by EC Sheedy
Julius evaded the punch with the ease of trained boxer, grabbed Wheeler’s fist and twisted his arm high behind his back. “You won’t have any more luck with me than you did the woman, you sick asshole. Now get on the fucking floor.” When he was on his stomach, Julius planted his knee on his back—none too gently—and said to her, “Samba have a leash?”
Her heart hammered, then contracted painfully. Samba was dead. “By the back door,” she managed to mumble.
“Get it.” He looked up, said to Kurt, “And you. Call 9-1-1.”
Deanne retrieved Samba’s leash. “There’s another boy,” she said, pressing one hand to her bleeding cheek—the slam against the coffee table had cut her—and holding out the leash to him with the other. “He might still be outside.” She started to cry. “He took Samba’s pups, Julius. Samba’s dead.” Nerves. Fear. And her own vulnerability ganged up on her fragile courage. She trembled. They’d killed Samba. They were going to rape her. She hugged herself, worked to stop the quaking, the cold quivers.
Julius, ignoring Wheeler’s string of curses, secured his hands behind his back with the leash in less time than it took to tie a shoelace. He immediately got to his feet, stood in front of her and lifted her chin so their gazes met. “Listen to me. Samba’s not dead. The vet should see her, but she’s fine. And the other boy? He’s got a mouth full of his own mask, and he’s tied to the rail on your back porch—with a very expensive silk tie. The pups are okay. He didn’t get off the porch with them. You got all that?” He took his hand from her chin, lowered his head and watched her face.
She swallowed, took in a heavy breath and nodded.
“And now that you know everything’s all right—” he took her face in his hands and kissed her forehead, “—can I hold you for a while?” He touched her damaged cheek. “Then we’ll clean this up. Okay?”
She nodded again, discovering it was difficult to talk with a heart in your mouth.
When his arms were around her, his hands smoothing her hair, his voice low and soft in her ear, and even though she knew his attention was still fixed on the figures on the floor, she decided it would be “okay” to stay right here forever.
In the distance she heard the police sirens; in the room she heard Kurt sobbing.
CHAPTER 21
The squad cars’ headlights lit Deanne’s front porch to high-noon bright, and their red flashing beacons cut through the darkness of the surrounding fields like flaming propellers. Both cars had their motors running. Both cars were loaded with handcuffed boys. And both cars were—finally—ready to leave. The cops were good guys, good enough that one of them, currently leaning against his cruiser having a smoke, allowed Julius an extra moment with Kurt Minton.
Julius put his hand on the kid’s shoulder. “You’ve got to go with them. And your best bet is to tell them everything you’ve done and everything you know. There’s no free ride on this.”
“I know.” The kid’s face was gray, streaked with tears. In the past half hour he’d lost five years of his life, looked more a sorry-assed eleven-year-old than sixteen.
“The police got hold of your dad on that number you gave them. He’ll be here tomorrow at the latest. When he gets here I’ll talk to him, explain things the best I can, but that’s not letting you off the hook to do the same.”
“Yeah.” He swiped a hand under his nose. “I’m just glad it’s over, and that nothing…really bad happened.”
Amen… “Depends what you call bad. Me. I’d say it was damn bad. You let things slide a long way wrong before you started making them right.”
He nodded, swallowed. “You think she’ll ever, you know, forgive me?”
Julius had no doubt she would, but said, “Take some time maybe. Not many women take kindly to guys who plan to drug and rape them.”
“But I—” He stopped. “Yeah,” he said again, if possible looking even more miserable.
“Come on, Minton. Let’s go.” The cop tossed his cigarette and stood away from the car. Julius walked the few steps with Kurt, stood by while the officer clapped a hand on Kurt’s head and guided him into the squad car.
Julius stood on the porch until the lights were gone and the night was dark again. He wanted to make sense of his feelings, and there was a horde of them, ganging up on his logical brain like armed mercenaries. But one feeling took point position, constricting his chest and making his gut ache. A kind of emotional panic, a sensation he’d never felt before. Kurt wasn’t the only one who worried about being forgiven. Julius had fucked up big-time, brought asshole-ism to epic new heights. He didn’t deserve Deanne’s forgiveness any more than Kurt did, but he was damn well going to ask for it.
