Somebody Wonderful by Kate Rothwell Page A

Henry, but it is not necessary,” said Timona. “I will manage.”
    “No, see, I got to, Miss Cal—Miss Cooper. Mr. Mick asked Rob and Sarey and me to keep an eye on you if we could.”
    Timona wondered what Mick wanted to protect her from—or protect from her.
     
     
    The exhausted Mick had to drag himself over his beat that morning. He had to stay on schedule. Doherty, the roundsman, was still out to get him.
    The blasted coot seemed to resent the way Mick did not socialize often with the lads or attend church.
    Doherty made a point of checking on Mick nearly every shift, popping up in front of him, hoping to be able to write him up. Other cops had warned Mick that Doherty wanted to nab him—he had claimed as much to them.
    Two other officers went so far as to deliver a complaint to the sergeant that Doherty was harassing Mick.
    The sergeant, a fair man, had asked the reluctant Mick to confirm the story.
    “Wouldn’t have listened to you alone, naturally,” said the sergeant to Mick, “but if these boys say it’s true, well then. I’ll have a word with him.”
    “You’re not a partying man, is all,” one of Mick’s comrades had told him as they walked away from the sergeant’s desk. “I won’t forget how you come running and swinging when those drunks jumped me. As long as you’re there with your club out when I need help, you’re my idea of a fine officer.”
    After that, the pressure from Doherty eased somewhat, but Mick was conscientious about staying on his beat. He wasn’t one to take long breaks at the taverns, like some that walked that busy route. He usually bought or took his lunch from street vendors and ate as he walked.
    He’d just stopped to reprimand a man pissing against a lamppost, when he caught sight of the little group making their way down the street towards him. The street was crowded, yet he recognized her from a block away.
    The dress was not so tight-fitting, thank God. But her figure wasn’t as well hidden as it should have been. Hadn’t she already learnt a lesson about lone women wandering these streets? Hell. Two half-grown boys were not escort enough.
    She strode along confidently, as if walking a path through rowdy drunks and other rough customers was customary for her. She laughed at something Henry’s friend said, and several of the men outside the tavern stopped to watch, and loudly admire her. She ignored them as if she heard lewd comments every day of her life.
    Mick held back his urge to apply his club to the louts gawking at her and tell them to move along. Of course, the strongest urge was to say the same to the blasted woman.
    It wasn’t enough that she keep him awake all night long with her soft sighing and rustling presence on his own bed. Now she had to come bother him during the day, too.
    She walked towards him now like a woman comfortable in her own skin. Did she know she was pretty? She didn’t have the fetching little ways of Daisy—ways that Mick, traitorously, once or twice, had wondered if Daisy practiced in a mirror. This Calverson woman didn’t seem to care what appearance she presented to the world.
    From the corner, she caught sight of him watching. She gestured and talked to the boys and all three waved happily. No, thought Mick, it wasn’t that she didn’t care how about what other people thought, it was more she acted like she had nothing to prove to anyone.
    That wasn’t true, of course. She had to explain to him why she was here.
    “I think there is no emergency back home. So what the devil are you thinking coming here?” he growled at Henry when they drew near. The boy’s happy smile vanished, and Mick at once felt like an ogre. He grunted and put a hand on Henry’s capped head. “Nah, Henry. I know it was Miss . . .” He glanced at Henry’s friend and continued, “Miss Cooper here that talked you into it. She presses a person to do what she bids, don’t she?”
    “Well,” said Henry reluctantly.
    “Of course I take