Immediately, it was like someone had thrown a switch in my body. My chest went light, my head clouded and that slow, dark twisting began in my groin. The feelings hadn’t shrunk for being ignored; they’d grown stronger than ever. He was facing away from me and I marveled at the movement of that sculpted back as he breathed.
A floorboard squeaked and he spun around. I saw the shock in his eyes...and then the way it changed to raw, almost uncontrollable heat. There were two tables between us and, for a moment, I thought he was about to smash them out of the way to get to me.
Then his eyes flicked to the side. I could see the tension in his forearms and shoulders, every vein standing out. “You’ve done good,” he muttered.
I could barely speak. “Thanks.”
His eyes returned to me, searing into me. “They look great.”
I felt myself flush, feeling his gaze stroke down my neck and then down, down, down. “So do you,” I blurted. Then, as I realized what I’d said, “You’re early.”
“You’re late.”
“I got stuck in traffic.” I dumped the bag of fertilizer I was carrying on the floor. “What’s your excuse?”
That seemed to snap him out of his reverie. “I’m not staying,” he said. “I just stopped by to check on the place. I can’t be here tonight.” He headed for the door.
“What? Wait!” I reached out and grabbed his arm as he passed.
He slowed to a stop as my arm drew tight. It was such a ridiculous sight, like a battleship being pulled up by a rowboat. He looked down at my pale hand on his bronzed forearm as if I had all the power in the world.
We were standing so close, his trapped forearm was a hair’s breadth from touching my breasts. I could feel the heat from his body throbbing into mine. But something was wrong—his face was drawn and tight with worry. “Why can’t you be here tonight?” I asked. “You’re here every night.”
He wouldn’t meet my eyes. Another secret, I thought. “I just can’t. Something I have to do.”
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” he muttered, in a way that meant no. “But I’ve got to go.” He looked down at my hand on his arm. I slid it off him and he started forward.
“Well...okay, I’ll sleep here,” I said. “I can get Stacey to crash at my place with Kayley.”
Immediately, he whipped around. “What? No! I’m not having you here by yourself!”
“What about the house?”
He sighed. “It’ll be fine. It’s just one night.”
I frowned. This wasn’t like him. What the hell was so important that he’d put the grow house second? And that could stress him out so much? “Then why do you have to be here every night?”
He shook his head and I could hear the frustration in his voice. “Louise…”
“What if tonight’s the one night we get robbed?”
He suddenly grabbed my forearms and shoved me up against the wall, so hard the air was knocked from me. “Fuckin’ hell, Louise: no, okay? No. Just be told. What if someone did break in? What would you do?”
I just gaped at him. My feet were off the floor. His anger would have been terrifying...if I hadn’t been able to see how worried he was about me.
He gently let me down and released me. “It’s too dangerous,” he said in a softer tone. “Okay?”
I swallowed and nodded. “Okay.”
“Go home. Promise me.”
I nodded.
“Louise!”
“I promise!”
He turned to go. Then stopped in the doorway as if about to say something. Tell me! Tell me what’s going on, I screamed in my mind.
“I’ll see you around,” he muttered. And left.
Fuck. My mind was spinning. Something was obviously up with him, but what? He’d closed me out again.
I turned in a slow circle, looking at the plants. The longer I stood there, the less I wanted to leave them there undefended. What if someone did break in? If we lost them all now, there was no time to start a new crop—we needed the money for Kayley’s treatment in a month.
But I’d promised Sean.
I stood there debating for a full half hour before I finally called Stacey and asked if she could come over to my place and be there for Kayley.
“Sure,” she said. “Is it a date?”
“No!” As if I’d leave my sister to run off and sleep over at some guy’s place! “No, nothing like that. Just a...work emergency.”
“At night? You work in a garden store!”
I closed my eyes and gripped the phone so hard in my fist the casing creaked. “Stacey...I’m sorry. I can’t get into it right now. Will you just watch Kayley for me?”
“Yeah,” she said in a hurt tone. “Of course.”
I thanked her and ended the call. Dammit! I was keeping things from her just like Sean was keeping stuff from me. She deserved better.
I went out to grab takeout. It won’t be so bad, I thought. There was a mattress and some blankets and a bathroom. I spent half my life in the grow house anyway: what was one night? And the chances of anyone breaking in on that particular night were tiny. Right?
I sat at a red light, tapping my fingers on the wheel. Sean’s words came back to me. What would I do, if someone did break in?
When the light went green, I turned away from the takeout place and towards a Wal Mart. First, I bought some kitchen knives and then, after trawling through the sporting goods section, I found an aluminum baseball bat. Then I finally grabbed the takeout and headed back.
Stupid, I thought, as I sat cross-legged on the mattress with the knives spread out in front of me. I’m being stupid. Nothing’s going to happen. I made a mental note to hide everything the next morning, so that Sean didn’t see it. He’d go berserk if he knew what I’d done.
At ten, I called home to say goodnight to Kayley.
