Truth and Humility

by J. A. Dennam

  “Austin Cahill. You have a woman stashed in this house,” Ruth accused, elbowing her husband in the process.

  “No, I don’t,” Austin retorted and buried his head in the pantry. “At least not like that. She’s just one of the salvage crew.”

  “Really?”

  His sister’s tone challenged and he didn’t like it. He emerged from the pantry with a handful of freezer bags and a scowl on his face. “Yes, really!”

  “Nuh-uh,” Laney perked up by the windows. “ She’s too pretty for that. The only people who work in the salvage yard are dirty, smelly, ugly guys.”

  “Hey, thanks!” Austin aimed a glare over his shoulder that sent his niece into a fit of giggles.

  Ruth collected leftover slices and transferred them to the bags. “If you have a girlfriend, Austin, just say so. It’s okay to move on, it’s been eight months.”

  Steam began to build again and Austin slammed the empty boxes one on top of the other. “I said she works here, Ruth.”

  “Well, does she eat?”

  “Of course!”

  “Why didn’t you invite her for pizza?”

  Because she’s not on the menu, was the first answer that came to mind when he thought of what his family would do if they knew he had a Bennett in the old house. They would eat her alive, then serve him up raw shortly after. Instead he replied, “Because she’s not family.”

  Ruth didn’t buy it. If this woman was pretty, she was a possible candidate for ccann>

  “Ruth!”

  “Up yours, little brother.”

  Laney jerked to attention. “Mom!”

  “Sorry, Laney.”

  By the time Ruth reached the door to the servant’s quarters, she had quite a procession behind her. Austin’s panicked attempt to stop her only kicked her retaliation into a higher gear. She raised her knuckles and knocked.

  “Hello, excuse me!” Despite the answering silence, she boldly opened the door before her brother could physically stop her. “Oh! I was beginning to think there was no one in here. Hi, I’m Austin’s sister, Ruth. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

  After having a look at the startled woman on the bed, Winston raised an eyebrow at his brother-in-law. “Salvage crew, huh?”

  Austin raised his arms, grabbed fistfuls of hair and paced quietly in the hall. Though he and his sister had grown closer after their father’s death, she could still be an intrusive pain in the ass.

  The conversation remained on a friendly level. As usual, Ruth did most of the talking and Laney went on about the music on the laptop. Austin still paced in the hall dragging his hands over his face in abject misery.

  “Well, it was nice to meet you, Danny. Sorry about Laney, she tends to ‘lift’ things. Trying to break her of that.” Ruth gave her daughter a playful swat as they exited the room. “Oh, and help yourself to the pizza, the rest is in the fridge. All you want.”

  When the crowd cleared, Austin lagged behind, his nervousness showing as he peered through the vacated door. In a way, he wanted to make sure Danny was still in one piece.

  His eyes met hers and he almost laughed. She looked shell-shocked, her nerves having taken the bigger hit. He could only imagine what was going through her head. A Bennett surrounded in a matchbox bedroom by a handful of Cahills and nowhere to run.

  “What – the – hell,” Danny mouthed silently, putting a hand over her heart. God only knew she was doing her part to stay away.

  “I’m – sorry!” Austin mouthed back with an overzealous shrug. He didn’t want her discovered any more than she wanted to be, but he had to admit… it was an interesting situation. Danny and Ruth would most likely get along famously if their last names didn’t interfere.

  Danny breathed a sigh of relief when Austin finally pulled the door closed. She had two seconds to celebrate life when her phone vibrated cone daughter again. She glanced down at it, closed her eyes and banged her head back against the wall. “Great,” she ground out. Just when she thought things couldn’t get worse.

  It was the fourth time Brett’s name appeared on the lighted screen. When she realized her mistake in answering the unknown caller the first time, she had hung up in his face. After the second call, she labeled his number so she could easily identify the unwanted caller. Now, with this fourth call, it was bordering on bold harassment and she absolutely refused to listen to the messages he left. The pompous ass would only blast her for the prank she’d pulled and, frankly, she liked Baker’s version of it just fine.

