Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“ A re you still there?” Larissa softly asked Crazy Bitch through the speaker phone as she drove.
“I’m here.”
“I wish I were there with you.”
“You’re better off where you are.”
Crazy Bitch’s rejoinder didn’t frighten her.
“Anna-Kate, I wish there were something I could say that could make the disappointment easier. There’s no magical way to conceive a baby, except time. You’ve had all the tests done, and Calder’s sperm has been analyzed. What you’re going through, thousands of other women have gone through. Cherish this time you and Calder are spending alone. Enjoy it while you can. Once you have a baby … believe me, there won’t be any alone or couple time for years. Make the most of it instead of looking at it as a negative. Follow the diet I gave you, continue taking the vitamins, and for God’s sake, quit stressing yourself out. You and Calder should take a week off and fly somewhere with plenty of sun. Have a bunch of randy sex not because you want a baby but to have a mind-blowing orgasm. Take making a baby out of the mix and just have sex for the pleasure of being close to that damn good-looking man you’re married to.”
Larissa faintly heard a sniffle on the other end of phone.
“You want my man, don’t you?”
“It wouldn’t do me any good. Calder only has eyes for you.”
“It’s not his eyes I’m worried about.”
“A baby isn’t going to keep a man from cheating,” Larissa told her. “Nor will it make him stay if he wants to go. Don’t borrow trouble where there isn’t any. Go on vacation, lotion Calder up with sunscreen, and let nature take its course.”
“Fuck it, I will,” Crazy Bitch snapped. “But if I’m not knocked up next month, I’m going to beat your ass.”
“You couldn’t harm a fly,” she teased. “Can I talk to Priscilla?”
“I guess. By the way, she called the cops on you.”
“What did you just say?” Larissa was listening to the call from her car speaker. Had she heard Crazy Bitch wrong?
Priscilla’s voice came on “Are you still there, Larissa?”
“Yes. Did I hear Crazy Bitch right? Did you call the police?”
“I didn’t want you going alone,” Priscilla said unapologetically. “You know the statistics as well as I do. IPV increases when a woman becomes pregnant. Dusty has a restraining order to stay away from Eryn.”
“Eryn told me she was going to drop it. He has a girlfriend in Tennessee. I called him before you; Dusty doesn’t want anything to do with her. He said he’s moved on and hasn’t talked to or seen her.”
“Dusty could be saying that to give himself an alibi.”
“He could be, but I don’t think so. Hang on; I need to concentrate. I’m trying to find her turnoff.”
She would have missed the turnoff for Eryn’s house if she hadn’t memorized the directions before leaving the office. When she had taken Eryn on as a patient, the first step was to go to the home. Using the excuse that her husband worked nights and Dusty slept during the day, the home visit had been delayed. Then, when they had broken up, Eryn had come up with various excuses to put her off. She had been about to give her an ultimatum if she had come yesterday that she wouldn’t be able to be her midwife if she didn’t schedule the home meeting.
The rutted road had her Jeep bouncing as she followed the directions. Then she held her breath when she went over the small bridge, which seemed ready to collapse under the weight of the Jeep.
“Wow,” Larissa breathed out a sigh of relief.
“What’s going on?” Priscilla voice came from the speaker anxiously.
“Nothing,” Larissa reassured her. “It’s a good thing I did come out. There’s no way I can be her midwife unless she comes to the hospital. An ambulance wouldn’t be able to get to her if there’s an emergency.”
“Why didn’t Eryn say something?”
“I have no idea, but I’m pretty sure that’s why she put me off on the home visit.”
Driving forward, she climbed the nob of the mountain, then went down the slope on the other side. The house she was searching for had finally become visible. Eryn’s home sat on top of another rise, with several vehicles sitting to the side of home.
“I see several cars outside.” Larissa held the steering wheel for dear life as she went down the steep hill. “It looks like she has company, which is probably why she missed the appointment and didn’t answer my calls.”
As she drove closer to the home, Larissa debated turning around, but the trees were too thick and the rise to Eryn’s house was so rocky there was no way she would make it to the top if she weren’t driving her Jeep.
She parked next to a jacked-up black truck and released the death grip she had on the steering wheel. “I’m here. And since I’m here, I might as well check in with her. I’ll call you back when I get back in the car.”
“Are you sure it’s safe?”
“There are at least six trucks here, and three men and a woman are sitting on the porch. I’m good. I would turn around if there weren’t so many blocking the way. I’ll have to ask a couple of them to move. There’s no way I’m going to back down this hillside.”
“That bad?”
“I don’t understand why they made it so steep. I thought I was going to get a nosebleed for a second. All righty, I need to hang up to get out and go talk to Eryn.”
“Make sure you take your phone,” Priscilla insisted.
“I will. You can call the sheriff back and tell him everything is okay.” Larissa detached the cell phone from the holder as she got out. Juggling it, she started to pull her crutches toward her. “Wait—I see the sheriff coming up the hill. He’s not going to be happy you dragged him out—”
She leaned her head back into the car when she heard her cell start to lose the connection. Then Larissa unconsciously gave a startled scream. A burning pain on her shoulder had her releasing the cell phone as she dropped to her knees to hide behind the door.
“What are you doing shooting at me!” Larissa yelled out. “I’m Eryn’s midwife!” She placed a hand on her shoulder at the stinging pain and felt blood seeping through her fingers.
