‘Sounds like a sweet deal,’ said Luke. For a homeless child thief. ‘What went sour?’
‘Old man Cheung got sick and sold the shop. A couple of weeks later a street boss offered me a job I didn’t want to take. Maddy said it was time for me to move on and that she knew of a place.’
‘You trusted her?’
‘She said there was this sensei who took students and he was like this warrior monk or something. She said we could walk there and that I could leave any time.’
A monk, eh? Luke shook his head. Maybe there were some similarities between Jake’s dedication to martial arts and the celestial path a spiritual man might walk, but Jake a monk? Hardly. ‘So Jake takes you in on Madeline’s say-so, gives you food and a room and you steal his wallet? Where’s the sense in that?’
‘I wasn’t going to steal anything from his wallet. I just wanted to know what was in it.’
‘Why?’
‘So I could find out more about the sensei.’
‘How?’
‘From his cards and his receipts. From driver’s licence and the picture he keeps behind it.’
‘Jake keeps a picture behind his driver’s licence?’
‘Of a woman,’ said Po. ‘Could be Singlish. Chinese hair, western eyes.’
‘Ji,’ said Luke curtly. ‘Jake’s ex.’
‘Ex what?’
‘Wife.’
‘Monks have wives?’ said Po.
‘No.’ Jake didn’t deserve the responsibility that went with having a curious child thrust upon him, thought Luke grimly. He really didn’t.
It took them twenty minutes to get to where Po wanted to go, a set of garbage bins in an alleyway beside an allnight noodle bar. There was a drainage grate set into the wall behind the bins, big enough for a hand and elbow, but not a boy. Hell of a moneybox.
‘Can you keep watch?’ asked Po as he slipped behind the bins.
Curiosity over what might lie behind the grate warred with Luke’s need to protect the boy and his doings from the eyes of others. Every kid had a cupboard, he tried to reassure himself. This was Po’s. No need to know what else was in it apart from clothes and the money the boy wanted to retrieve. Trust was a two-way street and had to start somewhere, right?
Madeline had seen something in the boy worth rescuing.
Jake had trusted Madeline’s judgement enough to take Po in.
Judgement.
Madeline.
Po and his cupboard.
Cursing himself for a fool, Luke strode back to where the alleyway met the street and leaned against the wall, a bystander or a player, it didn’t matter. Just another tourist watching the show.
Ahead of him lay five more days in the vicinity of Madeline Delacourte.
Behind him lay a tiny thief with his hand up a drain.
Madeline didn’t linger long in Jacob’s presence after Luke and Po had disappeared. Long enough for a question or two from Jacob that she hadn’t wanted to answer, that was all.
‘You want to talk about what you’re doing to my brother, Maddy?’
‘No.’ Talk was overrated.
‘Do you need me to tell you that if you play him, and hurt him, we may not be able to remain friends?’
‘No.’ She already had that bit figured. She’d had a younger brother too. Once. She picked up her handbag. Jacob stood aside to let her pass. ‘I know the thickness of blood,’ she said quietly. And the fragility of friendship. ‘I wasn’t playing your brother for sport, Jacob. I wasn’t playing him at all.’
She didn’t know why she’d done what she’d done with Luke Bennett.
‘Maddy…’ Jacob’s gruff voice stopped her in the doorway. ‘Even if you’re not playing with him…don’t hurt him.’
Madeline smiled faintly. ‘You care about him a lot, don’t you?’
‘He’s my brother.’ Jacob ran his hand through already untidy hair. ‘I care for you too. As a friend, you understand. Not as a…’ Jacob appeared to be at a loss for words. ‘You know.’
‘I understand.’
‘Good,’ he said awkwardly. ‘Because I don’t want you getting hurt either.’
‘I understand.’
‘Good,’ he said again. ‘So that’s settled, then?’
‘Definitely.’
‘See you tomorrow.’
‘Can’t wait.’
Madeline stepped out of the dojo, hailed a taxi, and headed for the nearest gin and tonic, silently rueing the day she met her first Bennett brother and thanking her lucky stars there’d been a ten-year interim in which to get used to the breed before she’d met her second.
Jake took one look at his wallet sitting in the toaster and headed for the Scotch.
CHAPTER FOUR
MADELINE kept her lunch appointment with Jacob and Po the following day, never mind that staying away from the dojo while Luke was in residence seemed by far the better option. She had a burning need to help the runaways of the world find their way home, and if that wasn’t possible then she would find them a place where they could flourish and grow as children should grow. Strange as it seemed, Jacob’s dojo was such a haven.
Half-grown outcasts felt comfortable there. Madeline felt comfortable there, never mind that martial arts could be a brutal sport and Jacob had no mind to soften it. The dojo rules were fair and clear and utterly unbreakable.
If Po could abide by such rules, Jacob would see to it that the kid thrived.