By eleven, the traffic noise outside had stopped and the house was deathly quiet. This is fine. I’ll just sleep.
At midnight, I was still lying there staring at the ceiling, willing the hours to pass, my body wracked with tension. How does Sean do this? I kept expecting to hear footsteps outside or the sound of breaking glass.
I thought about running for the car. I could be home in ten minutes, back to my safe little burrow. I could apologize to Stacey, hug the sleeping Kayley and everything would be great.
And the weed would be sitting here undefended. What if someone was sitting out there right now waiting to see if I left? What if me being here was the only thing stopping them?
I lay there for another few minutes, my mind switching back and forth. And then I heard the noise, faintly at first, so faint I couldn’t make out what it was. A rising and falling tone. I scrunched up my forehead, listening as it got louder. Wait...it wasn’t...no…
Shit!
Sirens.
Louise
People talk about the paralysis of fear. I know now what they mean. I sat bolt upright on the mattress and then froze there, listening, as the sirens came closer.
Run, I thought. There was still time. I could run for the car. If I left right now….
But I didn’t run. I sat there, digging my fingers into my knees, praying that I’d hear the sirens change in tone as they turned off down a side street. But they just keep coming.
Run! Too late to get the car started and out of the garage, now, but I could run out of the front door and be walking down the street when they got there. My house, officer? No, not mine, I was just out for a walk. I don’t know who lives there.
But my car was in the garage. The house was rented in my name. Even if I was gone when they got there...the fear clutched at my stomach, freezing liquid lead. This is not happening, this is not happening….
The sirens entered our street, so loud that I couldn’t think. All the windows were covered with Sean’s fake walls, but there were enough tiny cracks that the darkened room still lit up with red and blue flashes.
Run! Out of the back door and hope they haven�
��t surrounded the house. Get a good lawyer. At least I’d have a chance! But by then it was too late: the lights got brighter and brighter, the sirens hurting my ears. They’ll go past. They’ll go right past and it’ll all be okay—
Tires screeched, right outside, and the sirens went quiet. The whole room was alive with moving, fan-shaped red and blue patterns as the lights bathed the front of the house.
Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Car doors opened and slammed outside. Voices. Radio crackles.
I squeezed my eyes shut. Mom! How had everything gone so wrong? I was just trying to save Kayley! Now I was going to jail and Kayley was going to die scared and alone.
Footsteps. I tried to convince myself they weren’t coming my way.
Three heavy, authoritative bangs on the door. “LAPD!”
I looked around in horror at the knives and baseball bat around me. If they kicked the door down and saw this, they might shoot first. “Coming!” I yelled, and threw the weapons into the far corner of the room, under a table. Then I ran to the door, undid the locks and opened it, ready to face my fate.
A dark-haired young cop stood there, his gun drawn. “Ma’am? We have a situation out here. I want you to stay in your house and keep away from the windows.”
I just blinked at him.
“We have a suspect on the loose in this street and he’s armed. Just stay indoors.” And he raced off down the path. Across the street, I could see more officers knocking on other doors.
I slammed the door, put my back to it and then slowly slid down until I was sitting on the floor. I could barely breathe. I’d come so close to being caught. If I’d opened the door a few inches wider, if the lights had been on, if the breeze had been different and the cop had smelled the weed.... And there were still tens of cops out there, just a few feet away.
I sat there in the darkness, every muscle and tendon in my body tight with tension. Every footstep on the street outside might mean another knock at the door. Every murmur of one cop to another transformed in my mind to do you smell weed? What if the filters Sean had fitted didn’t work as well as he thought?
After an hour, the cops found their man, hiding behind some garbage cans in someone’s backyard. They left without a single shot being fired. I finally slumped in relief, a limp, exhausted wreck.
Minutes after the sirens had died away into the distance, I heard the rumble of an engine outside and then footsteps. Sean! He’d come after all. He was going to be mad as hell when he found me here, but I was so glad to see him, I didn’t care. I was going to throw my arms around him and—
I pulled open the door to greet him.
It wasn’t Sean.
Louise
There were two of them and the first thing I realized was, they weren’t surprised to see me. They grinned when they saw my face. They weren’t expecting the house to be empty and they weren’t expecting Sean.
“Who—” I started.
One of them stepped forward and shoved me hard in the stomach. I folded at the waist and staggered back, winded, catching myself against one of the tables. My eyes were on the floor as I tried to heave in air, but I heard the two of them stroll in and shut the door behind them.
“Jesus,” said one of them. A heavy accent I didn’t recognize, vaguely European. When I managed to look up, they were looking around at the plants in wonder. “So that’s what he’s doing.”
I had no idea what was going on. When they’d pushed their way in, I’d thought they were there to rob us, but they sounded surprised. If they hadn’t known this was a grow house, why were they here?
I finally managed to straighten up and get a better look at them. Two men, bulky with muscle, both with shaved heads. One of them pulled out a knife—a huge, ugly thing with a blade as long as my hand. Oh Jesus! “Who are you?” I croaked.
