At Peace

by Kristen Ashley

  I looked at him and saw he looked weirdly both relieved and angry. I suspected the relieved was because now he had the excuse to get in my business and sort this, seeing as he was a cop. I knew that look, that feeling, Tim had it too. Tim wouldn’t let his neighbor be harassed by a crazy crimelord either. On the other hand, I suspected Colt was angry because he knew how this felt, having some creepy psycho sending flowers.

  “We’re clear,” I whispered and said a short prayer of thanks to God that he steered me in the right direction and let this house in this town be on the market when I was looking for refuge.

  “We get to my house, I’ll give you my numbers and Cal’s. You program them into all your phones and Kate and Keira’s. Okay?” Colt told me.

  “Okay.”

  We hit the street and he dropped my hand but his arm went around my shoulders and he quit talking.

  So I called, “Colt?”

  He looked down at me as we stepped up on the sidewalk on his side of the street. “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  He didn’t reply except to give my shoulders a squeeze.

  I looked to my feet thinking Tim would like him. And I thought Colt should know that.

  “My husband Tim, he would have liked you.”

  Colt looked back down at me. “’Spect I’d like him too, seein’ as he had good taste.”

  That was nice so I smiled.

  He stopped me in his yard, looked back at my house and then back down at me.

  “You’re safe here, Vi.”

  I hoped he was right.

  “Thanks for that too.” It wasn’t much but it was all I had.

  Even so, Colt gave me a look that said he understood I wanted it to say more and he understood what I wanted it to say.

  He gave my shoulders a squeeze and led me into his house where we stood in his kitchen and he wrote out a bunch of numbers.

  The first thing I did when I got home was program the numbers into all our phones.

  Even Joe’s.

  Chapter Six

  Booty Call

  “You’re quick,” Joe said to Kate and Keira, sounding impressed and surprised.

  Kate looked at her toes. Keira beamed at Joe.

  We were standing in our living room and Joe was giving us a lesson on the intricacies of our security system and apparently the girls had picked it up quickly.

  It wasn’t rocket science but it also wasn’t pressing four numbers into a keypad either. We all had remotes that controlled the system which we could use in the house and others which we kept in our cars. We also had more than sensors at the windows and doors but also electric eyes pointing at all sorts of angles all over the house. And there were camera feeds that fed into the computer on the desk in the study where, if we thought someone was out there, we could flip through a bunch of cameras that were pointed in a variety of directions outside the house so we could see all the sides of our house. We could even switch these cameras to night vision if it was dark. Last, we had panic buttons on the remotes, the new keypads by all the doors, in each of our rooms by our beds and little ones to carry in our purses that did double duty since they had GPS so Joe or Colt could lock in on us (or our purses) everywhere we went.

  No joke.

  Electric eyes, night vision, panic buttons and GPS tracking.

  My crackerbox house had a system that I was sure rivaled Buckingham Palace and my girls and I had security that would make the Queen feel comfy. I figured her guards were no slouches but she’d take one look at Colt and Joe and say, “You’re hired.” Therefore for the first time in a very long time, I felt somewhat safe.

  “Mom, you should make Joe your pork chops to say thanks,” Keira told me and my mind went from the Queen of England and my novel feeling of being safe to my nutty daughter who was looking at Joe and telling him, “Mom’s pork chops are the bomb. Way better than her cupcakes.”

  “Keirry, Mom’s chocolate chunk cupcakes are so better than her pork chops,” Kate put forward her opinion and looked at Joe. “It’s the frosting.”

  Joe looked at me on the word “frosting” and my stomach hollowed out which made me miss it when it tied into a knot. That hollow feeling was much worse. I’d had it since he ended things. It came usually at night when my mind turned to Joe and all he’d done to me, all I’d done to him, how much I liked it and therefore my mind didn’t turn away. In the end, I’d have to reach for my vibrator which was so not as good as Joe it was not funny. I didn’t like that hollow feeling when I was alone in my bed in the dark. I sure as hell didn’t need it standing in my living room with my girls and Joe.

