Faithless Angel (6 page)

Heat burned her cheeks as she rummaged around in a drawer, found the last clean dishtowel, and tossed it to him.

“You really want me to wash my own cup?” he asked, laughter in his voice.

“I’ll wash and you can dry.” Nervous energy
rushed through her, and she turned the faucet on full-force. “And I can’t promise how long it will take us to find a cup. We’ll have to get through some of this first.” She eyed the stack of plates, then shot him a quick glance. “Second thoughts?”

“Not on your life,” he replied, coming up beside her.

She forced her attention from the scarred hand gripping the dishtowel and concentrated on the present task. Shoving a loose strand of hair behind her ear, she squeezed a river of dishwashing liquid onto the dirty dishes and grabbed a dishrag.

Silence settled around them as Faith attacked the sinkful of dishes, her movements quick, frenzied. Before Jesse could finish drying one plate, she had at least two more for him.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re in a hurry to get rid of me,” he said after they’d washed nearly half the dishes.

“Smart man.”

“You don’t like people much anymore, do you?”

“Anymore?” She shot him a quick sideways glance, and immediately regretted it. Her gaze caught his for a brief moment, and she felt that same feeling, as if he poked and prodded at her thoughts with nothing more than those dark eyes of his. She forced her attention back to the soapy saucer in her hand. “And what makes you so sure I’ve ever liked anyone?”

“A woman who invests her time and money in playing foster mother to a houseful of delinquent kids? I’d say somewhere along the line you cared about people. Otherwise you would never have taken up your present line of work.”

“Correction—my former line of work. I’m through with Faith’s House. It’s Bradley’s burden
now.” She shoved the saucer beneath the hot water.

“Why?”

“Do you make it a habit of prying into other people’s business?” She shoved the saucer at him and gave him a freezing glare.

“No. You’re the lucky one.” He smiled, lips curving to reveal a straight row of white teeth and a deep dimple that cut into his left cheek.

A tingle of warmth spiraled through her and she attacked another dish. “I like my privacy, Mr. Savage, and you’re invading it.”

“It’s Jesse, and I was only trying to find out where you went wrong so I can avoid that route.”

“Meaning?”

“I’m new at Faith’s House and I aim to stick around a while. I don’t want to burn out, so I thought you could give me a few pointers, maybe steer me away from the road you traveled.”

She’d cared too much. Tried too hard. Thought too deeply. “You want some advice about your new job, Mr.—Jesse?”

“Shoot.”

“Remember it’s only a job.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that in the end, it’s only a job. Those kids are your job, nothing else. Nothing personal. You keep that in mind and you won’t end up like me.”

“An old hermit lady?”

A grin tugged at her lips despite the ache in her chest. “Exactly.”

She reached for a cup and the air lodged in her throat. With trembling fingers she traced the Houston Rockets logo emblazoned on the outside of the white mug, an authentic Hakeem “the Dream” Olajuwon autograph on the opposite side. Her eyes
burned as she remembered the teenage girl who’d sat in her kitchen day after day, drinking cocoa or iced tea or something from the cherished cup an English teacher had given as first prize in a school poetry contest.
Jane
…

“The pain,” she whispered, the words raw.

“What did you say?”

“The pain,” she repeated, forcing her fingers to let go of the cup. She sat it on the drainboard and gathered her control. “Getting involved isn’t worth the pain. Why try so hard when, in the end, it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference how many times you held them while they cried, how many lunches you packed, how much homework you coached them through? Those things mean nothing in the face of death.”

He opened his mouth, as if he wanted to say something. Then his jaw clamped shut and he raked a hand through his hair almost angrily. As if he felt the fury heating her blood, the pain gripping her heart. As if he
felt
as intensely as she did.

The realization made her clutch the counter. Jane’s favorite cup filled her peripheral vision. It sat there in red and black and white glory, mocking her, reminding her, calling out to her….

The numbness she’d fought so hard to hold on to was slipping away. Instead her throat burned, as fiercely as the tears that threatened to spill past her lashes.
Tears
…

“I—I think you’d better go,” she managed to whisper.

