“Yeah, thanks for the heads up,” I muttered as he drew further away from me. Someone had been following me. I’d had that feeling several times, but had never seen anyone. This just confirmed it. Strange, I thought it strange he’d used the same words as Liam. I wondered if it was him, still watching me. I shook my head, because that seemed unlikely since he’d made no effort to contact me since I’d left. Still, I made my mind up to delay my daily jog until the afternoons.
Back at the loft, I was showering off when I heard my cell ring. I jumped out of the shower and hurriedly toweled off. Grabbing my phone, I checked to find Dana’s number lit up. My heart sank. I realized I was hoping it was Liam. Shaking my head, I hit redial.
“Hey, Kel. Where are you? Why didn’t you answer?”
“I was taking a quick shower after my run. What’s the matter, Dana?” I asked warily.
“Why does something have to be the matter?”
I laughed. “Because that’s the only time you ever call,” I replied, pulling my shorts on as I tried to hold the phone on my shoulder.
“Well, this time it’s to return your property. Rick’s mother gave us her old car, so I’m bringing yours back to you. Rick had to come to Austin for work, so I had him follow me so I could ride back with him. We’ll be there in about thirty minutes.”
“Good…thanks, Dana. Your timing is perfect,” I said with relief. I’d been bumming rides every morning with Tana since leaving Liam. We didn’t always go in at the same time, and I’d been fretting about it.
“Why?” she asked, sensing turmoil in my voice.
“Liam and I broke up, that’s all. So I’m on foot again. I guess I need my car.”
“You broke up? Why?” I could hear exasperation in her voice.
“It’s complicated, Dana. I’ll talk to you when you arrive,” I replied as I sighed.
“Okay, well…I’ll call when I get there. We’re in kind of a hurry, so if you could meet me downstairs it would be good.”
“Sure…yeah. I’ll meet you,” I replied as I hung up.
I’d barely dressed and returned to the loft when Dana texted me she was downstairs. I ran down to the lobby, finding her and Rick standing beside my car.
“Kelly-cat!” Dana ran toward me to hug me.
“Where’s Masen?”
“My neighbor is keeping him till we get back. I’m sorry, Kel, but Rick has to pick up a part for work, and we’ve got to head straight back,” Dana apologized as she held me at arm’s length.
“No, it’s okay. I understand,” I murmured.
“Kelly, you’ve lost weight, and you’ve got dark circles under your eyes. What’s going on?” Dana demanded as Rick paced nervously around the car. I watched him as he paced…he was good looking, in a world-worn, blue-collar sort of way. He flipped a cigarette butt on the ground and crushed it out with the toe of his boot as he glanced up at me, catching me as I looked him over. I quickly glanced back to Dana.
“I’m just tired. It’s been a tough week.”
Dana searched my eyes and shook her head. “Why did you and the hunk break up? Did he cheat on you?” she asked.
“No, nothing like that. I broke up with him,” I finally offered, knowing she wasn’t going to let it go.
“Why in heaven’s name did you do that? He seemed crazy about you, and he’s insanely good looking,” she exclaimed as she pushed a strand of hair back behind my ear.
“It’s complicated, Dana. We’re just from two different worlds. It just wasn’t going to work,” I retorted.
“I saw the news story too, Kel. I know what you’re thinking! You need to rethink and revise, big sister. I’ll bet you did everything you could to make yourself inferior. You always do. When are you going to…” she trailed off as I cut her off.
“Dana, I know. I’ve got it. Just let me work this out. I need some time.”
Dana picked her bag up from the sidewalk and motioned for Rick to go.
“Just remember you deserve him, and you deserve to be happy, Kelly. You and I clean up just like those sorority girls at UT you used to hang out with, remember that.”
I glanced down at my tennis shoe as she hit a nerve. She was dead-on about my self-esteem issues. “You can call me anytime,” she finished as I nodded.