  “You only say that because you like her seafood risotto,” Keira said to Kate and then to Joe she said, “The risotto is all right but the pork chops rock.”

  “Joe should pick,” Kate decided.

  “How about we let Joe go home and rest?” I suggested. “He’s been workin’ on the house a long time, he probably could use putting his feet up.”

  “Yeah, you can come tomorrow,” Keira told Joe. “Mom usually makes her good stuff on Sunday. The garden center closes early on Sundays so she’s got time.”

  “Can Dane come too?” Kate put in and I sighed, wondering if I should call Dane’s parents and ask for partial child support since he was over eating our food so much and, while doing it, eating so freaking much of our food. My girls were healthy eaters but the way Dane ate I was glad I didn’t have boys.

  “Dane can come,” I said to Kate, she smiled big and turned toward her room.

  “I’ll call him now,” she announced while moving, desperate to talk to him even though Dane had left only twenty minutes ago. Waving at Joe, she called, “Thanks Joe,” then she disappeared down the hall.

  Keira looked from Joe to me to Joe and I knew that little, devious head of hers was working. I also knew I was going to have to do something about it I just had no clue what.

  “I’m gonna go listen to music, not,” she assured Joe, “The Buckley Boys. I’m over them.”

  “Good call,” Joe said to her and my eyes narrowed on his mouth because I could swear it was twitching.

  Keira leaned in and patted Joe’s arm and I felt my eyes un-narrow because they rolled. Only Keira would have the guts to pat scary, sinister, rugged, huge Joe Callahan on the arm. Marine drill sergeants probably cowered when he walked into a room. Not Keira, no. She patted him on the arm like he was her puppy.

  “You’re cool, Joe,” she told him, her voice weighty, as if she was bestowing a grave honor on him even though a blind person could sense his utter coolness.

  Joe didn’t answer but Keira didn’t seem to mind. She turned and disappeared down the hall. Seconds later we heard music, another crap boy band whose music, if there was any justice in the world, would be outlawed.

  “Your girl’s got shit taste in music, buddy,” Joe noted and my eyes went to him.

  “She’ll grow out of it,” I said this hopefully rather than confidently because Kate had been into boy bands until she was around twelve then she’d switched to real bands but Keira was holding on and the bloom didn’t seem to be going off the rose.

  Joe seemed okay with standing in my living room which I was not okay with so I suggested, “Don’t you have to go put your feet up?”

  Then he made a mistake.

  His mistake was asking, “Am I invited to dinner tomorrow night?”

  Seeing as the last time I asked him to dinner I was naked in his bed thinking that we were starting something good and he told me he was done with me, I decided that invitation wouldn’t be voiced twice. My girls could do it then I could renege on it. This was my right since he fucked me over. He might have put in a killer security system but I didn’t ask for it so I didn’t owe him shit.

  Therefore I answered, “No.”

  His eyes never left my face when he muttered, “I didn’t think so.”

  “You wanna be involved in this shit, your call,” I told him quietly so the girls wouldn’t hear. “Anytime y
ou wanna back out, that’s your call too.” Joe didn’t reply, he just kept looking at me, so I decided to finish it. “And I’d appreciate it, you didn’t make friends with my girls, it isn’t cool.”

  “Not me makin’ friends with them,” Joe pointed out.

  “Then it’ll be you who discourages them from doin’ it.”

  “Not gonna be an asshole to your daughters.”

  “You had no problem bein’ an asshole to their Mom,” I reminded him.

  I watched him go from annoyed to angry. He got close, both his body to mine and his face in mine and his voice went low.

  “Gotta admit, I regretted it, your mouth is sweet, other parts of you sweeter,” he told me. “The way you behaved since, buddy, figure I saved myself a world of hassle. You can be a bitch.”

  I felt my body get tight but I inched my face closer to his and spoke as low as he did. “Thank you for your service, Joe, you can go now.”

  “There it is,” Joe muttered, “the bitch.”

