by Odette Stone
“Oh baby,” he soothed. “Sweetheart.”
“I want to go home,” I sobbed, trying to hold my ripped shirt together. I looked around in horror. Was this happening to me? What was happening to me?
He peeled off his sweatshirt and then ever so gently helped me lift my arms so that I could slide it over my head. He looked down at my face and said in a low voice, “I'm going to kill that piece of shit.”
I sobbed so hard I could barely breathe. “No, please. I just want to go home.”
He lifted me up. My arms went around his thick neck, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. He started to walk. We stopped when he stepped over the unconscious body of the man who had attacked me. And then he reached down, and with one hand, grabbed the man by the collar and started to drag him behind him.
We walked like that for the three blocks back to the loft. My face buried in his neck while I bled all over his shirt. I could hear the sound of the man’s body being dragged carelessly along the gravel road.
We got to the loft, and Jackson just dropped the guy, letting his limp head bounce on the ground.
“Is he dead?” I asked, my voice muffled against Jackson’s neck.
“No.”
He carried me up the stairs and put me gently on the couch. I curled my knees up to my chest. “You need to call the police.”
“After I tend to you.”
“Call them first,” I begged, terrified that the man would wake up. Come up here. Hurt us.
Jackson stood up and pulled out his phone. Chloe bound up onto the couch beside me and tilted her head at me. She looked at me with concern on her face.
I reached out and gently touched her nose. I vaguely heard Jackson talking. Words like assault and perpetrator. Our address. And then he tossed the phone down and crouched in front of me.
“Let me see your face,” he pulled my hand gently from my eye. His fingers palpitated my face. I winced.
“I don’t think anything is broken,” he said, “But you have a bloody nose.” He left for a moment and then returned with a cold cloth in his hands. I shut my eyes as he dabbed the cloth over my skin.
My eyes met his. “Why are you here?”
“I couldn’t stay away,” he said, his face a mask of concentration as he wiped my lip.
“How did you know?” I began to cry again.
“I got here, and you and Chloe were gone. I thought I would find you on your route. I started walking, and Chloe saw me and came towards me. Barking. Her leash trailing behind her. I heard you scream.”
I stared into his eyes, tears gushing down my face. “You saved me.”
The sound of a siren peeled from blocks away. Getting closer and closer.
“Wait here,” he stood up and disappeared downstairs. I heard the sound of car doors slamming and then voices. Heavy footsteps on the stairs and then a female cop stood looking at me. She spoke into the radio on her shoulder. Then she walked towards me.
“My name is Constable Jenkins. Do you need an ambulance?”
I shook my head. I burrowed deeper into Jackson’s sweatshirt. Where was he? I wanted him to come back upstairs.
She sat down and gave me a long look. “Want to tell me what happened?”
In a choked voice, I relayed what had happened.
“Where is Jackson?” I begged her, my eyes glued to the door.
“If by Jackson you mean the guy who’s breathing fire and looks like he wants to kill someone, he’s giving his statement to the police outside.”
I heard the slow rise and fall of an ambulance siren as it approached the property.
“I don’t need an ambulance,” I repeated.
“The guy who assaulted you does.”
I put my face in my hands. “I just want to go have a shower.”
“We’d like to take you to the hospital. To check you over and run some tests.”
Chapter 43
I sat huddled on the bed in the emergency room. A police officer asked me if they could take some evidence. They swabbed my hands and my nails. A female officer asked if I needed a rape kit. I violently shook my head.
They asked Jackson to talk to the police in another room. A female doctor came in.
“How are you doing?”
“My face hurts.”
She flashed her penlight in my eyes and then lay me back and palpitated my stomach. I winced.
“Is that tender?”
“I don’t remember him punching me in the stomach.”
“We're going to do a urine test for blood in the urine, okay? So you need to pee in a little cup, but I promise you if it comes back negative, you can go home. I don’t think you have a concussion.”
“Okay.”
I feared that Jackson had murdered the other guy and would get arrested.
“Is the man who assaulted me going to die?”
She took a deep breath. “No, the person who worked him over did an excellent job of pulverizing him to the point that he will be drinking out of a straw for the next few months, but he won’t die.”
I let out a harsh breath. The relief was so intense that stars swam before my eyes.
“Hey,” she reached over and squeezed my arm. “They say that the man is suspected of hurting a lot of women. He’s going to go to jail for a long time. You don’t have to worry about him, okay?”
She handed me a cup, directed me to the washroom and told me to hang tight.
In the washroom, I studied my face. My nose trailed crusty blood. My upper lip was swollen. My cheekbones had started to swell and bruise. I sported bruises on my neck where he had choked me. I peed in the cup, left it in the little window box, and then washed my face and my hands.
I walked back to my bed and shut the curtains. I took off my hospital gown. My bra and shirt had disappeared as evidence, so I pulled Jackson’s hoodie back over my body. It hung down to my knees. It smelled faintly of him. I put my knees up on the bed and lay my head on my knees. I needed to go home.
Jackson’s voice sounded from outside the curtain. He came in. Our eyes met.
