by Joan Hohl
Turning from the window, Eric made his way unerringly through the dark room to the door.
An RV, of all things, he thought, shaking his head as he descended the outside stairs three at a time. Before he had traversed the short distance from the stairs to the end of the driveway, the street was swarming with cops, every one of them converging on the RV and the men lugging the cases toward the house.
How Glen Reber managed to slip through the human strands of that closing net, Eric would never figure out, but slip through it he did.
Eric had crossed the sidewalk, blending into the darkness next to a curbside tree, when he spotted Reber, hugging the inky darkness around the home next to the target house, inching his way down the street to his car.
Leaping into the road, Eric took off at a run after the retreating man. By the time he arrived in the general area where he knew his quarry should be, Reber had vanished.
Taking slow, quiet, measured breaths, Eric began a game of hide-and-seek.
Eric lost. His quarry found him first. He was four houses down from the action, across the street from Reber’s car, and Tina’s house, when he felt the unmistakable feeling of a knife point pressed against the side of his neck, directly above his jugular vein.
“No heroics, tall man,” Reber warned in a grating whisper close to Eric’s ear. “If you want to keep the blood flowing inside that vein, you’ll move slow and careful toward that car over there.” He backed up the threat with an added bit of pressure from the knife.
Eric’s parents had not raised any fools. Biding his time, watching and waiting for the right moment, he began moving, slowly, carefully, toward the big Lincoln.
With his attention divided between his captive and his car, Reber never gave so much as a glance to his ex-wife’s house. He should have. He didn’t see her.
But Eric did. And his blood ran ice-cold.
Jesus, Tina, stop!
The cry rang inside Eric’s head as he watched her emerge from the shadows beneath the overhang. Her hands gripping the handle of the large black iron frying pan she was holding high over her head, Tina came running down the walkway toward them.
Right or wrong, his moment was upon him. Eric seized it. He moved with blurring swiftness. Ignoring the pinprick of the knife point puncturing his skin, he raised his arm and his knee as he turned.
Three things happened simultaneously.
The hard outer edge of his hand slashed down into the curve of Reber’s neck.
His knee smashed into the man’s groin.
And the frying pan landed with a thunk on Glen’s head.
Reber grunted, then dropped to the street like a stone.
“Oh my god!” Tina cried. “Is he dead?”
Hunching down, Eric pressed his fingers to the side of Reber’s throat. “Nah,” he said, springing upright. “But he’ll hurt like hell when he comes to.”
“Eric...I...” She broke off, staring at him through eyes widened from reaction. “You’re bleeding!”
Raising his hand, Eric touched his fingers to the wet trickle seeping from the wound. “It’s nothing.”
“It—it’s over?” Her voice quavered, her body shook, the pan hanging at her side from her limp hand swayed.
“It’s over.” Eric was fully aware of the commotion around the house up the street, the raised voices calling back and forth, the red-and-blue lights flashing atop the police cars filling the roadway. And yet he saw only Tina, and he saw red, a surge of anger born of fear.
He opened his mouth to give her a blistering lecture, dress her down one side and up the other for endangering herself by disobeying his orders to remain inside.
The words caught in his throat, as through his mind flashed the memory of his thoughts the previous week, his belief that he could trust Tina with his life if necessary.
She had run to his defense.
But she had put herself in jeopardy, Eric reminded himself. She could have been seriously injured...or worse. The feeling inside him swirled again, now more fear than anger. He had to make her understand the magnitude of the risk she’d taken. His lips parted once more.
“I love you, Tina.”
She gasped and stared at him, dumbfounded, and then the pan hit the sidewalk with a clang and she turned and ran back into the house.
* * *
It was late when Eric was at last free to leave the police station. A co-worker dropped him off at his center-city apartment.
Forty minutes later, showered, shaved and dressed in brown slacks, a white turtleneck and a tweed jacket, Eric emerged from the underground parking garage driving his late-model midsize car.
Now that the drug-shipment business was over, he had a real job of work to do...that of convincing a certain small, beautiful, risk-taking, breathtaking blonde that they were made for each other.
Eric prayed she would listen.
* * *
Tina sat curled up in the chair by the window. Hers was the only house on the block with lights spilling into the one o’clock a.m. darkness.
Her features were composed. Her hands lay at rest in the velvet softness of the green ankle-length robe covering her lap. Her eyes stared into the night. Watching. Waiting. Listening for the low roar of the monster machine.
A tiny frown line appeared between her pale eyebrows when, instead of the bike, a silver-gray car came down the street and made the turn into her driveway.
Tina’s pulse leapt with combined anticipation and panic on sight of the tall form that stepped from the car and moved with purposeful strides to her front door. She sprang from the chair, the full skirt of the robe swirling around her legs as she took off at a run. She was at the door before the sound of the first ring of the bell faded on the air.
“May I come in?” Eric’s voice was tense, strained; his sharply defined features were drawn to a fine edge.
Tina couldn’t speak, for the emotion clogging her throat. Nodding in answer, she slowly backed away, all the way into the middle of the living room. Mute, she stared at him, absently noting how very handsome he looked.
His eyes, clear as a crisp, blue autumn sky, boring into hers, Eric stalked her to a standstill at the arm of the sofa.
“Are you ready to listen now?” His voice, low and taut with urgency, tingled from her nape to the base of her spine.
“Is that your car?” Tina moved her head a fraction, indicating the driveway.
“Yes.” Eric frowned. “What does that have to do with anything? I asked if you were willing, now, to listen to my explanation?”
“No.”
He went absolutely still. His face paled. A fine tremor shook his strong fingers. “No?”
Still unable to form words, Tina slowly moved her head back and forth in denial.
“Tina.” Eric’s voice was a whispered cry of agony torn from his throat.
Tina couldn’t bear the sound of it. She took a hesitant step toward him.
He extended a hand, as if in supplication.
“I love you, Eric.”
He froze. Then, a light bursting like blue fireworks in his eyes, he strode to her and pulled her into his arms.
“Tina...Tina, you had me so damned scared,” he groaned, kissing her hair, her temple, her eyes, her cheeks. “If you ever endanger yourself like that again...”
“I’m sorry,” Tina murmured, smoothing her hands over his hair, the high bones of his cheeks, his hard jaw. “But I was afraid, terrified Glen would hurt you.”
“God, I love you.” His mouth brushed hers. “Can you forgive me for not telling you who and what I am?”
“I have,” she whispered, raising her mouth to his.
“Love me.” It was not a question, but a plea.
“I do.” Tina brushed his lips with her own. “Oh, Eric, I love you more than my own life.”
“Then show me.” Sweeping her up, close to the revealing thump of his heart in his chest, Eric strode for her bedroom.
She did.
* * * * *
ISBN: 978-1-4592-8644-3
Wolfe Watching
Copyright © 1994 by Joan Hohl
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