Читать книгу A Little Bit Engaged - Teresa Hill, Teresa Hill - Страница 12

Shannon Delaney was back in church the next morning before school. Ben spotted her slipping into the sanctuary that morning soon after he arrived.

He’d already been lectured by Mrs. Ryan and promised to stay right where he belonged, safely in his office, that day. Truth was he was scared to go out into the streets, almost too scared to open his mouth around Shannon. It was no telling what kind of trouble he might cause.

Shannon walked up to the pew where she’d sat yesterday and sank into it, waiting for him, he thought. He walked over to her and found her staring, not sure what was going on at first, then realized he was wearing his white collar today. He might never take it off.

Still, she stared. He fidgeted, tugged at it and finally said, “Is it that hard to talk to me when I’m wearing this?”

“It’s just weird,” Shannon said.

He gave her wild, spiked, jet-black hair, pale face and black lipstick a slow going-over and said, “If you say so.”

She glowered at him. “You seemed so nice yesterday.”

“Not everyone thought so.”

“Bad day, Pastor?”

“Definitely.”

“Well, I didn’t have a great day, either.”

“Want to tell me about it?”

“No, I just… That thing you said? About God helping people who ask for it? Except, the help might not be exactly what you ask for or expect?”

Ben nodded.

“You think the help could come this fast? I mean like…yesterday?”

“Sure,” he said, suppressing a grin.

She shook her head. “I mean, it seems like someone’s trying to help. I don’t know if it really will help, but it seems like someone is trying.”

“Then let them,” he said.

“That’s it? Just…let them?”

“Don’t make it harder than it has to be, Shannon.”

“Why would anybody help me?”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Ben asked.

“Because I’m not a very good person,” she confessed.

“I don’t think you’re so bad.”

“Still, it just seems weird that anybody would want to help me.”

“You’re thinking like a human being,” Ben said. “You think people only help you if they like you or they think there’s something in it for them. You’re thinking you have to be good and deserve help to get it or maybe that you just have to be lucky or earn it somehow. God doesn’t work like that. He just likes to help people.”

“Sounds kind of silly to me,” she said.

“Really? I thought it would sound pretty good to you, considering the situation you’re in.”

She frowned at him. “So…I’m supposed to…what?”

“Try to be open to the possibilities.”

“Okay.”

“Anything else?” he asked.

“Well…if God really did send someone to help me, I was thinking, I ought to thank Him, you know?”

“Yeah. He’d like that.”

Maybe Ben hadn’t messed up everything, as he’d feared.

Kate woke up that morning not sure what had hit her.

Her nice, sane life seemed to have tilted on its axis, and she wasn’t sure where she’d gone so wrong, but she must have, because things seemed to be slipping out of place. She really liked having everything in its place.

To start with, she overslept, something she never did, because she’d hardly slept all night. So she was groggy and grumpy and rushing, which she hated. Kathie had already left by the time Kate walked into the kitchen, which was unusual. They almost always shared coffee and a bagel before leaving for work. This morning, when Kate finally got to the office, Gretchen was already there and already had a stack of messages for her, which she rattled off one by one.

“Brother, brother’s fiancée, sister—”

“Which one?” Kate interrupted, as Gretchen peeled off little pick message slips and put them on Kate’s desk.

“Kim.”

“Nothing from Kathie?”

“No. She’s the only member of your family who hasn’t called.” Gretchen gave Kate a puzzled look.

“Okay. Who else?”

“Melanie Mann, Melanie Mann, Melanie Mann. She says she’s with Big Brothers/Big Sisters. Sounds urgent.”

“It’s not,” Kate said. It was about her and the priest.

“She’s calling every fifteen minutes,” Gretchen said.

“Just keep taking messages, please? Did anyone call about work?”

“No.”

Kate groaned. Just when she needed a crazy day at the office to keep her mind off everything else, it turned quiet. Perfect.

“Oh, wait,” Gretchen said. “Someone from the Board of Realtors called, something about a committee for next year’s home show?”

