As we pulled up and parked, I noticed the paint peeling a little, and one of the gutters around the side was down. In my heart, I knew at one time this place had been immaculate.
“You sure your dad isn’t home?” I unbuckled the safety belt I’d been white-knuckled since we’d left town. I wished I had called Babel to let him know what I was doing and where I was going. It would’ve made me feel safer having him know. Well, if Jo Jo and I disappeared, at least the mayor would be able to give the police a jumping-off point. What I really wished was that I hadn’t sent Babel away in the first place. Why did I have to be so stubborn at the worst possible times?
“Yeah,” Jo Jo answered. “He always takes off after a big fight. Sometimes he doesn’t come back for days.”
“I’m sorry, Jo Jo.” My parents never yelled at me or hit me, so it was hard for me to understand what he was going through.
“Why? You didn’t make him act like he does.”
I found it hard to reconcile the Brady Corman of my vision with the one who’d presented himself at my shop the day before. He hadn’t always been a drunk. Jo Jo had at one time had a mother and a father. I promised myself to keep that in mind while trying to stumble into a “helpful” vision.
Inside the house, the decor had seen better days. There were coffee stains, or at least I hoped they were coffee stains, on the light-blue chenille cushions of the Old Country style sofa. All the furniture matched. Before Rose Ann had been taken from them, she’d kept a beautiful home.
I didn’t have to a have a psychic event to know how much love she’d put into her house.
As I walked around, I’d get a flash here and there. Rose Ann cooking, brief intimacies between her and Brady, how proud she was when they’d brought Jo Jo into the world. All her happiest moments, but nothing sinister lurking at the edges.
I just didn’t get it.
“Anything?” Jo Jo asked hopefully.
“Sorry. Nothing yet.”
The living room and the kitchen didn’t get me anywhere. I doubted the bedroom would be better. When I got inside, I saw a flash of Jo Jo helping his father from the floor to the bed, pulling the peach ruffled bedspread up to the drunk’s chin. I closed my eyes as though that could keep the bad stuff away.
It didn’t.
Judah’s ghost prowled around the floor, sniffing in all the corners. I’d wondered if the coyote would show up or not. He drew my attention to the side of the oak dresser and my chest tightened.
What terrible thing would I find?
My heart beat heavy, hard enough to feel the surge of each pump in my ears as I crept toward Judah. He didn’t move from the spot, so I had to reach through him. The space where his body was felt slightly cooler than the rest of the room. A shiver ran from the nape of my neck down my spine. Like backing up into a spider web.
Way high on my creep-o-meter.
The edge of a wooden frame peeked out from behind the dresser. I pulled on it and broken glass fell out and punctured the palm of my hand.
“Son of a bitch,” I swore as the blood welled to a ball. Where was lycan spit when you needed it?
I heard Jo Jo’s quickening footfalls. “Sunny?”
“I’m okay,” I told him, holding out my hand. “Got a bandage?”
“Sure.” He disappeared out in the hallway and I pulled the picture frame completely out.
It was a young Brady and Rose Ann in traditional bridal attire—he in a tux, her in a gown. For furred-folks, this town seemed pretty normal. Hell, more normal than the way I grew up.
The coyote seemed intent on the wedding photo. “Come on,” I said to Judah. “Can you be a little more helpful? For shit’s sake.” He whined and sniffed the photo.
Great, dead and sentimental. I shook my head, but examined the picture once more. Maybe there was something written on the back. Nope. The back just had the photography studio mark on it. I flipped it back over. They really had made a beautiful couple.
And that’s when I saw it. The necklace.
I couldn’t be one-hundred percent certain it was the same as the one in the metal box, but if it wasn’t it was a very close twin—gold chain with a small heart.
I folded the picture up, put it in my purse, and sent quiet apologies to Rose Ann Corman wherever she was.
“Anything?” Jo Jo asked again as he brought me a first-aid kit.
“Sorry, no.” I didn’t want to tell him about the necklace and get his hopes up. It was just one more piece to the whole wacky puzzle, and for all I knew, meant nothing at all.
“It’s time to get back to town, I think.”
