Baked with Love

by Erin Wright

  But whatever else he was going to say was drowned out in Cady’s screams. She fought and thrashed against him, using every bit of muscle she had to go for his soft parts – his vulnerable spots – the places that would make a grown man cry.

  He was holding her too tightly though, and she couldn’t get at his groin or his throat. Who was this man? Why was he attacking her? She was slamming her elbow against him as hard as she could, feeling like a tiny gnat struggling against the arms of a giant.

  He shoved something foul and dirty into her mouth and then clamped his hand over her mouth again, keeping her from spitting the rag out onto the ground.

  “Shut up!” he growled. “You cheating whore. You’d have his child and then still work for another man? You deserve this. If Jaxson won’t teach you your place in the world, I will.”

  That got Cady’s attention and she stopped for a moment, suspended mostly off the ground as her attacker held her from behind.

  Have a child? Work for a man? None of this…

  Oh.

  Ohhhhhhhh…

  It didn’t help her escape to know who was holding her from behind, but still, it strangely made her feel better. It gave a reason for the otherwise inexplicable situation that she’d found herself in. It was Sugar’s ex – the town drunk. That asshole who’d crashed Sugar and Emma’s party. He thought she was Sugar and was trying to…kidnap? Kill her?

  Her mind went spinning in a million different directions. It was dark, they both had brown hair, they were both petite, and the back door to the Smoothie Queen was just a couple of feet away from the back door to the Muffin Man.

  Plus, Richard was drunk. Stinking drunk, based on the fumes rolling off him. As intoxicated as he was right now, he probably wouldn’t have been able to tell she wasn’t Sugar even in broad daylight. Sugar’s chest was larger than Cady’s, and then there were Cady’s curls compared to Sugar’s stick-straight hair, but apparently those weren’t the kinds of details that a drunk-off-his-ass Richard was capable of picking up on.

  Bastard. Bastard. I’m going to kick you in the nuts, you bastard. You rat bastard.

  Feet still dangling off the ground, he began carrying her like a wiggling sack of potatoes, his hand clamped hard over her mouth, keeping the disgusting rag in place. “You think you have every right to prance around in public. Everyone loves Sugar. Sweet as pie, they say. They don’t understand why I’d divorce you. But you made me. I can’t tell people that. They would laugh at me.”

  She kicked backwards again and actually made contact this time, slamming her foot into his knee, the howl of pain in her ear almost deafening her. “You bitch!” he howled, but still, he didn’t drop her. She was suspended in mid-air, his arm pinning hers by her side. She wanted to get at him. She wanted to dig her fingers into his eye sockets like the self-defense coach had taught her but he was behind her and she couldn’t reach up and get at him. Her breath was short and choppy and black spots swirled in along the sides of her vision and she was going to pass out – she couldn’t breathe, he was holding her so tight and the nasty rag was in her mouth, forcing her to only breathe through her nose, and the stench of alcohol fumes rolling off him was going to choke her all by itself—

  She couldn’t blackout. She had to concentrate. Where were they going?

  She squinted through the darkness and spotted a fluorescent orange Jeep at the end of the employee-only parking lot, a vehicle she’d never seen before. It had to be his.

  Good. She was fighting the blackness, fighting him. She knew where he was trying to take her. When he tried to push her inside of the Jeep, she’d throw her arms and legs wide. Keep him from shoving her in.

  Fight him. Fight him. Every step will cost him. I won’t let him win. I won’t—

  Beams of headlights turned into the parking lot, cutting through the darkness, and even above the panic pulsing through her veins, making it difficult to think clearly, she recognized the sound of the engine. It was Gage’s truck. She didn’t know how she knew; she couldn’t see him. But she knew it anyway. He’d come for her.