“I’m never going near the Board of Realtors again,” Kate said.

“Why?”

Because that’s what started all of this!

“Okay, I’m probably exaggerating a bit. Maybe. I just…” No way Kate was explaining. “Next time I open my mouth to volunteer for anything, stop me, okay?”

“Sure. Ready for coffee?”

“Please. I’ll spring for espresso from the café, if you’ll go get it.”

“Deal,” Gretchen said.

She was back before Kate even knew she was gone, delivering caffeine and saying, “Okay, I’ll be at my desk. Who do you want to talk to this morning?”

“No one,” Kate said.

“No one? Sisters? Brother?”

“No.”

“Joe?”

“Especially not Joe.”

Gretchen frowned. “Are you okay? Is something going on? Because I’ve had two phone calls myself from friends of mine who said… Well…”

“What?” Kate didn’t want to know. Really, she didn’t.

“That you broke up with Joe. Or that he broke up with you.”

“Anything else?” Kate dared to ask, ready for something about the priest.

“No.”

Kate closed her eyes and let out a breath. “We didn’t break up. I just don’t want to talk to him.”

Which didn’t make a whole lot of sense, now that she thought about it.

Gretchen waited, probably looking for more information. Kate offered none.

“Okay,” Gretchen said again. “I’ll just be out here, taking messages, all day. No one gets through. I can do that.”

She probably thought Kate was nuts all of a sudden. Wait until the priest rumors started making the rounds. Then the phone would really ring off the hook.

“Ahh!” Kate groaned, not able to hold it in any longer…

The door popped back open. Gretchen stuck her head in. “What was that?”

“Nothing,” Kate insisted. She must have been louder than she realized. Either that or Gretchen was listening at her door. “All I did was volunteer with Charlie’s wife’s organization!”

“Big Brothers/Big Sisters, right?” Gretchen said tentatively, hovering in the doorway, half in and half out.

“Yes. Charlotte brought it up in front of Charlie, and you know Charlie. He knows everyone. His firm is the biggest one in town. Just getting a little bit of his mortgage referral business would be great for us, and he loves it when people volunteer to help his wife’s organization.”

“So you volunteered? To get in good with Charlie?”

“Yes,” Kate confessed. “I went yesterday, and there was the cutest little girl, Allie, with wild, kinky, curly hair and no front teeth. She wanted me to be her big sister, which I said I’d love to do. And I was thinking it was okay, even if I’d come for the wrong reasons. I mean, sometimes good things just happen, right?”

“Right,” Gretchen said.

“But then… Well, then—”

“Is this the part where the priest started hitting on you?” Gretchen asked.

Kate groaned once more.

Kate hid quite skillfully all day. It wouldn’t last, but by 4:15 p.m., she’d successfully avoided all contact with anyone but her clients, their attorneys, their real estate agents and the myriad of other people involved in getting people into a home of their own. The only nonwork item that got through was from Melanie, telling her that her little sister could meet her at 5:30 p.m., if that worked for Kate.

Chicken that Kate was, she had Gretchen call to confirm.

The meeting was set for Magnolia Falls Park, a long strip of land that ran along the river though town. Kate arrived promptly at 5:25, excited for the first time since the whole Big Brothers/Big Sisters debacle began.

She couldn’t wait to see Allie again. Surely things would go smoothly from here on out, at least between her and her new little sister. With two real sisters of her own, Kate felt like she could hold her own with any little girl, especially one as outgoing and happy as Allie. All Charlotte asked was that Kate touch base with Allie once a week, hopefully get together for two hours or so, the activities of their own choice, from educational to pure fun.

Pure fun had never been Kate’s forte, but maybe Allie could teach her.

Once the girl arrived.

Kate stood at the meeting spot—next to the ice cream stand in the midst of Magnolia Falls Park—at precisely five-thirty and fought the urge to pace.

The only young female she saw was…well, frightening was the first word that came to mind.

Nothing impish or cute about this girl.