I worked my throat. His sympathetic look made me want to burst into tears.
“Thank you for saving me,” I said in a tiny voice.
“I should have killed that asshole,” he walked over to the bed. I moved my feet, and he sat down on the side. He picked up my hand. I looked at his knuckles. They were swollen and bloody.
“Your hands, Jackson!”
He shrugged and stared at me. “Do you want me to call Matt?”
The only person I wanted to be around right now was Jackson. “No.”
We stared at each other. I tried, but I couldn’t read the expression in his eyes.
The words tumbled out of my mouth, “I wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t have my phone. I didn’t even see him. I was in my own little world. One minute I was daydreaming and then the next minute he attacked me. All my defenses, all my training was useless.”
He squeezed my hand. “Emily, you are 5-foot-nothing, and you barely weigh 100 pounds. The guy outweighed you by at least a hundred pounds. Only a bullet between his eyes could have stopped him.”
“You stopped him.”
He swallowed. “I saw Chloe running towards me and then I heard you scream. I swear my heart stopped. When I saw that asshole on you, I fucking lost my mind.”
He stared straight ahead. I could see the rage and frustration on his face. “If you hadn’t stopped me I would've killed him.”
I looked at his huge hand, holding mine. “They say that he hurt a lot of women.”
“Emily.”
I looked up into his green eyes. “Please tell me what he’s done.”
He fought to control his emotions. “They say they have tied his fingerprints to the rape and murder of nine women.”
I had a flash of that man and the cold rage in his eyes. When that man attacked me, I knew he would kill me.
“He strangled them.”
“Yes.”
“Wi
ll you please hold me?”
He moved down the bed and then lifted me against his chest. I shut my eyes and clung to him. How was I going to live without this man? I had absolutely no idea. I felt Jackson’s big arms wrap around me. This was the one place that I felt safe.
I shut my eyes. I wanted to go home.
Voices sounded outside the curtain. Two men talked quietly in front of my curtain.
“Hey, Doug, what are you here for?”
“Domestic gone bad. You?”
“Paperwork on an attempted assault. You'll never guess who they caught.”
“Who?”
“The throat slayer.”
I stiffened and raised my head. Alert and listening.
“No shit! Some lady finally have a 45 in her purse?”
“No, get this. Some woman is attacked. Her dog runs back to her place, and her friend goes looking for her. The guy is a fucking Navy SEAL.”
“You're shitting me.”
“So this SEAL fucking destroys this guy. The girl says she saw him only hitting her assailant’s face, but both his arms were broken, fifteen bones broken in his hands, nine of his ribs. His nose was broken in eight places. His jaw was broken in six places. There was nothing left of his face. Then Navy SEAL guy carries the woman back to her place, and he dragged this guy behind him like the piece of garbage he is. Doctors said his pants were down and they'll be picking gravel out of his dick for weeks.”
“No shit.” The guy laughed.
“The Navy SEAL dude? Had a couple scrapes on his knuckles.”
“Any charges against him?”
“Not even close. The chief of police came down and shook his hand. Thanked him for his civic duty.”
“How’s the girl?”
“She got lucky. No rape. Just beat up. We’re going to Ducky’s later to celebrate. If I can find the SEAL dude, I'm going to invite him.”
“Count me in. See you later.”
“You bet.”
I turned and looked up at Jackson. Green eyes looked down at me. I struggled to articulate my thoughts. The curtain whipped open, and the doctor observed the two of us lying on the bed together with Jackson’s arms wrapped around me.
“So are you the boyfriend?”
He shook his head.
“I have to talk to your friend here for a moment, and then you can take her home.”
Jackson lifted me up, sat me on the bed and with one last look at me, disappeared around the corner. She watched him walk away, and then she shut the curtains.
“We got your urine sample back. No blood in the urine,” she pushed her glasses off her face.
I nodded. “Okay.”
“But we do have high levels of hCG,” she looked at me like I should know what this meant.
I shrugged.
“Human chorionic gonadotropin, also known as hCG, is a hormone produced by the placenta after implantation.”
My mouth parted. Thinking. “Placenta?”
“You’re pregnant.”
I felt dizzy. She caught me and helped me place my head between my legs. Her soft hand rubbed my back. “I take it this is a shock.”
I stared at the floor between my legs. “There must be some mistake.”
“We ran the test twice. They were both definitive. I take it this isn’t planned?”
I sat up and blinked. “I’m supposed to get married in four weeks, and my fiancé thinks I'm a virgin.”
Her mouth parted. “Okay. That’s a complication.”
“How pregnant am I?”
“When was your last period?”
I thought back. “About six weeks ago?”
“The first day of pregnancy is counted from the first day of your last period. So that would make you approximately six weeks pregnant.”
I shook my head. “But I had a light period two weeks ago.”
“That was probably just some spotting. That’s a fairly common occurrence.”
I concentrated on breathing. “Is the baby okay?”
“Some abdominal pain is normal. Your organs are shifting, your uterus is expanding, and all those ligaments are stretching,” she said. “I suspected you were pregnant, but I wanted to rule out other things in light of your attack. If you experience any bleeding, come back.”
