The Hero's Redemption

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Had to be Ramirez, checking up on him. Cole’s good mood evaporated. Ice formed, killing everything he’d let himself feel. Maybe the reminder was good.

  Deliberately turning away from Erin, he climbed the steps, knelt and laid out the first board.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ERIN FINISHED TYING her athletic shoes and then reached automatically for her hooded sweatshirt. It wasn’t until she was zipping it up that she had a sick feeling. I wore one just like it that day. She looked down at herself. Wow. Athletic shoes. Check. Jeans. Check. How could she not have known she’d been unconsciously replicating the same outfit? As if the dead wouldn’t recognize her if she was bare-legged and wearing a tank top?

  After a minute, she sighed, but she didn’t remove the sweatshirt. It was still too chilly out at night. Good justification.

  Closing the front door behind herself, she all but tiptoed across the yard to her Cherokee. Cole’s bedroom window was dark. Thank goodness he hadn’t heard the scream that had torn her from the nightmare.

  Tonight, after easing open the driver’s-side door and getting in, she decided not to close it until she reached the street.

  Cole had completely withdrawn during the past couple of days. Apparently, he didn’t like her talking to his parole officer. As if he hadn’t asked her to talk to the guy in the first place! Was she supposed to ignore all future calls from Ramirez? The hell with Cole, she thought bitterly as she started the engine.

  She released the emergency brake and shifted into Reverse, turning her head to look over her shoulder. In that instant, a dark shape loomed outside the passenger window. Erin screamed as someone tried to open the door and then fell backward when it proved to be locked.

  Operating on instinct, she pressed the gas pedal and the SUV leaped back. Feet pounded outside. Before she could move forward, Cole had run around the Jeep and appeared at her door.

  “Stop!”

  Shaken and furious, she stepped on the gas. He hung on to the door, so she couldn’t slam it closed, and ran beside her. She’d gone twenty feet, almost to the street, before she braked.

  “What are you doing?” she yelled. “I could’ve knocked you down and run over you!”

  “Let me go with you.” The roof light illuminated his face, set in implacable lines.

  Feeling the tremor in her hands, she clung to the steering wheel. “You can’t come.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you can’t, that’s all.”

  “Then you’re not going.” Voice grim, he reached in front of her and managed to shift into Park.

  If her hands hadn’t been shaking, she would’ve shifted right back. “This is none of your business.”

  “Erin, whatever you’re doing is hurting you. I don’t like seeing you the next day so exhausted that you look like you have two shiners.”

  The walking dead.

  What if she were to take him, just this once? Drive around. Bore him to death.

  But then what was the point of going at all? And if she didn’t bore him... No.

  “If you get out of the way, I’ll back up and park. I’ll stay home, just to make you happy.”

  “Leave it here. Or let me park it.”

  The need to vent some of her anguish had swelled inside her for days, as if she were a bottle and the cork had to be popped. Feeling a sudden, hot rush of temper shocked her.

  “It’s my car, my driveway.” Hating the venom she was spouting, she couldn’t stop herself. “You work for me. That’s all. So back off!”

  His expression altered, as it always did when something threatened his pride. For a second, Erin thought he’d nod in that stiff way of his and walk away. She could drive off, and he’d never say another word about it.

  But...for him, coming out here and trying to prevent her from leaving was extraordinary. Interfering, making demands on her, had to be way outside his comfort zone.

  To her astonishment, he stayed where he was. Defying his pride, he hadn’t backed down.

  “Fine.” She climbed out, stumbling when her feet touched the pavement. She felt weirdly awkward, her hands and feet not quite under her control.

  Without a word, he took her place and moved the Cherokee back to its spot in front of the garage, this time with the nose pointing out rather than in.

  I could have made a smoother getaway if I’d parked like that yesterday.

  Only she hadn’t parked it, had she? Despite her simmering annoyance with Cole, she’d let him drive whenever they needed something at the hardware store or lumberyard.

  By the time she plodded the short distance, he was out of the car waiting for her, her purse in his hands. The keys weren’t in sight. Had he pocketed them? she wondered resentfully.

  He handed over the purse when she reached him. “For what it’s worth, I’m keeping the keys until morning.”

  “I have an extra set,” she mumbled.

  “I figured.”

  Neither had taken a step.

  “You going to let me in the house?” Cole said after a minute.

  “Why should I?” Except it suddenly occurred to her that he’d have to unlock the front door. She’d had a hidden key until he started to tear apart the porch, when she’d taken it inside and stuck it in a drawer, to be forgotten. Smart.

  “Because I want to talk to you.”

  How a man could sound utterly expressionless and yet relentless at the same time was a mystery, but he managed.

  “Fine,” she snapped again.

  He followed her to the front door, where she pointedly stood aside. When he didn’t make a move, she said, “You have my keys.”

  He let them in. She dropped her purse on a side table and led the way to the kitchen. She wouldn’t be going back to sleep after this, so she might as well have a cup of coffee. Or three or four. Why not?

  As she measured out coffee, from the corner of her eye she saw Cole hesitate, then set the key chain on the table. Instead of sitting, he stood in the middle of the kitchen, feet planted just far enough apart to make him appear ready to spring.

