Читать книгу One Plus One Makes Marriage - Marie Ferrarella, Marie Ferrarella - Страница 10

Chapter Two

The question took him aback.

Was she making him an offer she thought he couldn’t refuse in exchange for eliminating the violations? His first answer to himself would have been yes, but there was something in her eyes that made him unsure. Lance didn’t know exactly what to make of the woman in front of him, then decided it didn’t matter one way or the other. His job description was clear.

In one smooth movement he signed his name to the bottom of the report. Finished, he spared her a glance.

“A lot more than anything I find here,” he said tersely, in response to her question. Pulling the sheet from his clipboard, he handed it to her. “I’d see to this fine if I were you.”

She was still looking at him as if the fine and the violations that generated them were secondary to her. As if there was something else on her mind, something that, for whatever unfathomable reason, had to do with him. Maybe it was childish of him, but he’d be damned if he was going to look away first.

“That is, if you don’t want to be closed down,” Lance emphasized again.

Two women in separate parts of the store turned around immediately. Lance had no idea that he’d raised his voice until one of them asked, “Closing?” Her eyes were almost glowing as she looked around the cozy setting. “Does that mean you’re going to be having a closing sale?”

“No, and we’re not closing, either.” Melanie offered the woman an easy smile. Turning, she shared the smile with Lance. The look he returned was grim. “The gentleman was talking about closing time. We plan to stay right here for a very long time.” She gave that assurance to Lance as well as to the customers in the store.

Lance used the interruption to look away from her. He had the oddest, queasiest feeling when she’d been looking at him, almost as if she were offering him sympathy. It was a completely ridiculous idea, but he couldn’t seem to shake it.

Lance handed her the citation form. “Then I’d see about those violations if I were you. You have thirty days to get to them.” He tucked the clipboard under his arm and turned to leave.

“Does that mean you’ll be back?” she asked as he walked away.

“I’ll be back,” he assured her, though he wasn’t looking forward to it, he added silently as he got to the door. Behind him he heard the scraping sound as she pushed the dolly under the stack of boxes.

“I’ll be waiting.”

She sounded almost cheerful about it, he thought. This visit obviously hadn’t gone well. Why would she welcome another one?

More scraping noise. Somehow, he managed to hear it above the soft music and the low hum of voices in the shop. Lance had an uneasy feeling that he knew what the McCloud woman was up to. Not his business if the slip of a woman wanted to get a hernia or worse, he thought again. The tiny bell overhead tinkled softly as he opened the front door, announcing his exit. The sound seemed to mock him. But he was here to do an inspection, not help her clear away one of her violations. That was the job of whatever poor unfortunate slob she corralled.

Lance liked to think he would have made it out the door if the beveled glass hadn’t caught her reflection and flashed it up at him in an almost blinding light. But it did, and his mistake, he realized too late, was to stop and look.

As he’d thought, she was trying to get the dolly under the first pile of crates by herself. Straw had more sense than she did.

For a second he debated leaving her to it, but he couldn’t, in good conscience, just keep walking. Aunt Bess had trained him all too well. With a sigh, Lance let the door go and marched back to the annoyingly cheerful woman in the rear of the store.

Melanie could feel a bead of perspiration beneath her bangs as she fought to angle the dolly into position beneath the crates. Another woman would have given up, but another woman wouldn’t have wanted to run this sort of shop, either. A place where people came to talk, as much as to buy.

She should have let the delivery man do at least this part of it, Melanie thought, brushing back her bangs before they pasted themselves to her forehead. That’s what she got for being softhearted. Not that she really could be any other way. She’d accepted that as part of her nature a long time ago. Some people moved the earth with muscle, others did it with a smile. She chose to take the second path, although she prided herself on being no slouch when it came to strength. She just never muscled in on people, that’s all.

Straining, she finally managed to get the platform solidly beneath the bottom crate. Melanie was just beginning to brace herself before attempting to hoist the load when she felt the elbow in her side. It wasn’t a gentle nudge, more like an out-and-out takeover.

“Are you out of your mind, trying to do this by yourself?”

The inspector was back, coming to her rescue despite his annoyed question. Melanie tried to suppress the smile that rose to her lips and only partially succeeded. Whoever had named him Lance knew what they were doing.

