by Loree Lough
“Can I help it if I’m a tell-it-like-it-is kinda guy?”
“Yeah. When it’s convenient for you.” She smirked then winced. “Ow. Stop making me smile, will ya?”
“Hey. It isn’t my fault that you’re so easily entertained.”
Her face grew serious. “Okay, I’ll talk. But first, you have to promise me something.”
“What?”
“That you won’t put on your private investigator hat and try to find the guy. Because the last thing Mom and Dad need is for you to get into trouble.”
“Whoa. Does that mean you know the guy? Is that why you think he’ll be so easy to find?”
“Of course not. He snuck up on me. Took me completely by surprise. I didn’t see anything but the pavement, whooshing closer and closer to my face.”
It wasn’t likely the cops would share what they knew, but if he could get anything out of them…
“Promise you’ll keep things to yourself, or I’m going back to sleep.”
The heart monitor beeped a little faster. “All right. Okay. Settle down, will you?” He cleared his throat. “I promise not to get in trouble.”
“Oh, you’re a clever one, I’ll give you that.” She gave him a look that said, “I’ve got your number, pal.”
“But not clever enough. I want to hear you say ‘I promise not to tell Mom and Dad the rest of the story.’”
It wasn’t likely he’d share any information with their folks, but just in case, he searched his mind for a way to appease her without making the promise.
“I’ll be honest with you, partly because I need to talk about it as much as you need to hear what happened. But I can’t. I won’t. Not unless I have your word that you won’t try to play the hero again.”
Play the hero again? The comment took him back to when Libby was in college, and a couple of her roommates called him when they got tangled up with some unsavory characters.
“I just couldn’t live with myself if you ended up in jail—or worse—because of me.”
She looked so small and frail, so afraid and nervous, that the only thing keeping him from scooping her up into a huge hug was his fear of hurting her.
“Fine.” He made no effort to sound pleased, because he wasn’t. “I won’t hunt him down like the animal he is and beat the stuffing outta him.”
She relaxed slightly. “One more promise?”
“What now?”
“Stop looking so grim. If they come back and see you looking all serious and angry, they won’t let up until I tell them, too. Or worse, walk around looking all ‘poor Libby’ for the rest of my life.” She gave his hand a weak squeeze. “Thank goodness I don’t have to worry you’ll do that.”
He feigned shock. “Hey. Just ’cause I’m a marine doesn’t mean I’m devoid of feelings.”
“It’s because you’re a big, tough marine that I can trust you to mask your feelings. You saw a lot of ugly stuff over there, but you learned how to compartmentalize it. If you feel sorry for me when I…once I’ve told you everything, well, at least you’ll know how to pretend you don’t.”
Compartmentalize. Libby had chosen the right career, all right. Too bad she couldn’t put her degree in psychology to use analyzing herself, figure out why she kept getting involved with losers, why she struggled in a one-woman practice when so many facilities wanted to hire her. Zach stifled a groan and sandwiched her hand between his. “You’ll get no pity from me.”
Libby returned his halfhearted smile and plunged into her story. Halfway through, the pace and volume of her words waned, and when she finished, Libby slipped into a fitful sleep.
Zach sat there, shaking his head and fighting tears. Part of him wished she had known the guy. At least he’d have a target for his fury. But her attacker was still out there somewhere. Was he aware that Libby couldn’t identify him? If he thought otherwise, would he try to find her and make sure she couldn’t testify against him? That possibility scared Zach almost as much as seeing the enemy churning through the Afghan dust.
His mind went into full marine mode, searching for proactive ways to help her, to make sure nothing like this ever happened to her again.
And then it hit him.
When the docs released her, he’d move into Libby’s town house and take care of her. While she recuperated, he’d start the wheels in motion to find a place of his own, preferably a shop of some kind with an upstairs apartment. He’d open a self-defense studio, right here in Vail. And when she was ready, Libby would be his first student.
