The Time in Between

by Kristen Ashley

  This meaning he’d also have to process his way to understanding why he felt such an overwhelming urge to demand precisely who the fuck this Walt guy was.

  Even though, fuck him, he knew why he had that urge.

  Instead, keeping tight control, he asked, “Can Walt drop everything and do it tonight?”

  She bit her lip before she said, “Maybe, if I terrify him with the knowledge that someone may want me dead. But then he’ll only come to kidnap me because he’s that kind of guy, but even if he wasn’t, his wife is that kind of woman. So maybe I should just say I’m feeling a little weird about not having one and ask him to get around to it as soon as he can. He’s still here with his guys doing up the apartment over the garage, though this afternoon they’re off because they laid floors this morning and they can’t walk on them until they’re set. But I’ll only have to wait until tomorrow at most.”

  Walt had a wife.

  And they weren’t done working on the property so Cady would only be alone at night and the rest of the time a team of men would be on the premises.

  Coert relaxed.

  “How about we just say you’ll have one tonight because I’m installing one tonight?”

  “Coert.”

  “Cady.”

  He said not another word, and for some reason her body locked.

  He didn’t have time for that.

  She had a dog. A dog that was reportedly vicious in protection of its owner. And Coert had no idea if the dog understood the concept of Cady at that juncture but he had a hunch the dog understood the bag of food and the couch, so if she wasn’t there yet, she was closing in.

  So he could rest on that for an hour or two.

  He had to get to the station and see how far his men had gotten with his orders. He had to order an alarm installed at Kim’s place. And he had to get to the hardware store to get a peephole. Then he had to get to Kim and give her a photo of Lars Pedersen.

  “I’ll text before I show,” he told her.

  “Right.”

  “Locked doors, always, Cady.”

  She nodded. “Right.”

  He looked to her still in her cap with her hair bunched out around her cheeks and neck.

  He looked to her dog that appeared fast asleep.

  Then he walked right out the door.

  Guts and Balls

  Cady

  Present day . . .

  “OKAY, NORMALLY I’D CALL KATH with all this but I can’t call Kath and tell her that the drug dealer my ex-undercover-cop boyfriend brought down is firing a swath of vengeance, literally, across the United States, headed toward me. She’ll lose her mind. Pat will lose his mind. Then the Moreland dominoes will fall and I’ll be shunted back to Colorado, maybe never to see my lighthouse again. So I have to tell you.”

  Midnight lay on her belly on the couch, ears perked, eyes alert and on me as I paced in front of the fire.

  “So, girl, it’s going to be you who I share that I think I may be a little touched in the head, that I’m far less concerned about the fact Lars is literally firing a swath of vengeance with Coert and I as his final targets than I am about Coert showing up here in a few minutes to put in my peephole.”

  When I stopped talking, Midnight wagged her tail.

  “No, no.” I shook my head, moving to her, squatting by the couch and giving her head a rubdown.

  She licked my wrist.

  I admonished, “It isn’t exciting. It feels exciting because we spent a whole two hours together without any shouting or alternate verbal devastation. But we must remember,” I held her face in both hands and looked in her brown eyes, “Coert does not like us.”

  Midnight whined and shuffled a little toward me on her belly.

  “Okay, you’re right. He likes you. Very much. You were a very good girl when he put your collar and lead on and you just sat right down at his feet at the pet store. That was very smart of you to show what a good girl you could be. That’s why he’s the sheriff, and still he stole that doggie treat right there from that canister and gave it to you. But it wasn’t really stealing since he told them at the cash register he did it then he paid for it.”

  Midnight panted.

  She remembered the doggie treat.

  Or maybe she remembered Coert giving it to her before he bent over her to give her a full body rubdown, murmuring in his deep voice, “That’s a very good girl.”

  It was a long time ago but I remembered when he gave me a full body rubdown, and he might not have said I was a good girl but he showed he felt that way and I liked it a whole lot.

  “It’s not good I’m having these thoughts five minutes after he texted to say he’s coming over to install my peephole,” I muttered.

  Midnight kept panting.

  I looked into her intelligent eyes and decided to change the subject.

  “Tomorrow, we’ll go for a walk around the fence so you’ll get to know your new home. And after Coert brings down the bad guy . . . again . . . we’ll take walks on the coastal path. Does that sound good?”

  Midnight just kept panting.

  So I raised my voice an octave and asked, “Does that sound good, girl?”

  She gave a soft, “Ruff.”

  “Yes,” I said. “That sounds good.”

  I straightened, moved to the fire and then grew worried about the fire.

  Patrick had several fireplaces in his house in Denver as well as several in his cabin outside Vail. He loved having fires and he’d taught me how to build them. Thus, since I moved into the lighthouse, I had fires every night. It made the space seem even more warm and cheery, not to mention it provided heat, which was needed in Maine for certain.

  But looking around the room with its big, plush, chocolate couch that dominated the space, the club chair and ottoman squeezed to the side, the thick throw rugs over wood floors, the heavy iron light fixture that hung in the middle of the room, the curved, dramatic iron candleholders, the décor in warm earthy tones with deep blues intermingled, that fire burning made it look like a seduction scene.