  “I can’t believe you,” I hissed. “You’re in my living room callin’ me a bitch.”

  “That’s ‘cause you’re actin’ like one.”

  “Then I suggest you save yourself the hassle and leave.”

  He didn’t move, he stayed in my face and his voice was even lower when he said in that way where he sounded like he was talking to himself, “Wonder if it’d be worth it.”

  “What?”

  “Breakin’ you.”

  I blinked then I repeated, “What?”

  He didn’t hesitate handing me his utterly unbelievable response. “Turnin’ you over my knee, spankin’ that ass of yours until you break and let go of the bitch.”

  I felt my breath catch as my stomach both hollowed out and twisted into a knot.

  “What?” I hissed.

  “Might not be worth it but it’d be fun doin’ it.”

  I clenched my teeth and said through them, “Get out.”

  He didn’t get out. His big hand came up and curled over my hair at the back of my neck and he brought my face even closer, to within an inch of his. It was so close I could feel his breath on my lips but all I could see was his clear blue eyes which were staring right into mine.

  “Make you beg me to stop,” he muttered. “Make you do anything to make me stop, promise to let go of the bitch and be nothin’ but sweet to me.”

  “Take your hand off me,” I whispered because, even though his words were pissing me off, for some insane reason I really wanted to kiss him. I wanted this so much my mouth was dry and my body hurt from holding it away from the heat of his.

  “Play with you while I do it, make you squirm at the same time I make you beg.”

  My stomach unknotted, I felt wetness rush between my legs and it took everything I had not to move into him.

  “Joe –”

  The minute I said his name, his hand tightened on my neck almost like a reflex action.

  “Yeah,” he whispered and I held my breath, not understanding what his “yeah” meant but the way he said it made it sound like it meant something important then he muttered his own name, “Joe.”

  My eyes dropped to his mouth and I started to lean into him because I couldn’t hold back anymore. I had to kiss him, put my hands on him or that hollowed feeling was going to start eating out my insides.

  But he let me go, I went forward on a foot and righted myself in time to see him disappear through my front door.

  “I hate you,” I whispered to the door and I meant it, even though my body, nipples hard, tingles between my legs, every inch of skin electrified, felt something else.

  It wasn’t until much later, when I was in bed, the girls were asleep and I’d put aside my vibrator after a lackluster orgasm that I realized I’d never asked Joe how he knew Daniel Hart.

  * * * * *

  The screeching woke me.

  Cory was home.

  This happened a lot, Tina screeching at Cory. It was usually during daytime hours but it wasn’t unusual for it to happen at night.

  I turned my head to my alarm clock and felt my temper flare because it might not be unusual for it to happen at night, even late at night, say eleven-ish, but it was unusual for it to happen at one fifty-three in the freaking morning.

  “You dick!” Tina shouted. “Did you fuck her before comin’ to me? Hunh? Did you?”

  God, it sounded like they were right outside my bedroom door.

  And if it sounded like that to me, it might sound like that to Kate and Keira.

  I threw back the covers, ran to get Tim’s robe, shrugged it on and nabbed Joe’s remote from my nightstand as I walked quickly to the backdoor.

  “Fuck that! Fuck you! And fuck her!” Tina shrieked.

  I hit the remote to disable the alarm as Joe taught us to do, slid the door open and stepped out on my deck. I looked to my left to see that Tina and Cory were, for some unknown and ungodly reason, playing out their latest drama on her deck.

  “You have got to be shittin’ me!” Tina screamed to whatever Cory mumbled (I never heard Cory during the screeching, only Tina, then again they probably heard Tina in Bangladesh, she was that loud). “You dick!”

  I ran down the steps into my yard and across to Tina’s.

  I was at the foot of her side deck steps when I spoke. “Hey, could you keep it down?”

  Tina’s eyes came to me and Cory, whose back was to me, turned.

  Cory was a decent looking guy, nothing to write home about but he wasn’t ugly. What made him unattractive was that I got the sense he was clueless and pretty much didn’t care what kind of shit he had to take, just as long as he got laid as often as he could.

