Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Fiona
My hands were still shaking when I turned onto the road toward Granny’s house.
I tightened them around the steering wheel, hoping the pressure would settle the tremor, but it seemed to live somewhere deeper than my fingers.
The gas station was already several miles behind me.
Frank had followed until I was nearly home before finally turning back, but only after making me promise twice that I would text the second I got inside.
I could still feel the stranger’s hand around my wrist.
That was the part my mind kept returning to.
Not his face or the cigarette smell clinging to his clothes.
The pressure of his fingers tightening when I tried to pull away.
The way he’d used his body to block my car door so casually, as if I had no right to leave until he decided the conversation was finished.
I know where you work.
My breath shortened.
I forced myself to inhale slowly through my nose, held it, then released it the way the counselor at St. Agatha’s had taught me years ago. It had helped with panic attacks then.
Tonight, counting didn’t do much.
My phone buzzed in the cupholder.
I glanced down when I reached a straight stretch of road.
Jasper: How’s my favorite girl’s day going?
My eyes burned.
Of course he’d text now.
Me: Fine.
I set the phone down and kept driving.
It buzzed again before I reached the next curve.
Jasper: Fine?
Me: Yes.
Jasper: That’s all I get?
Despite everything, the corner of my mouth almost moved. Almost.
Me: What do you want?
Jasper: Preferably a detailed account of how often you’ve thought about kissing me today.
A laugh should’ve come with that. Instead, my throat tightened.
Me: A few times.
Jasper: A few?
Me: Maybe.
His next response came quickly.
Jasper: Now I know something’s wrong.
I stared at it too long before forcing my attention back to the road.
Me: Why?
Jasper: Because normally you’d make me work harder for that answer.
Tears blurred the lights ahead of me.
It shouldn’t have surprised me anymore. Jasper noticed things, even tiny ones. A shorter answer. A missing joke. Some change in the way I normally sparred with him that almost anyone else would’ve ignored.
Me: I’m just tired.
Jasper: Fiona.
I pressed my lips together.
Me: Jasper.
Jasper: What happened?
By the time I pulled into Granny’s driveway, my breathing had gone shallow again. I put the car in park but didn’t turn it off. The headlights washed over the garage door while I sat gripping the wheel.
Me: Nothing.
Jasper: Those little one-word answers might work on everybody else.
Me: I’m okay.
Jasper: Didn’t ask if you were okay. Asked what happened.
I closed my eyes.
The man’s face appeared immediately. His smile when I tried to step around him. The gun visible at his waistband only after Frank arrived and the stranger finally turned away.
My stomach rolled.
Me: Frank handled it.
The phone rang and I jumped at the sound, then stared at Jasper’s name on the screen. His contact picture showed him laughing at something I had said the day I took it, completely unaware I had my camera aimed at him.
For a second, my thumb hovered over decline.
I answered instead.
“What the fuck did Frank have to handle?”
His voice wasn’t demanding. If anything, the quiet certainty behind it was worse. Jasper had already figured out I was going to tell him. He was simply waiting for me to get there.
“It really is over.”
“Then tell me what’s over.”
I leaned back against the seat and watched the porch light through the windshield.
“I stopped at the gas station after work.”
“Okay.”
“There was a man outside when I went in. He was standing by the ice machine smoking, and I didn’t think anything about him.” Saying it aloud made the whole thing feel sharper. “I was only inside for a few minutes. When I came back out, he was standing beside my car.”
Jasper didn’t interrupt.
“He asked my name. I told him I had to go, but he stepped in front of the door so I couldn’t open it.”
“What did he do?” Something in his voice had changed. It wasn’t louder, but the warmth was gone.
“He kept talking. Asked why I was in such a hurry and said he’d seen me at the Creamery before. Apparently, I served him last week, but I don’t remember him.”
“Keep going.”
I looked down at my wrist. The marks weren’t dark yet, but I could already see where bruises would be tomorrow.
“I tried to go around him, and he grabbed me.”
The silence on the other end stretched.
“Jasper?”
“I’m here.” His voice had gone so cold that I almost wished he’d yell instead.
“He grabbed my wrist. That’s all.”
“What happened before Frank got there?”
“Nothing else.”
“Fiona.”
I closed my eyes again.
“He told me not to act like I was too good to talk to him. Said girls like me always thought they were better than everybody else.” I swallowed. “Then he said he knew where I worked and he’d see me again. Real soon.”
Jasper was silent for several seconds.
“Did he threaten you?”
“Not exactly.”
“That sounds pretty fucking close.”
“I know,” I whispered.
“What did Frank do?”
The memory of Frank pulling into the gas station finally gave me something better to hold on to.
“As soon as he got off his bike, the guy dropped my wrist and started backing away. Frank told him if he ever came near me again, if he even looked at me wrong, nobody would find enough of him to bury.”
“I like Frank more every time you talk about him.”
I actually managed a weak laugh. “He was scary. I’ve never seen Frank like that.”