  How did he know? Thank God he did, but—

  Richard let out a string of nasty curse words in Cady’s ear as he hobbled faster towards his Jeep, trying to reach it before Gage could reach them, and then they were in the path of the headlights. Screeching tires and a dog barking wildly; a door opening and boots pounding on the asphalt; a wall of muscle was hitting them, slamming them to the ground and Cady felt agony shoot up her arm, the pain so intense she lost track of the world as she just tried to breathe, curled up on the ground, the dirty rag still in her mouth and keeping her from breathing and she pushed at it with her tongue, wanting it out of the way, wanting a lungful of fresh air more than anything else but she couldn’t get the damn thing out; it was too limp and large and somehow clinging to her teeth like barnacles on a ship.

  It finally registered somewhere in the back of her scattered mind that her arms were free now, and maybe she couldn’t use her right arm to pull out the rag, but she could use her left.

  She rolled off her left arm that’d been pinned beneath her and tugged at the rag, throwing it as far as she could away from her, and her mouth, dry as the Sahara, had the most awful taste in it. She tried to spit but she couldn’t gather up enough moisture. Heaving, breathing, trying to push the darkness away, trying to focus on something other than the pain radiating through her upper arm.

  The sounds started to register then – flesh striking flesh. The growls of a dog. “I’ll kill you,” Gage was roaring as the blows kept going. “Teach you to pick on women half your size. Kill you!”

  Cady rolled to her knees and then to her feet, cradling her arm, trying to see through the darkness. The beams from the truck headlights almost made it more difficult to see what was going on, as the two men showed up in sharp relief in the light and then disappeared into the darkness under the beams, rolling on the ground.

  Cady scrambled for her purse, digging through it for her phone. Hurry, hurry, hurry! You need to get help! Find the phone! Where’s the phone?! Adrenaline was making her shaky but finally, finally, her hand closed around the slim device and she pulled it out with a shout of triumph. Shaking, her vision intermittently clouding and then clearing from the panic shooting through her, she dialed 9-1-1.

  “Sawyer City dispatch, how may I help you?” an old, querulous sounding man said on the second ring.

  “Need help. Please, send someone. We’ve been attacked.” She could hear the fists and the yells and the barks and she thought she might throw up. “Please.”

  “Where are you?” The grumpiness was gone from the man’s voice and he was all business. Calm. “What is around you?”

  “Behind the smoothie shop. And the bakery. In the parking lot behind. Dickwad attacked me. Gage saved me.”

  “Dickwad?” And now the man sounded slightly amused. “Don’t hang up,” he said, professional again. “Stay on the line with me. I’m dispatching officers right now. Gage who?”

  “Gage Dyer. Owns the Muffin Man.”

  “That must make you Cady Walcott,” the dispatcher said under his breath; a statement, not a question.

  This cut through the panic and pain washing over her. What the hell… “How do you know that?” Cady demanded, shocked to her core.

  “Small towns,” the dispatcher said dismissively. “Officer Miller is on her way. Can you see what’s going on? Talk to me – tell me the scene in front of you.”

  Even as Cady turned, trying to focus through the bright lights and the inky midnight darkness, she could hear the faint wail of sirens. They’re coming. Thank God, the police are coming. A woman. Can she handle two grown men, though? They’re both so big.

  “Cady, what’s happening in front of you?” the dispatcher snapped, bringing her attention back to the present. “Talk to me.”

  “They’re fighting,” she said. “I think Gage is on top now. Our dog is biting Dickwad’s ankle. Good girl!” she called to Cream Puffs. “Bite
him hard.”

  The dispatcher let out a rusty laugh that sounded as if it hadn’t been used in years. “What’s your dog’s name?” he asked through his chuckles.

  “Creamsicle. No, Cream Puffs,” she corrected herself. “Sometimes Gage calls her Creamsy or Puffers, though.”

  She shouldn’t be telling him this – he didn’t care, and a part of her knew it – but her brain was so disconnected from the moment, she felt like an alien was possessing her body. Red and blue lights were flashing intermittently and the sirens were getting louder and then the police car screeched to a halt on the far side of Gage’s truck, another one pulling in behind.

  “They’re here,” she said gratefully.

  “Officer Miller and Officer Morland will take care of you. Be careful, honey,” and then the line went dead.

  Honey? I just got called honey by an old man I don’t know.

  Small towns. They’re a breed of their own.

