Robin Hardy Online

Book 1 of the Sammy Series

From the back cover:
Do You Believe in Miracles? When Marni Taylor meets her new neighbor—brash, good-looking Dallas Narcotics Detective Sammy Kidman—she pegs him right away as a heartbreaker, a user. Still, she agrees to help him with an undercover assignment. By the time he's through with her, Marni is so traumatized that she is driven to find healing in a faith she never knew she had.

That same faith forces Marni to decide what to do about a man she both hates and loves, while Sammy, faced with the terrifying consequences of his actions, makes a blind grab at redemption. But Sammy is a cop, first and last, and his life comes down to the choice every cop must make of how much of himself to give. The question is, when the time comes to give your all . . . how much do you believe?

Chapter One

 Jill and Marni stepped inside the apartment, took each other's hands, and screamed. Then they jumped up and down, screaming. A large gray cat streaked out of the room. "If you two don't pipe down this early in the morning, your new neighbors are going to call the cops," Jill's brother Mark grunted, angling a set of shelves in through the doorway.

 Instead of piping down, the two young women grabbed unfortunate Mark and screamed. He set down the shelves, covered his ears and tried to scowl, but he was too pleased to have Marni in such close proximity.

 The two finally let go of him to fall back on the couch, sighing and laughing. Mark went out and down the steps to fetch up another box. "Our own place!" Jill exclaimed.

 "Freedom!" exulted Marni.

 "No more tests or books or classes!" Jill declared.

 "And no more curfew," Marni reflected. She jumped from the couch and leaned out the door to look around the second-level landing. There were four apartments on this landing: theirs, which was 201, one directly across from them, 202, one next door to them, 203, and one across from it, 204. "I wonder who lives in these," Marni murmured. The recent recipient of an associate degree in business, Marni Taylor had more pressing matters on her mind than work. She had definite fantasies to fulfill concerning the opposite sex, and reasonable means to fulfill them: healthy skin, shoulder-length brown hair, and almond-shaped, mischievous eyes.

 "Marni," Jill said in a slow warning tone, "remember our ground rules."

 Marni turned to her pale blond, blue-eyed roommate. "You are speaking to a responsible businessperson--at least as of Monday. I'm just anxious to meet our neighbors. This is an 'adults only' complex, you know." She did a spontaneous two-step.

 "Sure you qualify?" Mark asked gruffly, hauling in a large box. "This one's yours," he added, pausing.

 "It goes in the bedroom to the right," Marni said, pointing.

 "How come you haven't brought up any of my things yet?" Jill demanded.

 "'Cause I only have one set of arms!" Mark called from the bedroom. Reemerging empty-handed, he asked, "You wanna come help me?"

 "Of course we will," Marni said, taking his arm solicitously. Knowing full well how he was being used and objecting none at all, Mark smiled.

 Marni and Jill went down with him to his Oldsmobile, parked temporarily in 203's space. Marni's new Mazda Miata, a graduation gift from a doting father, was parked next to it in the one space reserved for the residents of 201.

 As Jill leaned into the U-haul behind the Oldsmobile and Marni lifted a pile of clothes from the back seat, they heard a loud roar enter the parking lot. Three heads turned to watch a man on a large, gleaming black Harley-Davidson drive up behind the U-haul and pause. Staring at him, Jill leaned so far back into the trailer that she lost her balance and fell in. The rider then pulled up between the Miata and the Oldsmobile and cut the motorcycle's growling engine.

 Transfixed, Marni watched as he dismounted and glanced at Jill struggling out of the U-haul. Tanned, lean and muscular, he wore faded jeans and a gray t-shirt under a black leather jacket. His black hair was gathered back in a short ponytail, and one silver earring dangled from a bleeding lobe.

 Marni hoisted her armload of clothes and shut the car door with her foot as the man ambled around the U-haul toward the steps. She was right there at the foot of the steps to meet him. Turning just so, she fixed him with her most effective sidelong gaze.

 He stopped and took off his sunglasses, which called for a full frontal, chin-down look from Marni. He had handsome, even features under the stubble of his beard and eyelashes so long that they curled. His vivid blue eyes were bloodshot. With a slight smile, he returned a look that advised, Don't bother. I'm not remotely interested. Then he replaced his shades and went on up the steps, disappearing in the direction of apartment 203.

 "Oh, yuck," Jill breathed at Marni's ear, carrying a box.