“What are you doing here?” a loud male voice yelled back.
“Eryn missed her appointment yesterday. I wanted to check on her!” Larissa yelled without raising her head.
“If that’s true, why are the police with you?”
“For the same reason—because Eryn was missing.”
“She ain’t missing. She’s right here. You all are the feds, wanting to see what’s in the house!”
“I don’t care what’s in the house. I was worried about Eryn!”
“You better get your ass out of here!”
Another shot rang out, hitting the door she was hiding behind.
“I was going to!” she screamed at them wildly. “I wanted you to move the trucks so I could turn around!”
When she heard several shots being fired, Larissa hunched herself into a ball. She barely lifting her head but saw the sheriff’s vehicle slowly coming to where she was parked. Gaping, she watched as the sheriff maneuvered himself across the front seat to the passenger’s side to fling the door open. Throwing himself to the ground, Knox then aimed his pistol toward the house.
“You can’t shoot. There’s a pregnant woman inside!” Larissa yelled at him.
Knox didn’t take his eyes off the house.
“She worth dying over?” he snarled loudly.
Larissa pressed her hand to her belly. Eryn wasn’t the only one pregnant. She had a duty to her own child to survive. Knox was a husband and a father; he deserved to go home to his family, too.
“Eryn, make them stop!” Larissa screamed at the top of her lungs.
“Stop it, Tanner!” a woman yelled. “If you had taken her to the hospital when I told you, none of this would have happened!”
“I’m not going back to jail because of that bitch!”
Larissa and Knox stared at each other as the man and woman yelled back and forth.
“Tanner, what are we going to do?” another male voice whined.
“All of you, shut the fuck up!” a man yelled over them, who Larissa assumed was Tanner.
“Woman, can’t you count? There’s only two of them, and there’s eight of us. We’ll take care of them, then clean the house out. Jay—”
Larissa felt her heart drop when she could no longer hear what he was saying. From the flurry of movement on the porch, she reasoned they had been sent out to surround them.
Frightened, she gave a whimper. Not wanting to appear like a wimp, she pressed her knuckles against her mouth.
When she raised her eyes, she saw Knox’s deadpan face looking at her.
“How in the hell did you manage to stumble into a drug house in Bumfuck, Egypt?”
She lowered her hand long enough to mutter, “Luck, I guess.”
Knox didn’t seem to appreciate her humor.
“What are we going to do?”
The sheriff pressed a button on his shoulder pad before he turned his eyes back to her. His face turned grimmer as Knox started giving her the stark facts.
“The way they graded this hillside, and the house looking down on the road, right about now, I’d start praying for a miracle.”
Larissa swallowed hard. She’d never been so scared in her life.
“Isn’t there something you can do? Like call SWAT?”
“You’ve been watching too many movies. I get enough funding to hire three deputies, bullets, and an occasional uniform. The nearest SWAT team is thirty minutes away. Besides, I have a better idea.”
Hearing a shuffle of footsteps, Larissa pressed her hand to her mouth, terrified.
“On the count of three, I want you to shuffle over here, next to me.”
Nodding, she prepared herself.
“One … two … three.”
Larissa shuffled over the rocky ground to Knox’s Bronco, holding her screams back when a barrage of bullets hit their vehicles.
“Fuck,” Knox hissed, hunkering back down.
“What?” she gasped.
“They took out my motor. They knew what I was going to do.”
Larissa looked at him blankly. “What were you going to do?”
Knox looked at her like she had marbles for brain neurons. “Get the hell out of here and let others deal with this shitshow when they get here.”
As his Bronco was blocking her Jeep, their only option left was to try to make it to the trees. On foot, she would become a liability.
“You should go; get to the woods. You don’t happen to have another gun in your car, do you? I could cover you.”
Knox’s eyebrows rose. “You expect me to leave you here to face them alone?”
“There’s no sense in both of us dying,” she replied practically, even though she was terrified.
“Do you know how to fire a gun?”
“I do.” She nodded. “My dad taught all three of his daughters how to shoot a gun. Do you have another?”
“In the back of the Bronco.”
“I can climb inside—”
Knox was already shaking his head. “Look at the seats in the front—they’re torn to ribbons. You wouldn’t make it to the back seat.”
“I could try.”
Knox suddenly raised his gun to fire next to her.
Shaking, Larissa turned her head to find a man lying on the ground next the Bronco’s bumper.
“I told you, you wouldn’t have made it.”
“I see that,” she whispered hoarsely.
The dead man’s blank stare was directly in front of her.
Hopelessness filled her. How many times had her sisters warned her that she reacted without thinking? Hadn’t having sex with Moon a big enough wakeup call? No, she came running out here, placing herself and the baby in danger. All she’d had to do was call the sheriff and let him handle it. Instead, she was going to die.
Knox looked at her curiously when she started to bow her head. “What are you doing?”
“Taking your suggestion—I’m going to pray.” Larissa pressed her hand over the tiny child she was carrying. “Psalm 18:2. ‘The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in Whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.”
When she raised her head, she saw Knox studying the group of trees behind them.
Sure the men from the house were there and were about to release a spray of bullets, she placed a hand on his forearm. “Would you like me to say a prayer for you?”
“No need. The answer to my prayers just arrived.”