Lance had taken off his jacket as he’d made his way to the rear of the store and slung it now over the back of a forest green wing chair. With two neat moves, he’d folded up his sleeves.

All her life Melanie had been taught that while people were kinder than they liked you to believe, the best person to rely on in any given situation was herself. She took this approach even with Joy, who was the first to admit that though she was the taller of the two, she was a weakling. This wasn’t the first shipment that Melanie had wrestled with on her own.

She shrugged in reply to his reprimand. The man’s heart was in the right place, but his attitude needed some fine tuning before it could claim the same thing.

“I’m stronger than I look,” Melanie told him.

She was still holding on to the handles. Was he going to have to pry them out of her hands?

Lance looked at her expectantly as his hand covered hers. After a beat, Melanie withdrew hers, that same funny little smile he didn’t know what to make of on her lips.

“Harder-headed at any rate,” he allowed. “Move out of the way,” Lance ordered when she remained standing where she was. “This isn’t a two-man job, and even if it were, you wouldn’t be one of them.”

Obliging him, Melanie raised both hands in a sign of surrender as she stepped to the side. But she was grinning as she did it. “Is that your way of telling me I’m petite and delicate?”

Where had she gotten that interpretation from? Lance wondered. She’d twisted his words into a compliment, when he’d meant nothing of the sort. Although he had to admit, looking at her, that she was both petite looking and delicate. But noting that hadn’t been his intent.

He scowled at her. She was making him late for his next appointment. Lance sincerely missed the routine solitude of his work and hoped they’d find a replacement for Kelly soon.

“That’s my way of telling you to get out of the way.” He could feel his muscles straining as he kept the dolly level and at an angle. What the hell was she thinking of, trying to work this? “You probably hear a lot of that,” he couldn’t help adding. How had she even managed to wedge the platform under the pile of crate? Glancing at her, he decided that maybe she was stronger than she looked. “Where do you want this to go?”

“In the storeroom.” Melanie pointed to the back, then realized that he had to know where it was. “But I imagine that you’re already acquainted with where that is.”

Yeah, he was “acquainted” with her storeroom. “Violations three and four,” he muttered, struggling to turn the dolly around. What did she have in this boxes, anyway, anvils? They were a lot heavier and more unwieldy than they looked. If he wasn’t careful, the whole stack was going to collapse. Lance didn’t particularly like the prospect of getting egg on his face.

Melanie saw the way his muscles were straining as he pushed the dolly. “I really appreciate you stopping to do this for me.”

He only grunted in reply, his expression telling her that he didn’t think much of her gratitude. Melanie moved in front of him, hurrying to open the door. Holding it with her back, she watched as he pushed the first stack of crates into the room. He accomplished that a lot faster than she would have, she thought.

He looked around for a likely spot. “Where do you want this?”

Melanie left the door open, letting more air in. When he’d passed her, the room temperature had suddenly felt a great deal hotter to her. He was radiating heat, and it left her just the tiniest bit unsettled.

“Wherever I won’t get violations five and six,” she answered cheerfully, gesturing around the room.

With a dark look Lance angled the dolly out from beneath the bottom box, leaving the pile stacked in the middle of the floor.

“Isn’t this violating some code of yours?” she asked, watching him.

“There’s nothing wrong with leaving them in the middle of the storeroom,” Lance said tersely.

“I mean helping me.” Her question went unanswered as Lance returned to the showroom to get the remaining stack of crates. Rather than follow him, she waited until he returned.

He wasn’t very talkative, Melanie thought. Not like John Kelly, who enjoyed having an audience and reminiscing about his early days with the fire department.

Melanie watched, with a deep appreciation of the male body, as Lance worked the second and last stack of boxes free of the dolly. He had biceps as hard as rocks, she noted. He also had a deep, long scar running along one of them that became an angry red as he strained. It was too fresh looking to be very old.

She waited until he finished. “Now why wouldn’t you let me do that in the first place?”

He had a question of his own. Why couldn’t she just accept what he’d done without subjecting it to scrutiny? Annoyed with himself for bothering to help, Lance shoved the dolly away. Unsteady, the dolly tottered like a drunk, then finally clattered to the floor.

“Because that would be favoritism.” His eyes narrowed as he looked at her. “I don’t believe in favoritism.”

