by Abby Brooks
But the goosebumps are intensified because there’s someone in that car. And yes, I’ve seen it before and no, I don’t recognize it and somehow it seems ever so ominous. Even more so when the headlights come on, and the engine roars to life, and the car speeds down the street, the guy behind the wheel staring us down the whole way.
I’m shaking. Trembling like a leaf, almost sagging in Max’s arms. “What was that about?”
“Could be nothing,” he says, smoothing my hair back away from my face.
“You don’t look like you think it’s nothing.”
Max swallows hard and takes a deep breath, nostrils flaring. “Cop senses.” His eyes are tight and watchful, taking in the area around my house. He lifts his jacket and I catch sight of a gun tucked into a holster in his waistband. My eyes go wide despite myself. Of course he’s armed. He’s a cop. That’s what they do, right? But wow. This whole evening, I was sitting across from a man with a gun and never knew it.
“I’m going to go into the house with you and take a look around, just to be safe.” I let him in, turning on every light I can get my poor trembling hands on. He moves through the small house quickly and efficiently, making sure that I stay with him, but behind him. After he deems the interior safe, he goes around the outside, leaving me perched on the couch in a mess of emotions I can’t process.
He comes back inside in a gust of chilled November air, his back so straight and his shoulders so square he looks almost impenetrable. “Everything looks okay out there, but I want you to keep an eye out. Don’t let anyone in. If something looks suspicious, I want you to call me first, then the police, okay?”
I nod. “Do you think I should be scared?” Because I’m scared. Max’s reaction alone is enough to unnerve me, his cop sense going off, the realization that I’ve been seeing that car more and more lately, followed by its very abrupt departure when the guy sitting in the cold car in the dark realized that we had noticed him.
“Don’t be scared. Just be wary. Pay attention.” He sits beside me on the couch and takes my hands in his, his skin still chilled from the time he spent outside.
I don’t want him to go, but I’m afraid to ask him to stay. He already turned me down once.
He stays anyway. Takes off his coat and settles into the couch, pulling me into him. Close, so close and good, so good. We don’t say much. I’m too wound up and he’s gotten very quiet, but I appreciate the fact that he stays until I’m not trembling anymore.
When he finally goes home, I lock the door and check all my windows before climbing into bed. Even with the covers pulled up close to me, I’m chilled, although I couldn’t tell you if that was because I’m actually cold or because of the way I keep remembering the way the guy behind the wheel of the car looked at me as he sped off down my street.
14
I wake up the next morning in a pool of warm light, sliced into thin lines by my blinds, and streaming in through my window to land on my bed. Gone is all the worry and tension from the night before. In its place? The slightest hint of Max’s scent left on my skin. The memory of his warm lips on mine. The way he stayed to make sure that I was not only safe, but also sane. Sitting with me until he knew my fear had dissipated and I knew I was going to be okay before he left.
It makes me warm from the inside out.
I grab my phone off the bedside table to check the time and find the notification light blinking. A text from Max.
Woke up thinking about you.
Well damn if that doesn’t feel good. I sit up and stare down at those five simple words, smiling like I just won a million dollars while I tap out a response.
Woke up thinking about you, too.
It’s nine, which is late for me, and I’ve got a couple errands to run. I bound out of bed and wash my face, brush my teeth, and get dressed. My phone buzzes while I’m trying to decide if I’m comfortable going out with a baseball hat and ponytail so I don’t have to do my hair and makeup or if I should just suck it up and spend the time getting ready. I check the phone, putting off the decision.
Drove by your house this morning in the patrol car. Didn’t see anything strange. You text or call if you see anything. Okay?
There’s this brief flash of disappointment. When he said he was thinking about me, I instantly assumed he was thinking about, you know, me. Our date. That he had fun. That he wanted to do it again sometime. Not that he was busy being a protective cop who was worried about a woman with a suspicious car outside her house. But then my phone buzzes and what he has to say obliterates all the disappointment.
When can I see you again?
Soon, please.
Maybe that makes me sound desperate, but I’m really hoping it sounds more along the lines of honest.
Promise?
Tonight?
My breath catches a little. Should I have been so forward? But the answer is easy. Hell yes, I should be forward. I need to go after what I want, and what I want is Max Santoro.
Tonight sounds great. What sounds like fun?
Ohhh … I can think of a lot of stuff that sounds fun, but none of it is exactly appropriate for a second date. Never mind the fact that I’ve been seeing the man once a week for the past month and a half, that was a purely professional relationship. My sister Dakota would probably be brave enough to just jump right in there and say what she’s thinking, but me? Nah. I’ll wait and let Max set the pace on that.
I offer to cook him dinner and hold my breath until he responds, in case he finds that suggestion too forward. I don’t wait long. He accepts and adds the suggestion of finding a movie on Netflix and all I can think about is snuggling up next to him on the couch again.
Despite the bright sun, it’s cold today. I pull on a jacket and peek through the blinds, looking for strange cars. When I don’t see anything or anyone unnusual out there, I let out a long breath I didn’t know I was holding. Purse in hand and baseball hat pulled low, I lock my door behind me and head on out into a brilliant morning, squinting against the sunlight. My errands today are very fun of the mill. An oil change. A stop at the bank. Running into the grocery for the same week’s worth of healthy choices I buy each and every Saturday.
