Unbreak My Heart (17 page)

"Tomorrow," Allie said. "When I'm not so sore. I can't rake leaves and haul limbs today."

It was stuffy, dusty, and full to the brim. Allie's mother never threw anything away, it seemed. Neither had her father. Allie and Casey opened three windows, one of which Allie found unlatched, something that left her even more uneasy. The light wasn't that good, but she saw footprints. Still she and Casey had been walking around for a while by the time she thought to check.

She shoved that thought aside and decided to pitch her idea for the shelter to Casey, thinking he might open up to her about his own situation if she could turn the talk to runaways. She waited until he was sitting on the floor sorting through a box that so far had yielded nothing but old clothes, when she didn't think he was going anywhere fast, to say, "I was wondering if you could give me some advice?"

He shrugged, hardly looking up from his task. "Sure."

"I was thinking of what I could do with this house. It's too big for just me, and I was thinking about turning it into a shelter."

"Shelter?" He gave her a blank look.

"For teenagers. Runaways."

Still nothing. Allie tried again.

"It seems fitting," she said. "My sister ran away. I was thinking that maybe if she'd had someplace to go, someplace where she was safe, she might still be alive today."

"She's really dead?" he said, the first spark of interest she'd seen.

Allie nodded.

"I heard that. Around town..."

And the tale hadn't moved him in the least?

"You don't worry about that, Casey?"

"Huh?"

"That she died. She ran away from home and died."

Casey didn't say a thing, just looked at her as if he couldn't imagine what she was getting at. Could he be that oblivious to the danger he faced?

"Would you come to a place like this?" she tried. "If you could get a hot meal and a shower and a bed to sleep in?"

He laughed then. "Allie, I have a place to go."

"You do?"

"I'm not a runaway," he claimed, then shrugged easily. "Not really."

How could one "not really" be a runaway, she wondered? "You're just... what? Sight-seeing?"

"Something like that," he claimed, seeming amused.

She was seriously annoyed, honestly worried about him and trying to help him. If anything happened to him, she'd never forgive herself. She'd just have to find another way to reach him. Maybe she would take a few psychology courses. It had to be so much more interesting than accounting and so much more useful to her once she got the shelter up and running.

She gave up for the moment on getting Casey to talk to her. They'd filled six boxes with trash, four with items to donate to Goodwill, when the phone rang. Allie ran downstairs to answer it.

"Hi," Stephen said. "I wanted to see you last night, but it was late before I finished work and I didn't see any lights on your house."

"I went to bed early," she said, then sighed.

She was ridiculously happy just to hear his voice, and yet not a day ago, she'd been so angry with him, so hurt. But she still wasn't sure if she trusted him, either, and she didn't know how to reconcile that with the warmth flooding through her at the moment.

Oh, hell. Who was she kidding? There was no way to reconcile the two. It made no sense at all to like him so much, yet not trust him.

"I like you, Stephen," she blurted out, thinking she might as well lay it out there on the table for them to deal with. "I want to run to you with every little piece of information I find, every time anything at all upsets me—"

"You don't think I'd object to any of that, do you?"

"No. It's not that..." She struggled to explain. "It's just too easy. You know that, don't you?"

"What's too easy?"

"Being with you," she admitted. That was the problem. She was trying to be cautious and careful, and it was simply too easy, felt too good, to be with him.

That obviously pleased him because he laughed, the warm, rich sound already imprinted in her memory. She loved hearing him laugh.

"You're supposed to let me help you, Allie, remember?"

"Because of a promise you made Megan years ago?"

"There's more to it than that, and you know it."

Allie turned around and looked out the window, toward his house, wondering if he was standing there watching her, wondering just how dangerous this man could be to her.

"I told myself this is too complicated, that I should back off," he said in that deep, slow, sexy voice of his. "It doesn't seem to matter. And you feel the same way. You just told me so."

She closed her eyes, squeezing them shut, ran a hand through her hair. If this was an act, the man was good. So good.

Please,
she thought,
let this be real.

"Allie..." He said it like he ached.
For her.

Of course, she could be wrong about that. He could feel sorry for her. He could feel guilty and be thinking he had a lot to make up to her sister. Or he could feel a genuine desire to try to make things better for her, because he truly cared about her. She had no way of knowing.

"I'm coming over there," he said.

"Don't, Stephen. Please," she begged, all her instincts telling her she was going to get hurt again, and she really didn't need that. "I'm confused enough as it is."

"Is that all it is? Because you sound... I don't know. Is anything wrong?"

"No more than usual," she said, managing a bit of laughter to soften the words. "And that reminds me... Is your brother the governor?"

"Yes."

"You didn't tell me that."

"Does it matter?"

"Stephen, he's your brother."

"I took you to meet my horse. That should tell you where Rich ranks with me."

Allie laughed. "You like your horse more than your brother?"

"I enjoy my horse much more than my brother, although if you ever repeated that to any member of the local media, my father would kill me."

"Oh?"

"Rich is running for reelection."

"Oh." That explained it, she supposed.

"Do you really care that my brother's the governor?"

"No, I was just surprised."

"One of my uncles is a U.S. Senator, if that matters. Anything else you want to know?"

"Not at the moment."

"Good. Now I have something I want to tell you. You don't have to go through this alone, Allie. You know that, right?"

Her heart gave a little lurch. It said,
What's so great about going slowly anyway?
The idea that she wasn't in this all by herself. That there was someone else who cared. She couldn't have done this without him. She'd probably have fled that first night when the electricity went out and darkness settled in around her. As she saw it, it had never been a good thing to need anyone too much. It set up expectations in her mind that so far no one had been able to meet.

They'd all disappointed her in some way. Stephen might well disappoint her more than anyone if the way she responded to him already was any indication.

God, what was she going to do now?