  Tina, on the other hand, was very pretty, dark curly hair, blue eyes, great skin. She had a bit of extra weight on her but she carried it well and used it to her advantage, therefore it looked good but, unfortunately, she knew it.

  She liked to get herself some, as Cheryl would say, and she liked to control what she got which made Cory perfect for her, in a way. Cory loved his wife, though, which kind of sucked for Tina. She’d bitten off more than she could chew with him and I always wondered why she didn’t spit him out.

  All of this I didn’t know for certain, I wasn’t close to Tina. She was the only neighbor who was not friendly (at all). I’d gotten most of it from Feb, Myrtle and Pearl.

  Tina’s eyes focused on me through the dark and she snapped, “Fuck you too.”

  I opened my mouth to speak but I didn’t when I saw Tina’s body straighten with a jolt, she looked over my shoulder and her face paled, I saw it even in the dark.

  Then I heard Joe rumble from behind me, “Speak to her again like that, Tina, I’ll wring your goddamned neck.”

  Slowly I turned to see he was, indeed, behind me, very close behind me wearing jeans, a tee and, like me, he had bare feet.

  Oh, and he looked pretty ticked.

  “Cal –” Tina started.

  “Shut it,” Joe growled. “Vi’s got two girls who don’t need to hear your filthy mouth. I hear this shit again, it’s gonna piss me off and you don’t wanna piss me off.”

  “I –” Tina started again but Joe’s eyes cut to Cory.

  “Pick one or lose both, but be a fuckin’ man, for Christ’s sakes. You let her get outta hand again, I’ll hold you responsible.”

  “All right, Cal,” Cory said quickly, his hands coming up. “We’ll be cool.”

  Joe didn’t respond, he didn’t need to, I suspected even Tina wouldn’t wake the sleeping giant that was Joe Callahan again.

  Then Joe, obviously done with Tina and Cory, grabbed my arm and turned us both toward my yard. He didn’t let my arm go as he marched me through my backyard, up my deck stairs and to the sliding glass door. Then he slid my door shut, yanked the remote out of my hand and pressed some buttons. Then he marched me to the steps and down them again.

  We were almost in his yard before it registered on me that we were heading to his house.

  “Joe, where a
re we going?”

  “You shut it too,” Joe growled at me and I felt my chest squeeze because he was still pissed but now it seemed he was pissed at me.

  “Joe –” I began but he pulled me up his steps, through his opened sliding glass door and he threw it closed.

  Then he backed me up against the wall by the door, his body got in my space and he got in my face.

  “What’d you think?” he was still growling and I was breathing hard, not knowing what was happening.

  It was the dead of night. How was it that one minute I was sleeping, the next minute I was listening to Tina shrieking, the next minute I was listening to Joe be threatening and the next minute I was in his house, he was in my face and he was pissed at me?

  He was right, I’d been a bitch to him but not recently, it had been hours ago.

  “Joe, I wanna go home,” I said quietly.

  He ignored my request. “Tell me what you thought.”

  What I thought at that moment, was maybe I should answer his demand, perhaps that might help, though I didn’t understand his demand which was a problem.

  Therefore, tentatively, I asked, “Thought about what?”

  “About us.”

  “What?” I whispered.

  “I make a promise to you in my sleep or something?” Joe clipped.

  I was again whispering when I said, “No.”

  “I fucked you when you were drunk, not that drunk, buddy, but I’ll admit, you were drunk. And I fucked you on the hood of my car. But you walked across your yard to get to me twice. How does any of that translate into a promise from me?”

  “You didn’t promise me anything, Joe,” I told him and realized then he didn’t.

  “So what’s your fuckin’ problem?”

  “I don’t have one.” Or at least I didn’t anymore.

  I had read something into it just because of some reflex action he had when I told him I had to go, when he’d called me baby and when he made some mention about me not wearing shoes. That was it and there was nothing there except what I was so sad and lonely I twisted into something I wanted to see. He’d given no indication that it was anything more than what he said it was.