Volcano (27 page)

“Well, you certainly can't disguise who you are driving in this thing. Everyone will know it's you for a mile around.”

To Penelope's surprise, Charlie muttered a foul expletive and aimed the car for the exit lane, miles from her turnoff.

“What?” she demanded, instinctively glancing at the traffic behind them. In the growing mist, she could see little more than headlights.

“I can't take you home in this. They'll know right where we are.”

He gunned the engine and sped down the ramp into the streets of one of Miami's poorer sections of town.

“What if something happens to your car?” Penelope asked in concern as they rattled down a quiet residential street in a smoke-belching, aging Ford Escort he'd borrowed from one of his men.

“Rick won't let anything happen to it. Besides, who would even look twice at a car that old? It's just a car. Will you keep your eye on the road and tell me where to turn next?”

Charlie didn't like the look on Penelope's face as she swiveled to stare out the window. The early evening gloom prevented him from seeing her clearly, but he was learning to read body language. He judged she'd just come up with an idea he wouldn't like.

“There's a strip shopping center on the next corner. Pull in there,” she ordered.

“Why? You planning on taking back exotic souvenirs from the corner drugstore?” He eased the rattling car over the gutter into the parking lot, fearful the Escort's muffler would fall off if he hit a bump too hard.

That comment earned him a scathing look. “All my souvenirs are in the cottage. The kids will be disappointed. But that's not what we're after.” She pointed at the brightly lit drugstore. “They rent medical equipment in there.”

Charlie found a space in front and parked. “You're picking up a spare walking cane for your sister on the way home? Come on, Penny, what gives?” He was damned glad he'd changed his shirt at the airport. The fish stench still clung, but at least he wouldn't knock any store clerks over.

“You don't want to be recognized, right?” She slid out of the car without waiting for him to open the door. Charlie admired her long legs with a sigh. She hadn't had time to get a tan, and she didn't wear stockings, but she didn't need to either. Those legs belonged in a Hall of Fame somewhere, right along with her posterior.

“They could be watching your place, waiting for us to show up,” he admitted. “I'm not much at skullduggery, but I can figure that much.”

“And you don't think they'd notice someone built like you walking into my apartment building?” She strode briskly across the lot.

“Like you blend into the woodwork,” he muttered, watching her sway.

“Exactly.” Without any further explanation, she headed purposefully down the aisle of medical equipment to the rental counter.

Charlie stood back and watched as she ordered a wheelchair, grabbed a large scarf off another counter, added a packaged lap blanket, and turned in a thoughtful circle, searching for something else. Finally deciding on a baseball cap and a plastic fold-up raincoat, she added them to her collection, then turned to him expectantly as the clerk began totaling the bill.

Of course—he had the money. He didn't know what the hell he was paying for besides his own temerity in stealing her wallet, but he pulled out the bills. His cash supply was running low. He wondered if he could still access his bank accounts. If the bad guys could follow bank transactions as Penelope did, he'd have to be wary of giving too much away.

Outside, she demanded the keys to the car.

Charlie flung their purchases into the backseat and maneuvered the chair into the trunk as she struggled with the raincoat and cap. “What do you think I am, anyway? Your sugar daddy?”

She smacked his arm hard enough to actually make him wince. Obviously, he'd had that one coming for a long time. The fish bait evidently hadn't been enough. But he could forgive her anything for the way she looked now, with her braid falling through the back of the cap. Maybe she liked baseball.

“I'm perfecting the disguise.” She twirled to show off her coat. “Wheelchair-bound invalids don't normally drive. You did intend to go up to my apartment with me, didn't you?”

Crossing his arms, Charlie studied her in the wavering light of a dying overhead lamp. She radiated sincerity—and tension. She could very well be operating on nerves alone by now. It kind of scared him, wondering what had been going on in that formidable mind of hers as she sulked, but he'd have to trust her.

He handed her the keys. “Wheelchair-bound?” he asked.

She climbed in and started the car, waiting for him to fold up and wriggle into the low front seat. “We live in a building designed for the physically challenged. If I wheel you inside in a chair, no one will even look twice. It's perfect. Not that I believe anyone will be watching,” she amended hastily.

“You just enjoy playing Halloween.” Charlie frowned, though he had to admit she had a point. If anyone was watching, they wouldn't pay much attention to a battered Escort delivering a wheelchair patient.

The mention of Halloween reminded him of something else though. If he was not mistaken, tomorrow was Valentine's Day. As they drove through the narrow streets, he contemplated that minor problem. Should he buy flowers for a lover, or ex-lover, who might conk him over the head with them? Candy would be downright messy in that scenario. Maybe he should forget the idea entirely and hope she would too. But damn, he wanted to keep those doors open, those bridges unburned. He wanted back in her bed. He was damned close to wanting a hell of a lot more.

That realization didn't ease his sudden tension as they pulled into the handicapped lot and parked. He studied the unassuming building sprawling before him. Not precisely the fashionable condo he'd pictured Penelope living in, but he'd forgotten the blind sister part. So, she had a conscience. That didn't make her any less a socialite. Or her family any more accepting of a construction worker.

Efficiently, she whipped out the wheelchair as Charlie slumped in the front seat of the car, doing nothing. He didn't like doing nothing. He liked being the one in charge. Obviously, so did Penelope. He'd never had that problem before. Most women wanted him to handle everything. He wasn't at all certain he could adapt.

With efficiency, she settled him in the chair, covered his lap with the blanket, and threw the scarf over his shoulders. “Slump,” she whispered. “You look as if all you need is a battle-ax in hand to go to war.”

