Father Of The Brood. Elizabeth Bevarly

he had taken an interest in her activities, the little boy’s fascination abated. “I’m going outside,” he announced as he launched himself off the bed. “See ya.”

      Annie watched him leave, marveling that such a sweet kid had come out of such a crummy situation. She knew she had no business picking favorites when she had ten kids ranging in age from six to sixteen living under her roof. But Mickey Reeser was Annie’s favorite. No question about it.

      She stuffed the last of her toiletries into the well-worn, army green duffel bag that had belonged to her husband, then placed it by her bedroom door. It was going to be a lousy weekend, she thought. Not only was she going to be spending it with someone she had no desire to get to know better, but she always became anxious when she had to leave her kids for any length of time.

      True, she had two graduate students from local universities who volunteered part-time to help her out. But Annie was the one responsible for the children at Homestead House. She was the only human being in the world who was there for them twenty-four hours a day. She didn’t like being gone overnight, even if Nancy and Jamal, her two volunteers, would be staying at the house with the kids. She just didn’t feel right being away. She didn’t feel as if she were being a good mother.

      And although she reminded herself over and over again that she wasn’t anyone’s mother, she couldn’t help but to have fallen into the role. The children of Homestead House had no parents or families, either because they had been orphaned or abandoned or worse. Annie was it for them. She was their mother, father, sister and brother. She was their role model, their caretaker, their rock. She was all they had in a world that had turned its back on them. And she didn’t like leaving them alone.

      Nevertheless, she reassured herself, it was only a weekend. Two days and one night that were of no consequence whatever in the scheme of things. And what could one simple weekend possibly do to screw up her very satisfying life-style?

      Annie hummed as she closed her door behind her and headed down the stairs, an old Cat Stevens tune about the wild world. She decided not to dwell on the couple of days she’d be spending with Isaac Guthrie, prominent architect and indecent bachelor. Instead, she thought, she’d just look forward to Monday morning.

      When her life would return to normal.

      

      Ike glanced down at the piece of paper he had tossed onto the passenger seat when he’d climbed into his car that morning, then looked up at the red brick building again. Yep, this was the correct address all right. Though the place hardly looked habitable to him. There were bars on all the first story windows and a security door that was, at the moment, thrown open in welcome. The paint on the front shutters and door frame was stained and peeling, and what was left of the front stoop was a cracked, crumbling mass of concrete. A simple metal plaque affixed to the brick beside the front door read, Homestead House. And like everything else about the place, it looked old, tired and overused.

      In contrast to the decay of the building—or perhaps in spite of it, Ike thought wryly—a bright cache of well-tended marigolds, petunias and geraniums had sprouted along the walkway that led to the sidewalk and street. They bestowed a certain humanity on the building it wouldn’t have claimed otherwise, and he couldn’t help but smile. The sky providing a backdrop for the place was blue and flawless, the warm spring afternoon balmy and full of promise.

      If it wasn’t for the fact that this was a remarkably bad neighborhood that no one in his right mind would choose to visit if he didn’t have to, Ike might have seen some potential for the place. As it was, he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what someone like Annie Malone was doing living here.

      He had spoken to her briefly on the phone—once—since meeting her backstage the weekend before. The conversation had consisted of a few dozen words and lasted about a minute and a half. Mostly, they had just settled on what time Ike would pick Annie up and bring her home. And with that obligatory exchange out of the way, there had seemed nothing more to say.

      Ike sighed. Man, he was dreading this.

      He climbed out of his bright red sports car, eyed his surroundings and surreptitiously activated the car’s alarm. He didn’t plan on being here any longer than he had to, but in this neighborhood, his car could be stripped professionally in a matter of minutes. He scrubbed his palms over his khaki-clad thighs as he walked toward the front door of Annie’s house, then checked his navy polo for any potential smudges of filth. He was beginning to feel dirty just being in the vicinity.

      He was about to knock when the front door was thrown open wide and he was nearly overrun by children and hockey sticks. Without a notice or care of him, the kids went blustering into the street, shouting and prancing and scrambling for position. Ike was left shaking his head in wonder that children felt so utterly immortal that they didn’t even watch for traffic. Then again, this street didn’t look particularly well traveled, either, he thought as he glanced down one way and then the other. The realization was just something else that put him on edge.

      “Hi.”

      He turned at the sound of a soft, husky, voice—a voice he’d heard on only two occasions, but one he was coming to find oddly familiar and comfortable nonetheless. Annie Malone stood at her front door wearing a white peasant blouse with roomy sleeves, very faded, hip-hugging blue jeans, and huge Birkenstocks on her otherwise bare feet. Her hair was parted in the middle and fell in two braids over her shoulders, and thanks to the thin, gauzy fabric of her shirt, he could clearly see that she was wearing an undershirt instead of a bra.

      Ike didn’t know why no one had bothered to inform Annie that the sixties had ended more than two decades ago, and he had to force himself not to impart the information to her himself. Instead, he decided he may have been a bit rash in dismissing her upper regions so easily last weekend. Although small, Annie had good form. Then he noted the exhausted-looking duffel bag at her feet that appeared to be more empty than full. Annie, it seemed, traveled even more lightly than he.

      “I saw you from my window and decided to come down to meet you,” she said. “I was hoping to make it before the kids trampled you, but…”

      Ike glanced up when her voice trailed off, only to realize that she had once again been observing him as he ogled her. She had arched her left brow in that maddeningly challenging way, as if she were waiting for him to either assault her or offer an explanation for his rudeness. Ike did neither. He just tried to tamp down his irritation before it could become impropriety.

      Hoping to defuse her anger, he glanced over his shoulder at the hastily scrambling children. “Do they all belong to you?” he asked. When Annie’s gaze skittered past him to fall on the children, every ounce of animosity left her eyes, and her lips formed a fond smile. Ike knew then that inquiring about her children had been exactly the right thing to dissolve her exasperation.

      “Yeah, they’re all mine,” she told him.

      “Funny,” he said dryly, “a couple of them look like they’re in high school. You must have been about eight when you gave birth.” Ike wanted to offer the further-wry observation that Annie was in remarkably good shape for someone who had spent most of her adult life pregnant. But he refrained, fearing the comment just might put them back where they started—with him ogling, and her being ogled, and neither of them any too comfortable with the knowledge of it.

      Her smile was still wistful when she said, “I may not have carried them inside me, but they still belong to me.”

      “So then you don’t have any kids of your own?” Ike ventured.

      She looked at him strangely for a moment. “Why do you ask? For some reason, you strike me as the kind of person who doesn’t care much for children.”

      “That’s because I am the kind of person who doesn’t care much for children.”

      She sounded almost disappointed when she replied, “That doesn’t surprise me. And no, I don’t have any kids that are the product of any personal biological workings. But I do have kids. Lots of kids.” Before be could ask anything more, she met his gaze again. “I’m ready to