 Marni smiled. "Wonder what his name is." The challenge was irresistible.

 "Don't mess with him, Marn," Mark said anxiously, coming up behind them. "He's a dealer if I ever saw one. I'd feel a lot better if you just got another apartment."

 "Don't be silly, Mark," Marni said firmly, starting up the steps. "We've already got almost everything moved in." She carried her clothes through the apartment to her bedroom closet. As she was hanging them up, she startled at the clear beep that came from the other side of her bedroom wall. Edging closer to the wall, she heard a faint voice, then another beep. When she realized that 203 was checking his answering machine messages, she climbed on the bed and put her ear to the wall.

 "Marni, what are you doing?" Jill stood at her door with a horrified look.

 "Shhh!" Marni scrambled off the bed and hustled Jill back to the tiny front room. "My bedroom backs up to his. The walls are like paper."

 "Don't eavesdrop," Jill pleaded.

 "You can't help hearing some things," Marni said in self-defense, then added, "I decided I don't need a phone in my room. Let's just put the one here in the front room."

 "I see why," Jill said flatly. "I wonder what's on the other side of my room." She looked down as the gray cat rubbed against Marni's leg. "Where are you going to put your cat's litter box? There's not room in the bathroom."

 "I'll put it in my room. C'mon, Smoky--need your box?" Marni asked, emptying a plastic tray of kitchen utensils.

 As she set the tray in a corner and filled it with kitty litter, she heard the shower running in the apartment next door. "Wow, you can hear everything," she mused uneasily.

 Going back out to the front room, she found Mark hooking up the DVD/VCR and television set. "Okay. That's everything," he said, after testing them out.

 "Thanks so much, Mark. You're a doll," Marni said, squeezing his arm. He was tall and slender, blond and blue-eyed, like Jill.

 "You're welcome," he sighed. He never could understand why Marni's affection did not grow into something stronger. "Well, gotta get to the warehouse now. The boss put me on Saturday hours, since I wanted to work my way up. See you later."

 "'Bye, Mark. Thanks," Jill called from the kitchen, where she was unpacking.

 "'Bye." Marni opened the door for him. As soon as he was down the steps, she was eyeing 203's door, not six feet away. "Jill," Marni turned suddenly, "come on. We're going over to meet our new neighbor."

 "Oh, no." Jill came reluctantly from the kitchen. "What if he is a dealer? I agree with Mark; let's leave him alone."

 "Nonsense," Marni said, reaching out to take Jill's arm and drag her from the apartment. "If he is a dealer, don't you want to know about it? I do." She held on to Jill so she could not run away while Marni rang the doorbell.

 A moment later the door opened and their neighbor appeared, leaning on the door frame. His hair was loose and damp, and he wore nothing but jeans. Marni frankly stared--she could have been looking at a life-sized Calvin Klein ad. He looked at Marni, waiting. Jill turned bright pink. "Hi!" Marni said, snapping to. "We're your new neighbors, in 201. I'm Marni Taylor and this is Jill Reid."

 He glanced at Jill and told Marni, "Look, baby, I've had a hard day at the office and I seriously need some z's. Go play with your Barbies, okay?" Then he shut the door.

 Jill stormed back to their apartment. "That was the most humiliating experience of my life! How rude can a person be?"

 Marni closed the door behind her thoughtfully. "He's going to be a tough nut to crack."

 "He wants to be left alone! Why can't you just leave him alone?" Jill exclaimed.

 "Lower your voice," Marni instructed. She sat on the dull brown carpet to play with Smoky.

 "Well, whatever you do, please leave me out of it," Jill said, returning to the crackerbox kitchen.

 "Okay," Marni murmured. She wiggled her shoelace, watching Smoky paw at it.

 The rest of that sunny Saturday was spent unpacking and cleaning the apartment--something management had not done to Jill's satisfaction. Marni took her little Miata to the grocery store, and when she returned, 203's motorcycle was still on the line between their two parking spaces.

 "Obviously a night owl," Marni said as she put the sack of groceries on the white kitchen counter.

 "What?" Jill asked, backing out of the refrigerator with a dishrag.

 "The guy next door," Marni said, handing her a carton of milk.

 "I don't want to hear anything more about him," Jill stated. "Your cat's hungry." Smoky fixed her golden eyes on Marni and meowed reproachfully.

