Summer Wish

by Jill Sanders

  “You just can’t stay away from me, can you?” he joked. Normally, she would have smiled, but over the past year, this was his standard greeting when he ran into her when she was off duty.

  “Just heading home.” She tried to sidestep him, only to have him block her way again. Her back teeth clenched, and she felt her spine straighten. “Sanjay, it’s been a very long day.”

  “Why is it that you and I have never gone out? I’m off shift now. Why don’t we head out and grab a drink?” He leaned on the doorway.

  “We’ve never gone out because I keep turning you down.” She moved to pass him again, only this time he put his hand on her shoulder. Instantly, she thought of Aubrey’s judo moves and wished more than anything she could flip Sanjay onto his back and walk out the door.

  But practicality settled in, and she curbed the urge to even try it. Instead, she glared down at his hand until he dropped it.

  “Isn’t it past time you changed your mind? It’s not like you have a line of men wanting to take you out.” He smiled down at her. “Most men don’t like smart women. I’m willing to tolerate it.”

  She arched her brow. “Tolerate?” She held in the curses she wanted to let loose.

  Sanjay ran his eyes over her. “Sure. I mean, you do have a nice tight package…” At this, she swiveled around and marched in the opposite direction. She’d have to weave her way through the hospital hallways to exit the building, then walk through a dark parking lot to wait for her Uber driver, but if it meant not having to listen to Sanjay talk about her body, then it was worth it.

  “Hey,” he called after her and then jogged behind her to catch up. “I was just joking.”

  She turned on her heels quickly and bolted for the door again, this time making a point to leave him far behind her.

  “Well, if you change your mind,” he called after her.

  When she stepped out into the April night, she was thankful it wasn’t raining so she could wait under the lights for her driver, who was less than five minutes away, according to the app.

  Rubbing her forehead, she looked down at her phone and sent a text to Brett about heading out to the cabin to see him. When he didn’t immediately respond, she wondered if he was asleep and if she should just head home instead.

  “I’d love to see you too, but I’m not at the cabin,” a deep male voice said near her.

  She turned to see Brett leaning against the wall, watching her.

  “How did you…”

  “I heard you were tied up and thought you’d like a ride.” He took his cane and started walking towards her slowly.

  “You… drove?” She glanced around.

  “I have a difficult time walking, not driving. It’s my left leg, remember?” He smiled. “So, do you want a lift?”

  “Sure,” she said quickly. She pulled out her phone to cancel her ride. “But how about we stop off and grab something to eat? I think I earned a greasy cheeseburger and fries.”

  Brett smiled. “A woman after my own heart.”

  Chapter 12

  He sat across from Lea at one of the only places open at one in the morning and watched her nibble on Whataburger fries as he sipped on a chocolate shake.

  She was still dressed in the sexy silver dress that clung to her, and he realized they should be somewhere a little fancier than a fast-food joint. Still, he was thankful he’d switched out of his board shorts and T-shirt from earlier and had pulled on a pair of khaki pants and a button-up shirt.

  He’d been waiting for Lea to come back when Aubrey had sent him a text letting him know that the baby had been born and that Lea would probably need a ride home since she’d ridden in the car with Zoey to the hospital.

  Something told him that Aubrey was rooting for their relationship. That just made him like his best friends’ fiancée even more.

  He looked around the brightly lit dining room. They weren’t the only ones sitting in the fast-food place, but it was as quiet as if they were. That wouldn’t have been the case during the day.

  “So, a girl,” he said with a sigh and leaned back in the booth as he thought about Zoey and Dylan’s new family. “They sure kept it a secret from everyone. I would have thought that they’d have a big gender reveal party and all.”

  “They wanted to keep it a secret.” Lea smiled. “Do you know how hard it was for me to keep that from them and everyone else? I was actually getting bribes.”

  “You knew?” he asked, shaking his head. “And you didn’t tell me?”