  “You called it, little sister. Guy’s got shit for hand strength. Once the rope was gone, he was at a dead hang for about six seconds, then he cried all the way down to the net. Didn’t shit himself, but he did piss those fancy pants of his. Almost felt sorry for him.”

  Settling for the mental image since she wasn’t able to enjoy it in person, Danny giggled impishly. “Was Derek there?”

  “Yeah. Wasn’t easy keeping from him why we were torturing the fellow, but he understood once I filled him in.”

  “He didn’t get mad?”

  “Are you kidding? Laughed his ass off, but he agreed he would have gone half-cocked on the guy. Your way was better.”

  And Danny knew her brother.

  Eventually, the house grew quiet and the sun descended behind the western horizon. Danny was cramming one more assignment into her last hour before facing the busy workweek ahead. By the fifth call, she swore heavily, grabbed her vibrating phone and threatened to throw it across the room when she saw Melanie’s face splashed on the screen. Should she answer?

  “Crap!” she groaned, knowing it wasn’t in her to ignore Melanie. The woman may be naïve about men, but her heart was easily bruised when she thought her friends were mad at her. She slid her thumb over the blinking bar.

  “Mel?” Danny frowned at the sound of raspy erratic breathing. “Melanie?” she prompted again.

  “D-Danny?”

  “Melanie, what’s wrong?”

  “I’m standing at the gate. I need to see you.”

  “You’re where?”

  “Please, Danny!” Melanie shrieked. “I’m right outside the gate, please come outside, I need to see you!”

  Her pleas were broken and gurgled as if she’d been crying. Danny stared at her phone in alarm as the panicked sounds continued to come. “I’m cbspast h coming, I’ll be right there!”

  She bounded off the bed and slipped into a pair of light sneakers without even untying them first. Then she tore down the breezeway at a dead run and streaked past the offices without slowing.

  Austin noticed the blur of motion outside the office window, returned the folder to Sue’s desk and stepped out onto the walkway only to catch a glimpse of Danny’s dark shirt and cut-off shorts disappear around the corner. He reared back to check the gate monitor.

  All kinds of horrific thoughts entered Danny’s head during her frantic dash to the gate. In what shape would she find her friend? Had that bastard, Brett, done something to her? Was she hurt? As the gate grew closer, the one light aimed at the area illuminated Melanie’s lone figure on the other side of it. Her friend was jiggling as if she were in a hurry to see her, egging her to move faster. Danny knew she couldn’t open the gate without a code and she used her momentum to launch herself up and over the eight-foot wall of chain link. As soon as she was on the other side, she reached for her friend and took her shoulders in her hands, made a quick inspection. Melanie’s soft blond hair was mussed, her cheeks flushed. She appeared to be fine but was in such a panicked state of distress, Danny’s insides buzzed with tension.

  “Oh, my God! Melanie, you’re a mess! What’s wrong?”

  Melanie’s chin trembl

  ed where her mascara-blackened tears had gathered to drip to the ground. “I’m sorry, Danny,” she moaned, and succumbed to another wave of misery.

  “For what?”

  There was a tap on her left shoulder. Danny turned around and took a violent hit to the side of her face. Pins exploded in her head
as her sight gave way to needles of light. Her world tipped…and she went down.

  Chapter 9

  “Now do we understand each other?” Brett snarled, then took Danny by the ponytail and dragged her out of the circle of light into the darkness. The band was ripped from her hair in his efforts and her brown tresses spilled over the asphalt when he finally let go. Before she could rise, he delivered a stunning kick to her side.

  Pain. Danny took the full brunt of the blow and coughed as the wind left her lungs.

  Brett jerked toward Melanie and her incessant sobbing. “Shut up!” he roared, making her shrink in fear. He returned his attention to the form curled at his feet. “You think you can humiliate me, you cunt? I’ll show you how it’s done!”

  He yanked Danny on her back and sat down heavily, straddled her pelvis, took both her wrists in one f f f hand. Her tailbone ground into the asphalt. She cried out in pain and was instantly silenced by a backhanded slap that left her ears ringing.