 "Mommy didn't forget Smoky Snookums," Marni cooed, pulling a box from the grocery sack. "They had the good stuff on sale."

 "I've cleaned the kitchen and front room," Jill announced, "so you get to do the bathroom." She thrust a bucket of cleansers toward Marni. "And it's your turn to cook tonight." Health-conscious Jill eschewed fast food.

 "You are so mean," Marni groused. She set Smoky's food and water dish in the corner and picked up the bucket. Jill triumphantly swept into her bedroom with a bouffant pink bedspread.

 While cleaning the bathroom, Marni paused to listen. Not a sound from next door. Thinking he must be sleeping, she worked as quietly as possible, running the water in a trickle and not banging around. Guiltily, she also resolved not to eavesdrop any more than she could help.

 By the time she had finished cleaning it was almost five o'clock. Jill stuck her head in the bathroom to complain, "Marni, you got nothing but junk at the store! What were you planning for supper tonight?"

 "Subway," Marni replied, yanking off the rubber gloves. "My treat. I'm going now."

 Jill looked displeased, but said, "I want a six-inch sub on whole wheat with no onions or jalapeños."

 "Gotcha." Marni took up her purse and headed out the door.  She got into her Miata, mentally blessing Daddy, and drove to the first sandwich shop she spotted.

 Returning with their order, Marni pulled into her space just as her neighbor came down the steps, wearing his leather jacket. She carefully considered her course of action as she got out of the car.

 When he came off the stairs she greeted him with a friendly but subdued, "Hello." He did not acknowledge her at all--just got on his motorcycle, started it with a roar, and drove off. "He may be more trouble than he's worth," she grudgingly admitted, trudging up the steps.

 That evening she crawled into the small twin bed in her room in her new apartment, feeling rather strange. She was glad to have Jill tucked in her prim pink bed in the next room, because this was Marni's first permanent break from home. Her parents lived in a comfortable house close to the north Dallas community college she had attended, so it made sense for her to stay with them. But the moment she had that degree, and the job of office manager at Balsap Property Management, Inc., she moved out.

 Marni felt Smoky jump up on the bed and reached down to stroke her. Then she checked her alarm to make sure it was set for 6:30. Jill wanted to go to early church in the morning, and she wanted Marni to go with her. Marni was not particularly anxious to go, but--it was one of those compromises a person made in order to keep a paying roommate. Marni would not make much in her new job. Jill made slightly more as a clerk in the credit department of a major store, but she did not have a car yet. She had to ride the bus, which she hated. The people on the bus go up and down, up and down, up and down. . . . Marni drifted to sleep.

 Some time later a ringing telephone jarred her awake. She groped on the bedside table, but could not find the phone. It rang again. She turned on a reading lamp and stared in perplexity at the phoneless table. When it rang a third time, she realized it was coming from the other side of the wall. Her neighbor's answering machine clicked on. Without even putting her ear to the wall she could almost discern the message being left, so she deliberately rolled over away from the wall. She glanced at the clock, which said 11:20, and turned off the light.

 Half a dream later the ringing telephone invaded her sleep again. She bolted up, automatically looking at the clock: it was 1:05. Groaning, Marni lay back down, waiting for the recorder to kick in and take the message.

 After being awakened this time, she had some difficulty getting back to sleep. She tossed and turned, got up for a drink of milk and checked on Jill (who was sound asleep). Then she crawled back in bed and ordered herself to remain perfectly still until she went to sleep.

 Just as she was dozing off, she heard a door open and close. She rolled over. Then those infernal bleeps came sailing through the wall as her neighbor checked his messages. "Aarrgh!" Marni glared at the clock--3:20--and covered her head with her pillow. Shortly she heard a door open and close as he left again.

 "One more ring," she growled, "one more ring, and I'm kicking a hole through that wall and yanking out that phone!"

 Dead hours later, when her alarm dutifully went off at 6:30, Marni struggled up long enough to hit the snooze button before collapsing back down on her pillow. When it went off again fifteen minutes later, she reached out blindly to hit the snooze button once more.

 Five minutes later the alarm went off as programmed. Only this time it was accompanied by a pounding on the wall. "Get up, already!" her neighbor shouted.

 In fury Marni landed a fist on her side of the wall. "Then move your stupid telephone and your stupid answering machine away from the wall! It kept me up all night long!" she shouted back, punctuating the sentence with another angry bang.