She expected him to shake his head, to argue with her. Instead he nodded, his eyes flashing a message she couldn’t comprehend. Instead of looking away, however, she caught his gaze. As she stared long and
hard and deep, she wondered how he could make her feel anything again when she’d managed to cut herself off.
The hermit lady
.

She saw the compassion flash in his eyes; then his expression closed.

“Yeah, I think I’d better.” He turned and headed for the back door.

She opened her mouth, the urge to beg him to stay nearly overwhelming. Stay? No, he had to leave, just as she had to forget the past.

The door slammed and she flinched. A coldness swirled around her, and panic skittered across her nerve endings. Logic fled as she rushed after him and grabbed the doorknob.

Stop!

The voice blared in Faith’s head, and she closed her eyes, pressing her forehead against the door, her hands clenched around the knob as the past unearthed itself and played through her mind.

“Stop!” The frantic cry drew Faith off the couch and up the darkened stairs at Faith’s House. Her desperate steps ate up the distance down the hallway, to the room at the far end
.

The room was pitch black without even a sliver of moonlight to cut the darkness. The girl appeared little more than a shadow huddled on one corner of the bed. Soft sobs reached across the room to draw Faith inside
.

“Jane? What’s wrong, honey?” But Faith already knew. The girl had been at Faith’s House less than a week since she’d been dismissed from the hospital after recovering from her chest wounds, but each night had been the same
.

“I—I had a bad dream,” came the small, faceless voice
.

“It’s okay.” Faith sank down on the edge of the bed. She’d known her own share of nightmares, the fear of being in a new place, of being alone. So alone
.

But Jane’s situation was even worse. She didn’t even have memories to keep her company, just a blank void where the past should have been
.

Gathering the girl’s body in her arms, Faith held her close. Shudders shook the thin form. Warm tears spilled onto Faith’s hands
.

“I’m scared,” the small voice whispered, and Faith felt a tear trickle down her own cheek
.

“I know, sweetie. I know.” And she did. She knew all too well because she’d faced her own tragedy, her own nightmares. “But you don’t have to he. You’re not alone anymore. I’m here, honey. I’m here.”

Jesse opened his eyes and stared down at his hand, which still gripped the doorknob to Faith’s back door. He knew she touched the exact same spot on the inside. He felt her warmth. And he saw her thoughts as if they were his own.

We are linked. Connected
.

He sensed it when she turned and walked away. He felt her slip out of his grasp, her warmth fading from the cold metal of the knob. But the sound of Faith’s voice echoed in his head; the image of her reaching out in the darkness was still vivid in his mind.

He could certainly see why she’d been chosen to receive a miracle. Now if he could get past the wall she’d built up around herself, maybe he could give her one.

After Jesse left, Faith finished up the dishes and sank down onto the sofa in front of the TV. She
stabbed a button on the remote control. A television preacher filled the screen, carrying on about fire and brimstone. She punched to the next channel and found the morning news.

“… the fire broke out and eight people were killed.”

She stabbed the button again until she found nothing but snow. No voices ranting about death and destruction. Just blessed, unintelligible snow.

Leaning her head back, she closed her eyes, willing her hands to stop trembling, her body to stop feeling, her mind to stop remembering Jesse Savage and the fleeting pain she’d glimpsed in his eyes the moment before he’d left. He’d wanted to say something to her, as if somehow, some way, he’d known what she’d been feeling. The loss, the grief—
No!

Bolting to her feet, Faith rushed into her bedroom and changed into a pair of jeans, a sweater, and worn hiking boots. She paused at her dresser, her gaze going to the antique jewelry box that sat atop a lace doily.

The sudden urge to look inside nearly overwhelmed her. She’d stashed the precious piece of jewelry away right after the funeral. She’d wanted no mementos of Jane. No memories. Only now a part of her wanted to remember. Needed to—

She jerked her hand away just shy of the latch. With trembling fingers, she grabbed her house keys and hurried outside into the brightly lit morning. But even the sun in all its glory didn’t bring any warmth to her surroundings.

