Just a Cowboy

by Rachel Lee

  “That’s perfect,” Kelly said. “I don’t think it would scare him off, it’s so quiet.”

  “But you can hear it through the closed door?”

  “Faintly, but enough. You’re right, it stands out from all the other sounds. It’s very distinctive.”

  She had to admit that she felt better. Now she would have at least a little warning for sure. But she still wasn’t happy about what she faced. Except for some time in the trunk when she’d evidently been unconscious, and a somewhat blurred memory of the first moments when she hit the water and realized what was happening, what she did remember was enough to make her adrenaline pump.

  “I don’t know whether he thought I was unconscious and would just drown,” she told Hank now. “I can’t remember parts of what happened very clearly because he hit me on the head. But I do remember rising up out of the water knowing I was going to die if I didn’t get away.”

  “Do you remember fighting him?”

  “Yes. Yes, I do. It’s a blur, but I remember he was strong, I remember his hands squeezing my throat, and I remember he managed to dunk me a few more times because I couldn’t get my purchase on anything with my feet. But once I did…” She trailed off, part of her wanting to erase the memory entirely, and part of her knowing she had to remember as much as she could so she knew exactly what she was up against.

  “Adrenaline helped,” she said finally. “I’m sure it did. And the self-defense classes I’d been taking. Once when he pushed me under I punched his groin.”

  “What finally got him to run?”

  “I went for his eyes. But I also think he was as worried about alligators as I was. I mean, it was one thing to throw me off the bank. It was another to have to be in the water with me.”

  “That would make a difference, all right.”

  “He jumped in when I surfaced and gasped for air. I remember that. I think he thought he could finish me off fast. I mean, from what I can tell, I was unconscious until I hit the water. I only vaguely remember a little bit of the time I was in his trunk.”

  Hank nodded, clearly pondering what she was saying. “I don’t think he’s going to expect it to be quite as easy this time.”

  “Because I fought?”

  “Like a wildcat evidently.”

  “So he’ll be prepared for that this time.” It almost sounded like a question, even though she meant it as a statement. In it she could hear her own rising level of fear. Her heart was beating faster now, and she felt queasy. It was going to happen again, maybe tonight, and this time he’d be expecting a fight. What if he came with a gun?

  “He wanted to make it look like an accident last time,” she said tentatively. “Wouldn’t that be his goal now, too? Especially after I complained to the police that I thought Dean was trying to have me killed?”

  “I can’t read minds. But yeah, he might want to accomplish the same end.”

  “Then he might try to kidnap me again. Without leaving any signs here that he’d hurt me or that we’d fought.”

  He frowned. “You’re not making me feel any better. What exactly are you thinking?”

  “I’m not sure. There’s no way to predict, anyway. It just occurred to me, when I thought that he might come with a gun, that he probably wouldn’t do that. Links might be drawn back to Miami if it doesn’t look like an accident.”

  “So you think he’s going to try the same thing again?”

  “At least insofar as getting me away from here to dispose of me.”

  “Then he’s in for one hell of a surprise. No car is going to pull into your driveway in the middle of the night without being observed.”

  She nodded, wishing her stomach would stop sinking. But it had been sinking on and off since she smelled the cologne, and even more so as the day waned. Tonight, she thought. But at least it wouldn’t come without warning.

  Unlike last time. She shuddered a little, but Hank must have seen it. At once he tugged her close and hugged her tight. “We’re going to get him,” he said firmly.

  “All I can say is, he’d better not keep me waiting too long. I’m sick of being scared.”

  And that was the absolute truth.

  “I wish I could find a way to come back here tonight,” he said. “If he’s watching, though…”

  “If he was smart enough to scope the place, he’s smart enough to make sure I’m alone.”

  A lot of assumptions she thought, wishing she could just relax in Hank’s arms and forget it all. Wishing the time they had spent together that afternoon was something she could be looking forward to repeating tonight. Wishing, always wishing.

  “I’ve been wishing for things to get better for a long time,” she told him, her cheek pressed into the hollow of his shoulder. “It just suddenly struck me—I’ve been wishing my life away.”

  “Until you left Dean.”

  “Not really. I’ve been wishing the divorce was final for a while now, too.”

  “And now you want this night over.”

  “Yes. And I wish I could spend it with you instead of waiting for this guy.”

  He tightened his hold on her, and kissed her.

  “Tomorrow night,” he promised, as if there would be a tomorrow night. As if the killer would certainly fail. “Count on it.”

  She kissed him back, winding her arms around his neck, and ignoring all the voices reminding her that tomorrow could never be more than a promise. He was a man who rescued people. It was his nature. Their lovemaking, these kisses…they probably didn’t mean a whole lot to him. He was a man after all, and men didn’t feel the same way about these things that women did. Dean had sure taught her that.

  But she was perfectly willing to indulge the illusion, for a short time. Because soon, all too soon, he’d pull back and she would know it was time to go.

