Bicycle Built for Two by Alice Duncan Page A

mistake about my
intentions regarding you or your mother.”
    She watched him like a bird being stalked by
a hungry Tom cat. “Yeah?”
    “Yeah.” The word felt funny on his tongue.
“I want nothing from you in payment for helping your mother, Miss
Finney. Nothing. Not a single thing. Is that clear?”
    She hesitated. “I guess.” Her lips pressed
together again for only a moment. “But I still don’t
understand.”
    Alex felt his anger stir and strove to keep
it in check. Unfolding his hands, he poked the table with his
forefinger. “I am not a monster, Miss Finney. Nor am I an
unreasonable man.”
    She opened her mouth, but didn’t use it to
speak. Rather, she huffed softly and shut it again.
    “I am very sorry your mother has had such a
hard life. I’m also sorry that your own circumstances have been so
difficult.”
    “Huh,” she said, as if she didn’t believe
him. “I don’t need your pity, darn it.”
    Alex sighed. “Of course, you don’t. I’m not
offering you pity. I’m trying to understand how difficult life must
be for you. You have to bear far too much responsibility for so
young a woman.”
    She eyed him slantwise. “A lot you know
about it.”
    Alex gave up on that tack. She wasn’t going
to give an inch. He could practically see the chip on her shoulder
grow as he spoke. “I went to the hospital yesterday not because I
wanted to dig into your private life, but because you asked me for
a ride there. I wanted to find out why, although I acknowledge your
life is none of my business.”
    “Right,” said Kate.
    Alex didn’t take the bait. “I found out, and
I met your mother. The poor woman is very ill, as you know.” He
added the last phrase because he didn’t want her to smite him with
her well-developed sense of sarcasm. “I wanted to help her. I
suppose that in helping her, I’m also helping you, but that wasn’t
my intention, in case you wondered.”
    She eyed him sullenly. “I wondered.”
    “Well, then.” He sat back in his chair, glad
to have cleared up the doubts in Kate’s mind. “Now you know.”
    “And you don’t want anything from me in
return?” She still looked skeptical, although not quite as much as
before.
    “Nothing. I want nothing from you.”
    “Huh.”
    Herr Gross showed up with Kate’s lemonade
and Alex’s beer, and the two stopped talking. Alex sipped his beer,
glad to have something to do with his mouth besides talk.
    Kate took a delicate sip of lemonade and
looked at him again. Her expression was wary, and again Alex got
the impression of a small animal being stalked by a large one. He
decided a smile wouldn’t be out of place under the circumstances,
so he gave her one. “Do you like your lemonade?”
    She nodded and gestured at his own foamy
glass. It was a small gesture. Alex got the feeling she didn’t want
anyone else to notice her, although that was impossible since she
was presently garbed as a Gypsy fortune teller. Her costume was, to
say the least, exceptional among all the fashionably clad folks
dining in the Polish Garden. But people were, for the most part,
polite, and no one gaped at her after taking a second glance. “Do
you drink much of that stuff?”
    The question startled him. “Beer?”
    “Yeah. Do you drink much?”
    “No. I enjoy a glass of beer with these
sausages. Otherwise, I guess I don’t drink anything at all.
Why?”
    She looked away from his face. “No reason.
Just wondered.”
    Alex remembered Kate’s father, and
understanding smote him. “I’m not like your father, Miss Finney,”
he said stiffly.
    She gave him a glacial stare. “No, you’re
not. You’re rich, and you’re not a pig.”
    Alex felt his eyes open wide. “Thank you. I
think.”
    She didn’t smile, but sipped more lemonade.
Herr Gross brought two steaming platters heaped with food and set a
plate in front of Kate, and one in front of Alex. “Enjoy!” he
commanded them with a merry laugh before trundling off to wait on
others who’d