“Let go of my hand, you goof. Your big meat hook is getting me all sweaty.”
Snickering, he did as she asked, just as their folks returned, each carrying a cardboard food tray.
“Oh, good,” his mom whispered, “she’s still sleeping.”
She was too busy doling out sandwiches and bags of chips to notice Libby’s mouth curl into a tiny, sly grin.
It told him she’d be all right, and he had to put his back to the family to keep them from seeing his grateful tears.
CHAPTER TWO
September, two years later
ALEX PUT TWO grocery bags on the kitchen table and pointed to her answering machine. “Hey, Summer. Did you know you have a message?”
She followed the teen’s gaze to the blinking red light. “Oh. That. I must have been upstairs when the phone rang, getting the guest room ready for my parents.”
“When will they be here?”
“Day after tomorrow.”
“Oh, yeah. I remember.”
Something in his voice told her Alex didn’t believe a word of her excuse.
He handed her the receipt. “Sorry, they didn’t have hot fudge sauce.”
“It’s okay. I shouldn’t be eating so many sweets, anyway.” She pressed a twenty into his hand and smiled, grateful to Alex, grateful to her investment counselor for making recommendations that had kept her financially solvent all these months, grateful that she’d had the good sense to take his advice. “I’m sure they’ll have some next time.”
When he saw the amount of his tip, Alex’s eyebrows disappeared behind dark, wavy bangs. “Whoa, this is way too much!”
“Nonsense.” She would have paid twice the price to avoid leaving the town house to shop for herself. “You’re getting your license in just a few months. I’m sure you can use a little extra cash.”
“Well, if you say so.” He tucked the bill into his back pocket. Brightening, he added, “Mom says I can drive her car if I pay my share of the insurance.”
“See? There you go!”
Alex nodded, but it seemed there was something more on his mind than groceries and tip money. “Could I… Ah… Can I… Would you get mad if I asked you something?”
He’d never been one to pry—unlike his mother, who thought nothing of asking a person’s weight, salary and far more personal information.
“I promise not to get mad,” Summer assured him.
Alex slid a four-color, glossy flyer from the front pocket of his hooded sweatshirt. “Have you ever thought about taking some classes?” he began, tapping it on his thigh. “To help you deal with, ah, you know, what happened to you?”
Of course she’d considered it. What person in her shoes wouldn’t have! If she’d heard “Stop living in the past” once, she’d heard it a hundred times, from her parents, her orthopedist, her best friend, Justin, and the therapist she’d left after only four sessions. Summer knew each of them had her best interests at heart, but that didn’t make their advice more palatable.
“Maybe you could just talk to Zach,” Alex continued, handing her the pamphlet. “I bet he could help you.”
Help me what? she wondered, pretending to read the flyer.
“’Cause Mom’s right. You’re too young and too pretty to spend so much time in here, all alone.”
Alex leaned both elbows on the kitchen’s bar counter. “Did I ever tell you how I used to be scared of, well, just about everything?”
On more than
one occasion, Rose had mentioned Alex’s troubles with bullies. But Summer didn’t want him to know that his mom couldn’t be trusted with sensitive information. In the year since she’d moved next door to the Petersons, Summer had watched as one by one, his fears and inhibitions fell away, all thanks to this Zach person.
“I know how it feels to be scared. Not the same kind of scared as you were when…” His voice trailed off, but he quickly got back on track. “I just know Zach could help you. He’s a cool dude. And amazing.”
It had been a conscious decision to keep the details of the attack to herself. The only person who knew the whole sordid story was Richard O’Toole, and that was only because—
“If you’re worried about being alone with Zach, I promise to stay with you. At least at first. If you decide to talk to him, that is, to find out how he can help you feel less, y’know, scared all the time.”
More scared than she felt even thinking about calling Alex’s friend? That didn’t seem possible. Summer closed the flyer and slid it onto the counter, hoping Alex hadn’t noticed her trembling hands.
