And I can’t wait to show her just how much, several times tonight if I have my way.
Hustling out the precinct, I’m glad to see Hank Stanton filling up at a hot dog stand, he hasn’t left yet.
I sidle up next to him, resisting the urge to order myself a dog, not wanting to eat if I can’t share it with Gillian.
“Apology accepted,” I murmur into his ear, making him jump with fright, shooting mustard all over his tie and badge.
That should be punishment enough. Mrs. Stanton will have plenty more to scold him about now than I could.
“That was quick,” he says, recovering himself as well as trying to chew what looks like two hot dogs at once.
“Yeah, the old mistaken identity thing I think. Because you know how many seven foot tall college professors there are within fifty miles of every woodland crime scene for the past decade, right?” I ask, raising both brows.
“Huh?” he says as I hand him some napkins so he can finger paint the rest of the mustard deeper into his shirt.
“Anyway, I thought by way of apology you could drop me back at the medical center, to collect Ms. Parker and then back to my place?”
“Thu ‘east I ould oo,” he manages to say, still trying to swallow his lunch while quite possibly turning me off hot dogs forever in the process.
There is one dog we have to collect, and if he’s learned his lesson, little Orion can play deputy Alpha for just one more day.
Chapter Eleven
Gillian
Feeling quite forgotten in all the excitement at the campus medical center, I cry my last tears before my cell hums.
It’s been an emotional four years and an even more emotional twenty-four hours, so I welcome the relief of having let some tears flow.
It’s a private number, ones I don’t usually answer, but something tells me it’s Xander.
I just know it is.
I manage to answer within the first ring and hope he can’t tell I’ve been crying.
He’s the one thing I could never really cry about, only tears of joy whenever I think of Xander.
He asks how I am, reminding me again of the million questions I have, but he sounds so happy to hear I’m okay that I can’t press him over the phone.
Still. He doesn’t make it any less weird when he casually tells me some men in black might pop by the hospital to seize all my x-rays and take the doctors aside for a little ‘re-education’.
I’d normally be worried, freaking out is closer to the truth, but there’s another part of me that’s really not surprised at all.
On the one hand, Xander is such an amazing guy. A stunningly handsome and intelligent professor, superhuman compared to any guy.
On the other hand? He could very well have just stepped out of some inter-dimensional portal holding the keys to the secrets of the universe, and a cup of coffee.
He fits either one, depending on the day and what’s happening around him I guess.
No wonder there are some rumors floating about. Doesn’t help that he’s openly into astrophysics and known to work with certain government agencies.
I think of my dad too though, there’s a ton of stuff he does with his work and he’s either not allowed to talk to me about it or simply chooses not to burden me with it.
I get a little whiny when Xander suggests we actually do something about the Patterson place before they get back tomorrow, promising me lunch first though which makes it all better.
But everything takes a hard left when he ends the call, letting me know he’ll be here soon.
Promising he will.
He tells me he loves me and hangs up.
I sit in the wheelchair with my leg out in front of me, stunned.
I’ve had my dad tell me he loves me. Maybe a teacher saying they loved my work.
But nobody’s ever said it like Xander. And Xander isn’t just anybody.
More than that, more than the best feeling in the whole world, and my heart feels like it will burst.
I really do feel like he’s said it before. Like some kind of déjà vu. Him saying those three little words feels like it’s unlocked some kind of weird memory that silently answers all my questions about him, but doesn’t leave me with anything tangible still to go on.
It’s that feeling all over again, like the first night we met.
Whenever I feel it or I’m near him physically, nothing else matters. I don’t have any questions because there’s nothing to question.
I sigh happily, but wearily. Accepting my fate as it is right now, trusting that things will get clearer as time goes by.
But that man though. Calling me to make sure I’m okay, telling me he loves me.
It’s something else I hope I’ll never get used to, never take for granted I mean.
Xander did say that I’ll know when I’m ready for us to take things to the next level.
Well, if my bum ankle here can keep up, I think tonight’s the night.
I know tonight’s the night. I can feel it in my bones as well as a few other places.
I’m jolted back to reality when my chair is suddenly pulled back by an orderly, making way for the parade of medics still working on Mr. Swanson.
The original nurse in pink I was speaking with about Xander is with them, but she only shrugs as they all wheel him past, way too busy now to finish her story.
But at least it looks as though Mr. Swanson still has a chance.
True to Xander’s prediction, the elevator chimes, and a trio of men in dark suits and blacked-out aviators with earpieces move out into the area in some formidable style of formation as they briefly scan the area.
A less intimidating set of men and women approach the nurse’s station, producing badges and paperwork.
In minutes every doctor who examined me, along with what looks like my medical files and scans are taken into the elevator.
The whole thing is over in minutes as if they were never there.
I wonder how I’d react if Xander hadn’t given me a heads up?
Strangely, I’m certain if I didn’t know what to look for it probably wouldn’t have seemed so out of place.
