Odette C. Bell - Ladies in Luck - An Unlucky Reunion

by Odette C. Bell

  “Stop fumbling, put them up now.” She repositioned the gun until it was pointing into the back of my head.

  I was no expert, but it felt like a shotgun, or at least something long and powerful.

  “Leave her alone,” Denver tried.

  “Shut up,” Annabelle snapped.

  I held the pin in my hand, pressed against my palm with my thumb as I spread my other fingers wide in surrender.

  “You had to get involved, didn’t you?” Annabelle shoved the gun hard into my head. “You offered me a nice distraction. While the cops thought I was going after you, they turned their backs on the real target. The same with dear old Nancy. But you coming here was a mistake.”

  I didn’t say a word.

  I waited.

  Waited either for her to pull the trigger, or to give me a chance to do something.

  “You dumb bitch. You had to stick your nose in. This wasn’t about you,” she croaked.

  I didn’t want to say anything, but I had to. I had to buy time. Standing there silently would likely award me a bullet in the brain.

  What I really needed was a chance.

  “Why?” I stuttered.

  Annabelle laughed. “You mean why did I do it? Country boredom,” she laughed again.

  It wasn’t a nice laugh. Neither was it a happy one. It was short and puttering like a dying engine.

  “Bullshit,” I said bravely.

  Her laughing stopped. “Do you really want to piss me off?”

  “Just leave her alone,” Denver’s voice shook.

  “Stop being so darned chivalrous. I remember you, Denver, and you ain’t chivalrous. You’re a goddamn bastard. Like the rest of them.”

  Like the rest of them.

  I narrowed my eyes.

  “You mean Hank and James, don’t you?” I asked quietly.

  She shoved the gun hard into the back of my head. I blinked, wincing at the pain, but I didn’t move.

  “You’re forgetting Frank Bishop. Though they haven’t found that body yet.” She sounded momentarily triumphant, but then she rammed the gun hard into my head again. “Are you going to try and figure out why I did it, Patti Smith? Are you moving out of self-help books into mysteries?”

  I kept on holding onto that pin.

  I’d get my chance.

  I’d have too.

  I had to keep talking. Distracting her. It was my only hope. If I were lucky, the police would arrive. I’d warned them that my car was waiting by the driveway. They just had to hurry.

  “Do you want me to figure out why you did it?” I stalled for time.

  This elicited another laugh. “You think you’re that good? Patti, sweetie, I’ve read some of your books, and you’re a goddamn idiot.”

  I was used to receiving criticism, but not at the end of a shotgun.

  I let it slide.

  “They hurt you, right? James and Hank and Frank and Denver—they hurt you in some way, and you’re getting revenge. They broke your heart. Now you’re breaking theirs, literally.”

  “Don’t you try this police psychology bullshit on me. You couldn’t possibly understand what it’s like to have your feelings toyed with, to try your hardest to be nice and decent only to repeatedly hear you aren’t worth it. The bitches like Nancy get to live happily ever after, while I keep people together and get nothing for my troubles. Do you know how many times I helped James with his homework? Do you know what happened when I asked him out to the dance? Guess. It was the same with Hank and the others. God, I tried my hardest to be nice to them, to look out for them, to do what was right and decent,” Annabelle’s voice became tensed and tight. Then she took a step back and swiveled her gun over to Denver. “Do you know what it’s like to live right but be rewarded with nothing but contempt? Fuck you for ignoring me, Denver, you were never worth it anyway.”

  I had to distract her.

  In a split second I saw the look in her eyes and I knew she was going to pull the trigger.

  “Actions have consequences, Denver Scott. You should have been nicer to me in high school,” Annabelle leveled the gun.

  “Isn’t it all in the past?” I shouted. “I might write bullshit advice on romance, but I feel obliged to point out one thing. Get over it. High school was a long time ago.”

  She turned her gun back on me.

  That’s when I acted.

  That’s when I turned around.

  That’s when I brought the pin out, twisted to the side, and stuck it hard into the back of her hand.