I had a strange thought as I gazed at her. Just like the last night she’d called me, she seemed like the adult, responsible one. For once I wasn’t solving a crisis for her. I sighed and pulled her into one last hug, and then she turned and climbed into Rick’s pickup truck, waving as they pulled away from the curb. Was it possible she could finally be growing up? I looked down at the keys in my hand and remembered the last time I’d left her. I felt the same unease, as if maybe things weren’t as good with her as she led me to believe. Maybe I just wasn’t used to her solving her own problems. Anyway, there was nothing I could do about it.
After they’d disappeared from view, I climbed in my trusty car to move it to the parking garage next door. Remembering my gun under the front seat, I reached and sighed with relief as I pulled it up into my lap. It was like re-acquainting with an old friend. The unease I’d been feeling about being watched was suddenly lessened by the feel of the gun in my hand.
* * *
My roommates were out for the evening. Since I’d been back in the apartment and in my normal routine, it seemed Sunni and Jen were always out partying and Tana was practically living with Tom. I was on my own again.
Prue purred and rubbed against my legs as I wandered around the kitchen. Nothing sounded good to me; my appetite had been crap since my break-up with Liam. I stared into the fridge, deciding on a cup of yogurt for me and some questionable lunchmeat for the cat. After I’d chopped up the meat and placed it in her bowl, I grabbed a stack of mail I’d put off going through and I hopped up the metal stairs to my loft. Snuggling down under the covers with my mail and a week’s worth of Austin newspapers, I settled in for the night.
The usual bills were quickly tossed to the side, along with a fashion catalogue I knew I couldn’t afford to order from. A tan envelope near the bottom of the pile caught my eye. My curiosity peaked as I noticed there was no return address. I opened the envelope to find a hand-written note.
We seem to have gotten off on the wrong
foot. Covington has an unfavorable
impression of me due to our past association.
I want to set the record straight.
A young girl on her own could
surely use a hand up
from someone who might
have her best interests at heart.
Meet me next Friday at noon
at Ruth’s Chris on 6th Street.
I look forward to our meeting.
Johnston-Reeves
I sat up in bed, dumping all of the mail into the floor. It was just a note, but several emotions washed over me at once. He had my address. He knew where I lived. He wasn’t going to let our chance encounter go from his mind. Liam’s father had obviously cut his campaign contributions to him. I knew Reeves would do whatever it took to try to convince Liam’s family--including buying me off. My skin felt clammy, and as nausea crept up my throat, the muscles tightened as I gritted my teeth.
“No way,” I shook my head, talking to myself in the stillness of our empty apartment. “I won’t knowingly meet up with him again.”
I crumpled the note in my hand, and then threw it on the floor as I crawled back into the bed and pulled the covers up to my neck. My first thought was to call Liam, I knew he would handle Reeves for me if I asked him. I shook my head, trying to keep the tears at bay that the thoughts of Liam had invoked. I sank down deeper in to the comforter on my bed and turned the volume up on my I-pod.
I shuffled the songs several times, trying to push Liam’s image from my thoughts. While I studied an ad for activities at Lady Bird Lake, images of Liam running beside me, urging me to try the rope swings into the lake on one of our afternoon jogs pulled my lips into a smile. When I refused
to try one, Liam had simply picked me up and chunked me out into the water as if I’d weighed no more than a football. I broke the surface and shrieked his name, but he was gone – nothing remained but his shoes. He’d kicked his Nikes off and bailed in after me, surfacing right under me and catching me in a hold high up on my waist, placing his eyes at breast-level. His blue eyes sparkled at the sight my wet sports bra offered, the temperature obvious as my nipples strained against the fabric.
The vivid memories of the kiss following and the activity below the surface of the water heated my face instantly, stirring a longing so hurtful that I clutched my arm across my chest. Jerking the ear buds out of my ears, I let the silence of the apartment wash over me. As I tried to clear my thoughts, I focused on the hum of the ancient refrigerator in the galley and the sound of Prue scurrying across the wood floors in the great room downstairs, chasing the dust-motes floating through the late-afternoon rays of sun.