"Can I come over now?" he asked.

She laughed, because he was persistent, but he managed to do it in a way that didn't leave her feeling like he was walking all over her, like her mother had.

"Don't you have a job to do?" she said instead. "Things to buy and sell today?"

"I've been here since seven and spent all morning buying something."

"Oh. Well, buy something else. I'm busy."

"Doing what?"

"Cleaning out the attic. You wouldn't believe how much stuff is up there."

"I'll help you with it this evening," he offered.

"I found help," she said. "Someone with a nice, strong back."

His voice was a bit rougher, a tad impatient. "Anybody I know?"

"I don't know. His name is Casey Adams."

"I don't think I know anyone named Adams."

"What about Patricia Adams? On Dogwood Lane?"

"That would be his... wife?"

"No." She laughed and told him what she knew about Casey, what she suspected.

"Wait a minute. You're in the house with this kid, and you don't have any idea who he is?" he asked, sounding exasperated. "And you don't believe anything he's told you about himself?"

"He's a kid, Stephen. A hungry, scared kid."

"And he's probably six inches taller than you and outweighs you by at least fifty pounds. Come on, Allie. You know better than this, don't you?"

"I like him. He's just a kid, and I want to help him."

Stephen swore. "I don't know of anybody in the neighborhood named Adams. Did you at least look in the phone book?"

"I will," she assured him.

"Do it now," he insisted, then called out something to the woman she thought must be his secretary.

Allie dutifully searched until she found the book. "There's no listing."

"My secretary checked with the phone company. I have a friend there. There's no Patricia Adams in this town."

"They might not have a phone."

"Maybe. Or maybe nothing the kid told you is true," Stephen said. "You think he's a runaway?"

"If he is, I don't think he's been on the streets long. He's doesn't seem tough enough to have been on his own for long."

"Allie, if he's a runaway, it's no telling what he might do to you."

"He's just a lost kid," she insisted. "Megan was like that once, Stephen. How can I not help this boy when at one time Megan was just like him."

Silence greeted her. She thought she could feel him glaring at her through the phone lines, but it wasn't entirely unpleasant to think about him worrying over her this way.

"He's not your sister," Stephen said.

"No, but I like having him here. I like that he showed up here now, when I'm making plans for a shelter. I think it's fitting. If I can help him, maybe I can help other kids, too. Maybe he can help me understand what kids like him need."

Again, Stephen said nothing. Allie remembered how opposed he was to her plans, and she found that odd. She didn't see him as an uncaring man. She would have sworn he had compassion for people less fortunate than he was. So it didn't fit—his being so skeptical of her plan for the shelter.

"I'm going to do some checking," he said finally. "Describe the kid to me."

She did.

"Could you at least try to be careful while he's around?" Stephen suggested. "Do you have a cordless phone?"

"Yes."

"Keep it with you. All the time. If anything out of the ordinary happens, call me. Or call 911."

"Stephen, this is ridiculous."

"You're the most trusting woman on earth," he complained. "You let me into your house that first night, even though you live in the middle of nowhere, all alone. I could have been an ax murderer."

"You're the boy who lived next door to my family for the first nine years of my life."

"I could have grown up to be an ax murderer," he argued.

"You really are worried about me?"

"Of course I am."

She closed her eyes and thought,
Stop it. Just stop it.
He might as well have a direct line to her soul. He knew just how to get to her, right there.

No one had worried about her in the longest time, and she wanted to believe the kindness and concern were genuine. That he was a strong, determined man, and that he would know very well how to take care of a woman.

"You know, you don't have to stay there all by yourself. You could stay here," he offered.

"No." She knew better than that.

"I'm offering you a room, Allie. Nothing else."

She was tempted, but she knew better. She was going to prove she was capable of resisting him. "I'll be fine here."

"I'd feel better if you weren't there all alone."

"You
would feel better?"

"Yes."

"And the world usually does what Stephen Whittaker wants?"

"Quite often, it does."

"Because you're always right?"

"I'm not sure if I should answer that," he said. "I'm pushing too fast?"

"Yes."

"One of my many faults."

"You have faults?"

"Don't think I'm going to list them for you. I'm trying to get you to like me, remember?"

"I do like you," she said softly. "Too much."

"Okay, that's better. Maybe my ego hasn't sustained a mortal wound."

"Your ego is quite healthy."

"Hey, it's taking a beating with you."

"I'm sure it will survive."

"I'm not," he claimed.

"And I don't know what to do with you," she confessed, then had to take a breath. "Not at all."

"You don't have to decide right this minute. Take some time. Think about it. I'm not going anywhere."

"All right," she said. "I will."

"I'll call you as soon as I find out anything about the boy," Stephen said. "Be careful."

"I will." Allie put the phone down, dutifully found the cordless phone, and kept it with her. Not because she was afraid of Casey. Because she promised Stephen she would. Because she liked the idea of him worrying over her a little. It made her feel warm inside. She could tell herself to be careful, to be smart, to put on the brakes. Now.

But she couldn't stop that little warm glow.

* * *

She and Casey were upstairs a few hours when she heard a vehicle pull into her driveway. She watched from the attic window as a man she didn't recognize climbed out of a beat-up pickup and walked toward the front door.

"We've got company," she said to Casey.

"Who?" He looked worried.

"Maybe the house inspector."

"House inspector?"

"I hired someone to come look over the house. He's going to give me an idea of what needs to be done to the house, to fix it up. You know, for the shelter we talked about," she reminded him. "Grab a box, okay? We might as well start hauling some of this stuff down."

Allie set her box down in the entranceway as the doorbell rang. She opened the front door and found a man who looked to be in his fifties standing there. He wore coveralls stained with paint, a T-shirt, and work boots, and he looked taken aback. In fact, he looked a little like Stephen had that first night.