Charlie didn't think her plastic raincoat and baseball cap disguised her greatly either, but someone looking for a striking model and seeing a sloppy nurse pushing a wheelchair might not notice. He kind of liked watching her braid bounce through the cap, but he couldn't turn around to admire her properly as she shoved the chair up the ramp and down the walk toward the entrance.

“I'm too heavy for you,” he protested as she grunted pushing the chair over the sill.

“It's a cheap chair. It'll do for now. I just don't know how we'll get you out of here on your own later.” She punched in her security code and the doors opened to the elevator bank.

Charlie had been contemplating that, but he didn't think she'd appreciate his thoughts, so he kept them to himself as they entered the elevator and zoomed upward.

“We should have called first,” she whispered as they departed the elevator on the top floor and rolled down the hall. “We'll scare Beth half to death.”

“Not if she's anything like you,” he muttered in disgruntlement. He really didn't like this helpless role. He wadded the stupid blanket in his fists and pulled off his hat as they rolled to a stop. Hell of a way to meet a woman's family.

Penelope unlocked the dead bolt, and he nodded approvingly at her security measures.

The door swung open on a tall man, legs akimbo in shooting stance, holding a deadly looking gun between his palms and aiming it in their direction. Charlie wondered if the wheelchair would prevent his being blown away by gunfire.

“John, honest to Pete, put that gun down. Do you think burglars have keys?” Penelope shoved the chair over the sill and slammed the door behind her.

Sighing with relief, Charlie junked the invalid crap and stood up. He felt much better once he towered a few inches higher than the jerk with the gun. The other man had a cop's stern, hard-boned face and a streak of gray through his dark hair. “Beth's ex, I assume?” he asked dryly.

As the cop sheepishly returned his weapon to his side, Charlie glanced over the man's shoulder. The main room apparently occupied the entire front half of the apartment. Gleaming pine floors unmarred by rugs emphasized the spaciousness. Plain sturdy furniture marked the living, dining, and study areas—furniture he could sit in without fear of crushing it into splinters. Real furniture with wood and leather and big pillows. Charlie approved wholeheartedly of Penelope's interior decoration.

As he accepted introductions to John Matthews, Penelope's ex-brother-in-law, Charlie caught a glimpse of two heads of glossy dark curls peering around the corner from the bedrooms.

“DeeDee, Sean, come out here, you scalawags!” Penelope cried in delight, dropping all propriety by ignoring her guests and turning toward the children.

In an instant, two tall, beautiful children erupted from the hall to leap into Penelope's arms. Behind them walked a woman identical to Penelope in many ways, but not the same at all, Charlie decided. Where Penny's face was all taut angles and striking curves, this woman's face had a softness to it that rendered it more pretty than dramatic. He could see lines of pain etching the skin around her mouth, and wrinkles of worry creasing her forehead.

Then her empty gaze turned in his direction, and Charlie felt the impact of the same sharp intelligence in her features that he'd discerned in Penelope's. He rolled his shoulders uncomfortably beneath his T-shirt.

“Charlie Smith?” she asked dryly when Penelope didn't leap to make the introductions. Her voice was much softer and not as authoritative as Penelope's, but she got her point across just as effectively.

“Yes, ma'am.” Charlie reached for his cap, remembered he'd already removed it—not that she'd notice—and stood there like an awkward lump. He had the social skills of a rhinoceros, he concluded.

Penelope whispered something in the children's ears, and they immediately popped to attention, standing at Charlie's feet and gazing up at him in awe.

“My sister, Bethany, and her children, Deirdre and Sean,” she introduced them proudly.

Charlie couldn't reach over the heads of the children to shake Beth's hand, so taking a deep breath, he dropped down to munchkin height and held out his hand to them. “Good to meet you, Deirdre and Sean.”

They looked at his big paw for a moment, studied his face a little longer, then, giggling, both grabbed his hand and yanked. Charlie nearly tumbled on his face.

Both Penelope and Beth were giggling, but they pokered up as soon as Charlie straightened and glared at them.

He caught a gleam in the cop's eye too, as John took a child in each hand and shoved them toward the back rooms.. “All right, kids, that did it. Go get your coats. We're heading home.” He turned and shrugged in explanation. “The women taught them that. They think it's funny. I apologize for them.”

“For the women, or the kids?” Charlie asked dryly.

John's stern face cracked a grin. “I make no apology for the women. They're not my responsibility.”

“Right, and we all know how seriously you take responsibility, John. You can go home now. Thank you for stopping in while I was gone.” Penelope spoke with an acidity that Charlie had never heard her use before.

John's grin evaporated. “Unfortunately, it's not that easy. You've stumbled across a dangerous situation. I had to call in the FBI.”

“You
what
?” Penelope exclaimed.

Despite the grinding in his gut at that announcement, Charlie asked no questions as the children tumbled from the back room carrying their jackets and pulling them on. Even Penelope held her tongue to aid in the donning of coats.

Charlie watched John stoop to help the kids with a tenderness surprising from a man who a moment ago looked as if he could have shot twenty villains at twenty paces.

Watching the curly dark heads dipping and giggling, Charlie felt suddenly adrift. What did he know of kids? Here he'd been complacently counting his 2.3 progeny, and he didn't know hell about raising them.

He cast a sidelong glance at Penelope. Her expression was almost worshipful as she knelt to retrieve a lost scarf and wrap it around the youngest one's neck. It wasn't cold enough out for scarves, but apparently the kid liked them. She—DeeDee, he thought she was called—grinned with a gap-toothed smile, tucked the scarf end inside her windbreaker, then pressed a sloppy kiss on her aunt's cheek. Charlie melted.

He wanted that for himself. He wanted the gap-toothed smiles, the sloppy kisses, the silly giggles. Most of all, he wanted the woman with the worshipful expression. She loved those kids. She'd walk on water for those kids.
That
was the kind of woman he wanted.