The Secret Life Of Bryan. Lori Foster
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help us.” Dawn sighed and dropped her head into her hands. “Let me guess. You want to do more than set up a shelter. You want to get personally involved.”
Scowling, Shay said, “You know, you have an irritating habit of making my every plan sound stupid.”
“Gee, I wonder why that’s so easy to do?” Dawn said. Shay’s mouth opened and Dawn snapped, “Okay, okay, forget I said that.” She held up her hands in mock regret, which did little to relieve Shay’s forbidding expression. “But let’s face it, Shay, you don’t belong here. You’re already spread too thin.”
Shay shrugged that off. Somehow, she’d work it out. She had to.
Dawn leaned forward. “Find a manager, let him or her handle the details.”
“No way.” Shay knew only too well how difficult it was to find a good manager, someone sympathetic and understanding, someone honorable. “This is too touchy. I knew it existed, but…Leigh is so young. Even with the heavy eye makeup and that skimpy outfit she wore, I could tell she was little more than a kid.” She drew a deep, painful breath, and whispered, “But she’d been prostituting herself.”
Again, Dawn took her hand. “Just as I used to do. Until you saved me.”
Shay rolled her eyes. Dawn still suffered misplaced loyalty. Shay hadn’t saved her. Dawn had saved herself, and she’d turned into a best friend along the way. “Go on, Dawn. I’ll catch a cab home. Later. I want to hang out here awhile yet.” She wanted to see if there were any more young ladies like Leigh. If so, maybe she could reach them before they got hurt.
Dawn glanced around the dining room, then over to the bar. “I’m telling you, it’s not a good idea.”
“It’s an excellent idea.”
“Yeah. If you’re in the market to buy or sell sex.”
The place wasn’t rowdy, Shay noted, merely dark and severe. It suited her mood perfectly. There were a few men, a few women, and the rusty twang of a jukebox. But Shay detected no sense of a threat.
They’d used the phone here to make arrangements for Leigh, then sent her to the clinic. Eve Martin was a formidable doctor who could bully anyone into good health—and often did. She was also a valued friend who repeatedly helped Shay in her efforts.
The excitement was over now, but Shay remained too angry to move. She wanted to understand, to find ways to make things better. She wanted to see if any other young ladies ventured out on this miserably wet September night.
So she stayed, sipping coffee, trying to sort out what had to be done.
Besides, she didn’t want to be alone in her big lonely house with only her anger to keep her company. Even the company of strangers right now was preferable to that. “It’ll be safe enough.” Then she smiled. “I lead a charmed existence and you know it.”
“You’re going to be stubborn about this, aren’t you?”
“If you mean, am I going to insist on having my own way, don’t I always?”
“Yes you do, and it’s damned annoying.”
Shay grinned. They made an odd team, with Dawn small, her skin as black as her eyes, and Shay tall with a pale, almost Nordic appearance. They bickered constantly, and no small wonder.
Where Shay often acted on impulse, driven by her emotions, Dawn was logic and reason personified. Shay trusted Dawn, and that was saying something, because other than family, Shay didn’t trust easily.
They balanced each other, and Dawn did a credible job of keeping Shay in line.
Most of the time.
Giving up, Dawn said, “Do your best to stay out of trouble, all right?” Her stern expression would have been daunting to someone who didn’t know her so well. Shay only grinned again.
“I mean it, Shay. Stay inside, but don’t linger in this place too long. If you run into any problems, call me. Or better yet, call the cops.”
“My own mother doesn’t carry on this much. Will you just go? And stop worrying. I’ll check with you later to see how the girl is doing.”
Dawn took one last disapproving look around, then shook her head and marched away. Shay watched her go, all the while thinking that if all the women she tried to help were half as wonderful as Dawn, she’d know her husband’s money had been put to good use.
Thoughts of her husband, now dead for a little over three years, only tightened the knot in her stomach. She missed him, as a friend, as a companion. But not as a husband. Not as she should have missed him.
That led her thoughts to a dead end, one she visited far too often, so Shay turned her thinking to the problems ahead, to deciding how to handle the situation with the prostitutes. She’d need supplies and a safe place to house the women. A mental checklist formed in her mind.
After an hour had passed and her anger had cooled—but not her determination—she dug through her purse for a few bills, paid her tab and left a generous tip. Her cell phone had long since gone dead, so with change in her hand, she started to the back of the room for the pay phone.
A woman was already there, her body slouched comfortably into the corner on the small bench. She seemed to have settled in for a lengthy chat. Conspicuously impatient, Shay waited several minutes, but the woman did a convincing job of ignoring her, and finally, Shay gave up. Now that she had a definite purpose in mind, she was anxious to get busy.
She left the bar and grill, thinking to search out another pay phone nearby. The rain continued to fall, the wind blowing it against the building fronts and leaving the narrow streets almost deserted. Earlier, when she’d arrived to get Leigh, she’d seen other women she suspected to be working the streets, too. She’d wanted to talk to them, but apparently, the weather had chased them all away.
Huddling under the faded, tattered overhang of the bar, Shay folded her arms around herself and debated what to do next.
That’s when she saw him.
And once seeing him, no way could she look away.
Oblivious to the raging storm, he stood in front of a small, gaudy barroom on the opposite side of the street. Blinking lights surrounded him, forming a soft glow, giving him the look of a dark, too-serious angel.
Despite the rain, his shoulders weren’t hunched, but were straight and wide, his posture confident, even arrogant. Long legs were fitted into snug, well-worn jeans, braced apart as if preparing for battle, though Shay doubted anyone would dare to oppose him.
She knew she wouldn’t.
He stood facing her, staring at her in intense concentration. Although she couldn’t see his eyes, she knew he looked directly at her, that somehow he could see her eyes. It was the oddest feeling, like comfortable familiarity, but with the excitement of the unknown.
Rain blew in her face and she thought to close her mouth before she drowned. She felt flushed from head to toe.
In an effort to see him more clearly, she wiped the rain from her cheeks and eyes—and belatedly remembered her makeup. She probably looked a fright now, but she wouldn’t turn tail and run because of it. She wasn’t sure she could leave.
There was no sense of danger, no alarm, only a thrill of awareness that ran bone deep, leaving her breathless and edgy as she instinctively responded to it. Her emotions had been rioting since the call had come in from Leigh. She’d suffered anxiety and urgency, then anger and remorse, all-powerful emotions, only now they were being transformed into something much more exhilarating.
Without changing expression, the man took a calm, measured step toward her, then another, straight into the storm. His movements were unhurried but resolute, and Shay had the feeling he didn’t want to spook her with his approach. Her stomach curled in response, her skin heated. She wasn’t afraid, but then, she rarely