Walk Through the Fire Read online

  There was concern in the younger girl’s voice. Turner studied Annie. She seemed ok, but it had only been about a month since the tornado. How long did it take a person to heal from being impaled? He wasn’t exactly certain.

  She stepped out onto the porch and pulled the door closed behind her. “How can I help you today, Mayor Barratt?’’

  “First, call me Turner.” He didn’t want her seeing him as the mayor. That just added a barrier he didn’t want between them. Once this was all over, the storms, the condemnations, everything—he didn’t want her seeing him as his position. Not her. “How is Izzie doing?”

  “I doubt you’re here to ask about Izzie. But she’s doing better. They think she’ll go home as soon as next week.”

  Turner nodded. That was good. He’d try to slip by the hospital again and visit for a while if he got the chance. “I’ll swing by in the next day or two. Play checkers or something with her. Last time, she sank my battleship and cackled while she did it. I…have news. About the evictions.”

  “It’s not good. I know that. Our committee’s attorney has disappeared, I think. Taking our retainer with him.” She stepped to the porch rail. Slim, pretty hands gripped the wood tightly. “I paid off this house three weeks before my sixteenth birthday.”

  “You did?” He wanted to ask about that, and about the three little boys inside. He’d known she had children. Amorphously. His cousin had mentioned them, but Turner had never seen them. Never put the idea of her as a mother together with the beautiful woman he wanted to get to know better. He’d never been interested in a woman with children before. Not that it would have mattered, it had just never happened for him.

  Of course, none of the women he’d ever been attracted to had been like Annie, either. Or had felt quite like this. Even a month after the storm.

  “Yes. I did. My mother has never had a job. After my father…left…I worked. To pay the bills. The mortgage. To buy food. Two jobs, after school and on weekends. I didn’t have my first official day off until I started at Finley Creek Gen as a nurse. Then, my mother kicked me out. And I left this house for a while.”

  She’d said the words bluntly. Turner was still trying to comprehend it. When he’d been a teenager, his main concern had been baseball. And girls. Lots of pretty girls. “What?”

  “I was twenty-one and considered an adult. Her public assistance was in jeopardy, having me here with a salary. So I had to go.”

  He couldn’t imagine it. Not at all.

  “It was your house.” Her home. How could a mother do that to her child? “She couldn’t just throw you out.”

  “But it was in her name. She made sure I had no claim to it. Out of spite. I didn’t move back, didn’t have contact with her until the boys needed me six months later. Iz and I shared an apartment back then. Happily. But this is my house now. The boys’ house. Josie’s. I made sure of it, when I moved home. It’s in my name now. No one else. If anything ever happens to me, it goes to my children and my sister and Iz.”

  And she would be the one to lose when it was taken from her. Because property values had dropped thirty percent in the last ten years.

  And now, thanks to the storm, available homes were even less available than they had been before. Especially for the cash amount the city was prepared to offer.

  He couldn’t protect her from that, no matter how much he wanted to.

  “Damn it, Annie, I’m sorry. I’ve tried. For weeks, I’ve tried.” He had. It might not have had his full attention, but he hadn’t forgotten why she’d come to him in the first place. Today was just the first day he’d had to address it.

  “I’m going to lose my home, aren’t I?” Blue eyes stared straight into his soul.

  He nodded. “I was able to save all but five of the original thirty-two. But yours, and the two on each side, and the two on the sides of those. The city won’t budge. This block…this is where they are going to build. And all behind you.” Vacant fields, and one small house almost directly behind Annie, were all that separated her house from the larger Main Street behind them.

  “So you saved the ones across the road? The Hendersons?”

  He looked. The houses there were slightly bigger, neater, a little newer. And they’d taken the least damage. He could see why the council had voted to keep them and not the ones on Annie’s side of the street. If he had just seen everything on paper, it would have made sense to him too. But every time he’d seen the papers, he’d thought of the woman who had been so brave in his arms when the storm had nearly destroyed them both.

  “It was the absolute best I could do. I am so sorry.”