  She chuckled, the sound of it warming his heart. He couldn’t help but smile when she was around him.

  Reaching across the table, he took her hand in his. “So, I was thinking…” He lifted her hand up to his lips and brushed them across her knuckles. “Instead of heading back to the cabin, we could head over to your place.”

  Her instant smile told him that she was up for the idea of spending the night with him. He couldn’t explain the feelings rushing through him.

  Just then, they glanced over as several loud men walked in and moved up to the counter. The young teenage boy who’d taken their order a few moments earlier looked a little overwhelmed when the men started making trouble and teasing him.

  “They’re drunk,” Lea said with a shake of her head. “That poor kid looks like he’s scared to death.”

  Brett could see the same thing. The kid’s face was pale, and his hands shook as he tried to take their orders.

  “Isn’t there a manager here? Someone older who might know how to handle four large drunk men?” Brett turned slightly in his chair and successfully got the attention of two of the men.

  Normally, this wouldn’t have been an issue. He was a cop. Well, ex-cop at this point. He would have handled the men and was sure that he could have stopped any fights. But then he moved wrong, and pain shot through his thigh, and he remembered that he wasn’t his normal self.

  “Lookie what we have here,” the man in a red shirt with a long blond beard said, leaving the counter to come to stand next to their table. “A real live Chinese.”

  Brett tensed, but Lea reached across the table and took his hand in hers and squeezed it gently.

  “You speak English?” the other man, who was wearing a dirty white T-shirt and had a long black beard, said loudly. As if any person who didn’t speak English was also deaf, or as if shouting at someone in a different language made them understand it.

  “It would be best if you just ordered your food and were on your way,” Brett said in a low tone. He knew how to handle men like this, he had handled troublemakers for the past few years without raising his heartrate. But now Lea was sitting here, exposed and unprotected. There was no way he was in physical shape to fight off one of the men, let alone four.

  “I wasn’t talking to you. I was taking to this chink here,” the red shirt said with a laugh. “You know why they call them chinks? Cause they’re all named by the sounds their silverware makes when you toss ’em down the stairs.” The man’s eyes turned dark as he looked down at Lea. “What’s your name, chink?” he said loudly.

  Damn his injuries. He’d go down fighting. He made a move to stand up and fight, but the white shirt pushed him down into the chair. Because of the pain in his leg, he folded back into the chair.

  “Tough guy here must think he’s a real big man,” the white shirt man teased with a laugh.

  At this point, the other two men had left the teenager alone and had moved over to stand next to their buddies. Brett hoped that the kid was smart and that he was on the phone with the police.

  “I can be,” he said calmly, knowing he had to stall for time. A few of the other people in the dining area had rushed from the room, and he was sure at this point that someone had called the police. “I’m a cop, so you’d better move along. You don’t want to end up in a jail cell tonight.” He watched the men’s faces for any change. Normally, that bit of news would have helped his cause, but seeing the sneers and heat in two of the men’s eyes, Brett realized he
might have just made a huge mistake.

  Red shirt laughed. Brett would never forget the man’s cackle, as if he’d just told them the best joke in the world.

  “Tonight is our lucky night. Got us a foreigner and a cop having…”—white shirt flipped Brett’s shake over, sending chocolate shake all over his pants— “a date.” All four men laughed loudly.

  Brett once again moved to get up, but two of the men held him down.

  “There ought to be a law against it. Dating someone from China,” the red shirt said with a shake of his head. “We need to send all these gooks back where they came from,” red shirt added. “China.”

  The way the man said the word made it sound like a curse word instead of just another country on the only planet in the solar system that held intelligent life.

  At this point, Brett’s back teeth and his fists were clenched.

  “Aren’t you supposed to uphold the law?” the white shirt said, squeezing Brett’s shoulder painfully. “You can start by sending this one back where she came from.”

  Where was his backup? He glanced quickly towards the large dark windows, looking for any sign of red and blue lights.

