by Kim Linwood
I stop at the curb, looking both ways and waiting for traffic to die down. “Yeah, everything was fine. Alderman Trabucco mostly sits at his desk all day ordering people around.” Like me. “I’ve only been there for a day, so I haven’t exactly set my stamp on local politics yet, ya know? It was a lot of standing around.”
He laughs. “I'm sure. Do you have a good pair of shoes? Sometimes the cheap ones at the supply place aren’t very—”
“Yes, Dad, my shoes are great. They’re the kind you told me to get, remember?”
“Oh, yeah. Right.” He chuckles. “I guess I’m just not used to you actually listening to me. So was it as boring as Palmieri insinuated?”
“Yep, and then some. Still, it beats desk duty.” A blast of cold air throws my hair back into my face and makes me regret not putting my scarf back on. Winter’s particularly bad this year.
Unlike all those other years it was particularly bad.
“Don’t knock desk duty, Pumpkin. It’s all work that needs to get done, and one day you might find yourself missing it.” He pauses, both of us all too aware that he’d love to be back at work, even if it’d mean sitting at a desk. “Trust me.”
It's a sobering thought. He used to be like me, out on the street, thinking everything happens to other people. We all know it can happen to us, but I don’t know if you can believe it until it does. Even me, who’s had a closer view of the consequences of our job than most.
The traffic parts and I make a break for it. “Alright, I’ve got to get going. I just got home and there’s leftover Chinese calling my name.”
“Take out, again? How about you come home for dinner tomorrow?” Dad's voice makes me pause. “We should celebrate your new assignment, just the three of us. We’ll make lasagna.”
“We, Dad?”
“Oh, fine. Your mom can make lasagna and I’ll chop some lettuce for the salad. Sound better?”
I grin and step up onto the sidewalk in front of my building. “This week really is pretty crazy, but how about Sun—”
A loud screech, followed by the sound of rubber grinding against asphalt cuts me off. There’s a thundering bang, and I turn my head just in time to see a gigantic truck grille much closer to me than it has any right to be and getting closer by the second. It must’ve been coming way too fast, since the curb has launched the front of the car well clear of the pavement.
And right at me.
Time slows down. My phone slips from my hand as every detail of the world becomes crystal clear. It spins end over end at the edge of my vision, tumbling slowly towards the snow for what seems like forever, but is probably just the space of a few heartbeats.
Someone screams, but all I notice is the way the snow slides off the little bulldog ornamenting the hood of the truck as it comes closer. He looks cold.
Making my limbs do anything is like trying to wade through molasses. Is this how I die? Frozen in place as some poor trucker slams on the brakes sending grey, exhaust-tinged slush up into the air?
Inches away, I can practically trace the letters spelling out MACK in the lower right corner. I’m about to meet my maker, but oddly I mostly feel bad for the driver or whoever gets the job of cleaning little bits of me out of the front of the truck. Dad’s right, there are worse things than desk jobs.
Apparently, the person screaming is me.
The truck moves sideways—no, the whole world moves sideways. I spin and land heavily on ice and snow covered pavement, my breath knocked right out of me. The truck continues on, its tires still spinning wildly as they try to find purchase in mid-air. A second later it crashes back down and screeches to a halt as the cab bounces back off the sidewalk and into the road.
I gasp like a newborn baby whose lungs are finally her own, and look up into two pools of green. Payne’s got one arm around me, and the other braced on the ground as he holds me against his chest.
He’s breathing hard, and even through our winter clothes, I can feel his heart race alongside mine. Sound assaults my ears as time speeds back up to normal with a rush.
I’m not going to die. I let that thought linger for a moment. I’m not going to die.
Not right this second anyway. The adrenaline fades and my body begins to shake uncontrollably. Big, fat, wet tears explode from the corners of my eyes, and I can’t make them stop. I'm wet, bruised, broken down and still not grasping exactly what just happened, but I'm not dead.
I'm not dead.
“Shh, it's alright. You're okay.” Payne’s powerful arms hug me closer, and I swear to forgive him for every annoying thing he’s ever said or done. “Listen to me, Nora. You're fine. C'mon, you didn’t think I could let an ass as perfect as yours get taken out of this world that easy? Did you?”
Tears streaming down my cheeks, I butt him gently in the chest with my forehead even as my mitten covered hands cling to his sides. “Stop ruining the moment.”
He laughs, rubbing my back gently with one hand. “Never.”
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About the Author
Kim Linwood is a sucker for bad boys, billionaires and alpha males. If they're all three at once, that's even better. When she's not writing about romantic conflicts and witty dialogue, she's herding two growing boys (who are of course not bad) with her husband.
kim.linwood
kimlinwood.com
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