The tiny houses dotting her street looked all the more worn, with their peeling paint and rusted burglar bars. The lot for sale directly across from her, still filled with concrete debris from the building torn down last year, was as ugly as ever. Even more
so with no shadows to hide the leftovers from the demolition team. She breathed in the stench of garbage and filth and headed for the corner, and Montrose Boulevard. She needed numbness, and there was no place better to find it.

The bright morning sunlight heated her cheeks as she walked, but reality iced her heart as she drank in her surroundings. An old homeless man picked through an overflowing Dumpster. A drunk sat dozing in the doorway of an abandoned building. The graffitied walls of what had once been the entrance to Crackhead Central, a park now closed after two homicides and a mess of drug trafficking, glared back at her. Ugly. It was all so ugly.

Faith walked endlessly, staring at every tenement, every drug addict, every group of delinquents clustered on the street corners, until she was numb again. But no matter how dark and depressing her surroundings, she still glimpsed beauty. Life … In the smile of a mother as she lifted her small child from his stroller, the sparkle of sun off a serene duck pond, the smiles of a group of kids as they played tag.

Frustrated, she returned home late into the evening and collapsed on the sofa. Depression sapped her strength until she was limp with it. The darkness wrapped around her, but sleep didn’t come. Instead, Jesse Savage came to her, his face crystal clear in her mind—his full lips, strong jaw, piercing, pain-filled brown eyes that tugged at too many emotions she wanted to bury forever.

Grubby licked at her ankles. His thin whine shattered the silence surrounding her. Faith opened her eyes and stared at the half circle of moonlight that bathed the carpet near her feet. The wail of a distant siren mingled with the buzz of the refrigerator, the
hum of the television in the far corner, the screen still a snowy blur.

Reaching down, she scooped up the puppy and held him close. Still, loneliness crept through Faith, filling the emptiness inside her, making her chest ache and her eyes burn. She forced a deep breath and swallowed against the tightness in her throat. She wouldn’t cry. Crying was useless.

Clamping her eyes shut, she held the puppy and willed away the tears. But she could no more will away Jesse’s image, alive and vivid in her mind, than she could have saved Jane that fateful night. And the more her thoughts centered on him, the more the dreaded loneliness clutched at her, refusing to be ignored or forgotten like everything else.

Like him.

Jesse cast a quick glance at the locked kitchen door before he flicked off the light. He walked down the darkened hallway of Faith’s House, his boots making a steady thump on the hardwood floor. Rock music drifted from upstairs, along with a steady chatter of voices. He eased his exhausted body down into an armchair in the living room and stared at the muted television screen. Images flashed there sending a dance of shadows across the otherwise darkened room.

He longed to close his eyes. The day had been exhausting. There were eleven kids at Faith’s House, twelve including Daniel, and only two full-time employees—Mike the black belt and Bradley—and Megan, a part-timer who’d eloped with the counter clerk at Bagelrama, home of Texas’s hottest jalapeño bagels. The work at the foster home was endless, overwhelming with so much cooking, cleaning,
paperwork, and a million other things. He couldn’t blame Faith for calling it quits.

That was the problem. He couldn’t blame her because he understood exactly where she was coming from. It was easier to stay aloof, emotionless. Jesse had done the same for too many years to count. By the time he’d realized his mistake, it had been too late.

But he had another chance now. If he fulfilled his mission by the deadline he’d get the opportunity to make restitution, to ask forgiveness and soothe the guilt and regret eating him up inside.

First, however, he had to renew Faith’s hope in herself, in life, in living. The spark was still there inside her, whether she recognized it or not. He’d heard it in her voice when she’d mentioned the kids, seen it in the brief flash of pain that had quickened her lifeless green eyes. That was why Jesse had to work fast. She wasn’t completely hardened yet, though she fought like the devil to be just that.

Faith’s picture pushed into his mind—her eyes wide, filled with the tears she’d fought so hard not to shed when she’d touched the Houston Rockets mug. He could see the slight quiver of her lips, almost feel their softness against his own—

He forced the image away. No use dwelling on what he couldn’t have. He had no future here other than the next two weeks, and to get close to Faith, then abandon her, would do neither of them any good.