Nobody's Angel (5 page)

Adrian stared at her in disbelief. “Of course you couldn't. Tony had a vasectomy while he was still in school, right after Sandra had the twins.”

The VW shot straight for the side of the road.

Five years earlier

“Faith, give it up, willya? We've tried and we can't have kids, so just let it be. It's not that I'd have time for them anyway.”

“But
I
would,” Faith argued timidly. She didn't want to send him on a tirade, but she wanted this desperately. “I have enough time for both of us, Tony. If only—”

He flung the papers he'd been holding at his desk. “They'd be nothing but a hassle. You wouldn't have time for our social engagements, and we'd have to come up with money for private schools and save for college and we'd be stuck in this dump for the rest of our lives.” He used his best wheedling tone as he leaned back against the desk edge and caressed her cheek. “We'll buy one of those places in Myers Park where we can live with the movers and shakers, and you'll have plenty of things to do. You're good with the country club biddies.”

She didn't understand his attitude, and wondered if she wasn't making hers clear either. She moved away from his tempting touch and tried to be practical. “Neither of us went to private schools, and you worked your way through college. We turned out all right. And I don't need to live in Myers Park. I love this house.”

Tony's handsome face lost its smile. “We've tried, honey, and we can't have kids. Let's not make a production of it, okay?”

She knew she was treading dangerous ground here, and
she did so carefully. “The doctor says we could go to a specialist, find out why—” His dark look cut her off. “Maybe we could adopt?” she asked hopefully.

“I don't want anyone else's bastards,” he answered tightly, then gave her his best smile. “I need you at home, honey, and I don't want you hurt anymore by these so-called doctors. Take some more painting classes. You can auction your oils off for the charity fund again. They made a big impression last time.”

He walked out, leaving her holding back tears. Tony never told her no. Why, on the one thing that meant so much to her, wouldn't he listen? The doctor had told him that he wasn't at fault, so it couldn't be male pride.

She decided he must love her too much to accuse her of being only half a woman.

The Present

“Do you think, if this is a business trip, the business could pay for a new tire?” Perched glumly on the guardrail, Faith contemplated her flattened front tire without commenting on the declaration that had driven her off the road. “Where does one put ‘tire’ on a tax return?”

She behaved as if there were no more between them than bad memories. Interesting perspective, Adrian thought. Leaning against the rail, he crossed his arms and tried not to watch too obviously for police cars. Considering her questions rhetorical, he, too, avoided the painful and stuck to a more relevant topic. “I can't believe you drive in these mountains without a spare. I'm taking back any kind thoughts I had of your intelligence.”

“Those were almost
new
tires,” she protested, shivering as another semi roared by not two feet from their noses. “New tires don't normally go flat. And if they did, I couldn't change them anyway.”

Well, that little bit of illogic almost made sense. “You do realize the state police are more likely to get here before Triple A, don't you?”

She shot him a scornful look that should have withered his insides but made them do a merry jig instead. She wasn't more than a hank of hair and bundle of bones, but he could feel the energy boiling out of her. If he didn't watch out, she'd heave him over the guardrail and straight down the mountain. He glanced over his shoulder to verify the distance. The interstate had been carved from a steep cliff. It was a
long
way down. He blessed guardrails and lightweight VW bugs and cursed his flapping tongue.

“You have been locked away a long time, haven't you?” Faith said, interrupting his reverie with sarcasm. “The tunnel should have given you some clue. We're not in Tennessee anymore. We're in Encee.”

“Encee? N.C.” Adrian rolled his eyes at the abbreviation as several semis flew by at once, shaking the rail. The road had almost no shoulders. Either one of them could murder the other with a single shove. “Obviously, my mind hasn't been sufficiently stimulated in a while,” he reflected out loud, striving for similar disinterest. “Or I was watching the scenery.” Some scenery. She wore a tight knit yellow sweater thing under her jacket, and it took every ounce of his strength to keep his eyes straight ahead. Four years of abstinence wreaked havoc with his concentration.

“If you're still worried, you could hide in the bushes, and I could call one of the guys to come get you,” she suggested helpfully.

He didn't have to see the gleam in her eye over that one. “You'd like that, wouldn't you? No guilty pangs over leaving a half-starved man without a coat on the mountain for untold nights?”

“All you'd have to do is stick your thumb out,” she replied dismissively. “Here comes the sheriff. And a wrecker.”

Adrian regarded her suspiciously as the sheriff pulled up, blue lights circling. She hadn't offered a single comment about the cause of their accident since they'd hit the rail. He'd learned his lesson. He wasn't tiptoeing within a mile of that subject again. He didn't care if Tony had done a number on
his wife. He had more important concerns than feeling sorry for a woman who put herself first.

“Little mishap, folks?” the sheriff asked, strolling up as the wrecker maneuvered into place.

Adrian had had quite enough of police mentality these last years. He firmly shut his mouth.

“I tried to miss a squirrel,” Faith answered with false calm.

Adrian breathed a sigh of relief. For once, he was grateful for her facile tongue, even if it reminded him to be especially wary of her insouciant pose.

“I bent the fender and flattened the tire. Quinn's already yelled at me for not carrying a spare.”

Adrian prayed the sheriff wouldn't ask for his license, too, as Faith produced hers for inspection. Renewing a license from behind bars wasn't an easy trick.

Cynically, Adrian watched Faith do her Southern belle flirt with both the sheriff and the tow truck driver as they discussed the best means of towing the damaged beetle. He'd only seen the sexy side of her on stage; she'd certainly never tried it on him. Maybe she had the good sense not to wave a meaty bone before a starving dog. Or she disliked him too much even to try.