  All I had to do was light some candles and put on Barry White, and Coert would walk through the door and then he’d walk right back out of it.

  I looked to Midnight. “I shouldn’t have started a fire.”

  She tipped her head to the side.

  “I mean, we got along for two full hours and maybe even longer but only because both our lives are in danger.”

  Midnight just stared at me.

  “He’ll go back to hating me once he catches Lars.”

  Midnight got up, jumped off the couch and made her mostly graceful, part lumbering way toward me.

  Watching her, I refused to think about her back leg. This was because I was rich. I could hire my own investigator. I could find the owners she’d had who’d hurt her. And I could shoot them with the gun Coert was going to give to me.

  But if I did, Coert being a good policeman would catch me and I’d go to jail and then who’d take care of Midnight?

  She snuffled my thigh with her nose and I bent over her to give her head another rubdown. “Okay, I won’t go shoot your ex-owners. But I’m not saying I won’t dabble in voodoo curses.”

  She licked my wrist again.

  Approval.

  Voodoo curses it was.

  She then went on alert, her head jerking to stare at the wall, and I jumped when she then made an almighty racket, barking ferociously at the wall.

  Coert was there.

  Or somebody was.

  Best early warning, indeed.

  Midnight made her way to the door, still barking but doing it louder, faster, more ominous.

  A knock came on the door and she stopped barking and started growling, teeth bared, as I followed her there, cautious, cooing to her and telling her it was all right.

  She tried to shuffle me away from the door so I took hold of her collar and whispered, “Good dog. Good Midnight. You’re such a good girl. But it’s okay. We’re okay.” Before I called ou
t, “Who’s there?”

  “Coert!” Coert shouted.

  Midnight started barking again but I kept a firm hold on her collar, gently pushing her back as I reached long to the bolt and kept shushing her with, “It’s just Coert. You know him. He’s okay.”

  I turned the knob, and with my hand still on Midnight’s collar, I held tight as the door opened. Coert looked to me, to my barking and growling dog, and then he immediately crouched low.

  “See. It’s Coert. He’s friendly. You know him. He’s nice. We like him,” I said to Midnight.

  “Good girl,” Coert murmured, slowly lifting his hand toward the dog. “Takin’ care of Cady. Good girl.”

  “He’s nice,” I said. “See?” I shuffled to him but held on to her collar. “He’s friendly. He’s here to look out for us.”

  Midnight made a growling, cautious approach toward Coert with me. The growls started intermingling with whines before she did a few sniffs of his fingers, more, got closer then bumped his hand with her nose.

  He scratched behind her ears, still murmuring, “That’s it, Midnight. Make sure it’s all good for Cady.”

  I let her collar go when Coert engaged his other hand, they got to know each other again and finally Coert said to the dog, “Now get back, girl. Gotta get my tools and get this door shut on the cold.”

  He straightened slowly and moved her back a bit before he turned toward the door, grabbed a big toolbox and a plastic bag he’d set on my front step, brought them in and closed the door.

  It was then, his eyes came to me.

  “Hey,” he greeted.

  “Hey,” I replied.

  God.

  It came out breathy.

  I tried to mask that by stating while indicating Midnight with a hand, “Obviously, she works.”

  He glanced at the dog before looking back to me and saying, “Yeah.”

  We stood there staring at each other.

  Okay, now what did we do?

  Coert knew the answer to that because he lifted the bag and toolbox and said, “Best get on this.”

  “Right,” I mumbled.

  “I got peepholes, Cady, but I also got the stuff to give you a speakeasy.”

  “Sorry?” I asked.

  “A speakeasy,” he repeated. “I’ll cut a box, make a door, weatherproof the edges and put it on hinges with an inside bolt so you can open it and look out. Better range of vision than a peephole, and you get your guy to put something decorative on the outside, looks nice and’ll fit this place better than a peephole.”

  I knew what he was talking about and he was right. Peepholes were for hotels. Those little doors were much nicer and you’d expect one at a lighthouse.

  But I also considered this with some surprise.

  Back in the day, Coert hadn’t given any indication he was a man who had a toolbox the size of the toolbox he had right then. He was not that fixer-upper, dig-in-and-sort-problems kind of guy. The truth was, we hadn’t been together long enough for anything to get fixed up, and the entire time we’d been together, we’d lived together in his friend’s place so it wasn’t exactly ours to change anything. But still, he just didn’t seem like that sort.

  Years had passed, I knew. You lived and learned how to deal with things that came along, I knew that too.

  But it still surprised me he could cut speakeasies into doors.

  And this knowledge settled on me like a weight. A weight that drew out the lightness I’d felt earlier when we’d talked (for once without it being ugly) about what we’d been through that long time ago.

  Obviously I’d told Patrick all about it. I’d also told Kath and all the girls. I knew Pat and Mike and Daly knew too.

  But talking to them about it wasn’t the same as talking about it with Coert.

  He’d been there. He knew Maria and Lonnie and Lars. He knew how intense and ugly that situation was, like only someone who’d been involved could know.