She could accept that, she thought as she picked up the dolly and righted it. “But you do believe in being helpful.”

“Not particularly.” Without bothering to look at her, Lance took down the highest crate and set it on the floor. One at a time, they weren’t so bad. For him, he thought. She would have had a hard time of it. It didn’t occur to him to wonder what she normally did when a shipment came in. That wasn’t his concern.

Neither was this, he upbraided himself, taking down another crate and setting it beside the first.

“You came back to help me,” she pointed out. Melanie caught her breath as he swung down a crate from the second stack. “Careful, that one’s fragile.”

So was she, he thought absently. As fragile looking as the china dolls his aunt kept on display. Setting the box down gently, he realized that was what had teased his mind before. Her store. It was along the same lines of his aunt’s dining room. The same kind of furniture. The same subdued scent of vanilla and polish. Maybe that was what had prompted him to help, he thought. That sense of familiarity.

But she didn’t need to know any of that. Lance shrugged. “I saw your reflection in the glass door. You looked as if you thought you could tackle this on your own.”

It was obvious he thought she was crazy for thinking that. “I could.” She waited a beat, then added, “Given time.” For his benefit, she flexed a muscle the way weight lifters did and almost succeeded in getting the smile she was after. “I have strong peasant blood running through my veins.”

“More like running over your floor if you’re not careful. If you get these deliveries in regularly, you should hire yourself a stockboy.” He put the last box down on the floor. “Preferably a strong one.” He dusted off his hands. “There.” Now his conscience was clear, though why it shouldn’t have been in the first place still wasn’t entirely apparent to him. Lance rolled down his sleeves as he walked out of the storeroom. “See about getting the other violations corrected. And don’t be late paying the fine,” he warned her.

“Yes, sir.”

Lance was certain McCloud was mocking him as she saluted. The dimple in her cheek didn’t help his concentration any, either.

On impulse, Melanie looked around before she spied what she was after. “Perfect,” she declared, hurrying away.

Lance had no idea what she was talking about, nor did he care. All he wanted to do was leave before she found something else for him to move, push or carry. But she caught up to him before he could make it halfway across the shop. For a small thing, she moved fast.

“Here.” She held out what looked like a tiny figurine of a dalmatian wearing a fireman’s hat at a jaunty angle, offering it to him.

Lance just stared at it. Now what was she up to? “What’s that?”

“It’s a dalmatian.” How could he not recognize it? Melanie held it up so he could get a better look. “You’re part of the fire department, right? I thought it was appropriate.”

The smile on her lips seemed to seep into him, like an ink stain, he thought grudgingly. He made no move to accept the gift, not because it could be construed as a bribe, but because he didn’t want anything from her.

“I just wanted to say thank you for helping.” It was one of her favorite pieces. Impulse had her wanting to give it to him. “It’s for luck.”

Lance’s eyes frosted. Luck. The most highly overrated thing in the world. Where had the old woman’s luck been, when he hadn’t been able to reach her in time? When she’d died hearing him try to save her?

“I don’t believe in luck.”

Melanie blinked as he turned from her. She felt as if she’d physically been pushed away. For a second she didn’t know what to say. Then she saw his jacket was still on the armchair. She snatched it up and hurried after him.

“Wait.”

When he turned around, he found that she’d caught up to him again. She was holding out his jacket. Annoyed at forgetting it, he took the jacket from her and shrugged into it. She was still clutching the ridiculous dog.

Melanie tugged at his sleeve, brushing it off with her other hand. “Lint,” she explained, when he looked at her quizzically, pulling away his arm. “Wouldn’t want you getting dusty on my account.”

Why did her eyes look as if she was enjoying some sort of secret amusement? Lance wondered. And why should he care what she was enjoying, or what she was even thinking, for that matter?

He didn’t, he reminded himself. “Just pay the fine,” was all he said as he walked out.

In the middle of ringing up a sale, Joy excused herself for a moment and went to Melanie.

“Why did you slip that dalmatian into his pocket?” she wanted to know. Melanie had told her more than once that the piece was not for sale, merely for display. “He said he didn’t want it.”

Melanie looked at her innocently, though a smile played on her lips. “What makes you think I slipped anything into his pocket?”