He didn't care what she thought of him. He'd had several conversations with Tony's mistress over the years, and he was satisfied that Sandra didn't have a clue where Tony stashed the money. Sandra not only didn't know anything about Tony's accounting records, she thought accounting records were checkbooks. He didn't think Ms. Faith Hope quite that stupid.

A plane crash in Brazil had ended his partner's fantasy that he would live forever, and Tony had taken any record of his hidden funds with him. Which meant Faith was the only hope he had left. He didn't find the play on words the least bit funny.

“The sheriff says he can drop us off at the pottery.”

Reluctantly, Adrian forced himself to meet Faith's gaze. She oozed defiance from every silken pore. He contemplated
riding with the tow truck driver, but he never could resist a challenge.

Without a word, he pushed away from the guardrail and followed her to the patrol car. Without waiting for permission, he climbed in the front seat. Let
her
ride in the back like a criminal for a while.

“Surliness doesn't become you,” she whispered mockingly as she climbed in while the sheriff directed the wrecker onto the busy highway.

He wasn't used to being taunted by women. Hell, at this point he wasn't used to women. “So, sue me,” was the only reply he could summon as the sheriff approached.

Faith chattered about her gallery as the sheriff drove them to the next exit and down a narrow two-lane toward the pottery. Adrian hadn't picked her for a chatterer, but she seemed to be able to turn on different personalities at will. Insane people were supposed to be particularly cunning, and capable of adopting different personas. Maybe insanity hid her knowledge of Tony's activities.

Maybe she was protecting him from the sheriff 's questions.

That notion didn't go down well.

As the patrol car turned down a gravel drive with a familiar name on the mailbox, Adrian smiled in satisfaction. For a change,
he
was in the driver's seat, figuratively, at least.

“Thank you for your help, Sheriff,” he said gravely as the car stopped beside a sprawling, ramshackle farmhouse.

“Wondered if you had a tongue.” The older man eyed him speculatively. “Relation of Juan?” He nodded toward the house.

“Sí.”
Affably, as if he hadn't shocked the woman in the backseat into silence, Adrian stepped from the car and opened the door for her.

They waved the sheriff off before Adrian jerked his head toward the shed behind the house. “He'll be back there.”

Addled with disbelief, Faith followed in his footsteps like a puppy dog. Why would a hotshot Charlotte lawyer know a backwoods potter? Or know his way around the place? How had he known she was coming here? Without her car, she had
no good means of escape should Adrian try to hold her hostage. Was this some kind of trap?

She couldn't believe her cheerful Sunday outing had become such an unmitigated disaster. But then, she couldn't believe she'd allowed him to stay in the car in the first place.

She refused even to consider the blunt statement that had sent her careening into the railing. To consider it would mean thinking about its effect on her past and present and future, and she didn't dare shake her precarious existence by changing an inkling of the plans she'd laid out upon a foundation she had thought secure. The creep was probably lying.

“Hola, Juan, que tal?”
Adrian called into the shadows of the shed.

He spoke Spanish. None of Tony's friends spoke Spanish. They waved a little French over a wine list occasionally, but Spanish was for maids and construction workers.

A volley of rapid-fire insults rattled from the back of the shed before a wiry, brown-skinned man emerged, wiping his clay-coated hands on a rag. Seeing Faith, he nodded cautiously and elbowed Adrian's arm.

“You worry your mama,
muchacho,”
he greeted Adrian, before turning to her. “
Buenas dias, señorita.”

“Como esta usted?”
Faith replied politely in her best high school accent. Traveling with her parents, she'd picked up a lot more of the language, but lost it for lack of practice.

Still, the potter beamed approval at her poor attempt. “I am fine, thank you. I see Quinn has finally learned some sense in his choice of ladies.”

Quinn? His name really was Quinn? She ignored the insinuating flattery for what it was but turned a questioning gaze to her nemesis.

“Faith Hope.” Adrian lifted a doubting eyebrow over her name in retaliation. “My cousin, Juan Martinez. Faith has a shop that sells pottery. She's here to see if any of your worthless pieces rate her attention.”

Faith couldn't follow the exchange of Spanish insults resulting from that remark as she wandered after the men into the shed.

She'd been inside enough potteries, large and small, to recognize the slate wedging bench for kneading clay into elasticity, the wheels for spinning round pieces, the various shaping tools, chucks, and boards, and the clay trough itself. She'd played with some of them as a child but never had the “feel” for clay that genuine artists did. She could only wholeheartedly admire their results.

A work light shone over a bench containing a series of rounded, handleless mugs in their raw, unfired state. The “handles” hung in narrow cylinders from the bench, waiting to be shaped. Even as he carried on in a swift spate of Spanish, Juan moistened his hands and intuitively began pulling and working one of the narrow cylinders onto a wet mug. Attaching it to a prepared knob of clay on the rim, he casually shaped it with his hands until the clay cylinder flattened and curved into a decorative S. It always amazed her how an experienced potter could make this difficult process seem effortless without ripping the cup rim, cracking the handle, or watching the whole thing slump indecorously onto the floor.

Despite Juan's obvious experience, Faith was disappointed that he seemed only interested in commonplace kitchenware. True, the rounded base of the mug and the delicate S handle showed skill, and possibly his glazing process would add a uniqueness she might sell, but she approached every new pottery with the awe-filled excitement of a child at Christmas, hoping that this time she'd find the perfect piece. She supposed it was more profitable to make kitchenware, but she ached to find a contemporary counterpart of her clair-de-lune porcelain, or a piece of brilliance like the vase Tony had given her.

“Juan keeps his stuff back here.” Adrian started toward a door at the back. “Let him finish the mugs, and I'll show you around.”