  For a moment, he thought about what might happen if he had to fight off the four men himself. He could envision the scene in his head, him jumping around on his good leg, swinging his fists as the men easily ducked and dodged his blows. Then, after the men saw his weak leg, they’d kick it, he’d end up on the ground and maybe do some permanent damage in the process.

  “Oooo weeee, lookie here.” One of the other men, the one in a blue T-shirt, yanked Brett’s cane out from under the booth. “We got us a cripple too.” The man twirled the cane several times, almost hitting Brett in the face.

  “A China woman, a cop, and a cripple hobble into Whataburger…” the red shirt said and then laughed at his own lame joke as he took the cane from the blue shirt man.

  “Is this your boyfriend?” the white shirt man yelled at Lea. “Boyfriend?” he said again, a little louder, spitting towards her.

  “She’s an American,” Brett barked out. “Leave her alone.”

  That seemed to stop all four men. “Probably ’cause she got one of them green cards they were handing out in that lottery. You don’t belong here…” red shirt yelled, holding the cane inches from Lea’s face.

  The entire time this was going on, Lea sat silent. Her eyes were glued to Brett’s face. Suddenly, Brett realized what she was doing and, after a heartbeat, decided to play along with her until the police showed up. Taking her hand in his, he looked directly into her eyes and willed the four men’s jaunts and stabs to fade away in his mind.

  Instead of focusing on the hateful words being hurled at them, he focused only on Lea. The beauty of her face, the richness of her dark eyes looking back at him. Her long silky hair that he loved to run his fingers through. Her full perfect lips that he enjoyed kissing.

  Ignoring the men pissed them off even more. He didn’t move when the end of his cane jabbed into his ribs.

  He didn’t blink an eye or flinch when the man in the red shirt started hitting him in the shoulder with it. He heard the cane snap in two, felt the sting of pain in his shoulder as splinters from the cane embedded in his skin. Still, he didn’t allow the men the reward of seeing any weakness or pain.

  Instead, he sat there, holding onto Lea, willing the police to show up before he lost the last threads of his control.

  It seemed to take hours for the blue and red lights to finally appear outside the dark windows. He marveled at the fact that the four men were too busy trying to get a response from him to notice them until it was too late.

  Carl and Steven, two of the area’s best, and friends of his, rushed in and tackled red shirt and white shirt. The red shirt had been in mid-swing with the broken cane in his hands when Carl took the man down. The white shirt had just laid his hand on Lea’s shoulder, a move that would have caused Brett to act if he hadn’t seen the lights.

  Steven yanked and twisted the man’s hand away from Lea, while two more officers, Mary and Rick, grabbed the other two men, who had tried to run for the door.

  “Damn,” Carl said a few moments later when everything quieted down as he wiped a drop of blood from his nose and looked at them. “You two sure know how to have a fun night.”

  Two more officers showed up and hauled the three men out, while Steven jerked red shirt’s arms and led him out of the room. The man was yelling about who he was related to and that he knew his rights, yelling all about his freedom of speech as he glared back at them, as if they had caused the entire ordeal instead of him.

  “Thanks.” Brett dropped Lea’s hands to shake Carl’s.

  “No problem.” Carl looked down at Lea. “You okay, Dr. Val?”

  “Yes, thank you, Carl,” Lea said in a calm voice. “Want me to take a look at that?” she asked, motioning towards Carl’s hand, which was bloody and raw from his brief fight with the red shirt.

  “Naw, I’ll get it looked at after I drop these four off at the station. I don’t want to spoil your date further,” Carl said with a wink. “Try not to let these idiots ruin your night.”

  “Don’t you need us to fill out a report or something?” Lea asked him when Carl started to leave.

  “No, we’ve got this. You two can stop by later and give us your statements. On your own time. Night.”

  They watched as Carl and the rest of his coworkers and friends stepped outside to deal with the mess.

