s little boy may not be fine.” She whirled and was hurrying up the steps. “Did you see what they—”

“I saw everything.” John Gallo was behind her on the steps. “It might be okay. The kid could just have been stunned.”

“Yeah.” But babies were so fragile. It hurt her to think of how easily they could be hurt.

Bastards.

Rosa was sitting on the landing, holding Manuel, and rocking back and forth. “He’s dead.” Tears were pouring down her cheeks. “He won’t wake up, Eve.”

“Shh.” She looked down at the baby. He was pale. Those impossibly long lashes were lying on pallid cheeks. She bent her head close to his lips. “I think he’s breathing.”

“Really?” Rosa’s face was suddenly luminous. “I couldn’t tell.”

“Stop rocking him. I’ve heard if he’s hurt, you’re not supposed to move him.” But it was probably too late. The damage would have already been done. They’d had to get Manuel inside and away from those scumbags, and afterward, who could blame Rosa for holding and rocking him in her agony. “I’ll go use the public phone downstairs to call for an ambulance.”

“No, I’ll do it.” John Gallo ran down the dozen steps to the first floor, picked up the receiver of the phone on the wall, and deposited a coin in the slot. “I’ll make sure you have help coming, then I’ll take off. I don’t want to have to answer questions if I don’t have to. They’ll probably take him to Grady Hospital. Are you going with her?”

“Please, Eve,” Rosa whispered.

She should go on to work. She’d probably lose her job. Then she looked at Rosa and nodded resignedly. If Mr. Kimble fired her, she’d find another job. “I’ll go with her. What else can I do?”

John Gallo smiled. “That’s how I felt when I saw them hurting you. What else could I do? Sometimes you just have to do what you feel is right.”

And right for him had been breaking bones and coming close to killing Larazo.

And saving her from being raped and maybe murdered.

“Thanks,” she said awkwardly. She knew she should be grateful, but she wasn’t accustomed to anyone stepping in to help her. “You didn’t have to do that for me. I’d have found a way out.”

“I bet you would. You were really something. Hell, maybe you wouldn’t have needed me at all.” He started to dial the phone. “That’s what I kept telling myself while I was watching you take them all on. Don’t get caught up in this mess. It’s not your business. She might be okay. You’ll end up in jail or the hospital.” He looked over the phone at her, and his eyes held hers. “It didn’t do any good. I had to do it anyway.” He began to speak into the phone as the operator answered.

She gazed at him while he spoke, watching the play of expressions on his face. Why couldn’t she take her eyes off him? He was just a guy. Yeah, good-looking and kind of … different, but that shouldn’t matter.

Why couldn’t she stop looking at him?

Grady Hospital
Three hours later

“They say Manuel is going to be all right, Eve.” Rosa’s face was wreathed in smiles as she hurried down the corridor to the waiting room, where she’d left Eve. “They said it was a minor bump, a possible concussion or something, but he’s going to be fine.”

“Great. When can we take him home?”

“When my papa comes. They won’t let him go with me. They say they need to ask him questions.” Her expression clouded. “He’s going to be mad at me. He said I could only keep the baby if he didn’t cause trouble.” She frowned. “And those doctors were asking me all kinds of funny questions. If I ever shook Manuel or maybe threw him in his bed when I got mad at him for crying.”

“You told him about Larazo and the others?”

She nodded. “But none of them were still there when the ambulance came. The police said none of the neighbors had seen anything.”

Of course they hadn’t, Eve thought bitterly. It would make them targets of Larazo and his gang. “Well, your papa will tell them how well you treat Manuel.”

“He’s never home. He works all the time. He might tell them he doesn’t know.” She moistened her lips. “And he doesn’t really want me to keep Manuel. He doesn’t like babies. They cry too much. But I know after Manuel gets a little older, he’ll like him much more.”

Providing Rosa got to keep her son, Eve thought. DEFACS sometimes yanked a kid at the first sign of abuse. Though she’d seen them give the child back with equal speed if their budget was cut.

But Rosa didn’t deserve this kind of hassle. She was a good mother and loved that baby. “Talk to your papa as soon as he gets here. Tell him what happened.”

Rosa nodded doubtfully. “But how can I prove it? They won’t believe me. They’ll say I made it up.”

“Tell them to ask me.”

“But you’re my friend.” She paused. “And you’re the same age as me. They won’t believe you, either.”

Eve knew that was true. Not only was she sixteen, but a check would show that her mother was on drugs. She’d be tarred with the same brush. “Then we’ll find another way to convince them. I’ll go to every apartment in the development and talk to the tenants. Someone will be willing to tell the cops the truth.”

“Will you do that?” Rosa’s face lit like a sunrise. “You’ll keep them from taking my baby?”

Eve gazed at her helplessly. Simple question from a simple, loving girl. But nothing was simple in the slums where they had been born and raised. Sometimes the people who were trying to help blundered and managed to destroy every chance of happiness. “I promise, they won’t take Manuel. If they do, we’ll get him back.”

Rosa gave her a hug and whirled. “I’ve got to go back to Manuel. They won’t let me stay in the same room with him without a nurse being there, but they said I could watch him through the window.”

Eve watched her running down the corridor. What were they afraid she’d do to her baby? Smother him? Anyone could see that she adored Manuel. It was a crazy world.

“Hi.” John Gallo was coming toward her from the direction of the elevators. “How’s the kid?”

“He’ll be okay,” she said curtly. “It’s a miracle. They could have killed him.”

“You look like you’re unraveling.” He went to the coffee machine. “Coffee? Or maybe, a Coke?”