On the spur of the moment, I stop at the mall and wonder through the stores, daydreaming about a new shirt and maybe even a new pair of shoes. Before I know it, I’ve got bags draped over my arms, a coffee in my hand, and a great big smile on my face. I didn’t just buy a new shirt. I got a whole new outfit from the ground up. From a black lacy bra and matching panties to a great pair of pants that look casual enough for a night at home but sexy enough to spur Max on for some more of the touchy feely stuff. Earrings. A bracelet. And even a great idea on how I want to wear my hair.
On the way home, I turn the radio up and sing at the top of my lungs, dancing in my seat and not caring even a little bit about who might see. Let them stare. Let them see me happy. And if they laugh? Good. Maybe my happiness brought them a little happiness and isn’t that what life is all about?
But when I get back home, my blood just runs cold because sitting in that same spot on the road down from my house is that exact same car. And there is a guy in the car. And he is watching my house. And even though he turns his head away from me when I drive past, I know he was waiting for me. I pass my house and turn the corner, even though I know he saw me. I go around the block and put the car in park, dialing Max’s number with shaking hands.
“Well, hello sweet stuff,” he says, a smile in his voice.
“Max,” I hiss, staring wildly into the rearview in case I see him come around the corner. “He’s here.”
“Where are you?” I can hear the smile is gone and Max is deadly serious.
“I was out running errands, he wasn’t there when I left, but when I came back, he was sitting in that same spot.”
“But right now, Chelsea. Where are you right now?” He is strong and confident, breaking through my growing panic with the sheer amount of control in his voice.
“I drove pa
st my house and parked around the block. I’m in my car.”
“Good. That was very good thinking.”
“What do I do? What’s this all about?” I hate how afraid and uncertain I sound, but damn it. I’m afraid and uncertain right now.
“First of all, start by calming down because I’ve got you and you’re going to be okay. I want you to go somewhere popular and waste about ten minutes. Go to a Starbucks or something and grab a coffee and wait for me to text you. When you get that text from me, I want you to go home. I’ll be waiting for you and we’ll make sure this guy gets the picture that you are not to be messed with.” There is so much power and strength in Max’s voice, so much certainty in his decisions, I start feeling better just knowing he has a plan for me.
I glance at the empty coffee cup I’ve got sitting in the console next to me and shrug. Max’s idea is less about the coffee and more about the sheer amount of people I’ll be around me. Starbucks is never empty. With one last look in the rearview, I pull back out onto the road and navigate myself through my neighborhood and back out to the main roads. I’m sipping on a tall caramel macchiato when the all clear text comes from Max.
The drive home is somewhat more subdued than my first drive home. No music. Shaking hands and white knuckles. Ramrod straight back. The car is still sitting there, guy in the driver’s seat trying not to be seen. There’s something ridiculous in that. I mean, how conspicuous can you get? As I pull into my driveway, Max pulls up behind me, his car a sleek black barrier between me and the guy on the street that feels like a bastion of safety right about now.
But then he steps out and my eyes bug out of my head. That is not Max Santoro, the man in the suit who takes women to fancy restaurants and orders exotic food. This is Max Santoro, the cop. He’s dressed in his uniform, the brim of his hat pulled down over those bullet blue eyes of his. His jaw is set. His hand is on the gun at his hip, flipping open the holster with his thumb.
He nods to me. Once. A curt dip of his chin. Then he spins on his heel and marches straight towards the guy in the gray Celica. I watch, feeling less frightened now and more like I just happened to be the person who brought a gun to a knife fight.
You thought I was a helpless victim? I think as Max arrives at the asshole’s door and raps on the window with a knuckle. You’re about to get just a little more than you bargained for.
I can’t hear what Max says to the guy, but I can see that the guy in the car is about ready to poop his pants in fear. Somehow, and maybe this makes me a little bit of a bad person, I get a big warm fuzzy feeling watching the interaction. Max barks something at the guy, clipped tones, deep voice, and the driver nods frantically. Max steps back, hand still near his holster, and the guy starts his car and drives off, never even looking my way once.
“I can’t guarantee that he won’t be back, but I think it might be awhile before you see him again.” Max is smiling, proud of himself, and oh so handsome in that uniform. All that blue fabric stretched across that proud chest.
“My hero,” I say, trying to joke, but the relief I feel makes its way into my voice and shows just how much I mean it. “Who was he?”
“Not really sure. He muttered some stuff about being totally within his legal rights. I reminded him that stalking and threatening is nowhere near his legal right and that I would be more than willing to take him down to the station and remind him exactly where he stands on the whole legal side of things.”
I step closer, wanting him to wrap myself up in his arms and feel that much safer. “Thank you.”
Max looks down at me, just a few millimeters of space separating our bodies. “Of course.” He pauses and clears his throat. “So I guess I should head home so I can get changed for this hot date I have this evening.”
“You too?” I ask. “I just happen to have a hot date as well.”
