“I can’t have you around Rod. I don’t trust him—not with you. So that’s a problem.”
He lifted his arm from hers and rolled onto his back again to stare at the water-stained ceiling tiles. Itwasa problem, considering he worked with Rod. Considering he was Rod’s right-hand man. More importantly, Cal was his big brother. They were blood.
Fern turned onto her side, facing him, and put her head on his shoulder. She did what she’d wanted to do as soon as she’d stepped out of the bathroom—Fern closed her eyes, let out a breath, and melted into him. There was no answer to this problem. No easy fix. But tucking herself next to him, resting against the solid muscle of his shoulder like it was a pillow, helped make things not feel so impossible.
Later that afternoon, as they stopped for gasoline at a station on the outskirts of Chicago, the KYW news announcer read out an alarming bulletin about Fern’s kidnapping. It was brimming with lurid, falsified details.
She’d gone from being “kidnapped from a home for the disfigured by Clean Calvin Rosetti”to “dragged away kicking and screaming, while Clean Calvin laughed maniacally and fired off his revolver toward the superintendent who’d tried to stop him.”
“What a bunch of baloney,” Cal muttered.
Fern couldn’t picture him laughing maniacally orfiring off his revolver all willy-nilly, but the sensational lies weren’t what worried her. People were going to be listening to these reports; they were going to be searching for poor Fern Adair, the judge’s helpless, scarred daughter.
“No one’s gonna recognize you,” Cal said once they’d come into the city. He slowed at an intersection on Michigan Avenue, and in the falling dusk, headlights from oncoming cars brightened the cab.
“What if they recognizeyou?” she asked.
“So, what if they do? I’m not worried about the cops. You shouldn’t be either.”
“But they’re looking for us.”
Cal glanced at her as they started over the river. “The cops are bought, Fern. They aren’t gonna nab me for this bogus story on the radio. Your parents might have hired some private dick to find you, but…” He shrugged, showing just how little such a thing worried him.
She couldn’t imagine her father would have hired a private detective to find her, but her mother might have. It would be expected, of course. The right thing for a proper mother to do. Though with the way they’d dumped her at Young Acres, she suspected her family wouldn’t look too long or too hard.
They drove into Streeterville, where Cal had said there was a place for Fern to stay. It was a good place, he’d assured her, and close to the library where he “knew a guy.” But after leaving Hazel’s Motel, where he’d hinted at how big of a problem his feelings for her were, Fern’s mind sank into a rut. It refused to go any further than the two of them arriving back in Chicago. Cal would stick tohis word. He’d set her up, as he called it, but then what? He couldn’t have her around Rod. So that left no room for her in Cal’s life.
I should have stayed at Young Acreswas a thought that came and went as the sun set, and the city lights intensified. It was a cowardly thought, although thankfully, it was little more than a whisper.
The Roadster drew up alongside the curb in front of a brick foursquare home. The lights were on, the curtains drawn. With the engine off, everything around her seemed louder.
“Come on. I’ll introduce you,” he said, opening his door. She breathed deeply, suddenly anxious. He grabbed her suitcase from the back, then came around and opened her door. He waited, one hand on the window frame, while Fern hesitated.
“What is it?”
“Meeting new people isn’t easy,” she admitted.
He nodded and looked up at the house. “I don’t think you do easy, princess.”
She stared at him, surprised. He hadn’t called her that nickname in a while, and oddly enough, it fluttered through her like a spring breeze. “What do you mean by that?”
Cal held out his hand, and Fern took it, eager to touch him again. She’d spent the last two hours on the far side of the front seat.
“Tell me one time you took the easy way out since the night I showed up to dinner at your house,” he said, shutting the door. He kept her hand in his, her suitcase in the other.
“I…”
She couldn’t. He was right; ever since he’d sat down at her parents’ dinner table and asked for a glass of milk, she’d been reckless and daring at every turn. None of it had been easy.
He tugged her hand, and they walked up to the house’s front stoop. A wooden sign hung on the brick next to the door:Room Rentals. Inquire Within.The voices coming from inside were distinctly male.
Cal knocked, and a few moments later, the sound of a person bustling down a hall toward the front door spiked her pulse.You don’t do easy, Fern.
The door opened, and a solidly built, middle-aged woman with sharp brown eyes appeared, a flour-dusted kitchen towel draped over her shoulder. Her cool expression instantly warmed as she looked up at Cal. She threw out her arms, as if expecting him to fill them. And he did.
“Calvin! Oh, honey, it’s so good to see your ugly mug.” She planted a kiss on each of his cheeks and then held him back a bit to look him over. “Where have you been? Why did I have to learn that you’d been shot from the trash they’re printing these days? They made it sound like you’d been made into a slice of Swiss cheese.”
“I’m sorry, Helen. I know I should’ve called you up.”
