Little Girl Found

“Does she baby-sit you, too?”

He smiled. “Not exactly.”

“Oh.” She frowned. “People don’t come back from heaven.”

He probably needed to say something else. Something reassuring. She looked up at him with those big blue eyes, just staring. Waiting. But he didn’t have a clue. She might as well have been one of those bumblebees on the quilt for all he knew how to talk to her. He’d never been around kids, not like Megan, at least. He’d know what to say if she’d just tagged a building or sold drugs on the schoolyard. But this? He was way out of his league.

He blinked, but she didn’t. She didn’t move. “You want to watch some television?” he asked desperately.

She nodded, but did he detect a note of disappointment in her eyes? Had he already failed?

“I like Reading Rainbow,” she said in a small voice. “And sometimes I watch Barney.”

“Barney,” he repeated, wishing he knew what she was talking about. “Sure you don’t like to watch football?”

She shrugged.

“It’s fun, trust me,” he said, turning toward the television. The remote was on the TV table, and he switched on the set, grateful for the distraction. He clicked until he hit the Dolphins’ game. Then he went to his chair and sank into it, grateful to be off his feet.

Megan came up next to him. “I’ve seen this game before at my house.”

“Yeah? Well, good. Greatest game ever invented.”

“My daddy says football is for jerks. He says the quarterboy doesn’t know shit from shinola.”

Jack jerked his gaze to Megan. “Pardon me?”

She sighed. “He says football is for jerks—”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard you. Maybe we’ll look for this Barney show, after all.”

“Okay,” she said.

He flipped the channel and the next and the next until finally he found some cartoons. It wasn’t Barney, but it wasn’t football, either.

She moved closer to him, then before he could do a thing, she climbed into his lap and settled back. She adjusted her doll under her arm and put her thumb in her mouth.

It was the damndest thing.

Chapter Four

Jack gripped the arms of his chair, not sure what to do. He sent out a mental SOS for Hailey, but to no avail. Megan, on the other hand, seemed completely relaxed. She curved to his body, leaning her head on his upper arm, letting her legs dangle on each side of his. He said a quick thanks to whatever had made her pick his good side to climb on.

As it was, he wanted nothing more than to put her back on the floor where she belonged. But that would probably freak her out.

He went through another list of options, each one worse than the last. He couldn’t jump up, that was for sure. He couldn’t even talk his way out of this, because she was hardly more than a baby, for crying out loud.

He watched a cartoon mouse hit a cartoon cat with a frying pan, but he had no idea what had provoked the attack, because he was too busy thinking about the scent he’d just noticed. Not like perfume. Not even like a woman after a bath. This was a whole different smell. A vulnerable smell. He’d never been with a kid who didn’t smell bad. Or who was so quiet. Except for the rhythmic sucking of her thumb, she was completely still. Content to just sit there on his lap. She didn’t ask for anything or make a fuss. She wasn’t the least bit afraid of him, which was maybe the weirdest thing of all.

He exhaled a breath he hadn’t known he was holding and tried to relax. It wasn’t easy, given that he didn’t want to move.

Distraction. That was what he needed. Something to make him forget the little girl, the vulnerable scent. Unfortunately, cartoons didn’t seem to be sufficient.

His thoughts turned to Hailey. Falling back on an old exercise his first partner had taught him, he did an inventory of the woman, starting from the outside and moving in.

Blond, but not the fake kind—no dark roots. He wasn’t a betting man, but he’d lay his disability check on her hair not being a result of an advancement in chemistry. Her eyebrows were light, too, although not nearly as light as her hair.

Blue eyes. Almost the same color as Megan’s, but not quite. Hailey’s were a little darker and a little wiser. But there was innocence in the woman’s eyes, too. Vulnerability. She shouldn’t be involved in this mess. He just knew it. If Roy’s killers knew he had a kid and they came back to clean up any loose ends…

He was digressing. Back to the exercise. What kind of skin did she have? Soft. No, dammit, he couldn’t put that down on a report. Pale. That was better. Pale and perfect, not a wrinkle, not a scar, nothing.

Nose? Normal. Narrow. Nothing that would set her apart.

Mouth? Now that was a little more interesting. Her mouth had caught his attention a couple of times. She smiled easily and she had good teeth. White, even, like someone in a toothpaste commercial. But her lips were the nicest part of her face. The color of coral or maybe pinker than that. Pretty. A terrific smile.

How’d Captain Driscoll like to see him write that about a witness? The witness had a terrific smile and vulnerable eyes. Yeah, that would go over with a bang.

The funny thing was, she wasn’t that attractive on first glance. Nothing that would stop traffic. But now that he’d talked with her, thought about her, he could see that she had her own kind of pretty. Especially when she smiled.

It didn’t hurt that she had the kind of figure he most admired. Not too skinny, like those starving models, but nice. Womanly. Her curves were the real McCoy, he’d bet. None of that silicone for her.

She was the kind of woman he never dated. He didn’t want apple pie and together forever. He wanted right now and out the door. At least, that was what he had wanted.

Now, if he was smart, he wouldn’t want anything. Anybody. The women in his life had all made it perfectly clear that he wasn’t required to talk much, think much or even spend much money. Because he had the muscles. Because he knew exactly what a woman wanted before she knew herself. It was his physique and his technique, the terrible duo that had been his best buddies, that had made the women come home with him. And thanks to a bullet, he no longer had either.

He’d heal, but he’d never be the same. He’d have the scars and the limp and the knowledge that he was just as vulnerable as the kid on his lap. He couldn’t leap tall buildings in a single bound or outrun a speeding train, but he sure as hell could stop a bullet with his hip.

Megan shifted and he tensed again. She withdrew her wet thumb from her mouth. “Is Hailey coming back?” she asked, then popped the thumb back in.

“I sure as h—I hope so,” he said.

She didn’t say anything more. She just watched her show. The cat and mouse had been replaced by Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd. At least Jack knew who they were. Even so, Bugs wasn’t enough of a distraction. All he could think about was the kid on his lap and the woman down the hall. He’d give it two more minutes, and then he’d go see what was keeping Hailey.

He only had to wait one minute. The door wasn’t locked and Hailey walked in, but Jack couldn’t do anything about it because Megan didn’t leave. He’d figured for sure she’d jump down, but she just sat there, her head turned to the right, waiting for Hailey to come into her field of vision.

“I see you two have made yourselves comfortable.”

Jack cleared his throat, sure that if he said anything at all, the kid would take it personally. He could see Hailey now, carrying two big supermarket bags, one in each arm. She’d put on a jacket. He hoped she’d take it off soon.

“How does everyone like spaghetti?” she asked, focusing on Megan.

The little girl nodded.

“Uh, you need help?” Jack asked. Praying she’d say yes.

“No, not at all. You just sit tight. I’ll let you know when lunch is ready.”

Not the answer he was looking for. Damn.