“We know your boyfriend,” said the other man. “He paid us a visit. So now we’re paying you a visit.”
I swallowed. “He’ll be back. He just stepped out.”
One of them shook his head. “He hasn’t been here all night. We’ve been watching this place. Would have been in here an hour ago, if the fucking cops hadn’t showed up.”
Oh Jesus. I’d had the police there. I’d had the police right there at my door and I’d wished for them to leave. My stomach turned. This was the world I’d chosen. I was a criminal, now, and the police don’t protect us.
Sean’s words came back to me: what would you do, if someone broke in? My plan seemed so stupid, now. The knives and the baseball bat were in the far corner of the room, where I’d thrown them. Idiot! And the men were looking at me in a way that made my skin crawl. When I’d bedded down, I’d kept my top and bra on, but it had been too hot for jeans so I was standing there bare-legged in my panties. I swallowed and looked around at the plants. “Take them,” I said. “Take everything.”
They laughed. And that’s when I realized they weren’t interested in the weed.
They were there for me.
Sean
It hadn’t taken as long as I’d thought. She hadn’t needed me to stay the night. A little after one, I was ready to go back to the grow house. I shook my head tiredly. All that arguing with Louise, and I’d be there most of the night anyway.
I hadn’t had a chance to eat since lunch. I figured I’d grab a pizza on the way and eat it when I got there.
But on the way to the pizza joint, something nagged at me. That argument with Louise...she wouldn’t normally give in that easily. The girl was stubborn as hell.
At the next intersection, I changed course and swung by our apartment block. Louise always parked her rusty old Japanese car in the same place.
But tonight, it wasn’t there.
“Shit,” I muttered, and drove straight for the grow house.
Louise
There was nowhere to go. There were only two doors and two of them—a man was always between me and escape. We’d taken out all the walls so I couldn’t run for a bedroom and lock myself in. I backed away across the huge room, but every time I took a step, they took a step.
“Please,” I said, my voice shaking. “Please!”
They weren’t even running. They knew they had me trapped and they were taking their time, enjoying the game. “He wrecked our grow house,” said the taller of the two men. “Destroyed it. So we’re going to destroy you.”
My back hit the wall. I was at one end of the house, looking down the long rows of tables. “Please!” I begged, my voice cracking.
The other man laughed. “Nice of him to leave us a mattress,” he said, nodding at it. “Maybe he knew we were coming.”
My insides turned to water. Oh, Jesus, no….
I bolted between two of the rows of tables, trying to put something, anything, between me and them. The one with the knife strolled down the row towards me. I turned around, but the other one was waiting for me at the opposite end.
I jumped across a table and made a run for the front door, but they darted that way as well. I dropped to my knees and crawled under a table, thinking I could maybe make it to the back door, but they just flipped the table over, exposing me and sending the plants crashing to the floor. I was screaming, hysterical, and they wouldn’t stop laughing—
And then I heard the crunch of the fallen plants as the man with the knife walked over them, stems crunching sickeningly. I tried to scramble away but, before I could move, he’d whipped his arm around my waist and hauled me to him, the denim of his jeans rasping against my bare legs. I kicked and yelled and clawed at his arm...and then the knife was at my throat and I went deathly still.
The other man stepped up in front of me, sandwiching me between them. “When your boyfriend gets back,” he told me, “he’s not going to want you anymore. We’re going to fucking ruin you.”
Tears were streaming down my face as he reached out to tear off my top. This was my punishment. This is what I got for leaving my nice, safe world and teaming up with criminals. I shouldn’t have t
ried to change Kayley’s fate, should have just accepted it and wept at her funeral like a good little girl.
No. The thought of that made the anger well up inside like lava rising in a volcano. Fuck that.
I spat in his face.
Sean opened the door just in time to see him slap me.
Sean
I’d arrived at the grow house all ready to storm in and yell at Louise for being there alone. Then I’d seen the unfamiliar car outside and it was like my stomach dropped through the ground. I’d never felt that sudden, sickening lurch before. I’d never cared about anyone enough.
I ran, not even stopping to close the car door. I burst into the house to see the two Serbians holding Louise. There was a loud crack as the one in front slapped her across the face.
The rage slammed into me, a moving wall of heat that soaked into every cell.
I was moving before I was even aware of it, long strides eating up the distance between us. The guy who’d slapped Louise looked up and saw me and I saw his vengeful grin collapse. He ran out from behind the table, fists raised—
I was dimly aware that I’d left my hammer in the car.
I didn’t need it.
I swung back and punched him under the jaw, leaning in and giving it everything I had. He went soaring backwards like a car that’s just met a semi-truck coming the other way. Before he’d even landed, I’d turned towards the other guy.
He was still holding Louise, keeping her between us, the knife to her throat. Tears were streaming down Louise’s cheeks and her eyes were huge and locked on me. She was terrified.
Dear God, I was going to kill these men.
Growing and Kissing Page 14