Poor kid. I wished I had the answers to give him.
Back on the road, I prayed we’d get to town in one piece. I’m not saying Jo Jo was a bad driver, just a little erratic. We had a few “Hail Mary” moments, making me think I’d have to get a stronger dye to cover the gray hairs he was giving me.
“Slow down, Jo Jo. It’s not a race.”
He didn’t respond with words, but his foot let off the gas a bit. A dark SUV, midnight blue or black, I couldn’t tell, was heading up the road toward us in the opposite direction. I hadn’t seen it before, but no surprise there. “Neighbors?” I asked.
“No,” Jo Jo said. “At least, not unless the Berringtons got a new Suburban. Man, those are total swag.”
I was trying to decide if swag was good or bad when I noticed the Suburban had picked up speed and was moving to the center of the road.
“Where did you get your license?” Jo Jo yelled. “K-mart?”
“Are they going to get over?” The large SUV kept getting closer and closer, kicking up dust from the gravel road like a professional fog machine.
“They’ll get over,” Jo Jo assured me.
I didn’t feel assured.
“Watch out!” I screamed as the truck seemed intent on a head-on collision.
“Oh, shit!” Jo Jo yelled and cranked the steering wheel to the left, just missing the dark machine of death. We landed nose down in a three-foot embankment on the side of the road.
The crash sent me forward, but the seat belt kept me from doing more than hitting my forehead on the dashboard. Jo Jo hadn’t been so lucky. There were no airbags in the truck, and the teenager hadn’t been wearing his seat belt. His head was cut to shit from where it had hit the windshield, tiny shards of glass speckling his face as blood gushed from a large cut on his forehead. He was unconscious, and as tough as I was getting, I felt that lightheaded feeling coming on.
The SUV sped off down the road, not even stopping to see if we needed help. Bastard. I don’t know how the driver hadn’t seen us.
How in the hell had I managed two freakin’ attacks and two motor vehicle accidents all in the same week? Fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck!
“No,” I chastised myself out loud. This boy had spent his life with one disappointment after another. I would not be just one more adult who failed him. I hadn’t brought a jacket, and modesty seemed like the least of my problem, so I took my blouse off, cream-colored and one of my favorites, and pressed it to his forehead.
Shaking his shoulder gently with my free hand, I tried to rouse the wounded teenager. “Jo Jo, wake up.” I tried again, and then again. Maybe he’d done damage to his brain. What did I know? The extent of my medical training included a crash course in the Heimlich maneuver when a restaurant customer had started choking. I needed a doctor.
Since the doc wasn’t here, I took steps to help Jo Jo as best I could. I kept pressure on his gash with my right hand—because in the movies, that was the first thing they always did—while I reached into my purse with the left and dug out my cell phone.
Flipping it open, I refrained from voicing the stream of expletives running rampant in my head. (Besides, it would be pretty hard to compete with the quadruple f-bomb, so why try?) No bars! What the hell was wrong with Peculiar? Hadn’t they ever heard of cell towers? Maybe they had a shifter-to-shifter phone service I wasn’t aware of. If I started howling, would an
yone come running?
After a minute, the panic waned a little. My cell phone worked in town. We must’ve just been in a dead spot.
I rolled my shirt and put it around Jo Jo’s head like a bandana and tied the back. I took my hands away to examine the makeshift bandage. It seemed to be holding, but it was hard to tell with all the other smaller cuts if the bleeding was stopping or not.
It would have to do. Jo Jo needed help. Real medical help, and I wasn’t qualified.
“Hang in there, Jo Jo.” I stroked his hair, comforting, like I’d seen his mother do when he was a baby. “I’ll be back. I promise.”
My arm and jaw were killing me by the time I’d finally managed to hold a signal. (You try walking nearly a mile holding a cell phone up in the air.) I couldn’t even switch sides because my other shoulder was weaker from where I’d been attacked. My face, of course, still hurt from the night before, and the desperation of my circumstances seemed to compound the ache. I’d probably only been walking twenty minutes, but it’d felt like two hours in the hot June sun.
I brought the phone down to make the call, and the friggin’ bars disappeared. Shi-it!