  She let off a blast of the shotgun, but it missed me, it missed Denver, and it lodged into a tree a couple of feet away.

  Bark spewed out as Annabelle screamed in pain and dropped the gun.

  I fell to the ground.

  I tried to grab the gun.

  She clutched at my neck.

  I elbowed her hard, but she was stronger than me.

  She was also completely unhinged.

  Gasping as her fingernails dragged across my flesh, she managed to grab the gun.

  I heard Denver try to move, but he couldn’t pull himself forward.

  I had nothing.

  Apart from the pin.

  I turned on her again and somehow managed to jam it back into her hand.

  She dropped the gun.

  I grabbed it.

  Somehow.

  I pitched backwards and rolled several feet down the hill until my back slammed up against the very same tree that had been shot.

  I heard her dash forward.

  I raised the gun.

  Sirens started to blare in the distance.

  I could hear tires crunching up the driveway.

  It distracted her.

  I’d never used a gun before.

  Then again, before I’d come back to Wetlake, I’d never had a fling with a man like Denver either or tracked down a serial killer in the woods.

  I shot the ground by Annabelle’s feet.

  She jumped back.

  Pushing into the tree behind me, I managed to stand, holding the gun and pointing it right at her.

  She stared at me. I mean her eyes locked onto mine.

  It was one of those moments impossible to forget. When the doors to someone’s soul dropped wide open and you managed to see what was inside.

  Desperation.

  Twisted desperation.

  And soul-crushing loneliness.

  Annabelle was a broken woman.

  . . . .

  I heard cars screeching to a halt, I heard people race our way, I heard guns cocking, and I heard people scream as they told me to lower my weapon.

  “It’s not her; it’s Annabelle,” Denver managed, still trying to push himself up, yet falling flat on his face repeatedly.

  I put the gun down.

  Then I glanced over at him.

  With his face pressed into the leaves and dirt, he stared back at me.

  Again I enjoyed a rare moment of staring right into someone’s soul.

  This time I didn’t see something that was broken.

  I’d been wrong about Denver.

  He wasn’t warped.

  I’d never seen warped and broken before today.

  He was just complicated.

  So was I.

  I was also quickly revising my golden rule.

  You could have a successful relationship with a complex guy, as long as he was Denver Scott.

  Chapter 21

  What happened next happened quickly. Annabelle was handcuffed and loaded into the back of a squad car, while Denver was taken to hospital, his brother riding in the ambulance with him the whole way.

  As for me, I was questioned, extensively, and eventually found myself all the way back where everything had started.

  The Lake Motel.

  In the same damn room.

  Staring at the same damn walls.

  Waiting for the same damn man.

  Two days after the incident, I woke up from a brief nap to insistent knocking on the door. I knew
who it was before I opened it.

  He stood there.

  His arm was in a sling and there were dressings over the back of his head and left cheek.

  He looked worse for wear.

  He also looked intently my way.

  Silently.

  His lips were firmly closed and he didn’t even make the slightest of sounds.

  “Are you determined to never let me sleep?” I leaned against the open door, unable to conceal my massive grin.

  His previously blank expression became slightly pink.

  “You always knock on my door while I’m sleeping,” I clarified through a curling smile.

  “You snore,” he pointed out immediately, “I was waking you up before you ruptured someone’s eardrums.”

  “And I see getting attacked by a psychotic ex-classmate hasn’t changed your charming sense of humor.”

  “Are you going to stand there berating me or are you going to invite me in?”

  I paused, controlling the natural smile threatening to turn my cheeks hard into my eyes. “I don’t know, am I?”

  “I’d rather not have this conversation outside.”

  “Conversation? Is that what we’re doing here?”

  I could see he was trying but failing to control his own grin. “I need to say thank you. And maybe I need to apologize.”

  I straightened up visibly. “Now this I’ve got to hear.”

  “Though you contravened a direct order by a police officer and by my own brother not to go after me—”

  “I saved your life,” I finished.

  His eyes blazed. “You burnt down a woman’s house and could have started a forest fire.”

  “Yet I stopped a serial killer.” I crossed my arms, starting to get defensive.