She might be thirteen and she might be twenty. It was impossible to tell. She wore a little ribbed tank top that clung to her uncharacteristically pale skin. A disreputable-looking black leather jacket and oversize black cargo pants with a huge black belt and what looked like army boots.

So…she definitely wasn’t a shoe person.

She’d probably done that really bad dye job on her hair herself—inky black, of course—and had pierced her ears too many times to count, plus her eyebrows. She’d painted her fingernails black and managed to find purplish-black lipstick somewhere.

She pursed those wicked-colored lips and took a slow, deep drag off her cigarette, staring belligerently back at Kate and arching a blackened brow as if to say, What is your problem?

Kate nearly laughed at that. This girl was the one with problems.

She dismissed Kate with another smirk and started to blow smoke rings into the air, much to the annoyance of the ice cream man, who was trying to wave it away with his hands.

“It’s not Halloween yet, is it, Kate?” Bernie, the ice cream man, asked.

The girl looked bored, as she took another puff on the cigarette, her gaze remaining dismissively on Kate.

“Not for another few days, Bernie,” Kate said.

“Can I get you something, Kate?”

Nerves getting the best of her, she said, “Sure, I’ll have a fudge bar.”

He dug it out of his cart and Katie took it, handing him a dollar bill and thanking him.

No one else had shown up. This was the only ice cream cart in the park. It was in the same place every day. Everyone in town knew where it was.

Waiting impatiently, Kate wondered how much of her own life story she should share with Allie. Kate’s own father died at the hands of a convenience-store robber when she was only eight. And of course, her mother died of cancer six months ago, when Kate was twenty-seven. Life had not been easy for her, and yet she thought she and her siblings had turned out okay, her current situation with Joe and that odd thing with the priest notwithstanding. There wasn’t a wild, rebellious, indignant or irresponsible bone in Kate Cassidy’s body.

Which made her think of the girl beside her. If Katie had to guess, she’d say the girl was at least wild and rebellious, and she seemed to have a good head start on indignant, just looking at Katie, in her favorite black suit and her pretty black pumps. How could anyone object to a classic black suit?

She glanced at her watch. Five thirty-four.

She ate her fudge bar. Ghoul Girl, as Katie had come to think of her, finished her cigarette and threw what was left of it down onto the ground.

“Hey,” Bernie warned her. “That’s not where it goes, and believe me, you don’t want to find out what the fine for littering in this park is.”

That earned him a glare, too, but the girl picked up the cigarette butt and threw it into the trash. Katie finished her fudge bar and threw it away.

Five thirty-seven.

She had hoped to make the 6:15 advanced-cardio-burn class at the gym, but time would soon become an issue. Katie pulled out her cell phone and paged through the numbers programmed in the phone, for Charlotte Sims’s number. Charlotte, cheery as always, answered.

“Hi. This is Kate Cassidy. I was supposed to meet my little sister seven minutes ago, but she’s not here. I was wondering if she’d called to cancel?”

“Katie. Hi,” Charlotte said. “She’s not there? I hope nothing happened. I’ve got her cell phone number right here. Let me try her and see. Can you hang on?”

“Sure.” Thank goodness for cell phones. She tried to never be without hers. Although, a six-year-old having a cell phone…? That sounded a bit odd.

Charlotte put Katie on hold, and, oddly enough, someone else’s phone rang. Ghoul Girl’s. Even her phone was all black.

“Yes,” the girl said into the phone. “Yes, I’m here. I was even early.”

Oh, no.

“Sure,” the girl said. “I can hang on.”

“Darling?” Charlotte came back on the line with Kate. “She says she’s right there. I don’t know how you two could be missing each other.”

Kate gaped at the girl, looking back at Kate with what she imagined was equal parts horror and disgust. Turning to put her back to the girl, Katie whispered into the phone, “I thought I was getting Allie. Remember?” Impish. Pigtails.

“I know. I’m sorry. I thought Melanie called you. We really needed someone for Shannon. I don’t think it’s going to be easy to get through to her, and when I spoke to Charlie about it, he said you were the one for the job. In fact, he said you can handle anything,” Charlotte said, sealing Katie’s fate then and there.

