The Perfect Husband

by Lisa Gardner

  “But it’s just a plant!” As she said this, however, she was eyeing the cactus with suspicion and taking a step closer to J.T.

  “It’s a particularly talented plant.”

  He released her arm, then stepped away. He was definitely cagey.

  In contrast, she felt optimistic. She didn’t care how much oatmeal J.T. made her swallow or how many laps she swam, she’d never be able to compare to a man’s strength.

  But a gun . . .

  As J.T. lifted the small, silvery semiautomatic out of the case, she nodded. She was going to become a master marksman. That would be her advantage. Jim might be stronger than her and he might be faster than her, but not even the omnipotent Jim Beckett could outrace a bullet.

  In the hot, dusty desert of Nogales, Tess was going to become the next James Bond—licensed to kill.

  And she would stand there in the shadowed room, watching Jim step out of the closet like the real-life monster no one wanted to imagine. She wouldn’t cower anymore. She wouldn’t shake. She would not beg for her life and she would not fear for her daughter. She would stand, tall and regal, her face as cool and composed as Marion’s. She would point her .22, watching Jim suddenly freeze, suddenly pale, and suddenly realize that now she was the one in control.

  “Can I hold it?” she asked quietly.

  J.T. lifted up the gun, then froze when he saw the gleam in her eye.

  “It’s not a toy,” he said sharply.

  “I hope not.”

  “Keep the safety on, never place your finger on the trigger until ready to shoot, and don’t ever point it at a person, even in jest. Those are the rules.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  J.T. shook his head. “You just don’t get it. You ju—”

  “Is that the target?” She turned away from him, her veins humming with heady adrenaline. Twenty-one feet from her, two bales of straw sprouted from yellow Arizona dust. Red and white ringed targets were attached to the front of each bale by thick nails in the corner. The targets weren’t that far away. They were good-sized. She thought she could take them.

  J.T. didn’t say anything, but she felt his gaze on her as he gave her the semiautomatic. She held it out and practiced looking down the sight. She’d held a gun a few times before. Fired one a few times. Hit a man.

  She knew more than J.T. suspected. She liked it that way.

  “When can I take the safety off?”

  “Take the safety off? A—you’re not wearing earplugs nor eye protection. B—the gun’s not loaded. C—where did you learn that awful stance?”

  His harsh words briefly dimmed her euphoria, but she nodded. She was there to learn. He would teach her.

  J.T. tossed her earplugs and eye goggles, shoved a box of bullets in his pocket, and wrapped his body around hers.

  “Here, like this.” His arms sandwiched hers, bringing her arms up straight and adjusting her grip. His groin cradled her hips and his thighs burned into her legs. Something hard and unyielding pressed into her left buttock. The box of bullets, she thought. Her stomach felt hollow.

  J.T. adjusted her arms and legs as if she were a mannequin. “We’ll start with the Weaver stance which uses two hands for better control while twisting your body so you make less of a target. Face to the side, feet slightly apart for balance. Now extend your right arm toward the target, using your left to pull your arm against your chest and secure your grip. There you go. Now look down the barrel. Don’t squint. You’ve been watching too many Dirty Harry movies.”

  He withdrew. She almost fell.

  “What do you see, Angela?”

  “Straw?”

  “No shit. Pick a ring, any ring.”

  “The bull’s-eye,” she said fiercely. She made the mistake of moving and lost her stance. He arranged her once more, looking impatient.

  “Shoulders down, arms straight. Tuck the butt of the gun in the V between your index finger and thumb. Grip it firmly. Now, see the front notch on the gun?”

  She nodded.

  “That’s your front sight. You want to align it perfectly between the two rear sights. Then you want to aim at the target so the bull’s-eye sits right on top of your aligned front sight, like a full moon. Got it?”

  She nodded vigorously. “Can I take off the safety?”

  “Fine. We’ll do a dry run first so you can get used to the feel of the trigger.”

  “All right.” It took her four tries to push the safety down.