  Apparently we were done playing.

  “And stopped a serial killer,” he conceded, his voice unusually soft.

  He nodded into the room, and I took a step back, watching him as he walked in and closed the door behind him.

  He paused in silence for a moment. “Thorne told me you were still here,” he managed in a gentler voice. “I thought you would have gone back to D.C. in your electric blue pickup truck by now.”

  I swallowed. “I think I might sell the car back to the dealership, actually. I can’t really drive it,” I admitted through a polite cough.

  “I think you’re going to make a considerable loss,” Denver laughed.

  I joined in.

  It broke the tension between us.

  Then we both petered out as we looked at each other.

  “You know, we both live in D.C.,” I pointed out suddenly.

  His eyebrow flicked up, but apart from that, I couldn’t read his expression. “You don’t say? Are you pointing this out for a reason?”

  “Yeah, I thought you could give me a lift home,” I smiled.

  “Pretty presumptuous of you. I’m a very busy guy.”

  “Really, what are you doing this afternoon?” My eyes sparkled.

  So did his. “I’ll have to see what offers come up.”

  “You want me to say it, don’t you?” I realized with a kick of nerves.

  He nodded.

  “Fine, Denver Scott, stay with me. Come back to D.C. with me. Meet my dogs.”

  “Is that like taking a guy home to your parents for the first time?” he chuckled.

  “Better. My dogs won’t make you eat pot roast. But you can meet my parents if you want to.”

  “Patti,” he took a step forward, and though he favored his injured arm, that didn’t stop him from using his good hand to trail his fingers lightly down the side of my face, “this sounds kind of serious, but you haven’t even asked me out on a date. How will you know if you like me if we don’t go out on a date?”

  I snorted as I hooked my arm gently around his back.

  He leaned into me and kissed my head.

  “Fine, Denver Scott, would you like to go share a shitty motel sandwich with me out on the grass?”

  “Wow, that sounds unforgettable,” he mouthed as he kissed my head again.

  “The secret to the perfect relationship is the perfect first date, I’m told.”

  “Then a shitty sandwich on damp motel grass it is.”

  I pulled him into a proper kiss.

  His cheek was warm against mine, his lips firm as he nuzzled into me.

  Breaking away reluctantly, I suddenly got a devilish idea: “or we could drive to the back of the high school car park and snog behind the gym. I’ve always wanted to do that with Denver Scott,” I actually giggled.

  He looked thoughtful.

  “Okay, let’s do that instead,” he joked.

  “Or we could stay here,” I breathed.

  “Then we’ll stay here,” he murmured into my ear.

  Before we became carried away, I coughed lightly. “You’re injured,” I felt obliged to remind him.

  “And you’re observant. But why are you pointing that out?”

  “Because… um, it might not be a good idea—”

  “I thought we could stay inside, play cards, and exchange stories about high school. I have no intention of sleeping with you, Patti.”

  I hit him ever so lightly on the shoulder.

  Looking up into his eyes, I waited for another playful joke.

  “I’m fine,” he finally said seriously. “And thank you.”

  He kissed me.

  We stayed inside that afternoon, and not long after, we finally left Wetlake for good.

  Epilogue

  I’ve been wrong about many things in life.

  But sometimes all you need is to be right once and about the right person.

  Denver Scott sure as heck was a complex guy.

  But my teenage dreams had come true.

  He was the one for me.

  THE END

  This book is part of the Ladies in Luck Series. Another installment will be available shortly.

  Other books by Odette C. Bell

  Sci-Fi Romance:

  The Betwixt Books One and Two

  Lucky Star (#1, Out of her Time series)

  A Plain Jane Series

  Ghost of Mind

  Urban Fantasy:

  The Witch’s Bell Series

  Mythology:

  The Modern Gods Series

  Other Sci-Fi:

  The Adventures of Oatmeal Series

  Now Summon

  Super heroes:

  Electric Wonder Girl

  Supernatural:

  The Agent

  Gladys the Guard

  What is Released

  Fantasy:

  Abby the Witch