He went back into the house. For the first time since he’d burst through her door a couple of hours ago, they’d be alone. The issue between them no longer clouded by chaos.
Deanne sat on the floor in the laundry room, ankles crossed, hands in her lap, gazing at Samba and her puppies. She sat as still as the lotus flower her position mimicked, her expression trancelike, her skin as pale as the bandage covering the cut on her bruised cheek.
He leaned against the wall. “How are you doing?”
“I’m okay. Feel kind of weird…like I’ve just been dropped off a spaceship onto a new planet.” She didn’t shift her gaze from the pups. “I don’t suppose that makes much sense.”
“It doesn’t have to.”
“I’m just so glad Samba and her babies are okay.” The dog rested quietly, eyes open, while her brood fed.
“Yeah.” He had to hand it to the vet; he’d been there within a half hour of being called, given Samba a good look over, shaved her wound, put some salve on it and—after reminding the police about the rash of dogs that had been deliberately hurt in the area—left as quickly as he’d come.
Still without looking up at him, she said, “I’m glad you came, Julius. Thank you for that. I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t.” Her words were vaguely formal, as though carefully chosen not to impart any deeper meaning.
“Seemed to me you and Kurt were doing okay.”
“You know we weren’t. It was only a matter of time before they—” For the first time she met his eyes.
“Don’t.” He offered her a hand, and she took it, rising easily to her feet. He rested his palm on the soft curve where her throat met her shoulder, caressed her still-tight muscles with his thumb. “Don’t go there. It’s over.”
She took a breath, nodded. “You’re right.” She stepped away from his touch. For a moment they stood in silence. “I’m just…sorry you found yourself so…involved.” Before he could reply, she gestured toward Samba. “I think we should leave them be, don’t you?”
Julius felt the cut of her distancing. It bled—a thick, blinding red, running through his tight gut and currently unavailable brain. Maybe like she’d bled when she’d come to him and asked that they “take a chance” on each other—and he’d blown her off, using every defense in his idiot male arsenal. He’d been sarcastic, cruel, cold…and—yeah—cowardly.
He’d been a prick.
When she went to step past him to go to the kitchen, his reflexes kicked in. He gripped her by the shoulders. “Deanne, I—”
She fluttered a hand. “It’s my turn to say don’t, Julius.”
“You have no idea what I was going to say.”
“You were going to apologize…for being who you are. What you are.” She pulled from his grasp. “No one should ever do that.”
“Even when they’re certified jerks? When they’ve made the biggest mistake of their lives?”
“Even then.” She looked at the open doorway leading to the kitchen, then at his hands on her upper arms. “Do you mind?”
He let her go, and she went into the kitchen, faced him. “Look, what happened here tonight was horrible, emotional and scary. Now that it’s over, it’s made you want to be…kind in some way. I understand that, but it’s not the time—”
“It’s the perfect time.” He closed
the few feet between them and stood in front of her. Not touching her, because if she pulled away from him again, his heart would crack.
“I don’t want—” She looked down, as if she couldn’t bear to look him in the eye.
He didn’t know what killed him more, her physical distancing or her emotional detachment. He hated it all, deserved it all. “You don’t want a meaningless apology. I get that. And I don’t have one to give. I made a mistake—and yes, what happened tonight pointed that out big-time. But I was on my way here before Kurt called and—”
Her head snapped up, and her gaze locked on his. “You were?”
“I was, and thank God, because if I hadn’t been, I’d have been too late.”
“You were on your way to France. A…job.”
“I was.” He couldn’t help himself, he brushed his knuckles across her undamaged cheek. “Then I wasn’t. I called someone to cover for me.” Thank God for Galen Byrne, a man who had even less of a life than he did.
“Why?”
She wasn’t making this easy, and she was right not to. “I couldn’t leave without making things right.” Needing space, needing to get the words out, he took a couple of steps away from her. “The thing is, I said all the wrong things to you. And I’ll be honest, I’d said it all before—” he took a breath, “—to other women. But with you the words…weren’t right. For the first time, they felt like lies.”