  “Okay,” J.T. continued crisply. “You have a Walther .22 semiautomatic pistol there, just like the one you were carrying. It’s not a powerful gun and it’s not super accurate, but it’s small, easy to conceal, and reliable. If you’re at close range, you’ll hit something. So for you, that means let the attacker get in close, aim for the chest, which is the biggest target, and once you start firing, don’t stop. You wing someone with a .22 and it’s like grazing a charging lion—you’ll only piss him off.”

  “How reassuring.”

  “Align your sights. Find the target. Take a deep breath, exhale slowly, then hold the rest of the air in your lungs, and pull back the trigger steadily. Okay. Fire.”

  She squeezed the trigger. The first pull was long. Her arms bounced up and her elbows locked, but the trigger came back easier than she’d expected. The trigger mechanism clicked dully in the silence, gutless without bullets. With more enthusiasm she followed up with quick, short jerks of her index finger, all that was now necessary for the double-action pistol.

  “Congratulations,” J.T. informed her. “You just killed a cloud.”

  He taught her how to load the magazine, then showed her how the gun locked open when the last shot was fired. With a push of a button the old magazine was released and she could pop in a new one. Simple. Easy. Foolproof. The gun held six bullets in the magazine plus one in the chamber, giving her seven tries to get things right.

  She put in the earplugs, donned her goggles, and leveled the loaded gun at the sacrificial bales of straw. She fired the gun, then leapt like a scared jackrabbit at the noise.

  “Let me be more specific,” J.T. drawled beside her. “Before you pull the trigger, open your eyes.”

  “I did.”

  “Uh-huh. Try again. Hammer’s already cocked back from the first pull, so you don’t have to squeeze too hard. Remember to actually hold your breath while squeezing the trigger. Otherwise, your arm automatically jerks up when you inhale, and down when you exhale. You want to minimize your arc of movement. If it helps, picture my head on the target.” He smiled sweetly.

  She pulled the trigger six times. She finally hit the hay bale. The target remained unscathed.

  “Sugar, I didn’t know you cared.”

  “Shut up.” She no longer felt cocky or triumphant or ready for battle. How could anyone miss with seven shots?

  She tried thinking of the zone thing. She tried picturing her daughter. She thought of that night in the basement, her hand wrapped around the cow’s heart, thinking it was a real heart, a real human heart.

  She swayed on her feet.

  J.T. caught her elbow.

  “Maybe you want to try again tomorrow,” he suggested quietly.

  “No. No, I have to be able to do this.”

  “It’s not such a great thing to know how to do, shooting a gun.”

  She pulled herself together. “It’s the only thing.”

  He was silent for a moment. He shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’m just the teacher.”

  His hand slipped off her elbow. She stood alone. He rammed a fresh magazine into the gun and handed it to her.

  She fired the first bullet. Her trigger pull was jerky, and she missed the hay bale altogether. Furious and frustrated, she bobbed the gun down and pulled back the trigger with vengeance. She finally hit the edge of the bale, then she hit it again.

  Four more shuddering shots, each more difficult than the first, and she still didn’t hit any red rings on the target.

  The gun emptied. Her ears were rin
ging. She continued to pull back the trigger until J.T. removed the gun from her grasp. Her face was ashen, her eyes dry. She couldn’t look at him. She stared at the hay bales and wondered how she could do so badly.

  “What are you going to do, Theresa? Hit me, beat me, shoot me? We both know you’re not that tough. You couldn’t even stand up to your father. You couldn’t protect your mother. You’re nothing, Theresa. Absolutely nothing, and I own you.”

  Stop it, stop it, stop it. She wanted him out of her head!

  “Angela,” J.T. said sternly, “you’re thinking too much.”

  “I swear I’m not thinking!”

  “Find the zone. Whatever is going on in your head, block it out. Just block it out.”

  “I don’t have a zone!”

  He shook his head, suddenly furious. “You want to do this, Angela? Are you serious about this? Forget the damn gun, grow a backbone instead. You’re tough, I’ve seen it. But you’re an endurance tough, and that’s not enough. I bet when this Jim guy hit you, you took it. I bet when anyone threatens you, you curl up in a little ball and you survive.