She nodded. “Coffee. Black.” She sat back down. “And I’m not unraveling. What are you doing here?”

“I got to thinking about the kid.” He handed her the coffee. Then he went to the soft-drink machine and got a Coke for himself. “I don’t know how anyone drinks black coffee. It tastes like tar to me.”

“It was all my mother kept in the house when I was a kid.”

“You’re not much more than a kid now.”

“Sixteen.”

“That’s what I was afraid of. I was hoping for a little older.” He sat down beside her. “Eve, Rosa called you. Eve what?”

“Eve Duncan.” She took a drink of the coffee. It was strong and generally foul-tasting. She didn’t care. It was hot. “And why do you care how old I am? Are you making a pass at me?”

“No, you’ll know when I do.” He lifted his cup to his lips. “Just a comment. You’re still in high school?”

“I graduate next year. You?”

“I graduated over a year ago. I’ve been moving around the country and raising a little hell with a couple of buddies for the last year. Sort of a last hurrah before I go into the service.”

“You’re joining the Army?”

He nodded. “My parents are dead, and I don’t have money for college. I thought it was my best bet to get more education and move up in the world. The Army’s not a bad deal.” His lips tightened. “And I won’t be caught in the same trap that choked my folks to death. Minimum-wage jobs and kids they never wanted. You think that housing development you live in is bad? I moved down here from Milwaukee, and the place I lived was called the Bricks. We had a killing nearly every two months, and the cops never came near it without a backup.”

“Is that where you learned to— You broke Frank Martinelli’s arm.”

He shrugged. “I learned a little self-defense from living at the Bricks. But my uncle was a Ranger in the Army, and he taught me everything he knew. Uncle Ted is the reason I’m down here. He’s got a back problem, and he moved down here because the VA Hospital has some specialists in Atlanta. I wanted to get him settled before I checked in for basic training.”

“Self-defense?” Eve’s brows rose. “It didn’t look like self-defense to me. They didn’t have a chance.”

He smiled. “If I’d let them move first, it would have been self-defense. It’s all how you look at it.” His smile faded. “And they made me mad. I didn’t like what they were doing to you.”

“Neither did I.” She leaned back in the seat. “I was scared.”

“But you went running in after them anyway.”

“They were hurting the baby.” She lifted her hand and rubbed her neck. “No one has a right to hurt the helpless. Most of us can take care of ourselves. But you have to do something about it if they go after babies or animals or—”

“Is your neck hurting?”

“Aching. That bastard was jerking me backward by my hair.”

“I can help.” He put his Coke down and stood up. “Lean forward a little.”

She looked at him warily. “What?”

“I won’t hurt you.” He stood a little behind her. “My uncle taught me this, too. It helped when I got whiplash from an accident.” His hands were on the back of her neck. “It’s all in the thumbs…” His thumbs were digging into her neck in deep massage. “Relax.”

She couldn’t relax. Her flesh felt hot beneath his touch, and that heat was spreading out in waves throughout her body. The muscles of her stomach were clenching, and her breasts …

What the hell was happening to her?

She knew what was happening. She wasn’t ignorant. It just had never happened to her.

“You’re not relaxing,” he said softly.

“No.” But she didn’t want him to stop. “You’re not … helping me.”

“I’m not helping myself much, either.” His fingers never stopped moving, digging, pressing. “But I want to keep on touching you no matter how much it hurts.” He drew a deep breath, and his hands fell away from her. “I didn’t mean it to happen this way. I didn’t mean it to happen at all. Hell yes, I wanted to get my hands on you. I’ve wanted that ever since I saw you sitting on those steps at—” He dropped down in the chair next to her. “Sorry. I didn’t know you would—”

He didn’t know that she’d respond as she had done. She hadn’t known it would happen, either. That flash of sensuality had come like a bolt of lightning. Searing, melting, overpowering. She instinctively pushed the knowledge of that response away from her. “It’s okay. I’m … it’s not as if—nothing happened.”

“The hell it didn’t.” He wasn’t looking at her. “But I’m trying to work it out in my head and decide what’s going on. Look, I’m no saint, but I don’t jump every girl I run across. The whole damn night has been crazy. I don’t usually interfere with— But I couldn’t let them hurt you. And then later on the stairs, I couldn’t keep from looking at you.”

And she hadn’t been able to stop looking at him. She still couldn’t. He was staring straight ahead, but her gaze was drawn to him like a magnet. Her gaze fell to his hand, lying on the wood arm of the chair.

His nails were short and clean, and the thumbs, which had dug into her muscles, looked long and strong.

They had been strong. She felt as if she could still feel the imprint on her flesh. Her chest was tightening, and her heartbeat was suddenly faster.

His gaze shifted to her face. “Oh, shit.” His cheeks were flushed, and his dark eyes were narrowing on her throat, then wandering to her breasts.

She had to stop this. She hunted wildly for something to break the web of sensuality that was tightening around her.

Rosa. The reason she was here. Talk about Rosa.

She jerked her eyes away from his. “Rosa’s afraid they’re going to try to take her baby away.”

“I don’t want to talk about Rosa right now.” His voice was soft and with a note in it that sent a shiver through her. She hadn’t realized that a shiver could be hot as well as cold. Then he paused. “But you need to back away from me, don’t you? Okay, I’ll try not to think about—but it won’t be easy.” He combed his fingers through his thick, dark hair. “What did you say? Oh, yeah. Why do they want to take the kid away from her?”

“They think she might be the one who hurt Manuel. It’s nuts. She loves that baby.”