  A stoutly built woman was running past her, yelling, her service pistol pulled and trained on the men on the ground. “Hands up! Get your hands up! Move! Gage, I know he deserves it, but you gotta stop swinging now.”

  A wet tongue swiped the palm of Cady’s right hand, jostling her broken arm, sending a sharp wave of pain through her body, an involuntary shout spilling from her lips. Cream Puffs whined uncertainly, and then a male officer was there, putting his arm around Cady. “You’re okay, ma’am, you’re going to be fine,” he said in a deep soothing voice. He spoke into his shoulder. “We will need an ambulance here. One hurt female. Two potentially hurt males. Send two buses – I don’t think we ought to cart them to the hospital together.” He let off on the button on the radio as it crackled to life, people calling back and forth as he turned back to her. “Where does it hurt?”

  Cady shook her head, mute. There was a big man standing right there. His arm was around her. She knew he was there to help her – at least, the sane, calm side of her did. But still, underneath it all, it throbbed. What if, what if, what if…

  She was shaking so hard she couldn’t stand any longer and she found she was on the ground, sitting on the dirty asphalt, Cream Puffs licking her face and whining, the cop trying to talk to her, the lights flashing, and then the darkness closed in and she knew no more.

  Chapter 24

  Gage

  How was it that it kept being Abby who had to break up the fights between him and Dickwad? Gage didn’t tend to get into many fistfights, but the last two that he’d been in had both been with this worthless piece of shit, and both had been broken up by Officer Abby Miller.

  It was a damn good thing he liked her so much; when she’d tried to pull him off Dick, he’d almost punched her instead. He’d checked his swing just inches from her face as he’d realized who it was that was pulling on him, the momentum of the swing making him stumble forward, almost pitching to the ground himself.

  “It’s Abby,” she’d shouted, bringing up an arm to deflect his wild swing.

  Gage was grateful that he’d managed to check himself at the last moment – not only because he genuinely liked Abby and would never punch her if he was in full control of the situation, but also because he didn’t figure Wyatt would be too understanding about his wife sporting a black eye because of him. Wyatt was more lanky than Gage and Gage could probably take him in a fair fight but still…

  A pissed-off Wyatt Miller wasn’t a pretty sight.

  Gage pressed the cold compress the hospital had given him harder into his eye socket as he looked down at Cady’s sleeping form. She’d been in and out of it since the police had arrived and then the ambulance had taken the two of them to the county hospital, Dickwad trailing in his own ambulance behind – a damn good thing or Gage might’ve been tempted to get a few more punches in while the bastard was strapped to a gurney. Fair or not, Gage didn’t care. Dickwad obviously didn’t mind beating up on women half his size, so why should Gage care about taking a few swings at the guy when he couldn’t defend himself?

  They’d drugged Cady up good and well when they got there because she’d kept fighting everyone, even him, as they’d tried to run x-rays on her arm, put an IV into the back of her hand, even clean her superficial wounds with alcohol wipes. She hadn’t been there with them in the room, though – she’d been fighting her own demons, screaming and flailing around, shouting gibberish, and he knew that she didn’t have a damn clue of what was going on. The medical professionals, clearly confused by her reaction, had struggled to figure out how to handle her until Gage had told them bluntly that she’d been sexually attacked previously. She was reliving that.

  One of the aides jabbed her in the thigh with a sedative then, and she’d been heavily drugged ever since. Gage had hated breaking her confidence; had hated telling these people who were strangers to her about the darkest, deepest secret of her life, but they had to know. The situation didn’t make sense otherwise, and they wouldn’t have been able to help her.

  He only hoped Cady would understand when she woke up.

  He stroked the frizzy curls away from her delicate face, her elfin features perfectly matching her tiny body. She looked like one strong wind would blow her away, but Gage knew better. The fight she’d put up earlier…

  She was a damn sight tougher than she looked.

  She stirred a bit under his hand and he sucked in a breath of anticipation. She was going to wake up, and then…how would she view the world? Would she be back to hating everyone and everything, distrusting every man because of the actions of Richard Schmidt?