“Open your hand,” Joy instructed. When Melanie did, it was empty. Joy just shook her head. “I don’t think he’s the kind of guy who’d enjoy having you practice your sleight of hand on him. He doesn’t strike me as the type who likes magic.”

“He might not like it,” Melanie agreed, looking toward the doorway. “But he’s the type who definitely looks as if he needs a little magic in his life.”

“Oh, miss...”

Joy flashed an apologetic smile at her customer and hurried back to the register. “You’d think that just being here, selling these things would be enough magic,” she said to Melanie. She knew what Melanie was about. There were times when her best friend’s heart was just too big for her own good.

One of the other customers beckoned to her. Melanie nodded and went to the woman. “There’s never enough magic in the world,” Melanie told Joy softly in reply.

Joy merely sighed. There was no arguing with Melanie when she was like this.

His first reaction, when he put his hand into his pocket feeling for his keys and found the figurine, was to turn around and give the damn dog back to her. But that would mean returning to the shop—and to her. And he was reluctant to do that. Lance didn’t like facing things he didn’t understand unless he was in some way prepared to tackle them. He didn’t understand Melanie McCloud or the abject friendliness she seemed so willing to tender. Everyone had a motive, a secret agenda they tried to adhere to. What was hers?

Until he figured it out, he didn’t see himself going back there to face that supposedly guileless smile and those blue eyes that looked as if they were fathoms deep.

So he’d kept the tiny symbol of a life that wasn’t really a part of him any longer. Kept it until he came into his office and tossed it on his desk where it promptly disappeared into the piles of reports that he had temporarily inherited from Kelly.

He found the figurine again the next day, not that he was looking for it. What he was looking for was the report on the Logan warehouse, a place that had burned down to the ground after being inspected thoroughly only the month before. Supposedly, the fire had been an accident. He still had his doubts about that.

Just as he’d had his doubts about the woman who’d somehow managed to sneak this into his pocket when he’d specifically refused it.

Muttering under his breath, Lance studied the small, foolishly grinning dog. Waste of china, he thought, turning it around in his hand.

The scent of vanilla nudged its way into the cluttered room that usually smelled of sweat and stale air, teasing his senses. Reminding him of her and those improbable dimples that beguiled him.

She was here, he realized. In the station. In his office.

He turned his chair around slowly, as if unwilling to find her there, eating into his space. But find her there he did, standing in the doorway, looking fresher than anyone had a right to be.

He frowned. What was she doing here, anyway? Maybe she’d come about the dog. He wouldn’t put it past her to use it as an excuse.

“Something I can do for you?”

He was holding the figurine she’d given him in his hand. She was right, there was a softer side to him. Melanie’s mouth curved. “You kept it.”

Why did such a simple smile have the effect of a knockout punch on him? The whole thing was beyond ridiculous. Annoyed at his reaction and at her finding him this way, he shrugged.

“I was just about to throw it out.” But he continued to hold it.

Melanie merely smiled at the gruff protest. “If you were going to do that, you would have done it when you found it in your pocket.” She’d watched him a second before coming in. He’d picked up the dalmatian and looked at it, a sad expression on his face before turning his chair toward the window. What could he have been thinking of that made him look so sad?

No one should feel that sad, or that alone.

Instead of tossing it into the trash, he just dropped the dog carelessly onto his desk. There was enough paper spread all over to pad the fall.

“How did you get it into my pocket?” he wanted to know. He distinctly remembered seeing it in her hand after he’d taken his jacket from her.

It came so naturally to her, she had to stop to remember. “Sleight of hand.” The frown on his face deepened. “One of my mother’s friends was a magician. My Aunt Elaine put him up at the house for a while when he was down on his luck. He paid her back by teaching me a few tricks.”

Sounded like she’d grown up in the middle of a circus. That could go a long way in accounting for her attitude.

“Like coming into a firehouse and trying to get your fines taken care of?” He assumed that she thought she would have another go at him to try to make him change his mind about filing the violations. If so, she was out of luck and too late. He’d filed them as soon as he’d returned, dalmatian in his pocket notwithstanding.

“Already done.” She realized he probably thought she’d asked someone to rescind them for her. She could tell by his expression. What had made him so cynical? “I paid them,” she added to clear up any lingering doubt.