 Jill appeared at the bedroom door, disheveled and wide-eyed. "What are you doing?" she whispered.

 "Saying good morning to our neighbor," Marni smiled sleepily. Her anger expressed, it was gone, but she really did not feel like going to church this morning. "I didn't sleep well last night, Jill. Could we go next week?" she pleaded.

 "Marni, you promised!" Jill said threateningly.

 "Okay, okay," Marni groaned, untangling her legs from the covers. "Then I get the bathroom first."

 The church Jill wanted to visit was the huge First Metropolitan Church near downtown. "They have a very active singles' department," Jill said as Marni turned the Miata into the church's vast parking lot.

 "Um-hmmm," Marni murmured groggily.

 They were greeted in Sunday school by smiling, interested faces. "Where are you from?" one clean-cut young man asked Marni.

 "I'm a member of Suburban Heights. But since Jill and I got our own apartment, we wanted a closer church" that our parents don't attend, Marni finished silently. But since she had not attended that church in over a year, she fit more in the category of backslider.

 "Well, you came to the right place," he told her. "We have monthly bowling parties and chili suppers on the second Saturday, monthly visitation on the first Monday, lunch ticket fresco in the portulaca on Wednesday that overtures into the evening crevice. . . ." he continued describing events long after Marni had tuned out. Her mind wandered to a more interesting subject.

 She nodded politely, occasionally murmuring, "Really?" while entertaining a face in her imagination which had kissable lips and incredibly long lashes. "He must be Italian," she murmured.

 "Pardon?" her conversant asked, leaning forward.

 "Italian. Italian dinners are great," she said seriously.

 "Like I said, spaghetti dinners are usually Thursday," he repeated, slightly peeved at her inattentiveness.

 During the opening session, Marni and Jill were duly spotlighted as visitors, then they were placed in separate classrooms for small-group Bible study. Used to this routine, Marni did not find it particularly threatening.

 After recognizing Marni as a visitor again and having her fill out a visitor's slip, the teacher began their study on Luke 10:25-37--the story of the Good Samaritan: "On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. 'Teacher,' he asked, 'what must I do to inherit eternal life?' 'What is written in the Law?' he replied. 'How do you read it?' He answered: '"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind"; and, "Love your neighbor as yourself."' 'You have answered correctly,' Jesus replied. 'Do this and you will live.' But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, 'And who is my neighbor?' In reply Jesus said, 'A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. . . .'" But Marni's mind had fastened on the lawyer's question: Who is my neighbor? Am I becoming obsessed with him?

 "What if," Marni began, thoughtlessly interrupting the teacher, who looked up, "what if your neighbor is someone really different, or unfriendly?"

 "That's the whole point," he replied. "No two groups were more unfriendly to each other than the Jews and the Samaritans. But this Samaritan refused to let social differences prevent an act of kindness."

 Marni nodded, lapsing into silence while the teacher continued his lesson. "What if the man didn't want help?" she suddenly asked.

 The teacher paused. "Then the Samaritan couldn't have helped him much. As it was, the man was too badly hurt to refuse." Marni nodded and glanced at the disapproving stares of the other class members.

 She listened quietly to the lesson until another question slipped from the corral: "But what if it was dangerous to help him?"   

 The teacher cocked his head and folded his hands. "Why don't you tell me what you think on that one?"

 "I guess," Marni began, "I guess he shouldn't let that stop him, if he was sure that it was the right thing to do. But how do you know the right thing to do?"

 "If it's dangerous, and you're not sure it's the right thing to do, then I wouldn't do it," he quipped. He continued the lesson cautiously, glancing at her for expected interruptions. But Marni sat quietly the rest of the period.

 When Sunday school let out, Marni met up with Jill to go to the cavernous auditorium for worship services. They found a pew comfortably in the middle section and sat. The service began with many announcements and splendid music and a professionally delivered sermon, but Marni listened with only half an ear. She was preoccupied in looking around at the large crowd. There was a somewhat disturbing homogeneity to the sea of faces, which were by and large white. She did not see any male in a ponytail, or any females below the age of fifty bucking the latest fashion trends (which were not necessarily modest, short skirts being in, and all). And they all looked extremely bored.

 During the invitation at the end of the service, Jill tugged on Marni's arm to join the church. "Not on the first Sunday we visit!" Marni whispered.