  There was a clanking of chain link followed by a tremendous impact. Suddenly the crushing weight was off her. Melanie’s open sobs mingled with the sounds of pounding flesh and grunts of pain. Gasping for breath, Danny rolled onto her scuffed hands and knees and spat out a mouthful of blood. Shouts sounded from the private rooms and she looked up through a thick curtain of tangled hair as the gate started to roll open before her. Men were running toward them, Mac in the lead. She then turned her head to the awful sounds of bone impacting with bone behind her.

  Brett was on the ground, reaching up in a desperate attempt to stop the next blow to his face. But Austin had him by the shirtfront, lifted the man bodily just as his fist rocketed down again and again. Only when Brett was non-responsive and bloody did Austin stop and stagger to his feet. Pumped, he paced over the body, muscles flexing like some modern-day gladiator. His rage was intense. Danny was awed by the power of it through her haze of pain.

  Running footsteps came closer. Mac was there. When his hand brushed the hair back from her face, her eyes were closed again as she sucked in air.

  “Oh, Christ, Danny!” he exclaimed. Suddenly his big arms wrapped around her, lifted her off the ground.

  “Take her inside, Mac!” Austin growled fiercely behind them. “Call the cops and get some paramedics over here. Better make it for two.”

  “Mel...” Danny mumbled the name when Mac walked her past the woman cowering in the grass. Unable to halt the man’s hurried progress, she rested her aching head on his shoulder and gave him her full weight as he quickly carried her the distance to the offices. He carefully maneuvered his load through the open door, then the second. When he tried to deposit her full length onto Austin’s couch, she resisted gravity and slowly settled into a sitting position.

  Mac crouched in front of her and looked her over. “Was it that prick from the bar?” he asked softly.

  Danny touched her cheek and winced. “Yeah.” Her voice came out hoarse. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

  “Like hell,” he growled then barked at Torsten to get some water and towels and for Frank to hand him a box of tissues. The room was getting crowded with onlookers. Mac took her chin between his thumb and forefinger, slowly turned her face, inspected the damage. The marks on her cheek were already becoming swollen and angry. He put a wad of tissues against her bleeding mouth. “Spit,” he commanded. She did and they both grimaced at the amount of blood.

  Frank bent beside them. “Damn, but I’d like to ring his bell.”

  Mac continued tending to her face. “Boss did the honors, but we’d form a line if we knew Brett could still feel it.”

  “That’s the thing about Boss,” Frank said, winking at her.&nb kng span>

  Danny went for light-hearted banter that came out wobbly. “He sure looked like he knew what he was doing.”

  Frank craned his neck trying to see past the people in the doorway. Where the hell was Torsten with the towels! “Bet your ass,” he replied absently. “Four years of cage matches’ll do that to you.”

  Danny blinked, temporarily distracted from her pains. “Cage matches?” A Cahill in one of those undignified octagonal rings of no-holds-barred brutality? “No way.”

  Mac and Frank grinned at one another. “Just ask Torsten,” Mac said with humor. “That’s how they met, back in college. Boss kicked the shit out of him and they’ve been tight ever since.”

  “Left him deaf in one ear. Took pity on the jerk and gave him a job.”

  Her doe-eyed look went from one mustachioed man to the other. That would explain the spontaneous fisted square-offs in the yard she’d caught the two men engaged in once or twice. Always finished off with some good-natured, macho backslapping.

  “Water and towels coming through!” Torsten barked, parting the crowd in the doorway. Even he appeared to be struggling with his anger and he began to blot at the scrapes on her exposed knees while grousing about physical abuse. Who the hell would do something like that?

  Danny’s brows creased and it hurt. Torsten was a mystery, as she vividly remembered her backside taking a sting or two from him as well.

  “I got it, Florence Nightingale,” Mac growled and snatched the wet cloth away from him.

