up at all the signs, around at all the stores and cars and down at all the concrete. It was all she’d dreamed it would be.
Stopping before she made herself dizzy, she drew in a breath and set her focus on her first necessity.
Money made the world go around and she needed to find a way to make a few bucks—seed money—to get her world spinning.
Her smile increased upon noticing a newspaper stand across the street.
Ask and you shall receive!
She stepped off the curb and walked between two parked cars. When there was a break in traffic, she took the opportunity and hurried forward to cross the street.
Out of nowhere, a sound, or flash of color, had her looking left.
A big red car was barreling right at her.
Shirley leaped backward, but her feet went out from beneath her as a screech the likes she’d never heard before scared the very soul out of her body. The next second, her rump landed on the pavement so hard her teeth nearly rattled out of her mouth.
* * *
Walter Russell shut off the engine of his Packard at the same time he threw open the door. Thank goodness the roadster had mechanical brakes on all four wheels, otherwise he would have hit the woman. He didn’t think he had hit her, but couldn’t see her over the hood. She’d gone down while his brakes were squealing like a stuck hog.
Where had she come from? It was as if she’d shot right out in front of him on purpose.
He rounded the front of the car, saw her sitting on the pavement and ran closer. “Are you all right? Are you hurt anywhere?”
Eyes wide and mouth open, it was a moment before she shook her head. “My behind is throbbing and my teeth are stinging ’cause this here pavement is a hell of a lot harder than dirt. I can tell you that. And hotter. Boy-oh-howdy but it’s hot. That sun is doing its job.”
He held back a grin, because it certainly wasn’t funny. Not even her thoughts about the pavement. She just looked so cute, so startled, sitting there, shaking her head.
Walter gave his head a clearing shake. “Here,” he said, taking ahold of her arm. “Let me help you up.”
She pulled her arm away. “I can get up all on my own. Been doing it every morning since the day I was born.” She let out a tiny giggle. “Well, dang near since then.”
He stepped back as she planted her heels and palms on the pavement, then arching her back, she literally leaped upright. It was a smooth, somewhat graceful movement, just one he’d never seen done before. And wasn’t overly sure he’d seen it this time. She was a little thing. The top of her head barely came up to his shoulders. That could explain why she was so agile. How she’d hopped up off the ground like some acrobat in a circus show.
“Hand me that suitcase, would you?” she asked, nodding toward the Packard as she picked up her handbag.
He spun, and frustration washed over him. The suitcase had landed on the hood of his roadster. His brand-new roadster. He’d owned it less than a month. Gingerly, he lifted the hard-sided suitcase off the hood, checking to make sure none of the bright red paint had been scratched.
It didn’t appear to be. The chrome Flying Goddess of Speed hood ornament appeared undamaged, too, so did the big chrome headlights on both sides of the ornament.
“Well, give it here,” she said. “Why’d you try to run me down like that?”
Walter handed her the suitcase as more frustration filled him. “Run you down? I wasn’t attempting to run you down. I’d just pulled away from the curb and you jumped out in front of me. There is a city ordinance against jaywalking. You can be arrested for that.”
“Arrested?” She took a step back. “For what?”
“Jaywalking.”
“Ain’t never heard of that.” A deep frown wrinkled the smooth skin between her brows. “What is it?”
“Jaywalking?”
She nodded.
Between her accent and knowledge, it was apparent she was not from California. Had most likely just stepped off the train from some Midwest town. That was where most of the newcomers came from. The center of the nation. He’d been born and raised there, smack-dab in the middle of nowhere, and had been happy to leave. “It means you can’t cross the street in the center of the block. You have to walk to one corner or the other.”
She looked up the road, and then down it, before turning to look at him again. “Now, why would I want to walk all the way to that there corner?” She pointed up the street. “Or all the way down to that there one.” She pointed to the corner behind him. “When where I want to go is right there.” She pointed directly across the street. “Makes no living sense to me.”
Yes, she was most certainly from the Midwest. Walter pointed to one, then the other corner. “Drivers know to watch for pedestrians at the corners.” He then pointed at the road before her. “Not in the middle of the road.”
Her short blond hair bounced as she shook her head. “Well, they better learn to. It ain’t that hard. Folks back home do it all the time.” She gestured at his car. “You need to learn it, too.”
A horn honked. “Get out of the road!” a driver shouted while steering around the Packard.
Walter ignored the driver. “No, you need to learn not to jaywalk. Better yet, why don’t you just walk back to the train station, on the sidewalk, and go back home.”
Her eyes, a deep blue, narrowed and darkened as she planted a hand on her hip. “I just got here and no one is going to make me leave.”
A part of him felt sorry for her, the other part was thoroughly disgusted. Not by her, but by what she expected. Los Angeles was full of newcomers. Just like her. All dreaming the same dream. “Look around. The streets aren’t lined with gold and the beds aren’t made of rose petals.” That was what the magazines made people believe, and believe they did. “Go home. You’ll be glad you did.”
“No, I won’t. I came here planning to stay, and stay I will.”
“Plan on becoming a star, do you?” He huffed out a breath. That wasn’t a dream. It was a nightmare. One he was still living.
“No. A singer.” She squared her shoulders. “Folks back home say I got the voice of an angel.”
He shook his head. She’d find out sooner or later, so he might as well tell her. “There are no angels in Los Angeles.” Just a lot of devils. He personally knew several of them.
She lifted her chin a bit higher. “There are now.”
He should just surrender. Leave her to her head-in-the-sky dreams. “Where are you from? Kansas? Oklahoma?” Her accent wasn’t deep enough for Texas.
“Nebraska. And I ain’t going back.”
He remembered wanting to leave that state, and had left it, only to discover there were times that he