“Good.”
Some of the pressure in my chest eased with the sound of Jasper’s voice.
“Do you know who he is?” Jasper asked.
“No. Frank didn’t recognize him either. He said he wasn’t local, or at least not anyone he’d seen around.”
“What did he look like?”
“Jasper, Frank handled it.”
“I know, baby. Humor me.”
There it was again—Jasper asking instead of ordering, even though I could hear exactly how badly he wanted the information. I sighed and tried to picture the man without concentrating on his hand around my wrist.
“Maybe thirty or thirty-five. Brown hair, kind of shaggy. He needed a haircut. Scruffy beard. About six feet, maybe.”
“Anything else? Tattoos? Scars?”
“I didn’t notice.”
“What was he driving?”
I frowned. “An old, dark blue pickup. Eighties maybe. It had rust around the wheel wells.”
“Plate?”
“No. I was trying to get away from him, Jasper.”
“Fair enough.”
I heard movement on his end, like he’d started pacing.
“And before you worry yourself sick, Frank scared the hell out of him. He practically ran to his truck. I don’t think he’s coming back.”
I hesitated; there was something I hadn’t told him yet and I wasn’t entirely sure if I should.
“He had a gun.”
The silence on the other end stretched long enough to make my stomach tighten.
“What the fuck do you mean, he had a gun?”
“It was tucked into the back of his jeans. I didn’t see it until he turned around to leave. I don’t think Frank saw it.”
“Jesus Christ, Fiona.”
“He never pulled it. He didn’t even reach for it.”
“That is not nearly as comforting as you think it is.”
“Frank was there.”
“Eventually.”
The single word landed harder than anything else he’d said.
“What if Frank hadn’t pulled in?”
“But he did.” My voice sharpened with the need to keep the answer simple. “He was there, and now Frank knows what he looks like. Georgie knows because Frank called him immediately. They’re both acting like I need an armed escort to buy milk.”
“Sounds reasonable.”
“You would say that.”
“Baby, some asshole grabbed you while carrying a gun. You’re not talking me into thinking that’s nothing.”
“I’m not saying it was nothing.” I looked toward Granny’s front door. “I’m saying I’m safe right now. In this moment, I’m sitting in my driveway, and I’m safe.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
A slow breath came through the phone.
“Trying real hard.” The admission quieted something in me. Jasper didn’t pretend the distance didn’t bother him or give me some impossible promise that no one would ever scare me again. He was simply trying to believe what I was telling him.
“You’re doing the quiet thing.”
“What quiet thing?” he asked, his voice slightly lighter.
“The one where I can practically hear you thinking.”
A little more warmth returned to his voice. “Maybe I’m picturing Frank threatening him.”
“That actually made you feel better, didn’t it?”
“Little bit.”
I smiled for the first time since leaving the gas station.
“Frank was terrifying.”
“Good man.”
“Jasper.”
“What?”
“I’m okay.” I said it more slowly this time. Not because I wanted to convince myself the encounter hadn’t mattered. It had. I could still feel it beneath my skin.
But it was over.
“I know, Cher.”
“And you don’t have to worry about me all night.”
“That one I can’t promise.”
“I figured.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
“Call me when you get inside?” he asked. “When you’re locked in with Granny?”
“I will.”
“And no stopping for milk or bread or anything else between the driveway and the front door.”
I laughed softly. “I think I can manage the distance.”
“Good.”
I rested my forehead against the steering wheel for a second, no longer fighting the fact that hearing him had helped.
“Goodnight, Jasper.”
“Goodnight, Ma Belle.”
The call ended and I stayed in the car for another minute while the engine idled, looking at my reflection in the dark phone screen.
My hands had finally stopped shaking, but fear remained somewhere beneath everything else, familiar enough that I knew better than to expect it to disappear because one man had driven away.
Fear had followed me for years.
It had slept beside me when I was fifteen, pregnant and living on the street.
It had curled around me on nights when I had nowhere safe to sleep and every noise in the darkness made me wonder who might be coming.
Even after Granny gave me a room and a key and a home nobody could throw me out of, some part of me had kept waiting for safety to disappear.
Tonight had found that old place easily.
I looked toward the porch.
The light Granny always left on for me glowed beside the front door.
Jasper’s voice still lingered in my head too.
I’m here.
He wasn’t physically here. Frank had been the one who pulled into that gas station. Granny was waiting inside. Georgie was probably already planning to assign half the Sons of Hell to follow me around town.
I wasn’t alone.
Maybe that was the part fear always tried hardest to make me forget.
I turned off the car, picked up my phone, and sent the text I’d promised Frank.
Me: I’m home.
His response arrived almost immediately.
Frank: Good. Lock your doors. I mean it, Fiona.
Me: I will.
Frank: Georgie wants you to call him. He’s worried.
Me: Tell him I’m okay.
Frank: Tell him yourself. You know how he gets.
I smiled as I climbed out of the car.
Yes.
I knew exactly how he got.