I thrust it back up, and the signal came back. Why couldn’t this be easy? Why couldn’t anything in my life be easy?
Because it wasn’t. I’d deal with it.
Dialing Babel’s number wasn’t an accident. Billy Bob and Babel were next to each other in my address book. I didn’t hang up when his phone started ringing. If he answered, at least he could get help. Even if he were angry about me sending him away, he wouldn’t turn his back on Jo Jo. “Please answer,” I begged softly.
I heard a faint “hello.” Shoot, I needed to put him on speaker.
“Hold on!” I hollered. “Don’t hang up!”
“Sunny?” I heard him say clearer as the speaker engaged. “Why do you sound funny?”
“’Cause I’m in the middle of freaking nowhere! Jo Jo’s hurt really bad. He’s knocked out and bleeding a lot.” Panic mounted inside me, and I forced it down. “Help me.”
“Where are you?” He sounded as anxious as I was feeling.
“I don’t know. I swear all these country roads look alike. Why can’t you all use freakin’ signs like normal people?”
“It’s all right. Tell me where you were going?” He didn’t even yell at me over the “normal people” comment. I was glad one of us was calm.
“I…We were going back to town. Coming back from Jo Jo’s house.”
“Okay. I know what road you’re on. I’ll find you. I’ll be there soon. Just hang on.”
He hung up, and my arm went limp at my side. The cell phone slipped out of my hand, and the screen cracked and went black when it hit the rocky ground.
“Nooo,” I shouted to the tree frogs and crickets. Breathe, Sunny, Breathe. I picked the broken phone up and put it in my pocket. Babel was coming. He’d save Jo Jo. I ran back to the truck. I had to get back to the boy. I had to make sure he still needed saving.
I hauled ass as fast as my legs would work. My bra was soaked with sweat by the time I made it back to the wreckage. Don’t be dead. Don’t be dead, I pleaded silently to animal ancestors, God, and all the earth deities I’d grown up with in my parents’ community. I hoped if any of them existed, at least one would hear me. Of course, they might be pissed about me not completely holding to my earlier bargain.
Jo Jo looked so pale and listless when I reached him. My hand shook as I touched his neck, trying to find a pulse. He still had one.
“Thank you,” I mouthed to whoever had been listening. I heard the roar of a car coming down the road in the distance.
“Help is on the way,” I told Jo Jo. “Stay with me, buddy.” At least I hoped it was help and not the SUV back for another swipe at us. The more I thought about it, the more I thought it had run us off the road on purpose. Relief washed over me when I saw it was Babel’s car, broken windshield and all. I got out of the cab of Jo Jo’s pickup to meet him.
Ho-boy, he looked pissed as he stalked toward me. My hero.
“Why didn’t you call me to go with you to the Cormans?” he began his rant. “I live a damn mile from here.” His nostrils flared. Why did he have to be even sexier when he was angry? Gah!
When I came back to my senses, Babel was still ranting. “After the way Brady came after you yesterday, are you out of your mind going out there alone?” He stopped for a moment, sniffed the air, then made a sharp chuffing noise. “And where’s your shirt?”
Great. He caught my horny hormones on the wind. “How am I supposed to know that you live a mile from here, huh? I’m in the middle of the boonies with an injured teenager, and you’re pissed because I didn’t call you to babysit us?” I glared at him. “As to my shirt, do you think I was making out with a seventeen-year-old? Seriously?” First Brady, now Babel. What the hell did that say about popular opinion?
Babel raised an eyebrow. In response, I picked up a walnut-sized rock and chucked it at him.
He rubbed his chest where the projectile hit. “Ow.”
“My shirt’s keeping Jo Jo from bleeding all over the damned place, you idiot.” Why had I called Babel? I could have called Billy Bob instead, and hell, it probably would have been the best thing for Jo Jo, but instead, I’d wasted my phone call on one moody coyote intent on punishing me with word, if not deed.
He went around the driver’s side of the truck and checked on Jo Jo. “He’s still breathing, and his pulse is strong.”
“Thank you, Doctor Trimmel,” I grumbled, though I really was glad Babel had checked on Jo Jo. It made me feel like he wasn’t a complete shit-head.