  Because he hadn’t exactly seemed enthusiastic about her staying here. No. He seemed quite convinced that she was leaving. If anything, he’d done his best to make this sound like a boring place to live. So he probably felt it was safe to play her lover for a few days. And she would make certain it was, no matter how much it might hurt later.

  They parted ways shortly after dinnertime. They stood out front while he made a show of telling her about the sod he wanted to lay and the garden he eventually intended to plant.

  In case someone was watching. She couldn’t imagine where someone would hide and watch, except possibly in one of the two unoccupied houses on the street. Maybe he wasn’t watching at all.

  “I’m getting sick of trying to mind-read,” she muttered as she pretended interest in the spot Hank was pointing to.

  A snort escaped him. “Then quit. I think we’ve all anticipated as much as we can. Now it’s up to him.”

  She stayed out front, watching as Hank limped back to his house. That limp looked painful tonight and she wondered if he was hurting badly or just exaggerating it for any observer.

  Trying to read minds again, she thought, and turned to go back inside.

  She paused, however, looking at the ramshackle house, the place she had rented only as a hideout. She didn’t want to go back in there. She didn’t want to be a rabbit waiting in a cage for its fate. Yet there was nothing else she could do.

  The back of her neck began to prickle with awareness that he might be watching, even if she couldn’t imagine from where. There were a couple of empty houses on the street. Would he hole up there?

  Or would he just come back tonight and enter the house the way he probably had last night? Maybe he hadn’t been there to scope out anything last night, but to kill her. If so, finding her gone would have frustrated him, but there were enough of her personal belongings scattered around to make it clear that she was staying here.

  So he would come back.

  With a deep breath, she forced herself to mount the steps and go back inside, then close and lock the door behind her. As long as he hadn’t slipped in the back door while she and Hank were out front, everything was fine for now.
Or so she told herself.

  The wind chimes greeted her with their quiet music. She had always loved wind chimes, and wondered if she would ever enjoy them again after this.

  Uneasy, she walked through the house to ensure that she was alone. She checked the mudroom and found all the windows still locked and closed.

  Not yet.

  Then she forced herself to eat a can of soup, because she had to keep her strength up, even though it tasted like dust to her. And all the while she thought about Hank.

  She kept trying to tell herself that she didn’t know him very well, but as she sat there sipping soup from a spoon, she realized that she knew the important things: He’d stepped up to help a stranger, he’d risked his life to save someone else, and he had bought wind chimes for his mother. The three seemed to her to combine into the most sterling character references a man could have.

  And not a single one of them was something Dean would have done. Heck, when he sent flowers for some occasion, his secretary always did it for him. Most of the time he knew about it only because his secretary reminded him that she had done it for him so he wouldn’t suffer embarrassment by being surprised.

  And after they married, the first few years, she had wondered if he had even chosen the jewelry he gave her for her birthday. Once he had stopped doing that, she had no doubt where those bouquets of roses came from. At first she had excused him; he was busy and didn’t want to forget. But later she realized how meaningless it was to him: He couldn’t be bothered to pick up the phone himself, or even stop at a florist’s to place the order.

  It wasn’t as if he couldn’t put reminders on his own computer calendar.

  She suspected, however, that Hank had chosen those wind chimes for his mother himself. That he had taken the time to listen to a number of them, to look them over and to choose the set he thought would please her most.

  He seemed like that kind of guy. A special kind of guy in so many ways.

  Giving up at last on the soup, she dumped it and washed the dishes. The evening yawned before her, filled with unhappy and scary memories, and not nearly enough hope for the dawn.

  Shortly after eleven, she turned out the last light, in her bedroom. She had spent the entire evening trying to read a book, staring at a single page without seeing it.

  Now, in the dark, she felt as if her nerves had been stretched to the breaking point on a rack and she didn’t know how much more she could stand.

  But he would wait, she was sure, wanting to give her a chance to fall asleep. The last place he should find her was in her bed.

  So she hunkered down in a corner of her bedroom, a hammer in hand, and waited. The storm had long since quieted, thank goodness, and the night seemed silent and still, except for the occasional car rolling past out front. She just hoped the air outside hadn’t grown so still that when he opened a door or window there would be no breeze.

  Then she recalled the way the wind chimes sounded when she just walked down the hall or through the kitchen door. It was quiet but distinct.

  She would hear it. But even if she didn’t she was in the wrong place. He’d seek her in her bed, and she wasn’t there.

  She fingered the beeper that hung around her neck, and imagined Hank next door, watching from darkened windows, keeping an eye out. Clinging to the image of him watching was her only real comfort just then.

  How long would this take? What if he didn’t come? If time still moved, it did so incredibly slowly.

  Inevitably, she remembered that awful night in Miami, coming to full consciousness in the water, struggling against reeds, hardly able to tell up from down at first. Murky waters making it more difficult, desperate for air, and at last the flash of light that directed her upward.

  Lungs near bursting, breaking the surface, gasping for air, more confused than she’d ever been in her life. Where was she? How had she gotten here?