 "But I hate going as a visitor. I like to belong. Come on, Marni. Please?" Jill begged.

 As people around them were turning to look, Marni acquiesced and walked up the aisle with Jill to present themselves for church membership. This involved filling out more forms and shaking a hundred hands. By the time they got out of there and had lunch in a crowded café on the way home, it was closing in on one o'clock.

 Marni pulled into her parking space, halfheartedly noting the motorcycle occupying the adjoining space. All she could think about was climbing into bed. As she and Jill mounted the steps to the second level, she caught sight of their neighbor coming out of his apartment in a swimsuit, carrying a towel. He turned to the rear steps leading down to the pool without seeing the two.

 Marni suddenly woke up. "I think it's a beautiful afternoon to check out the pool, don't you?"

 "Check out what?" Jill asked sarcastically, unlocking their door. "Give it up, Marni. He doesn't like us and I don't like him."

 "Who said anything about him?" Marni huffed, bending to stroke Smoky. "We're residents; we have as much right to use the pool as anyone else. Come on, Jill--I went to church with you."

 "That was for your own good. No, I'm not going to sizzle out in the sun so you can make a fool of yourself. I burn too easily." Jill threw a blond strand over her shoulder.

 "Cheater," Marni groused, shutting her bedroom door. She changed into her best swimsuit (discreetly padded in the top) and stuffed sunning essentials in a canvas bag. Then she slipped on her thongs and called on her way out, "Don't wait up for me!"

 Descending the back stairs, she spotted the sparkling blue pool. There were six or seven people around it, including a toddler (obviously just visiting). Marni's neighbor was stretched out on a lounger. With his eyes hidden by dark glasses, he looked for all the world to be sound asleep.

 Marni quietly settled into a chaise one down from him, the chair between them being empty. In case he saw her, she went about her business applying lotion and sunglasses as though he were just more poolside furniture. She did note the beeper lying on the beach towel beside his chair, and vaguely wondered why he didn't carry a cell phone.

 Marni sat in the early June sun under a cloudless sky. She was very tired, but too uncomfortable to sleep in the heat. Mr. Neighbor did not do anything but lie there, so Marni took to watching the toddler, a little girl about three years old. She had a plastic bucket and shovel, and was industriously filling her bucket with pool water from the edge closest to Marni. The little girl's mother glanced at her occasionally, but was preoccupied visiting with another woman. Marni watched uneasily, growing anxious over the possibility of the little girl's falling into the water.

 Soon the child straightened with a bucketful of lovely pool water. What to do with it? She looked with transparent intentions toward the sleeping man on the chaise. Marni raised two fingers to cover her smiling lips. Mommy was not watching.

 As the little girl tottered toward the chaise with her burden, Marni held her breath. Then with admirable swiftness and accuracy, the child dumped the bucket of water on Neighbor's taut, tan stomach.

 He sat up with a gasp and grabbed the little girl by her belly. Before Marni could react, he had lifted the child like a model airplane, crying, "Sweetheart, that was COLD!" He rolled her playfully in the air and she squealed in triumph. Mommy promptly came over and plucked her from his hands. The child screamed in disappointment.

 Neighbor watched her go, then seemed to do a double take when he saw Marni. She turned her eyes away as if it all were not the slightest bit interesting, but had trouble repressing her smile.

 He lay back down with his hands behind his head. Marni stared at the sunlight rippling on the pool. You dropped your guard, and I saw something about you I wasn't supposed to see, didn't I? she thought.

 "I was a father once, for about six hours," he said. Marni cautiously turned only her eyes. There was no one else near them, but he was looking straight ahead. "She was born with hydrocephalus, and lived about six hours."

 Marni turned to look at him. He angled his head slightly toward her, but neither could see the other's eyes for their sunglasses. "I'm sorry," she said softly.

 He said nothing. A moment later his beeper went off. He picked it up to look at it, then took up his towel and left.

 Marni stayed by the pool for about twenty minutes to see if he would come back down. When he did not, she gathered her things and went back up to her apartment. Before going in, she glanced down to the parking lot. The motorcycle was in its place.

 As Marni came in, Jill looked up from the television. "How'd it go?" she asked with a touch of sarcasm.

 "The nut is cracking," Marni replied, going to her room.

Copyright 1997, 2004 Robin Hardy

Buy the book here.

back to top