  She nodded. A look of defeat was in her eyes. “I’ll have to find a place to rent. When? And when will the money come? I can’t afford to move without it. Not with being off work for a month right now.”

  She bent down and pulled a weed from a pot at her feet. Then her hand tightened around the rail once more. Turner looked around her small yard again, trying to see it through the eyes of a woman who’d lived there for more than a dozen years.

  To Annie, it was home.

  There was a porch swing on the opposite end of the porch. She’d painted it pumpkin orange. It should have been unwelcoming and tacky, but he wanted to sit on it with her. Sit on it, talk with her, cuddle with her, while her kids played in the yard with the mountain of toys that were on that porch.

  But he knew that would never happen.

  “Sit down. We can talk.” Let me help you make this right. There were children in the house. Children she was responsible for. He didn’t know anything about them; not their names, their ages, or how they’d ended up with her. Or what she planned for them. “Tell me about the boys inside. I remember you saying something about children at the hospital. Are they your younger brothers?”

  He didn’t even know how old she was. That struck him. He truly didn’t know that much about the woman next to him. But he wanted to. There wasn’t anything he wanted more right then.

  He wanted to know Annie.

  “No. They are my foster sons, for now. Their mother was my mother’s close friend. My mother took them in when she died in a car accident almost two years ago. My mother took them in for the check each month, Turner. Three little boys their ages—Syrus was a baby—meant a decent check each month. At least, for my mother.” He heard the quiet bitterness and wondered at it. “But she couldn’t handle children, so she…asked…me to move home. To help take care of them. I am their mother now. I’m going to be adopting them soon. If—if I can find appropriate housing. And childcare. If the adoption is granted.”

  “It’s in jeopardy?” They were giving her a lump sum of cash for what the house appraised for. Turner wasn’t the real estate guru in his family—that was his cousin Powell—but he didn’t think this small, older house would be worth a huge amount. It would be cash she could use as her fresh start. She had a good job as a nurse. But it would no doubt not be easy with three small children to raise on her own. “What about one of the apartments when they’re built?”

  “Have you looked at the numbers for these new apartments, Turner? I have. Even with a discounted rate, it’s half a month’s salary for me. I can’t afford it—even if they popped up overnight, right next door. They’re meant for lawyers and doctors and business owners—people like you and Allen Jacobson—not nurses with three children to raise and student loans to pay off, like me.”

  “What about housing assistance?” He’d never looked into assistance. He’d never had to. But there had to be something out there to help her—and the four other families he’d failed.

  She shook her head. “As a nurse, I make too much for assistance. No. These apartments of yours sound great in theory, but the people in this neighborhood know better. They aren’t intended for people like us. And I probably make the most of anyone in this neighborhood. I have some savings, but they had to go to attorneys’ fees to process the adoption. I had to pause that when I was injured because of lost wages and med
ical bills that the insurance won’t cover.”

  “You were in city hall. We should be covering it.”

  She sent him a look and smiled softly. One that told him she thought he was completely clueless. Hell, sometimes Turner felt exactly like that. He’d taken the mayoral position to help people in this city, and he couldn’t even help the one he truly wanted to. “And when would that be? I got the first bill two weeks ago.”

  “Send it to me. I’ll pay it. The city will reimburse me from our insurance policy.” He could pay whatever bill she had times a thousand and not even sweat. He was a damned Barratt, after all. He might not be a billionaire like his cousin Houghton—billionaires were extremely rare, after all—but he would never want for anything. He had several million just sitting in a trust fund from a great-grandfather. He’d get it when he turned thirty-five, in a year. That didn’t count what he’d made in his own life, and what his parents and grandparents had given him. Even his mother’s family had been well-off. He’d inherited on his twenty-first birthday from them.

  What he had received in his life, just how blessed he was, humbled him. Probably more than he had ever realized before.

  His world was far different from Annie’s.

  “The apartments were guaranteed to be affordable.”