  Her head feeling almost split, like a melon, tasting the polluted water, full of oil from boat engines and God knew what else. Dragging air into burning lungs, the panic setting in hard as the pieces started to come together.

  A glimpse of the canal bank, a glimpse of legs. Another lungful of air. A horrified word exploding in her brain: alligators.

  She had to get out. She flailed at the water and the reeds, trying to reach the bank. Telling herself to calm down, she needed to think this all through in order to save herself, but her thoughts remained scattered and her heart was pounding hard. Panic kept driving her.

  And then the awful splash nearby. At first she was sure it was an alligator coming for her…except, in some dim recess of her confused mind, she knew they didn’t splash until they attacked.

  The legs she had seen on the bank…surely someone would save her. But the legs were gone.

  “Help,” she croaked.

  And that’s when the hands closed around her throat. That’s when she knew at a visceral level exactly what was happening.

  The fight to get her feet on something, anything, for leverage. Going under again with hardly any air left. Some instinct rising in a tide of fury. She reached out to grab her attacker and felt hips. Moments later she punched him in the gonads.

  The hands let go of her throat. She rose again swiftly, dragging in more air, looking wildly about until she saw the man coming at her again. Dim on the moonless night, lit only by light that still emanated from the houses that lined the canal, little enough at this hour. But she saw enough of his face, and enough of his determination, to know the fate he intended for her.

  Then things blurred again. She remembered going for his eyes, determined to scratch them out. It was hard to move in the reeds and water, but now he faced the same hindrance.

  He pushed her down again, and this time, her mind clearer, she grabbed at his belt for leverage and then punched him between the legs, harder this time.

  She heard the howl even as she surfaced. He swiped at her, but then there was another splashing from up the canal. A gator? A person? No way to know.

  As her attacker struggled to the bank, she lit into him again, holding on to him wherever she could and pounding him.

  Alligators preferred to hunt in the evening or at night, and the splashing she and her attacker made would be inviting to any gator. The thought ratcheted up her already-screaming terror.

  The guy reached the bank. By now she was hanging on to his back and pummeling him with everything she had. Neither of them would get out of this canal at this rate.

  Some primal instinct made her let go and reach for the canal’s cement wall herself. Before she could pull herself out, her attacker had already done so and taken off running.

  As she levered herself onto the bank, she heard a car start, then watched with dazed eyes as it drove away without even turning on the lights.

  At that point, all she knew was that she had to get far enough away from the water that a gator couldn’t leap out and grab her.

  She crawled, her head throbbing as if a hammer beat on it. Across grass, across gravel, toward a porch. Toward a worried voice that must have heard something and called out. Toward a flashlight beam that steadily moved toward her.

  She shook herself now, as she sat in the corner of her darkened bedroom. That was then, she reminded herself. This was now, and this time she wouldn’t be fighting water and reeds. This time she would be ready. And this time she would make him truly sorry.

  From various windows in his house, Hank kept watch, ignoring the grinding pain in his hip, the constant ache in his back, the random pains that shot through bones that would never, it seemed, forget that they had been shattered and pinned together.

  The pain, though, was a dull background to the worry that gnawed at him. He respected Kelly’s wish to end this as quickly as possible. He respected her courage in deciding to stay alone in her house. He respected her decision not to run again.

  Hell, he just plain respected her. For all she was inclined to put herself down because of perceived past failings, all he coul
d see was a remarkably strong young woman. Being wrong about a guy like Dean was a mistake made by millions. Having the guts to get out after eight years of abuse that had certainly undercut her confidence was not something everyone possessed. As a fireman, he’d been called to many domestic violence scenes because EMTs were needed. He’d looked at women, and sometimes men, who’d been battered to within an inch of their lives. He’d seen the terror in their eyes, and he’d seen the violence in their attackers.

  So many couldn’t leave because they were terrified of what would happen if they did. Many stayed because they had been taught to believe they deserved it.

  Somehow Kelly had preserved a basic strength of character through all that—something that not everyone could. And now she was ready to face a killer in the dark and alone.

  Hell, she was amazing.

  It went against all his instincts and all his training not to just barge on over there, toss her over his shoulder and carry her to safety.

  He knew Gage would have his deputies nearby. That they, too, expected the attack tonight. He imagined them circling the area in unmarked cars, waiting for her to hit the button on her beeper, trying not to get too close or be too obvious, while still not drifting too far away.

  The thought didn’t comfort him much. In just a few short days, Kelly had come to mean considerably more to him than just a damsel in distress who needed some help. Far more.

  How much more he really didn’t want to consider, because he was sure, absolutely sure, that this tiny town couldn’t hold her for long. He no longer felt the need for excitement, and his body would no longer allow him to risk his neck to save others. What he loved here were his roots, and the quiet life after the frenzy of being a big-city firefighter. He’d had all the excitement he wanted, and now he was happy to get together with friends, old and new. His idea of a great Friday night was hanging out at Mahoney’s, or going out to dinner with Mike Windwalker and his new wife, or dropping in on Gage and Emma Dalton.