  Brett glanced around, looking for his cane, which was broken in two and lying on the ground.

  “Gosh, I thought they were going to kill you.” The teenage employee rushed towards them. “I called the cops the second they left me alone. I am never working the night shift again.” The kid shook his head. “Are you okay, mister?”

  “Yeah.” He sighed and glanced around, wondering how he was going to get to his car without his cane.

  “Here.” A woman’s voice sounded directly behind him. He glanced over and saw a middle-aged dark-haired woman holding a metal cane towards him. “You can borrow my mother’s cane. When those four men started in on you two, I had to get her out of here and took her to the car to call the police ourselves. Mother saw what they did to you and thought you might need this more than she did. She has a spare,” the woman added.

  “Thanks.” He took the cane from the woman and stood up, instantly feeling pain in his shoulder. He kept his face straight as he held out his hand to Lea. “Shall we?” he asked. He just wanted to get out of there as quickly as he could and knew that she felt the same way.

  “Yes,” Lea answered softly. He took her hand, and they walked towards the door.

  “Hey.” The teenager came rushing after them. “You’re that hero cop, aren’t you? The one that got shot saving that family?” he asked. Brett nodded quickly. “Thank you.” The kid smiled. “For standing up to people like them.” Brett gave the kid another quick nod and walked towards the doors.

  The moment they stepped outside, he could see the four police cruisers, their lights still on, as his friends talked to witnesses, no doubt taking down as much information as they could. He knew the drill. They would write up the report, adding in their personal details since everyone knew him and Lea.

  “Hey.” This time it was a twenty-something girl and boy who rushed towards them in the parking lot. “I, um…” The girl looked towards the boy. “We recorded that, what happened to you two in there. I sent a copy to the cops so they have it for their records, but I was… we were wondering if you’d allow us to put it online? You know, to raise awareness to this kind of hate.”

  Brett glanced down at Lea. “It’s up to you,” he said softly.

  Lea sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. He could tell that she was calculating her decision. When she finally opened her eyes, she gave the kids a quick nod.

  “Sure,” she said softly.

  “Thanks,” the girl said quickly.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t
help you,” the young man said. “I took judo, but… there were four of them.”

  “You did the right thing,” Brett told the kid firmly.

  “How did you just sit there? Wow, I wouldn’t have had so much self-control.” The kid shook his head.

  Brett glanced down at Lea and smiled. “Sometimes what is worth fighting for is worth not fighting.” He smiled at her. “Let’s go home.” He took her hand again and they walked to his car.

  He was thankful when Lea took his car keys from him and helped him into the passenger side and then slipped behind the wheel. His shoulder was hurting, and he wasn’t sure it was safe for him to drive.

  They rode in silence for a few moments, and he kept his eyes trained on her face in the dark car.

  “I’m sorry,” he said when they were driving over the Pelican Bay bridge.

  “For?” she asked, glancing at him.

  “For the human race,” he said with a burst of laughter.

  Lea smiled at him. “That’s a lot of guilt you’re putting on yourself.”

  “Yeah, there are a lot of idiots out there,” he admitted with a sigh. “Not the kind of ending to the night we wanted.”

  “I don’t know about that.” She glanced at him. “I went to a great party, helped bring a new life into the world, had a meal, and watched four jerks being tackled to the ground and arrested.” She smiled. “I’m hoping to finish off the night with some really hot and heavy sex with the man strong enough to not fight for me.”

  His smile doubled, and he felt a burst of energy rush through him. “Sounds like an excellent way to end the night.”

  She reached over and took his hand and squeezed it lightly. “Yes, it does.”

  Chapter 13

  This hadn’t been the first time something like this had happened to her. Nor, she figured, would it be the last.

  The entire time they’d sat there, listening to the four men spew their hate, her thoughts had been on Brett and how to keep him from fighting them and getting hurt. She knew that if he stood up to fight, there was a possibility that he would get hurt beyond her ability to repair him.