He flexed both biceps. “I wasn’t kidding when I said Zach is amazing. He taught me how building muscles helps build self-confidence. Did you see the Karate Kid movie? Mom made me watch it with her the other night. Thought I’d hate it, but I didn’t. That old guy was right,” he added, tapping a temple. “The bullies get you here long before they get you here.” Smirking, he gave himself a fake punch to the jaw.
But…her bully had snuck up behind her, grabbed her ponytail and… Summer cringed inwardly.
“Well, I better go. Midterms are coming up, and I have a ton of studying to do. See you in a couple of days?”
“You bet. I’ll email the list and credit card payment to the City Market.” She walked with him to the door. “Thanks, kiddo. I honestly don’t know what I’d do without you.”
He shook his head. “Way better than you’re doing now, I’ll bet.”
“What!” A nervous laugh escaped her lips. “That’s just about the silliest thing I’ve heard all week!”
“Mom says I’m an enabler. That if I quit running your errands, you’d have to get out of this place.”
Why couldn’t Rose just mind her own business!
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” Summer blurted, heart hammering with dread. “I’d only have to find someone else to pick up and deliver my groceries, so…”
“I don’t mean any disrespect, but you do have a choice. It’s like Zach told me when I first signed up for lessons—you don’t have to live this way.”
She was half tempted to arrange a meeting with the Amazing Zach, just so she could see what a perfect man looked like.
He paused in the doorway. “Will you do me a favor?”
“Sure. Of course.” Anything, she thought, if it means you won’t quit.
“Will you at least think about talking to Zach?”
“For the first time, I’m glad you aren’t my kid,” she joked. “I don’t know how your mom says no to you!”
“Believe me, she says no. A lot.” A relieved smile brightened his young face. “Does that mean you’ll call him?”
“Yes, I’ll call him.”
“Cool. Later!” he said, closing the door behind him.
He’d been gone less than a minute when the phone rang.
Richard O’Toole’s name flashed on the screen. How odd that he’d come to mind just moments ago. Summer hadn’t talked to the detective since that day in court when, because she couldn’t provide a positive identification and her attacker had left no DNA to link him to the rape and battery charges, prosecutors were forced to charge him with Class 5 Felony Theft. He’d served two years in the Denver County Jail, but only because the cops found Summer’s wallet and three more in his jacket when they picked him up.
“Hello, Detective.”
He chuckled. “All these years with caller ID, and I still feel like whoever I’m calling is a mind reader.” A pause, and then, “So how are you, Miss Lane?”
“I’m fine. And please, call me Summer.”
“Summer. Right.” He cleared his throat. “I, ah, I promised to call you when Samuels was released.”
Her pulse quickened. “I was afraid you might say that.”
“He’s due to hit the streets next week.”
Next week!
O’Toole must have heard her gasp. “Now, now, there’s no need to panic,” he added quickly. “I did some checking, and the kid really cleaned up his act in there. Earned his GED, put in a lot of hours with the jail’s headshrinker, did some serious rehab and got—”
“Wait. Don’t tell me. He got Jesus. Isn’t that what they all say?”
“Yeah. Pretty much. That, and ‘I’m innocent!’ or ‘I’ve been framed!’ Look, Summer, I don’t blame you for being cynical. What happened to you was…”
Why the hesitation? Was he picturing her during their initial interview at the hospital? Or was he thinking about how she’d testified from a wheelchair, instead of on the witness stand, because even after two surgeries and months of physical therapy, she still couldn’t walk unassisted? If she told him that she still limped slightly, and that it might require another operation to repair the deep gash Samuels had carved into her cheek, would it give him just cause to keep that maniac in jail, where he belonged?
“Do you have any idea where he’ll go?” she said instead. “Does he have a job? An apartment?”
“He’s moving in with his grandmother. According to my sources, she’s on the Denver bus line, which will make it easy for him to get to and from work until he earns enough to buy a car and get a place of his own.”