“Yeah?” Max smiles. “I bet my date is hotter than your date.”
“No way. Mine is big and strong and wears a uniform that does crazy things to my libido. And he’s got these eyes that I get lost in and he smells so good…” I trail off, mortified at myself.
“You like the uniform, huh?” Max asks with a quirk of his lips.
“Totally.” And now I’m blushing from head to toe.
“I might be filing that information away for later.” Max takes off his hat and runs a hand over the top of his head.
We stand there for a few moments, neither of us ready to say goodbye. “So,” I finally say. “I know this might be a little weird, but I was wondering if you might want to just stay? I mean, I’m nowhere near ready for our date.” I gesture at my outfit and hat. “But, I just…”
Don’t want you to leave.
Max grins at me. “I’d love that. Like, more than you know. But if I go home and let the dog out now, then I can stay later tonight.” His eyes smolder into mine, like a full on, hero on the cover of a romance novel smolder and I have never, ever, had anyone look at me like that in my whole life. It’s intoxicating.
“I guess I can handle that.”
Max grabs me by the waist, pulls me tight against his body. It’s so abrupt I squeak in surprise. He lowers his face to mine, kisses me sweetly on the lips. Runs his hands up my back and teases me with his tongue, darting it into my mouth to taste mine. I feel his belt digging into me, the radio on his shoulder, the badge on his chest… Add that to the strength in his arms and back. The power with which he just pulled me into him, claimed this kiss as his…
I’m done for. If Max wanted to make sure that I thought of nothing but him for the next few hours, well, he couldn’t have done a better job of making it happen.
15
When I walked up to the window on that Toyota Celica, I was half expecting to see Sloan Anderson sitting there, boiling in some testosterone-fueled rage over the fact that Chelsea outed him for the assault back in October. When I found a twerpy little pasty faced jerk in stained jeans and a Mountain Dew can littered car, it took me a second to readjust my plan of attack
If it had been Sloan Anderson, I was ready to pull that man out of the driver’s seat and threaten him with every ounce of media attention I can muster. If that meant making a big loud deal on the street so that Chelsea’s neighbors came pouring out of their homes to see what was happening, then so be it. If that meant dragging his dumb ass down to the station on trumped up charges of some sort, then so be it.
But the strange little guy who was most definitely not Sloan Anderson would have had a heart attack if I went all big bad cop on him. So I went for a different kind of threatening. I know how to put fear into someone. I know how to use my eyes, my size, the gun on my hip. I know how to look at a person and let them see that little bit of crazy in me that they really don’t want to rile up.
Chelsea had sounded so scared on the phone. So small. So unsure of what to do. No one needs to feel like that. No one. The fact that she reached out to me in her time of need—a guy she’s only known casually for a few weeks, a guy she’s only been on one date with—that sent little ripples of anxiety through my heart for her. What that told me is that she doesn’t have anyone else she trusts to keep her safe. That even though she claims to have this great, supportive family, she didn’t trust them to be there for her when she felt threatened.
She turned to me, a near stranger.
Part of me likes it. Not the part where she’s scared and alone. Not the part where her voice trembled explaining why she called me. But the part where she called me? That feels good. She knows I can protect her. She knows that when things get bad, I’m the one to call.
What man wouldn’t like to know a woman has that kind of faith in him?
And then there’s the fact that she didn’t want me to leave after it all went down. We stood there in the driveway, her in her baseball cap and dirty hair, me in my uniform, and she suggested I just keep on staying. Thing is, I really considered it. In the past, that level of clingy would have had me running for the hills. Not with Chelsea. She’s
something special. My palms get a little sweaty when I think about how much I want to see her.
She was my last thought before bed and my first thought of the morning and has infiltrated every other moment of my day since I woke. Considering how hard I’ve worked not to build any attachments in my life, this should worry me. But it doesn’t.
Anyway, I don’t know if I could stay away from her if I wanted to. I’m drawn to this woman. She is unlike anything or anyone I’ve ever encountered in my whole damn life. When I’m with her, the memories don’t come whispering up from the dark part of my soul, threatening to overtake me. She calms me. Soothes me. I smile more around her and let me tell you, that certainly doesn’t suck, even if it does surprise me. Takes me off guard when I realize that I’m just grinning like an idiot or laughing at some silly little nothing she said and that I didn’t even have to consciously make it happen.
And the other thing? The other little truth that I’d like to think I know as an honest to goodness truth? I am not my past. DNA or not. Faulty genetics or not, my grandmother made sure that I saw whatever wires got crossed in my dad and helped me cement the desire to keep on the straight and narrow. Even when I got placed in the worst of foster homes. Even when I ran away and found solace in the company of people who made it their mission to look as prickly on the outside as they felt on the inside, I still managed to keep my hands clean, to stay true to who I am deep down in my very core.
A good person.
Driven to operate within the boundaries of right.
And when I was presented with opportunities to break the law? To make a good hefty sum of money by becoming a criminal? Well, I managed to side-step those, too. So maybe, even given my less than stellar pedigree, maybe I really am the good guy I want to be. That my grandma wanted me to be. That she spent every second of every day training me to be.