  He didn’t just commiserate that I was dragged into something so ugly.

  He got it.

  I’d never had that.

  And there had been something that felt nice about talking with him about it earlier. Like we were a two-person support group, the only two people who could belong.

  But now I was being confronted with all the time that had happened in between. Confronted with the fact Coert had lived a life where he got a toolbox, the tools in it and had learned how to do things because experience and years and life had taught him how.

  Experience and years and life I had not been a part of.

  “So, what do you want? Peephole or speakeasy?” Coert prompted.

  “Speakeasy,” I answered.

  He nodded and immediately turned to the door, set down the box and muttered, “Gotta go out and grab my saw.”

  And with that, he opened the door and walked through it.

  Midnight woofed.

  I instantly felt even more uncomfortable and at a loss of what to do.

  I knew he wasn’t there to share a drink or do a chore and then be paid back by staying and having dinner.

  But his matter-of-fact, get-on-with-it attitude told me he simply was there to do what he needed to do and then leave.

  I moved to the kitchen to find something for myself to do.

  I decided to pour wine. I had no beer for him because I no longer drank beer. But he probably wouldn’t accept one anyway.

  Feeling deflated and then feeling more deflated because I knew I had no reason to feel deflated in the first place, I opened a bottle of red and poured myself some wine. I kept my eye on Midnight when she woofed again, dashing to the door as Coert came through it carefully, eyes on the dog, murmuring to her as she gave Coert another sniff then started to wag her tail and crowd around him as he got down to work.

  “I don’t have beer but would you like something to drink?” I asked to be polite.

  But drat it all, for other reasons besides.

  “I’m good. This’ll take a bit but not too long,” he replied, not looking at me, looking for a socket in which to plug his electric saw with its thin blade.

  Apparently he was very much a fixer-upper kind of guy if he had one of those. I couldn’t fathom what anyone would need to cut enough of to have a tool with a plug to cut that much of it. And I felt relatively certain that he didn’t offer the service of giving every single woman in his county a speakeasy so she could make sure she knew who was behind her door before she opened it.

  Coert went to work on the door at the same time he went to work ignoring me (but not Midnight, who he talked to a lot as he worked, mostly because she was excited about his activity and getting in his way, his handling of her something that was sweet and I found it highly attractive, something I had to go to work on ignoring).

  I also went to work answering meager emails, mostly replying to Verity about a possible visit that I’d been looking forward to planning with her but now I regrettably had to find a vague way to postpone, because I didn’t want her around when Lars was on the loose.

  Then I started randomly online shopping, this being random because I was a woman who needed nothing so I had nothing to look for.

  But no woman actually needed nothing, and I proved that true when I found a fabulous, quilted microfiber, memory foam dog bed that had personalization and cost a veritable fortune (for a dog bed) that Midnight had to have.

  I was ordering it when Coert said, “Got a Dustbuster?”

  I looked to him then down to the floor where the shavings were, back up, and I saw the little door with the little hinges and little bolt and tiny knob that was very attractive, and my stomach sank that he was done.

  “I’ll take care of it, Coert,” I told him.

  He nodded and moved to the other door and my stomach flipped that he was going to stay to do both.

  The stomach flip was not good.

  None of this was good—guard dogs, guns, speakeasies, men firing swaths of vengeance—but insanely I felt that stomach flip was the w
orst of all.

  Midnight moved to help him and I moved to the small utility cupboard Walt had put in at the end of the kitchen where I kept cleaning supplies and plugged in my Dyson handheld.

  Midnight was as enthralled with my noises and movements as she was with Coert’s, dividing her attention between us as I vacuumed up the shavings. Then she went back to Coert when my paltry chore was done.

  I went back to my laptop.

  Coert came to me twenty minutes later when he was finished.

  “My boys know you’re a possible target so they’re gonna be driving out here regular to check on things,” he stated.

  I looked up at him from my stool and nodded, wondering how he explained to “his boys” that I, too, was a possible target. That being a possible target along with their boss.

  “You order an alarm to be put in?” he asked.

  I nodded again and told him, “Midnight and I researched that and made an appointment while you were gone.”

  This time he nodded. “I got a piece, a little .22. Got a friend, handin’ it off to him. He’s gonna meet you at the range in Blakely. I’ll text you the address, you text me some times you can meet him and I’ll set it up.”

  So Coert wasn’t going to show me how to use his gun. His friend was.

  Definitely done with spending time with me.

  Definitely deflated.

  “Okay, Coert.”

  “He’ll show you how to handle it, load it, fire it, give you safety lessons. You won’t use it. Just backup security. In the unlikely event you do use it, it’s a .22. The damage it can cause when it comes to guns is not as much as other calibers. So unless you got great aim, that kind of gun is about slowing him down, not killing him. Does that make sense?”

  “Yes,” I repeated.

  “You comfortable with that?” he pushed.

  I was really not.

  I nodded.

  “You go somewhere, be sharp and keep eyes on mirrors to spot if someone is following you. And don’t walk the coastal paths unless you have your phone and dog with you, or preferably not at all until I get this guy caught.”