A loud thud followed by a muted curse broke the silence. I bolted up, staring at Prue, who had suddenly appeared at the foot of the bed. She licked her hind leg lazily, seeming totally unconcerned about the noise. I’d just settled back against the pillows when the cat froze, her ears raised in alarm as she stared through the break in the curtains – as if she were following someone moving downstairs. She launched herself from the bed just as I heard the wooden floors creak in the living room. The only person who weighed enough to make the floorboards creek was Tom.
“Tom…Tana?” I called out into the silence. No one answered. Remembering my gun, I slipped out of bed and reached under the nightstand to retrieve it. I crept to the opening in my draperies. Quickly checking the safety, I pulled the right curtain slowly back and eased the nose of the gun around the opening. A large shadow passed in front of the windows, sending my heart racing in my chest.
“Who’s there?” I called out again. With no comforting reply from my roommates or Tom, my apprehension grew, for I knew there was someone else in the apartment. I glanced behind me toward the chest at the back of the loft where my dead cell phone lay. I’d forgotten to plug it in the charger. Not wanting to move, I fibbed as I called out into the open room.
“Whoever is out there, I’ve called the cops! They should be here in less than five minutes,” the words quivered in the air as my voice croaked. I sounded much weaker than I’d intended.
Footsteps in the hallway outside the apartment drew my attention away from the downstairs. Fueled by anger at myself for being such a coward, or the hope there might be someone coming home, I scurried down the stairs, my gun clutched tightly in my right hand. As I turned loose of the metal rail with my left, I swung the gun the length of the open living room. Nothing stirred there.
“I might be a lone female, but I have a gun, and I know how to use it,” I called out. I slid my shoulder to the corner of the wall, and then stole a glance around the corner where the galley kitchen sat in darkness.
An arm shot out, grasping me around the shoulders.
I screamed a half-scream, the intruder’s gloved hand covering my mouth as it escaped my lips. As he wrestled me with his other arm, I clutched the Sig 9mm far down my leg, my greatest fear was that he would dis-arm me and use it against me.
“Shut up, whore, you have this coming,” he hissed through a ski-mask into my ear. Terrified, I tried to calm my nerves, going over all the things in my mind you were supposed to do and not do in this situation. Nothing came to mind, except a knee to the groin or fingers to the eye-sockets, neither of which would help me at the moment with my arms pinned to my sides and my attacker clutching me from behind. Nothing registered, except the acceleration of his hot breath on my neck as I struggled against his rock-hard body. He was really large; as large as Liam or Tom.
A loud noise in the street outside broke the assailant’s concentration. As his head swung toward the window, I gazed down, contemplating my gun still clutched in my right hand. The tip of his boot was directly in the line of fire…it was just enough. I squeezed the trigger gently and closed my eyes as it went off.
“You BITCH,” he roared, releasing his hold on me. The mangled end of his shoe was apparent as he glanced down, then back up to look at me, his eyes red with rage through the holes in the mask.
Without hesitating a split second, I sprinted for the open window across the room, hoping once I was on the fire escape, a crowd of people would surely gather on the street, drawing attention to my predicament. The assailant reached the window ahead of me, knocking me roughly to the side as I raised the gun again, this time managing to point it directly at his chest. Hesitating but a moment, he bailed through the window and flew down the metal stairs.
I sat down shakily in the floor, the Sig now pointed directly at the apartment door. I could hear muffled, hurried footsteps up the back staircase.
Afraid now he might have an accomplice, I screamed at the noises behind the door. “I’ll shoot, so help me…I will,” I screamed, my gun still leveled at the door.
A loud bang sounded when someone rammed the door. “Kelly, damn it, open the door,” Liam’s voice boomed out.
My hands shook violently as I lowered the gun.
“KELLY!” he called again, frantic as he struggled with the door handle.
“I’m coming, wait.” I pushed shakily to my feet and stumbled over to the door. Before I could reach it, it pushed open violently, striking the two chains holding it. I finally managed to unlock the chains and swing the door open, jerking Liam in to the apartment. Catching himself, his eyes locked on mine as he carefully reached up and took the gun from my aching hand. I’d clutched it so hard throughout the ordeal my hand was cramping around it. After he’d placed the gun safely on the counter, he grasped both my wrists and looked me over. I was shaking violently now, my legs like jelly.