  Trying to ignore him, Erin added water and set the machine to brew, then leaned against the counter, facing him. She crossed her arms in a gesture of self-defense.

  “Were you planning to wait all night for me to come out?”

  “I wasn’t outside until I saw your bedroom light go on.”

  “I don’t understand. You were watching?”

  “I told you. I sleep light.”

  “Cole, it’s nice that you worry, but this is something really personal. I can’t take anyone else with me.” Considering her turmoil, she was surprised at how pleasant and regretful she sounded.

  “Why?” he asked again. Unless it was her imagination, he’d leaned forward slightly.

  Her agitation rose under the pressure. Would he never let up? “I can’t tell you. Don’t keep asking.”

  “Why?”

  Tears burned her eyes.

  “Is there anyone you’d take along?”

  She glared at him. “No!”

  The coffee machine beeped. She ignored it. Cole never looked away, his intensity making her want to shrink back.

  “Tell me.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t like having to wonder. I don’t like seeing what your little trips do to you.”

  “It’s not the trips,” she blurted.

  “I didn’t think so.” He didn’t move, but seemed to...settle. Satisfied because he’d gotten part of the answer? “I’ll keep my mouth shut if you let me come. I just got out of prison, remember? You can’t be into anything that would shock me.”

  “It’s not like that.” Erin fought to keep herself from rocking. She wasn’t sure she could stand this for another minute. She had
to make him go away.

  He leaned forward, his icy blue eyes drilling into hers. “Then what is it like?” he asked, implacable. “Why can’t I come?”

  “Because I might kill you!” she yelled.

  * * *

  HE’D BEEN WRONG. She could shock him. She had.

  And damn, Erin was clutching herself as if she’d fly apart if she let go. The sheen in her eyes had to be tears.

  He closed the distance between them without conscious thought. “Erin.” He almost choked on her name. She kept staring at him, eyes brimming with both tears and despair. Gently, he gripped her shoulders and tugged her forward. “Erin.”

  She didn’t fight his hold, even let herself lean toward him, but her body remained rigid. Tentative, he wrapped his arms around her and cradled the back of her head. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I pushed too hard.” Whether he’d done the right thing or the wrong thing, he didn’t know.

  Damp warmth on the front of his T-shirt alarmed him, but her body didn’t shake with sobs, and she didn’t make a sound. Holding her, he wondered if she even knew she was crying. “It’s okay,” he murmured. “It’s okay. God, I’m sorry.”

  Except he wasn’t. He still needed an answer, even if he didn’t entirely understand what he was doing here. Ever since she’d taken him in, her unexplained disappearances at night had bothered him. They had something to do with the grief and pain she barely masked. And no, whatever was going on with her wasn’t his business—but she’d stepped up to help him. How could he do less?

  He couldn’t resist the pleasure of having her in his arms, either. He rubbed his cheek against hair that was both silky and springy, and breathed in her scent. Of their own volition, or so it seemed, his hands stroked soothingly over her back. He could feel the fine tension in her and the delicacy of her vertebrae and shoulder blades.

  When she didn’t move, he finally, reluctantly, steered her to the table and eased her down on a chair. However unwilling he was to release her, he did, but pulled up a second chair. He sat facing her, and their knees touched. Then he handed her a napkin from the holder on the table.

  Head bent, she only clutched it for a minute, but finally let out a huge sigh that had her shoulders sagging. She mopped her face and blew her nose firmly before she lifted her head again.

  Her eyes were red and puffy, her creamy redhead’s skin blotchy. Her lower lip trembled. “Why does it matter to you?”

  “I don’t know,” he lied, not giving her time to call him on it. “How could you have killed me? Do you practice shooting?” The idea of her target shooting in the middle of the night—in the dark? by flashlight?—boggled his mind.

  “No.” Her voice was so soft he barely heard it. “I...speed.”

  “Why?”

  Her defiant, bloodshot eyes met his. “I go out at night when hardly anyone else is on the highway and I drive as fast as the Cherokee will go.”

  Chilled, he asked, “How fast?”

  “A hundred miles an hour. More.”

  He whispered an imprecation. “You’re trying to kill yourself.” But that couldn’t be right. All she’d have to do was swerve off the road into a big Douglas fir and she’d be dead.

  “I...” Once again, her gaze slid away. “Not exactly.”

  He’d heard that before. “Then what?”

  “I won’t choose to die, but—” She stopped, her lips pressed together.

  “If it happens, you won’t mind,” Cole said slowly, scared shitless. Traveling at that high speed, it would take the tiniest of errors. An instant of distraction. An animal running across the road, a momentary loss of control.

  “Only...sometimes.”

  “I don’t get it.” But then he remembered the “walking dead” thing, when he’d feared she had a fatal disease. It sounded like she did, in a way. Mental illness? Or something more insidious? Now she looked at him as if she desperately needed that connection. “It’s...” She fidgeted for a moment. “I guess there’s no reason not to tell you.”