  “Well, that’s fine if survival is all you want. But you came to me. You said you wanted to do more than wait, more than endure. You wanted to fight. So learn how to fight. Stop squeezing your eyes shut and open them wide. Stop flinching at the sound and open your ears. I don’t care what your mama told you, the weak will not inherit the earth. It’ll go to the people who can run the distance and still stand at the end.”

  “Like you,” she said bitterly.

  “You think I’m still standing? Chiquita, you are not looking close enough.” He popped the empty magazine out of the gun and in one clean motion replaced it. His arm extended. He glanced once; one second was all he seemed to need. Then his head swiveled back to her and he pulled the trigger. She flinched at the noise, but he didn’t. He kept squeezing, bam, bam, bam, bam, the concrete man in action. The gun emptied.

  His hand dropped to his side.

  The center red circle of the target had just been annihilated.

  “My God,” she whispered.

  He slapped the gun into her palm. “Stop flinching, stop jumping. Start focusing. Maybe you gotta learn to hate. I know it works for me.”

  “All right,” she said. She could hate. She hated her father for every time he pulled back his arm in rage. She hated Jim for letting her believe he would save her, then plunging her into a hell deeper than even her father could imagine. And she hated herself because she’d let both of them hurt her, because it had taken her twenty-four years to figure out she had to fight, and she still wasn’t any good at it.

  She assumed the opening stance. Picture Jim, she thought. Picture the police photos. Remember every single thing that he did.

  She gagged. She started firing. Tears were on her cheeks.

  You’re blind, you’re stupid. You didn’t see who he was. You didn’t stop him sooner.

  But I figured it out before anyone else! I stopped him eventually. I fought, dammit.

  Too late, not good enough. How could you have let him use you like that?

  I was just a kid, a mixed-up kid, and he chose me for just that reason. Because he knew how much I wanted someone to love me, how much I needed anyone to love me.

  He knew you were weak. He knew you were malleable. You didn’t disappoint.

  J.T. grabbed the gun from her hand. “Stop it!” he barked. “What the hell are you doing?”

  She blinked her eyes rapidly. Slowly he came into focus. Her ears were ringing from too many gunshots. Red dust was glued to her cheeks. She looked at him. She looked at the hay bales. Straw had flown in all directions from the top of the bales; she’d finally hit the white fringe of the target with a couple of shots. The red rings remained intact.

  “You’re not paying attention,” J.T. raged. “You’re pulling the trigger like Dirty Harry and your mind isn’t even on it. And that’s blasphemy, lady. Pure, simple blasphemy!”

  “I’m trying, dammit!” She was furious, not at him, but he was available, so she chose him. She stabbed her finger against his chest. “I hired you to teach me, dammit. If you’re so great, teach me how to fire this thing.”

  “Fine,” he said tersely. “Fine.”

  He stepped behind her without foreplay. She was flattened against his body, her shoulders molded to his chest, her hips against his groin, her thighs against his thighs. His chin settled on her shoulder and his breath whispered across her neck.

  “Point,” he ordered.

  She brought the gun up.

  “Aim.”

  She sighted the target.

  “I said aim, Angela! What are you trying to shoot? The dirt? The sky? A cactus? Two hay bales aren’t enough for you?”

  “I am aiming!”

  “Look down that barrel, woman. Picture your husband,” J.T. muttered in her ear. “Picture his face as that bull’s-eye, sugar. And give him hell for what he did to you.”

  Her body stiffened. Her arms leveled and her eyes narrowed. Suddenly she felt very calm and very cold. She sighted the target, steadied her grip, and with a triumphant flood of adrenaline, yanked back the trigger.

  The bullet sailed so far wide of the target, it was going to have to catch a train to get back to Arizona.

  She stood there, shocked and appalled.

  “Shit,” J.T. murmured, then shook his head and rolled his shoulder. He stepped back. “We’ll try again tomorrow, Angela. You have three and a half weeks.”