“Well, isn’t that just peachy. I’m so happy for him. He’s got his whole life all cleaned up, literally and figuratively.”
While I’m a prisoner in my own home.
She glanced at the flyer Alex had left on the kitchen table. A prisoner of my own making, she admitted. How had her young friend put it? You do have a choice. You don’t have to live this way.
“I doubt he’ll bother you,” O’Toole said. “But if he does…”
“I know, I know,” came her sarcastic reply. “I should feel free to call, anytime. And you’ll come running to my defense while I hit my knees and pray you arrive before he has a chance to finish what he started.”
A pang of guilt shot through her. It wasn’t O’Toole’s fault that she’d become a self-pitying, scared-of-her-own-shadow hermit.
“That wasn’t fair. I have no right to take things out on you. You’re the man who caught Samuels and gathered enough evidence to help prosecutors put him away, even if it was only for a short time. And you kept your promise to warn me when…when he was released.” And she was behaving like an ungrateful brat. “I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it.
“No need to apologize. I get it.”
Summer hadn’t been his first victim of violent crime, so of course he got it.
“I’m the one who’s sorry,” he said. “I only wish I could do more.”
Short of providing her with a rock-solid guarantee that Samuels wouldn’t make the trip from Denver to Vail to exact revenge, ever, what more could he do?
She remembered that the last time they spoke, O’Toole had just found out his wife was pregnant. He’d been ecstatic, but tried hard to hide his enthusiasm because of all Summer had gone through.
“So is the new baby a boy or a girl?”
“Boy. Arrived December 23.” He sounded surprised that she’d asked. And why wouldn’t he be, considering the way she’d moped and sniffled all through the interview process, the way she was still feeling sorry for herself, even after all these months.
She pictured a chubby-cheeked baby boy with fat, dimpled fingers wrapped around O’Toole’s beefy thumb, and thought of her doctor’s gloomy prognosis. “It’s too soon to know for sure,” he’d said. “But you should prepare yourself for the possibility that you might never have children of your own.”
Summer forced a smile and took a deep breath. “What a lovely Christmas present.”
“You can say that again! And the little guy got here just in time to legitimize a nice tax deduction.”
During a break on the day he’d testified against Samuels, she’d overheard O’Toole on the phone, assuring his wife that he’d give serious thought to a promotion that would take him off the streets and keep him safely behind a desk.
“Did you accept that promotion you were up for?”
“You bet I did. Took some getting used to, but the wife and I both sleep better.”
After another moment of small talk and a final reminder for her to call him anytime she felt the need to, they wished each other well and hung up. It was nearly suppertime, and thanks to Alex, Summer had a pizza in the freezer. She set the oven to 400 degrees and, while waiting for it to heat up, flicked on the kitchen TV.
A news story filled the screen: a young woman had been brutally attacked and left for dead in Chicago. Her story, except that Summer had been attacked after recording a commercial for a Denver car dealership.
“It’s a miracle she survived,” the anchorman was saying. Had the woman’s assailant subdued her by grabbing a handful of long hair, the way Samuels had?
In the chrome finish of the toaster, Summer caught sight of her chin-length hair. She’d badgered Justin into giving her a boy cut before she’d been released from the hospital, but had kept it a little longer since. Now when she took the time to style it—which was rare, since she never went anywhere—the side curls almost hid the scar on her cheek.
Her cell phone pinged, making her jump. She opened the text from her dad.
We missed our plane, so Mom and I are taking a flight out in two days. That gives you plenty of time to make reservations so the three of us can go skiing when we get there!
She typed back a response.
Can’t wait. Love you guys!
Her message was only half-true. Summer tensed, thinking of the lectures they’d subject her to when they learned she wouldn’t be joining them on the slopes. That she’d only been out of the house twice—both times to see her orthopedist—since they’d left to film a movie in Africa. Any day now, they’d stand face-to-face with the truth about who she’d allowed herself to become.