He didn’t understand. Fines were paid at city hall. “Then what are you doing here?”

“Seeing if someone has John Kelly’s new address.” That had been her original intent, although when she’d walked into the firehouse, she’d asked to be directed to Lance’s office instead.

He rocked back in his chair, studying her. He had patience and an eye for detail, which made him a good investigator and the likely choice to fill in for Kelly until they could find someone. But right now, none of that was within his grasp.

“Why?”

Why did he make everything sound like it had to be defended in order to exist? “Because I wanted to send him a gift.” She saw the question forming, and answered before it rose to his lips. “He was always nice to me.”

In his experience, women who looked like Melanie McCloud were nice to men for one reason and one reason only. “Yeah.”

“Like a father,” Melanie clarified, wondering whether or not to take offense at what he was clearly implying. She decided not to. He looked as if he was suffering enough as it was. He didn’t need someone snapping at him. What he needed, she thought, was someone to listen. And maybe even to care a little. “How dark is the world you’re in, Lance?”

He wasn’t prepared to have the tables turned on him. With the worn heel of his boot braced against the metal leg of his desk, he shoved his chair back, away from it. It hit against the wall as he rose. He didn’t like being analyzed. Served him right for doing a good deed.

No good deed went unpunished, he thought. “It’s not dark, it’s realistic.”

“Then you should understand that a man like John Kelly might just be friendly without compromising his job—or compromising the person he’s being nice to,” she added significantly.

He’d met Kelly just before the older man had left. A singularly unimpressive, talkative man with premature wrinkles and yellowing skin from years of being addicted to smoking. They each played with fire their own way, he supposed.

Lance’s eyes washed over her slowly, still trying to decide whether or not she was for real. So far, with the exception of his aunt and possibly the mother he just barely remembered, no woman had been. “Did he teach you any tricks?”

There was a point where easy-going just ceased going. Melanie had reached that point. Not for herself, but for the regard, or lack of it, that Lance had for John Kelly, a man she’d truly liked.

Her eyes darkened. “As a matter of fact, he did. He taught me that it was possible to be a fire inspector and not to be a rude, suspicious know-it-all. Otherwise, I would have thought that was what the breed was all about.” There was no use talking to him. At least, not until she cooled down a little. “Good day, Inspector Reed. Enjoy your work.”

She was almost out the door when he spoke. Part of him was willing to see her walk out. But part of him, some tiny part that sought to justify, to find logic in a world that continued not to have any, pressed him to ask, “You ever see a fire?”

His voice was so low, she almost thought she imagined it. But she turned around, anyway. The expression on his face told her she hadn’t imagined the question.

Melanie nodded. “Sure.”

He knew exactly what she meant. Lance shook his head darkly. “I’m not talking about something contained within a circle of rocks you roast marshmallows over,” he said contemptuously. “I’m talking about afire mething that roasts flesh. That has no respect for who you are or how old you are, it just destroys everything in its path, getting stronger, bigger, defying you to stop it.”

The problem with growing up the way she had, the merest suggestion brought vivid images to her mind. She could see exactly what he was talking about. See it and feel it. Melanie licked her lips before answering. They’d gone completely dry.

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.” Lance kept his distance from her, because he wasn’t sure what he would do, just now, if he were close. Shake her or hold her. The latter worried him more than the former did. “I don’t enjoy my work, Ms. McCloud. What I enjoy is knowing that if I do my work right, that destructive son of a bitch called fire isn’t going to get a chance to get a toehold on the property I inspected.” His eyes held hers. “And then no one needs to die.”

Melanie blew out a shaky breath as the pain he felt became evident to her.

“How bad was it?” she whispered.

He shook himself free of the memory that haunted him, mentally cursing his lack of control. “What?”

She knew, or thought she knew. “The fire you were in. How bad was it?”

Lance stared at her. Did she profess to gaze into crystal balls, too? “Who said I was in a fire?”

Why did he bother denying it? “You did. Not in so many words, but you did.”

The sympathy in her eyes unmanned him, sending him to a place he had no desire to be. He didn’t have time to waste talking to her. He had work to do.

“Thompson can give you Kelly’s address if you’re interested in sending him something. He’s the guy looking in and staring at you.”

Then, before she could say anything else to him, he brushed past her and walked out.