  A uniformed police officer came in a short time later followed by two paramedics. Danny groaned when she saw the latter come at her with their duffel bags and gloved hands. “No!” she commanded with more strength than she felt. “I don’t need medical attention, I’m fine!”

  “Let them look at you, Monkey,” Mac chided. The couch dipped drastically when he sat down beside her. “Make sure you don’t have a concussion or anything.”

  They asked her questions, took her vitals, shined light in her eyes, asked her to state her name, date and location. She passed all their tests and was so relieved to see them go, she closed her eyes to wish everyone else away. When Austin entered with the other policeman, she kept them closed, knew he was there just by the energy that followed him into the room. He ordered most of the crew out except Mac and when it was quieter, she told the policemen as much as she could. Austin and Mac piped in with a few details to fill in the blanks about the drugging. Then she told them about the harassing phone calls and finally how he used Melanie to draw her outside. She was describing the assault in as much detail as her memory could muster, but she couldn’t look up, not when she knew he was watching h kas

  When the police officers left, Mac patted her on the leg and stood. “Do you need some help getting up?”

  To prove she didn’t, Danny rose only to stagger. Austin instinctively moved forward in case she needed more hands, but she managed to do it on her own. “See? Right as rain.”

  Mac glanced at his boss who gave him the silent signal to leave. He planted a gentle kiss on Danny’s tousled head. The gesture was not the least bit awkward. “Get some rest, Monkey,” he ordered, and left.

  Now it was just the two of them. The situation was awkward enough. Danny headed for the door and it was pushed shut in front of her, trapping her.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about the phone calls?” Austin asked softly.

  “It wasn’t your problem.”

  “It’s my problem when one of my employees is harassed by an abusive sociopath.”

  She closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the door. “You called it,” she admitted humbly. “You told me he’d do it, but I figured he was too much of a coward.” Austin said nothing. “Believe me, nothing like this has ever happened to me before.”

  He could sense her embarrassment. “I believe it,” he reassured her. Her tangled hair draped forward masking her face, but he wanted to see what Brett Lockton had done to her.

  “Here, let me take a look.” He moved her chin with one hand and brushed her hair away with the other. Each time his eyes moved to a different wound, a muscle jumped in his jaw. Other than that he showed no emotion. “The cop found blood and some hair on the driveway.”

  Just at the suggestion, the tender patch on her scalp began to bur
n. Her fingers automatically went to the site and rubbed. “Cavemen generally behave that way.”

  She was trying to make light of a very serious situation and Austin wasn’t buying it. “Take the day off tomorrow,” he ordered, releasing her chin.

  Her eyes darted downward and she studied the new scuffs on her white shoes. “No. My brothers and I work through our injuries. It drives my parents crazy because I’m their only daughter, but they know how quickly I bounce back.” For the first time she noticed the bandage wrapped around his right knuckles. Tiny spots of blood seeped through the first two, matching the larger spatter of blood on his shirt – Brett’s blood. “Maybe you should take the day off.”

  He inspected his hand and the corner of his mouth turned up in a half smile. “Believe k; mes Neme, that was more therapeutic than damaging.”

  Danny’s breath caught at the sight of him. That self-satisfied smirk did something to his mouth that sent delicious tingles from her head down to her toes. The sensation was in stark contrast to the physical pain radiating from her face, tailbone and ribs. An image of him standing over Brett’s body with that gladiator stance, shoulders tensed, arms bowed out, muscles dancing beneath the thin cotton of his undershirt…for a second her heart pumped wildly out of control until she remembered to breathe.

  But then another image burst through her reverie that doled out a much-needed dose of reality. Austin standing over Derek’s body after he’d released the same rage on her brother. It was the cold splash of reality needed to view him without the stars in her eyes.

  She backed up a step. “You probably imagined it was Derek instead of Brett.”

  Austin noticed the shift in her mood, but it was her involuntary shiver that bothered him most. “I knew exactly whose face was under my fist, Danny.”

  In fact, his rage had become almost blinding when he watched Brett on the monitor, landing the sucker punch that took her down. It was all he could do not to kill the man.