“I can’t believe you didn’t call me.”
I snorted. This conversation was disintegrating into absurdity. “This is so much bullshit.”
“What did you say?”
“I said bullshit.”
He growled at me.
I dug my broken phone out of my pocket and threw it at him. “Don’t you growl at me! You might have a bigger bark, but I have a bigger bite.” Not really, but I was really pissed at him for acting like he owned me.
He’d dodged the crippled device easily, strode forward, and closed the gap between us faster than I could react. His arms swept around me. He crushed me to his chest.
“Goddamn,” he murmured. “Damn.”
“Babel.” I craned my neck, no small pain there, to look up at him. His eyes were wild, but not animal-wild like before. He looked so handsome, in a tortured, One-FlewOver-the-Cuckoo’s-Nest way. In a moment of weakness, I allowed myself to sink into him, taking all the reassurance he gave. His chest felt warm against my cheek, and I could hear his heart thudding beneath my ear.
He stroked my hair. “You shouldn’t be alone.”
“I’m not alone. You’re here.”
“Not what I’m talking about. I’m worried. You shouldn’t be living alone. You need someone around. Someone who can take care of you.”
Oh, no, he didn’t. Moment of comfort over. It didn’t matter to me that he might be right…“I’m a big girl, Babel. In case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Sunny, don’t be like that. I only meant—”
“I know exactly what you meant. I’m not the helpless heroine in some bad B movie who needs to be rescued every five minutes.” Okay, my track record hadn’t been great this past week, but usually, I’m very capable.
“It’s not that you’re a woman, Sunny.” His arms dropped to his side. “You’re human.”
The way he said it was like a punch in the gut. He’d said it like me being “human” was insurmountable. I was fragile cargo. Easily damaged. “You’re just figuring that out, Einstein?” I snapped. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Lucky for Babel, the doc pulled up before I really went off on his stupid, albeit sexy ass.
Billy Bob examined Jo Jo, then looked at my bloody, bandaged hand. “Did you hurt yourself?”
I shook my head. “Most of the blood is from Jo Jo. Is he going to be okay?”<
br />
Babel tried to put his arms around me, and I moved away from him. I didn’t need or want his macho support. Not now. Billy Bob got a little white thingy from his bag and snapped it in front of Jo Jo’s face. The young man jerked awake. “Whoa, now,” Billy Bob said. “Just some ammonia to wake you up.”
“That stinks really bad,” Jo Jo murmured.
“That’s the whole point.” Billy Bob smiled.
I was just happy the boy was awake. “A good sign, right?”
“Sunny…” Jo Jo said.
“I’m here. I’m fine.”
“Stupid, goddamn truck.”
Well, at least his memory was good. “Yeah.”
“What truck?” Babel asked.
“The one that decided playing chicken on a June afternoon would be an ideal form of entertainment.” I’d show them a whole new form of entertainment to rival the Spanish Inquisition if I ever saw them again. Vise grip to the balls sounded like an appropriate punishment. Actually, I might have to get more creative, squeezing their nuts until they cried “mommy” just wasn’t satisfying enough.
Billy Bob put a neck brace on Jo Jo and gestured to Babel. “Help me get him to my car. I need to get him back to the house to stitch his head.”
They positioned the passenger seat down to fully recline and carried Jo Jo over, gently placing him inside. I went to the other door to get in the backseat. “I’ll take you home, Sunny,” Babel said.
“No, I don’t want to leave Jo Jo alone.”
The anger rolling off Babel was palpable, but now that the cavalry had arrived, I felt the full weight of the situation bearing down on me. Where was the Xanax when you needed it? Back at the doc’s place, if I had to guess.
Billy Bob spoke up before Babel could protest. “You go with Babe. You can come check on Jo Jo later. But don’t forget to head to the station and fill out a police report so they can try and find the person who did this to you both.”
Sooo reasonable. Yeah. “Fine. Okay.” I guess it was back to the police station for me. The place was starting to feel like hell sweet hell.
My Paranormal Valentine: A Paranormal Romance Box Set Page 74