Any hospital is full of all sorts of goings-on, and those guys really were like walking ghosts. They were definitely there but they kinda weren’t at the same time.
They looked so out of place they could blend in anywhere.
Weird.
A different nurse comes out from behind the nurse’s station, letting me know she’s taking me down to the entrance.
“Someone’s on their way to collect you,” she smiles.
“What was all that about?” I ask, referring to the men in black and hoping she might have the same gossipy streak as the other nurse.
She pretends not to hear me, only commenting on the weather and telling me how glad I must be to finally be going home.
“Strange how my ankle seemed to have healed so quickly. And then all those official types wanting to take the files and the doctors,” I add. But she’s silent.
“Here we are,” she announces cheerfully, wheeling me up to a waiting area by the main entrance, setting the brakes on my chair, and reminding me to take it easy with the ankle.
“Just don’t do anything too strenuous,” she cautions me, making me smile.
The position Xander had me in on the couch this morning. Would that be classed as strenuous?
Not sure, I’d have to ask a doctor, but there seems to be a sudden shortage of those around here for the moment.
A younger girl reminds me a bit of myself at her age hobbles up and plants herself in the chair next to mine.
She’s overweight with old-fashioned pigtails on either side of a round, freckled face.
“How’d you break your leg?” she asks with a slight lisp, her two front teeth missing, and a heavy cast on her own leg telling at least part of her story.
“I fell down a ledge,” I tell her, not bothering to explain it’s my ankle, not my leg and she frowns a nod, m
ildly impressed.
“I fell off my bike, have to have the cast for six weeks” she announces loudly, almost proudly.
I crease a smile, reminded again how all my life I’ve never broken a sweat really, let alone a bone.
Most kids have a break or surgery, some sort of trauma that they survive. Giving them a scar or at least a tale to tell.
This girl’s earned her stripes but I don’t feel like I’ve missed out on anything. Two hours in this bandage and I’m over it. The thought of six weeks in a cast?
No thanks.
“You have pretty hair,” she remarks next and I thank her for the compliment, returning it in kind.
“You have nice hair too, did you braid those yourself?” I ask and she flushes with pride.
“I did,” she remarks triumphantly. “All by myself.”
There’s a note of defiance in her voice. An edge to her whole demeanor.
“You waiting for your mom?” I ask, making conversation while we both wait.
She shakes her head hard to either side.
“Someone’s coming for you though, right?” I ask, sounding responsible.
“Yeah. They’ll be here soon,” she tells me and looks away.
Conversation over.
It suddenly registers why she reminds me so much of myself.
She’s alone, but unlike me, she’s more of a survivor than a crier.
My dad always provided for both of us, but he was hardly home because of it. Still isn’t.
I never had a friend or neighbors or other relatives to fill the gaps, and like this little girl, I spent a lot of time alone or learned to do things for myself.
A white van pulls up out front, and a friendly-looking couple steps out. A man and a woman, likely in their thirties, professional looking.
Not like the crowd of suits from before.
“Alright, Jenny?” The woman asks. The girl only shrugs, looking away again.
“Can you manage to the van okay?” The man asks.
I notice the girl’s hesitation again.
“Umm, are these people supposed to be picking you up?” I ask Jenny, a little concerned now.
Both of them look at me with sympathy. “Yes, we’re here for Jenny,” they chime.
She murmurs, “Bye” to me, and with one of them on either side, she hobbles to the van with them, letting herself in the back after refusing their help.
There’s something about this I don’t like and struggling out of my own wheelchair I reach the sliding doors of the medical center in time to see the van pull away.
State Child Protective Services in subtle but bold print on the driver’s side door.
I feel something catch in my throat, realizing maybe Jenny and I aren’t so alike after all.
I mightn’t have seen my dad as much as I could or should have. But he was and still is there for me.
And now I’ve found Xander.
I silently wish little Jenny well as the van pulls away, knowing myself the twists and turns life can take.
Making it all better. Working itself out in the end.
Chapter Twelve
Xander
Hank Stanton is an ex-cop, but campus police are no joke. They still have plenty of authority.
I wouldn’t say I know him, or rather, he doesn’t really know me. But that’s the whole point of why I do a lot of what I do, nobody knows me or what it is I do.
It bugs me though that someone saw me carrying Gillian through the woods and all the way back to my cottage?
That would mean we were followed, and it’s a wily cat who can shadow Xander Sexton without him knowing it.
“Somebody made a big mistake linking me to whatever cases the FBI wants closed,” I remark casually, snorting a laugh over a side comment how much trouble someone might be in over there, keeping or losing a job even.
“Yeah, well. It happens,” Hank’s voice drawls again. “We’re all human after all,” he adds.
I let him catch my smile in the rearview mirror, holding his eyes with mine until he swerves back to correct the car.
All human indeed.
“Aww c’mon, Hank?” I whine. “Throw me a bone will ya?” I ask, pouting and looking more like the man he knows me as.
The mild-mannered college professor suddenly perplexed at how I could be implicated in anything to do with the police.