  She looked at the target again, then at the gun in her hand. It had betrayed her. The gun was supposed to be her advantage. If she couldn’t shoot, how could she win? If she couldn’t outfight, outrun, or outshoot Jim, how was she going to win?

  “But I hit him once before.”

  “You shot your husband?”

  “I hit him. In the shoulder. It was solid.” She shook her head in a daze. “He was moving at the time. Maybe he ran into the bullet.”

  “You shot your husband?” J.T.’s brows knit into a single dark line.

  “What else was I supposed to do? Let him beat me to death with a baseball bat?”

  “What?”

  She wasn’t paying attention to him anymore. She threw the gun to the ground.

  J.T. snapped his hand around her wrist. “Don’t do that. A gun isn’t a toy. If it had been loaded, you could have shot us both.”

  “Well, then at least I would’ve finally hit something!”

  “Don’t take it out on the gun and don’t take it out on me, Angela. It takes time to learn these things. Did you think the money would buy you a sharpshooter’s badge?”

  “You don’t get it,” she cried. Her gaze went to his fingers, tight and strong around her thin wrist. Those fingers could snap her bone the way Jim’s fingers had wrung her neck. “You don’t know, you don’t understand the things he did.”

  Her voice cracked. “I lied to you, J.T. I lied.”

  He went rigid. “I don’t like lia—”

  “I thought if you taught me it would be enough. But let’s face it, three and half weeks won’t be enough. You have to help me,” she whispered. “You have to—”

  “Don’t tell me what I have to do.”

  He released her wrist. One quick movement and he’d brushed her off as if she were nothing but a clinging cholla glochid.

  “You don’t under—”

  “Shut up!”

  She realized then that she’d been wrong. She’d thought him unaffected, but he was overaffected. His face contorted, his fists clenched at his sides. There was anger and there was rage, and then there was an emotion too potent to describe. Something had been poured into him at creation and he was consumed by it from the inside out.

  He took two steps forward and she shrank back.

  “What is it with women? Can you tell me that, Angela? You come here, you barge into my life, and what the hell, I let you stay. I tell you who I am, I tell you what I can give. And maybe I’m hard and maybe I’m crude
. Maybe I want a beer so badly I’m waking up in a sweat in the middle of the night. But I haven’t touched one, sugar. I told you what I could give, you told me what you wanted, and we struck a deal. And now you want to change the rules?

  “Now you suddenly want more and I’m the bastard for not giving more? Lady, I’ve been down the hero path, and let me tell you, the laurels don’t fit. I know they don’t fit. I don’t try to get them to fit. I don’t give a damn that they don’t fit. I will not play that game again. You hear me? I will not play that game!”

  His hair slipped free from its band and flew around his face. She could feel his hot breath on her cheek, the strength of his body bending over hers.

  She said, “Liar.”

  He stiffened as if struck. “What?” It was daylight and the sky stretched out blue and unchecked as only a desert sky could spread. But he squeezed her view down to just his presence, just his black, glowering, threatening presence.

  She brought her chin up. She couldn’t shoot a gun so she might as well talk smart. “You can say what you want, but I know more about you than you think. You’re not as cold as you pretend. You care about your sister very much. You obviously loved your wife and son.”

  “Oh, those are great credentials. My sister hates me and my wife and son are dead. I’m going back to the house.”

  “Wait.” Her hands reached for him. He slapped them down.

  “I thought you didn’t trust anyone, Angela? I thought you said you were going to take care of yourself!”

  The words stung. “I’m not as good as I thought.”

  “Learn to be better.” He yanked open the gun case, stuffed the gun and spent shells back in, and walked away.

  ELEVEN

  TOUGH DAY AT work, darling?” Marion called out with mocking sweetness as J.T. stalked back into the pool area. “Women are the root of all evil,” he growled, then stormed into the house, tossed the gun case into his safe, and locked it up tight. That detail attended to, he walked back across the living room, unbuttoning the fly of his jeans as he went.

  He thrust open the sliding glass door just in time to encounter Angela about to do the same. They both froze. He scowled first. “Rosalita will dye your hair. Three o’clock. Go eat lunch.”