I couldn’t wrap my brain around this. I was pregnant. With Jackson’s baby. Jackson, the guy who was emphatic that he didn’t want children.
“So is the guy I just kicked out of here the dad?”
I stared at her. “How did you know?”
“Lucky guess,” she said wryly.
I dropped my face into my hands. “Oh, my God.”
She rubbed my back again. “Listen. You’ve had an insane day. Go home, get some rest. Drink plenty of water. No alcohol or drugs. As soon as you can, get in to see your regular doctor. And you should go on some prenatal vitamins as soon as possible.”
Chapter 44
Jackson drove me back to the loft. I huddled in the passenger seat, unable to speak. He glanced at me frequently, but I couldn’t meet his eyes. I tried to wrap my mind around everything, but my mind was blank.
When we reached the loft, he got out of the truck and walked around to my side. He opened the door, and I reached out my arms to him. He picked me up and carried me up into the loft. He continued to carry me up to my bedroom. And then we stood in my bathroom.
He didn’t say a word to me, just turned on the shower. I started to cry. With an unbelievably gentle touch, he helped me pull his sweatshirt over my head. I kicked off my clothes, and then I stepped beneath the warm spray.
Heavy emotions continued to roll over me. And then he was behind me, his huge arms wrapped around me from behind. I turned around and clung to him, sobbing my heart out. He didn’t say a word, he just held me to his chest.
When I could cry no more, he took a bar of soap and a cloth and gently washed my body. I stood there like a rag doll, unmoving as he washed every inch of me. He washed my hair. Holding my neck as he tilted my head back to rinse.
I opened my eyes and looked up at him. He had taken off his shirt, but he still wore his jeans. He inspected my face. When his eyes dropped to my bruised neck, I could see his nostrils flare in anger.
Our eyes met. This man had saved me from imminent death. I owed him my life.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
He swallowed and reached behind me, turning the water off.
Much like the time I had barfed, he dried me off. And then he picked me up and carried me to sit on my bed.
I allowed him to pull a t-shirt over my head and then held onto his shoulder while he helped me step into a pair of panties. He whipped back the covers off the bed, and I climbed in. I curled up on my side and stared up at him.
“Can I get you something to drink?” his voice sounded low.
I shook my head. I wanted to ask him to get in and hold me, but I was afraid that he would say no.
He nodded and stepped back.
I lifted my head, my voice full of fear. “Are you leaving?”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
I relaxed again. I couldn’t seem to keep my eyes open. “I feel so tired.”
“You’re coming off adrenaline. Just try and sleep. You'll feel better once you sleep.”
“Don’t leave me,” the words sounded jumbled to my ears.
His voice sounded so far away. “I couldn’t if I tried.”
I jerked awake. The room was black. I sat up, disoriented. My eyes adjusted to the lack of light. Jackson sat on a chair, his long legs crossed, his feet up on the edge of the bed. His arms were crossed, and he stared back at me. His features looked dark and angular in the dim light.
“How long have I been asleep?” my voice croaked.
He checked his military watch. “About six hours.”
I swallowed, my mouth dry. “Have you been sitting here with me the entire time?”
“Pretty much.”
I flopped back on my pillow and s
tared up at the ceiling. He had sat and guarded me while I slept. How was I not supposed to love this man? He made the task impossible.
I was pregnant. The thought jarred through my mind.
I sat straight back up, my heart pounding hard. Holy fuck. Had that been a dream? Had the doctor told me that I was having a baby?
I looked over at Jackson. “Was I at the hospital?”
He stood up abruptly and walked over to put his big, warm, hand on my forehead. “You don’t remember?”
It wasn’t a dream. I had visited the emergency room. I peed in a cup. And the woman doctor had told me that I was pregnant.
“I do remember. I'm just fuzzy on the details.”
He sat on the edge of the bed and looked at me. “You were in shock.”
I swallowed hard and stared at this huge man. A part of him was growing inside of me in the version of a tiny baby. I felt my heart start to pound. A cold wave washed over my skin, and I felt a bit light-headed.
I dropped my face into my hands and struggled not to blurt out my news. His warm hand wrapped around the back of my neck. I was in love with Jackson. He didn’t want children. And I was engaged to Matt who was lying in the hospital recovering from a brain injury. My wedding, which I had yet to cancel, charged towards me at an alarming rate. Jackson would leave in a few short weeks. And I was pregnant with the wrong man’s child.
“I feel sick,” I said, my voice muffled.
“Emily, we need to feed you. Your blood sugar levels are probably really low.”
“It’s not that,” I said from beneath my hands.
“What is it?”
I shook my head.
He got off the bed, and then he sorted through my dresser drawers. He returned with a big sweater and a pair of soft yoga pants. I stood up, and under his watchful eye, I pulled them on.
“You go on down,” I said. “I'll be just a minute.”
“You sure?”
I nodded. Not only did I need to pee, but I needed to gain control over the wild words that threatened to blurt out of my mouth.
I looked in the mirror of the bathroom. In the light, my bruises were more pronounced than they had been at the hospital. Especially the ones around my neck.
