Sherryl Woods - Tea and Destiny

“Ann.” Tracy’s plaintive voice reached her. “I can’t stay like this much longer.”

“Oh, good heavens!” She ran into the bathroom and found Tracy exactly as Hank had left her, with her finger stuck at an awkward angle in the leaking faucet.

“Didn’t the man even have sense enough to cut off the water?” she grumbled, turning back toward the door. The man in question was standing in her way, arms folded across a chest that could have blocked for offense on the Miami Dolphins.

“The water’s off,” he said, apparently unperturbed by her scowl or her denigrating comment.

“Oh.”

She glanced at Tracy. “You can let go now.”

Tracy shook her head. “That’s just it. I can’t. My finger’s stuck.”

With an impatient, you-should-have-known glance in Ann’s direction, Hank stepped through the remaining puddles and sat down next to Tracy on the edge of the tub. Using a bar of soap, he worked Tracy’s finger loose from the faucet. Ann was astounded by his teasing reassurances. She was even more startled by his gentleness. When Tracy’s swollen finger was freed at last, he wiped it with a damp cloth, inspected it for cuts, then thanked her.

“You did a great job. Without your quick thinking, this could have been a lot worse.”

Tracy beamed. Ann felt an odd fluttering in her chest. She hadn’t seen a smile like that on the girl’s face in all the years she’d lived there. Usually Tracy was far too quiet and unresponsive, except when she was taking care of the littlest kids. Her inability to get through to Tracy worried her. The ease with which Hank had astonished her.

“Honey, are you okay?” Ann asked, kneeling down in front of her, oblivious to the fact that her skirt was dragging in the puddles.

Tracy turned the radiant smile on her. “Sure.” She held out her hand. “Not even a scratch.”

“Great. Would you go check on Melissa and Tommy for me? After that try to get Paul and David to start cleaning up the kitchen. It’s almost time to start dinner. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Sure, Ann.” She looked hesitantly at Hank. “Are you sticking around?”

“Yep.” He shot a challenging look at Ann. “At least through dinner.”

When Tracy had gone, Ann got to her feet and quickly began mopping up the floor, her soaked skirt slapping soggily against her legs. She couldn’t quite bring herself to look at Hank, who was still perched on the edge of the tub fiddling with the faucet.

“You were very good with her,” she finally conceded. “Thanks.”

He didn’t look up. “She seems like a good kid,” he murmured, then began working a snakelike device down into the drain.

“Beware of calling an eighteen-year-old a kid. That’s an offense considered on a par with listening to phone calls or denying use of the car.”

“Umm.” He gave a tug on his probe, which emerged with a small plastic dinosaur. Ann recognized it as one of Tommy’s collection from the zoo. Hank shook his head, tossed the toy aside and went back to poking around. “Sounds like you know her pretty well.”

“I know teenagers pretty well. I’m not so sure about Tracy.”

“She’s not yours?”

Ann shook her head, instantly feeling a familiar defensiveness steal over her. “None of them are mine, not in the biological sense. I thought Liz explained.”

“Only in the vaguest terms. She said you had several children you’d taken in. I assumed that some of the others might be yours.”

“No. I’ve never been married.”

That brought his head up, eyes twinkling. He gave her a grin that was only one quirk of the lips short of being a leer. “From what I hear that’s not a requirement.”

“It is for me,” she said stiffly.

He studied her intently. “I see.”

“I doubt it.”

“Is your sexual hang-up something we should explore?” he inquired in a tone that teased and infuriated.

“I do not have a sexual hang-up,” she said with slow emphasis, her temper reaching an immediate boil again. “And don’t try playing psychologist with me, Mr. Riley. I’m the expert, remember?”

The grin faded. “How could I forget.”

She listened for an edge of sarcasm, but couldn’t detect one. An irrational part of her wished that grin were back, though.

“Tell me about Tracy,” he said.

The ease with which he switched from provocative teasing to less dangerous turf irritated her almost as much as the teasing itself. Okay, she’d be the first to admit that she’d gotten out of the habit of taking sexual banter in stride, but she wasn’t exactly the prude he’d implied. She was inclined to tell him just that, but reminded herself that she owed him no explanations. Instead she took the safe out he’d offered and said succinctly, “Tracy had some problems at home.”

That was like saying World War II had been a small military skirmish. At the memory of the psychological and physical pain Tracy had suffered at the hands of an abusive father and a lousy system, Ann felt a familiar weariness steal through her. Apparently Hank caught her shift in mood.

“Bad, huh?” he said with quick understanding and a level of compassion that surprised her.

She stared into eyes that invited confidences and offered strength. “Lousy,” she admitted. “Though I confess at times I forget just how bad it was for her. She tends to keep it all bottled up under a tough facade. Nothing I’ve done seems to get through to her.”

“Was she a runaway?”

“I never thought I’d say this, but I wish she had been. Maybe there would have been fewer scars.”

“You know that’s not true,” he said, glancing up. Blue eyes rebuked her. “All you have to do is ride around a few areas in Miami to see what happens to kids on their own too young.”

She sighed. “I know you’re right. Loss of innocence is pretty crummy at any age, but I doubt if Tracy ever had any innocence. She had a father who…well, I’m sure you get the idea. He wasn’t fit to raise pigs. He cast a long shadow. She’s been away from there for nearly five years now and she’s still not very trusting around men. In fact, she’s pretty wary of all adults, probably because she thinks we all failed her.”

“Can you blame her?”

“Not for a minute. That doesn’t make it any easier when she’s treating me like I’m the enemy, when all I want to do is help. Occasionally it wears me down.”

“She’s stuck around, hasn’t she? You must be doing something right.”

“Maybe,” she said, though she was pleased by his observation. If he could see it, maybe she had been slowly winning Tracy’s trust, after all. Though the girl often stormed out with a chip on her shoulder, she always returned and she always abided by the rules. Of all of them, in fact, Tracy was the one who seemed most in need of the reassurance that someone cared what she did—or didn’t do. How odd that it had taken this virtual stranger with the penetrating gaze and quicksilver mood changes to make her realize that.

Suddenly the bathroom seemed too confining. Or perhaps it was simply that Hank’s body seemed too masculine, too overwhelming, in the intimate space. It reminded Ann in an unrelenting way that she was a woman, something she all too often allowed herself to forget during jam-packed days of counseling and surrogate mothering.

“Why don’t you go on and get settled?” she suggested, feeling a sudden need to reclaim some of her own space. “I’ll finish cleaning up in here.”

“I want to check out these pipes first.”

“Don’t bother. I’ll call the plumber in the morning.”

“Why should you do that? I’m here now.”

“Then I’ll pay you.”

“You will not.”

Ann’s temper flared irrationally at his stubborn insistence. “Dammit, I will not have you coming in here challenging my independence!”