  “There isn’t.” Some instinct had him reaching for her hand. He hadn’t held a woman’s hand in so long he couldn’t remember the last time, but this felt right. So right, he shoved the feeling to the back of his mind.

  “I was a college professor. Small, liberal arts college in California. I taught history. Revolutionary War, Civil War and Reconstruction. Up through the nineteenth century.”

  College professor. That meant graduate degrees. She was even further out of his league than he’d imagined. But since he’d never believed she’d see him as an equal, he ignored that as she kept talking.

  “I coached women’s softball and volleyball, too. I’d played in high school and college.” Her eyes, big and haunted, searched his.

  He nodded, although he still didn’t understand anything.

  Seemingly reassured, she said, “We had an away game. I was driving. We always took this extralong van the college owned. Most of the team went, and my assistant coach. Charlotte was only twenty-three.”

  Had. Was. The ominous verb tenses confirmed that this story wasn’t going anywhere good.

  Cole’s fingers tightened on her cool, slender hand.

  “I glanced in the rearview mirror because I thought one of the girls had taken off her seat belt. If I hadn’t, I might have been able to react in time. This huge semitruck roared across the median. I swerved and the van rocked and...and fought me. After that, all I remember is hearing screams.”

  God. His throat tightened. “How many girls did you have with you?”

  “Ten. And Charlotte.” Erin never looked away. “They died. All of them. Even the truck driver. Later, I was told the police think he had a heart attack.”

  “Nobody to blame,” Cole murmured.

  “Nobody?” She made an inarticulate sound. “Of course there is. I was the driver. Responsible.”

  “You’re not the one who crossed the median.”

  “I should have seen in time. Braked, sped up, something.”

  “If you hadn’t looked in the mirror, you’d have had...what? A split second longer to react?”

  “That might be all it would’ve taken,” she argued.

  “I don’t believe that. Shit happens so fast when you’re driving. Even if you’d seen it sooner, how well could you have judged the truck’s speed? Or whether it would brake or swerve? And you can’t tell me that kind of van is very maneuverable. Had you ever had to change lanes fast or stop suddenly before?”

  Seeing her uncomprehending stare, he knew he was wasting his breath. She’d stalled on the certainty that, as the driver, she and only she was responsible.

  “Erin?”

  She blinked a couple of times and finally focused again on his face.

  “Were you hurt?”

  “I had a concussion. Broken collarbone and arm and ribs.” Apparently without noticing, she touched each place on her body, all on the left side. “I was in the hospital for a few days. It was nothing. Not compared to—” She started breathing too fast.

  Nothing? he thought incredulously. She meant she wasn’t dead.

  “Were you charged? Did anybody blame you?”

  Her forehead wrinkled with what looked like perplexity. “I wasn’t charged with anything. But I’m sure some of the parents blamed me. They trusted me to take care of their daughters, and I didn’t.”

  He’d known guys in prison who were stuck, kind of like this, but in reverse. Phil Mumford didn’t think he’d gotten any justice. It wasn’t his fault. He’d just gone along for the ride. None of it was his idea, so why should he get the same prison term as his two buddies? Or Ronnie Ferrell. Cole must’ve heard him say the same thing a hundred times. If I’d just jumped out and run, those cops never would have caught me. I should’ve just jumped out and run. I’d’a got away for
sure. If I’d just jumped out... Cole wasn’t the only one who avoided both Ronnie and Mumford. He never bothered to say the obvious. Every single inmate should have done something different. If they had, they wouldn’t be there.

  Yeah, Erin’s problem was the flip side of Ronnie’s or Mumford’s. She was so damn determined to accept responsibility for all those deaths that she never let herself hear people say, It wasn’t your fault. He even understood. Cole had read about soldiers who were the only survivors out of their entire platoons. They spent the rest of their lives asking, Why me? Imagining all the accusing eyes...

  Survivor guilt. He knew the term.

  He became aware that Erin held herself as if she was waiting for something from him. Reassurance? Cole seriously doubted that. Plenty of people must have already tried. Judgment, then? Condemnation? Probably.

  “Have you had any counseling?” Ah, the irony of his suggesting it, when he’d balked at attending any counseling sessions when he was in the pen. “I mean, a chance to talk about this?”

  “At first.” Erin shrugged dismissively. “It didn’t do any good. How could it?”

  “If you’re suicidal, you need help.”

  “I’m not! I told you—”

  “You’re playing word games,” he said flatly. “And you know it.”

  She kept staring at him, her eyes luminous with gold and green and a hint of earthy brown he hadn’t noticed before.

  He huffed out his breath. “That’s why you weren’t scared of me, isn’t it? You figured if I slit your throat, hey, that’s just another way of making it happen.” Hammered by what he’d realized, Cole dropped her hand and straightened. “Is that why you hired me? Did you hope I was a killer?”

  “No!” She scraped her chair back. “I’m not that far gone.”

  “Sure you are.”

  “I’m not.” She said it softly. “Most of the time, I’m not. I just...feel this pressure building.” She pressed the heel of her hand to her breastbone. “It’s as if they’re all waiting for me. I can almost see them. Hear them.”