“Kelly, what happened? I heard you scream, then a gunshot as I came up…”
“Someone was here, and I shot him,” I replied, deadpan.
“WHAT? Are you hurt?” he asked, his eyes widening. “Where is he?”
“No, I’m fine. He jumped out the window onto the fire escape,” I whispered. All my strength seemed to ebb out of those last words.
Liam hurried to the open window and peered out. “Is this how he got in?” he asked, turning back to me.
“I guess. The door was locked with the dead-bolt. I haven’t checked the back, the window wasn’t open, before…” I replied. That was it. My legs gave way as I crumpled.
“Shit, Kel…” He was there before I hit the floor, cradling me against his body and lowering me on the sofa. I was aware of his hands on me, checking for injuries and placing me gently into the pillows. As he cradled my face in his hands, his thumbs wiping softly across my cheekbones I realized I’d been crying. When had I started crying?
“Kelly, you’re safe. I’m here,” he murmured, placing a kiss on top of my head. He continued to hold me close as he pulled his cell from his pocket and dialed a number.
“Scott, where are you?” As he spoke into the phone, his breath brushed my ear. I shuddered, remembering the hot breath of the assailant on my neck. I tried to remember anything I could from the fifteen or twenty seconds he’d held me--his cologne was familiar, somehow. I’d smelled it somewhere before.
As Liam watched me, my eyebrows drew together suddenly. He’d called Scott and not the police. Somewhere in my brain this thought triggered unease. He’d also opened the apartment door before I flipped the dead-bolt.
I searched his eyes while they scanned the apartment and then came back to rest on me.
As he listened to Scott on the other end, his gaze softened while he watched me.
“No, come back here. Call the police, we need to make a report. What?...Yeah. Kelly said she shot him. That’s probably why he was limping.”
After he hung up, he slipped his cell into his pocket and then took me by the shoulders as he searched my face.
“Kel, you said you shot him. Where did you shoot him?”
�
��Um…his toe. I shot at his foot, while he had my arms pinned from behind.”
Liam’s gaze darkened, his eyes shooting across the open space, stopping at a splintered indention in the floor where the bullet had grazed the intruder’s shoe and hit the wood on the floor. He turned back to me, more concern on his face as the minutes passed.
“He had his hands on you?”
His eyes once again roamed down my body, checking me for signs of abuse. I knew what he was asking.
I nodded. He shut his eyes, seemingly in pain.
“Only for a few seconds, until I was able to fire the gun. I think…I think he heard you, and it distracted him enough for me to fire. He let go, and I ran to the window. Before he could grab me again, I aimed at his chest, and he jumped,” I finished, barely in a whisper.
“Did he say anything to you--threaten you?”
I took a deep breath and looked up into his eyes. “He called me a whore, and said I had this coming.” I shuddered violently.
“You’re in shock,” Liam murmured, grabbing a throw off the end of the sofa. As he wrapped the blanket around me, there was a knock at the door. “Lie still, baby, I’ll get it,” he said, rising and kissing my forehead.
He crossed the room and opened the apartment door to find Scott and an officer already there. Before I had time to re-arrange myself on the sofa, my apartment was full of people, with several police officers and my roommates filling the space. After the officers had interviewed me twice and checked my concealed gun permit, they photographed the scene, finger-printed the window and surrounding area, and then left with the promise they’d phone if they got any leads.
After everyone cleared I settled back into the sofa. Liam had brought me a bottle of water and some Tylenol earlier, and I sipped on what was left of the water as he watched me from across the room. He stood with Tom and Scott in the kitchen, murmuring in low tones. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back into the cushions. Soon his footsteps striding across the room caused me to tense up.
“Kel, are you all right? I know you must be in shock,” he said as I opened my eyes.
Texas Hellcat Page 20