He’s stone for about a mile and I leave it at that, but I know Hank’s type well enough that he loves a good story as much as the next man.
“Well, alright,” he finally says loudly, caving in with a little grin.
“But you didn’t hear it from me!” he warns me, holding a firm finger up, watching the road like a hawk now, not wanting to get distracted by turning to me.
“Someone you know, or rather used to know. On campus?” he says cryptically, obviously wanting to fill in the drive with a little twenty questions for his own amusement, or just so he can say he didn’t tell me anything he shouldn’t directly.
“I don’t know anyone, Hank,” I confess. I really don’t. There are loose professional colleagues on campus but nobody who’d have it in for me. Nobody who would...
I groan internally.
“You know who,” Hank says accusingly, reading my expression.
“That was years ago,” I protest. “I didn’t even know she still worked on campus,” I add.
“She doesn’t,” Hank says loudly, opening his eyes wider, wanting to say more, but no. That would be telling.
“Well as far as I know.” I begin in my defense. “The restraining order should still be in place. And how would someone with a restraining order against them be able to follow me and report me to the police?” I retort, openly challenging Hank’s position.
He frowns giving a nod. “Good point, but when it comes to Federal Jurisdictions…” he drones wearily without actually saying anything of value.
He suddenly giggles like a child, slapping the steering wheel with one of his fat hands.
“Something funny?” I ask, glad I at least have a starting point on who’s been doing the snooping.
“You must be the only professor on campus that woman didn’t manage to get her claws into,” he chuckles loudly.
“Or any member of the entire history of the college’s football and athletic teams,” I add dryly, revolted by the memory.
“Well, whatever you did or didn’t do to her, she was finished after that,” Hank reminds me.
“I didn’t do anything to or with her,” I remark hotly, wishing I’d never mentioned it now. I could have made my own inquiries elsewhere.
“Oh, C’mon Xander. Don’t be like that. It’s not often we see a female stalker case on campus, and Lucy Brennon just couldn’t take no for answer, could she?” he asks, picking at the memory and opening it fresh for me.
“No, she couldn’t. But I wasn’t aware she was even in the state let alone near the campus,” I remark again.
“I kinda don’t blame her though and don’t take this the wrong way, Xander. But if a woman who looked like her makes advances on a single man who looks like you?”
I turn, giving him a deliberate blank stare.
“I have no idea what you mean,” I tell him honestly.
The very thought of that woman makes my skin itch. But she obviously knows how to bear a grudge.
Makes me wonder if she followed me into the woods, and how long has she been dogging me?
I feel a sudden gripping sensation in my chest, a feeling I haven’t had for years.
Danger.
Not for me, no.
For Gillian.
If Loopy Lucy is following me, she’d know all about me and Gillian. And someone as unhinged as that, well. There’s no telling what they might do.
A rational man might point this out to Hank, to the police. He might even ask for some help in watching over Gillian, just in case.
But I don’t want to draw attention to Gillian and me. I’ll be on the lookout and take out any wou
ld-be stalkers or anything else that tries to get between me and Gillian.
“Ah well, it’s ancient history I guess.” I lie to Hank, making like I’ve let it go for what it is. Ancient history.
“Maybe just drop me straight home if that’s okay Hank?” I ask, preferring my own wheels from now on.
“What about that dog, and Ms. Parker?” he asks frowning.
I pretend to have forgotten all about them.
“Ah, shoot. I was gonna help her with that house, wasn’t I? Okay, maybe I’ll grab the dog on the way through then I can pick Ms. Parker up myself in my car and we’ll go from there to the house she’s been sitting.”
Hank shrugs. “You’re a good man Xander. The world needs more men like you.”
Ain’t that the truth?
We drive the rest of the way in silence, and I wrestle with another new emotion. Anxiety.
Worry.
Loving someone isn’t all about pleasuring them, sharing intimacy, no.
It’s wondering if they’re okay when you’re not around too.
I can’t be with her every second of the day, but knowing there’s a disgruntled lunatic in the area makes me uneasy when it comes to Gillian being alone.
Still, at least I know now.
How could I have missed it though? I guess I have been rather distracted the past few days, once I hooked myself onto Gillian’s scent.
Pulling into the campus police parking lot, I can see Sargent Eames giving me the stink eye through his office shutters.
Hank lifts his belt after stepping out of the car and tipping his hat to some fellow officer’s calling over some words of encouragement for them as we make our way inside.
He motions me inside first, and I stoop to push the little swinging doors separating the police offices from the reception area.
“Pooch is in with Eames,” Hank informs me, my own senses telling me that long before we reach his office door.
“Great god in heaven!” Hank exclaims as we draw closer.
“I think I know which one is Eames’ office,” I remark, covering my mouth.
Eames looks livid. I know he doesn’t like me, but stepping into his office, again, it doesn’t take a detective or professor to read the situation.
His Shooting Star: A Steamy Standalone Instalove Romance Page 7