“You’re making my head spin.”
“Then I’ll try again. I couldn’t get on that plane, because it would take me away from you. I knew that if I walked through that airport security gate, I’d be walking away from the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” He took a breath. “I came back because I want what I hope to God you still want—the chance to see where what’s between us will lead.”
“Damn it, Julius.” For a moment she clenched her eyes shut.
He put his hand on his nape, held it there, frowning on the outside and in, determined to go on, say the right things. “I don’t know much about love—don’t even know if I’m capable of it. I know I had it for my father, my mother and Amanda. And I sure as hell knew the black hole it left when they were gone. Since then…” He stopped, decided to leave the past behind, get to where he wanted to be. “The thing is, you matter to me. You’re important to me—like nothing’s been important in a very long time.” Julius felt exposed, as if he were standing in Times Square naked, as if he were standing on a high cliff on a raw, windy day, as if he were a newborn on a church doorstep. “I want to take that chance you talked about, and I want to take it with you. I want you, Deanne. In my bed, in my life—and in my heart.”
Deanne, who hadn’t moved during what Julius knew was the longest speech of his life, now put a hand to her mouth.
Christ, if she cried, he was a dead man. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
She opened her eyes—and yes, there was a glaze of tears.
“Oh, yes, I’m definitely okay.” She moved to stand in front of him and caressed his cheek, a brief brush of her fingertips that shot heat to his knees. Then she wrapped her arms around his waist and put her ear to his thrumming heart, and didn’t say another word.
“Deanne?”
“Hmm?”
“You’re not…saying anything.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“That you forgive me for being a fool would be a start.”
Her head nodded against his chest. “Done.”
“And that you’re good with everything I said.”
She pulled away, looked up at him. “I’m in your arms, aren’t I?” She smiled—her first of the night—and it entered him sharp and warm. “Sometimes actions speak louder than words, right?”
He smiled back, thought about taking some action of his own. “I think I love you.” The words slid out of him like hope on honey, instinctive, irrational. True.
“Damn.” She sighed, took his hand and towed him toward action central—her bedroom. “Then I still have work to do.”
He didn’t resist but he did ask, “Why’s that?”
“Because that I think part has got to go.”
At just before six the following morning, Deanne eased the kitchen door closed behind her and Samba. The two of them walked the grassy path that led to the lake. Neither of them could be gone long; Samba because of her pups, and Deanne because of the man in her bed—she grinned like the insanely happy person she was—who didn’t know she was gone.
At the lake’s edge, she shielded her eyes and looked to where the sun was showing its first light over the trees at the other end of the lake.
She might not have said much last night, but she had something to say this morning. Because it was morning when gratitude showed best.
Gratitude…for her new start in Seattle, for finding Samba, for her new career path and, after her dark time with depression, her new, much lighter spirit.
Above all she was grateful for Julius…mind, body and spirit.
She loved him—and being in love was a gift beyond imagining.
She wanted to shout about it where the words would rise beyond the ceiling of her little house.
Looking at Samba, who despite her shaved head managed to look both calm and alert, as usual, she said, “You ready, girl?”
Samba’s head cocked.
“Cover your ears then.”
And she shouted, “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”
About the Author
I live on Vancouver Island in the moody, green and rain-washed Pacific Northwest—a short ferry ride from two great cities: Seattle and Vancouver. And because I’m just a few steps from the ocean, when I’m seriously story challenged I can often be found walking the beach, communing with the stunning and multitalented Mother Nature. (Make that begging for inspiration!) If that doesn’t work, a few minutes thinking about the quirks and foibles of human nature usually does.
I believe people are complex, vulnerable and endlessly fascinating—never more so than when they fall in love. Which is why I write romance.
On a personal note, I love my husband and family, my Rhodesian ridgeback, writing stories, my wonderful readers and laughter wherever and whenever I can find it.
You can read more about me at www.ecsheedy.com.
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ISBN: 978-1-4268-9023-9
Copyright © 2010 by EC Sheedy
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All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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