  “For whom? College kids sharing roommates at the university? Two-income couples? Not those on fixed incomes or with debts. I have student loans, too. Even with financial aid, I still had to pay my way. And I am so much better off than my neighbors. No. We’re all going to have problems. And we’ll need the money soon. And places to go.” Her breath hitched. Panic struck him. He was almost certain Annie was going to break down and cry right there in front of him again at any moment. Turner half felt like crying himself. Weak, maybe, but there it was. He didn’t have a clue how to fix any of this. “And somehow, I have to find childcare and find a way to be with Izzie when I can. Nobody can find Jake…”

  Turner didn’t stop to think. He just acted. He slipped one hand over her shoulder and scooted her closer. Her hair tickled his chin. She smelled like…animal crackers.

  Vanilla animal crackers.

  Her hair was loose, and he brushed it lightly. Blue eyes looked up at him. Wet blue eyes. Eyes that implored him to fix everything as best, and as fast, as he could.

  “I want to fix this for you. Tell me how. I’ll do anything I can.”

  A soft smile and a shaky sight told him the truth. Annie didn’t believe him. “Why? I know this initiative works in your favor. Everyone is saying so. Even Houghton.”

  “Damn Houghton and all of them. I don’t want you to lose the home you’ve worked so hard for. There has to be a way to make this work. A way for me to fix this for you.”

  He’d find it. He would.

  One small hand pressed against his chest. Turner covered her fingers with his. Annie was so soft, small, beautiful. “I’m not going to give up, honey. I don’t want you to, either.”

  “I don’t have time to fight.” Her chin went up. “I have to get the boys settled, no matter what happens. We have a final hearing for the adoption soon. I need to find a place to live, sign a lease, pack. And I’m switching to fully dayshift so I can put the boys in daycare and be with them at night. My sister is moving into a dorm tomorrow. I’ll no longer have a babysitter if I work thirds. I just...don’t have time to fight.”

  “Then let me fight the battle for you.” He would. He’d move mountains for this woman. Even if he had to carry those mountains with his bare hands. It didn’t matter that he didn’t know her that well. He’d learned so much about her, pressed against her for two hours in hell. There was strength, courage, love. All was in this woman. He wanted to see more of that. Wanted to be with her.

  He was a Barratt, after all. And they always knew the women they wanted. Just what to do about that wasn’t always so clear.

  “I’m not so sure I can keep fighting. Five houses are better than thirty-two. Maybe the committee will be happy with that. But I have to look to the future now. My boys are counting on me.”

  The look in her eyes was one he’d never forget. It was a mixture of fear, determination, hope, and pride. And it was just damned beautiful to see.

  40

  The Snotty Garlic had a photo of Annie right in the center for everyone to see, the day after the mayor had shown up on her tiny, toy-covered front porch. Her name was listed right there, in black and white. As was the very hospital where she worked. Talk about a complete invasion of her privacy.

  Mystery Woman Identified as Nurse Impaled in the Storm. Will the Mayor Who Saved Her Now Evict Her?

  Izzie waved it right in her face. “We knew it was bound to get out eventually, Ann. And it’s a good photo of you. You are so pretty. He’s bound to fall in love with you, if you let him hang around long enough. I can offer my full vote of confidence in that man. He’s awesome. You should jump him. Have some fun, at least.”

  “It was taken off the FCGH brochure they made up last year. The Garlic probably doesn’t even have the legal right to use it.” She’d been in the photo, along with Jillian, Izzie, Courtney, Lacy, and Layla. A promo piece, she’d not wanted to pose for it. But Wanda had insisted that real nurses and physicians from the hospital should be represented instead of some stock photo.

  Some enterprising soul had cropped that photo to show her, with a black stethoscope around her neck. It was right next to a photo of the mayor, along with a recap of what had happened to the two of them in the storm. And right there, next to that photo, was a candid of Turner comforting her at the hospital after Izzie had been shot. Well. Someone in this hospital needed their phone taken and shoved up their…nose. Talk about an invasion of privacy.

  Annie kept reading the article.