  “Water,” she croaked, flicking her tongue across her lips, but unlike the countless times that she’d done that before and desire had flooded through him at the sight, this time only worry and love filled him. There wasn’t a damn thing about Cady in that moment that cried out for sexual attention, but love?

  That’s what she needed in that moment.

  Well, and water.

  He hurriedly picked up the plastic cup fitted with a lid and straw that the nurse had left on the tray earlier, and held it up to Cady’s lips. She sucked the water greedily, the water dribbling out of the side of her mouth in her clumsiness, but she wouldn’t let him pull it away.

  Finally, after sucking the cup dry, she laid back against the pillow, looking drained. “Where are we?” she croaked, her eyes closed, looking as if she was going to drift back to sleep at any moment.

  “The hospital. Valley County Hospital, to be exact. You broke your arm; they had to cast it.”

  She shook her head violently. “I didn’t break it,” she rasped, and Gage paused, trying to figure out how to respond to that comment. Was she still not in touch with reality? He’d seen the x-rays. Her humerus was most definitely broken. A clean break, the doctor assured him, and she would make a complete recovery. “That rat bastard broke it.”

  Gage choked for air, sputtering, and then roared with laughter. “I thought we’d decided to call him Dickwad,” he said, wiping the tears of laughter from the corners of his eyes. He couldn’t believe she’d had it in her to make him laugh like that. Not at a time like this.

  “You may call him Dickwad if you like,” she retorted weakly. “I prefer Rat Bastard.”

  He picked up her hand, stroking the top of her thumb with his. “Well, that rat bastard is just down the hallway from us,” Gage said. Only a slight tightening of her hand on his revealed that she’d heard him. “Last I heard, they’re thinking about transferring him to Boise. He might need reconstructive surgery on his face. Again.”

  “May he hit every pothole along the way,” Cady said solemnly, as if pronouncing an Irish blessing upon her attacker’s head, and then finally forced her eyes open. He gazed down into her golden brown eyes, squeezing her hand, stroking her hair, trying to direct his love towards her, like an invisible ray of feelings. “You’re bandaged up,” she said, pulling his hand up into the air so she could look at it closer.

  “Dickwad’s face kept getting in the way of my knuckles,” he said with a s
hrug. “Funny, that. No matter where my fist was aimed, it always seemed to meet with his face. Or his stomach. I’ll admit that it met his stomach a couple of times. Oh, and my elbow seemed to make frequent contact with his windpipe.” He shrugged casually as she snorted a little with laughter. Listening to her laugh – he could do that for the rest of his life. “Now that you’re awake, we need to call the police, though. They’ll want to take your statement. They already took mine, but they said they’ll need yours in order to really make the charges stick.”

  Her relaxed demeanor, her laughter, her open trusting expression, disappeared. “‘Make the charges stick’?” she repeated, and he could feel her body tense up on the hospital bed. “What do you mean? Surely they couldn’t let him out again.”

  They both heard a knock on the doorframe and looked up to see a pretty teenager standing there, holding a tray piled high with implements, bandages, and ointments. “Hi, Cady,” the girl said cheerfully. “I’m Zara Garrett, and I’ll be your CNA while you’re here. I heard voices and wanted to come check on you. I need to clean your abrasions and check you over for other wounds. Can you tell me where you hurt?”

  With one final squeeze of her hand, Gage stepped out of the room and into the hallway, giving the two privacy while he called dispatch. Hopefully Abby would still be on and could be the questioning officer. Things would go much, much better if it was a woman who was asking the questions. The grumpy dispatcher wouldn’t say, though, only promising to send an officer over now that Cady was awake.

  “Shit,” Gage mumbled, stuffing his phone into his back pocket, wincing when his split knuckles hit the edge of his jeans pocket. He looked down with a grimace. He was disgusting. Rolling around on the asphalt with that asshat, he’d probably rolled across a couple of rusty nails and some broken glass. He really ought to ask for a tetanus shot while he was here.

  He saw the flash of red and blue lights out of the corner of his eye and he looked up quickly, watching as the front doors to the hospital slid open to reveal Officer Aaron Morland.