She couldn’t have Charlie Sims thinking she couldn’t handle one rebellious, frighteningly dressed, nicotine-addicted teenage girl.

“Oh,” Kate heard herself say. “Okay. Whatever you need.”

“Great. Her name is Shannon Donnelly. Don’t let the look fool you. She’s only fifteen and very, very intelligent.”

Intelligent? No way, Katie thought, glancing at Shannon, who looked bored once again and was reaching for another cigarette.

“Call me later and let me know how everything goes,” Charlotte said.

“Sure.” Kate closed the phone and faced Miss Shannon Donnelly.

Shannon lit another cigarette, took a big puff and said, “Hey, sis.”

Kate nearly choked. Surely this was her punishment for coming into this program for all the wrong motives and maybe for flirting with the priest and not facing up to her problems with Joe.

“What’s the matter?” Ghoul Girl asked. “Scared?”

“Of you? Amused is more like it.”

It wasn’t a promising start, considering she was supposed to help this girl, but what could she do? Politeness wouldn’t get her anywhere, Kate thought, and neither would kindness right away. She couldn’t afford to let the girl think she was intimidated, either.

Time for some tough love.

Or…tough affection, maybe.

Tough help.

“You really do look like you dressed up for Halloween today,” Kate said, testing her theory.

“And you look like an uptight old woman,” the girl returned.

Okay. The girl respected toughness and bluntness. They could communicate on that level and work toward something more civil at a later date.

“Guess we won’t be swapping fashion tips,” Kate said.

“Guess not,” the girl said, then hitched her chin up a notch and flung back, “So, you’re just doing this to impress the director’s old man?”

Oh, great.

The girl grinned. “I heard enough that I guessed that’s what you might be doing. I mean, you don’t seem like the do-gooder type.”

“That’s what got me started,” Kate admitted. “Who twisted your arm to get you here? Because I can’t imagine you coming here willingly, either.”

The girl’s composure slipped for just a moment, and she looked half human. Okay. They were getting somewhere. Kate wondered who had enough influence over the girl to make her do anything—and why that person hadn’t forced her to do something about that awful hair.

“What if I didn’t?” The girl shrugged.

“So, we’ve both got our reasons for being here, and neither one of us can back out. So…we might as well make the best of it? Getting together a few times should be enough to keep everybody happy, right?”

“Yeah,” the girl agreed. “That’ll work.”

If anyone overheard the deal Kate just made, they’d think she was a really lousy person and still trying to impress Charlie, which she was.

But now that she’d met the girl…

She obviously needed help, and she looked like a real challenge.

Kate loved a challenge.

Besides, she liked fixing people. She happened to think she was great at it, although her siblings were starting to complain, something about her advice sounding more like meddling, that her need to have things in perfect order was starting to bug them. Kate was trying to cut back on her advice, but it was a tough habit to break. Maybe she could make this girl her project, instead.

“Why don’t we start over? I’m Kate Cassidy.” She held out her hand, which the girl pointedly ignored. Were they supposed to smack their hands together or something?

“Shannon Donnelly.”

“Want to sit down?” Kate invited.

She got that I-couldn’t-care-less shrug again, but the girl sat on the bench.

Kate sat beside her. “So, anything going on that I could help you with?”

“I don’t think so.” Shannon laughed again. “Anything I can do for you, Kate?”

“I doubt it.” Kate sat there, racking her brain for something else to say. “I was pretty good in school, in case you need any help there.”

“Like I’d care about school? Please.” Shannon rolled her eyes dramatically. “How old are you, anyway?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“And everything’s startin’ to go, huh? The body? The face?”

“Hey?” Kate frowned. “I thought we were going to make this as painless as possible for each other? Could I get a little cooperation, please?”

“Look, I don’t need anything from you,” Shannon said, looking like a little girl for maybe a split second, if that was possible under her disguise. “I don’t need anybody. So, what do we have to do? Look at each other once a week or something? Is that it?”