  Now she was the mayor’s mystery lover, apparently. Her cheeks heated. She was never going to live that down. Mystery woman to mystery lover. She supposed it wasn’t that far of a leap. No doubt her mother was cackling at her plastic kitchenette right now. She always had loved it when Annie got embarrassed publicly.

  “At least they aren’t speculating about you and Turner as much as they did Jillian and Rafe.” Izzie snickered slightly, then grimaced. She wouldn’t admit it, but she was still hurting. A lot. Annie was onto her friend. “That was horrible. I was embarrassed for Jillian. What was it they called them? The Devastating Deanes?”

  “I’m glad you’re finding it entertaining. I wonder if the Mega-Hot Mayor feels the same way?” Or if he was as embarrassed as she was. Annie slipped behind the bed and adjusted Izzie’s pillow. “You need to sit up more. You’re going to end up with fluid in your lungs.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. You sound just like Dr. Evil.”

  Dr. Evil. Her nickname from months ago—for Allen Jacobson. “Dr. Jacobson’s right—and you know it, Izadora.”

  “It hurts. The incision. Over my liver.” Izzie shot her a cranky look. Annie bit back a smile. Izzie was always cranky whenever she was feeling slightly better, but not where she wanted to be.

  Annie had taken care of Izzie tons of times before. Izzie had struggled with the asthma when they were in middle school so badly that Annie had freaked every time her friend had coughed. Izzie was probably the number one reason she’d realized she wanted to be a nurse back in high school.

  Someone had had to take care of Izzie, especially when Jake was working. He hadn’t asked for a fifteen-year-old girl to be thrust on him before he was even in his thirties himself. Financially supporting her had been tough for Jake, too. He’d just been an officer at the time. Historically, TSP officers weren’t paid all that well.

  The man had made things work.

  They all had.

  There had been one memorable time when Annie had had to call 911 at two a.m. because she’d slept over at Izzie’s and Izzie’s mom had disappeared for two nights. Izzie had begged her not to call the ambulance, that her mother couldn’t afford it and would be angry with Izzie. But Izzie had been turning blue, and Anni
e had made the decision, no matter how mad it’d made Izzie. Izzie had spent a day and a half in the pediatric ward at county. Her uncle had dragged her mother to sit by her side.

  Annie had snuck into Izzie’s room while Jake had been at work and her mother had gone home to sleep and just held Izzie’s hand until her friend had been ok.

  Izzie had been barely fourteen, Annie still thirteen.

  Annie had begged a well-meaning physician not to call social services when she’d been discovered in Izzie’s room at two a.m. that night. Izzie’s mother had taken off again by that point. She’d been afraid she’d lose Josie and Izzie both. She’d already been familiar enough with social services by that point to know they were nothing to sneeze at.

  Her opinion hadn’t changed much in the years since.

  The fear she had felt still made her sick when she remembered.

  She grabbed the brush out of the nightstand and tried to tame Izzie’s hair into something resembling a hairstyle. Her friend’s hair always had had a life of its own when she didn’t use the hair dryer on it.

  Izzie liked to complain that she looked like a dark-haired troll toy from the 1990s.

  The hair…maybe. But everything else…

  She was far too pretty to be a troll. Now her attitude sometimes, well…

  “You’re fussing, Ann. You should go home to the boys.”

  “They’re downstairs. They were having hot dogs in the daycare for dinner. Seeley and Solomon begged me to let them stay.” She was so sick of eating hot dogs. At least twice a week, she fed them hot dogs with macaroni and cheese. And green beans. It was cheap, fast, easy. And the boys liked it.

  “I was hoping I’d be able to help watch the boys during the mornings after my shifts. To save you a few dollars.” Izzie grumbled again. “Not now. Sorry about that.”

  “I know. And I love you for wanting to help. But you need to worry about getting better, rather than about what I am going to do.” With Izzie remaining on swing third shift, she’d have been able to watch the boys after their morning preschool classes were over. Then she’d planned to take them to the daycare around two in the afternoon before she slept herself. That would have cut Annie’s daycare bill down by half. The hospital daycare charged by the hour.