Chapter 4
“Iused to dance.”
“Exotic? Because I could really see—"
I laugh hard, and it’s such a welcome change from just moments ago. Then I shake my head. “Ballroom, you pervert.”
“Oh. Wow. That’s um, well that must have been nice for you.”
“You are not a dancer, eh?”
“There are a lot of physical things I do. That’s not one of them.”
“It should be. Everyone should dance. It’s good for the soul.” I smile at the big lug. “Let me guess. Someone gets you into a nightclub, and it’s just the white man’s overbite for you?”
“What are you talking about?”
I stand up, bite my bottom lip, and bend my elbows ninety degrees, before I bop to and fro. “White man’s overbite.”
He cracks up and swears, “Never in my life have I ever done that.”
“Then, show me what you got.” I use my phone for some salsa music, then wait for him to join me.
“Stella, the only rhythm I have is in the bedroom.”
“Fine,” I roll my eyes and turn the music off. “Speaking of the bedroom, where did you keep that condom that suddenly appeared in my hand?”
“It was in my pocket.”
“You always come to dinner with a condom?”
He shrugs his thick shoulders. “I like to be prepared.”
“So, you’re a slut?”
He laughs loudly and unabashedly. “I haven’t had enough partners to qualify, so maybe a wannabe slut.”
“Oh?” I smirk at him. “How many is not enough?”
“Now, now, young lady. Wouldn’t want to get sassy.”
I hold my hand up like I’m about to be sworn in to testify. “However big or small the number is, I promise not to judge.”
He grins, “I was in the Marines for over twenty years. It’s not a small number.”
“I knew it!” I giggle. “Slut!”
“I prefer the term ‘popular’.”
“I’ll bet you were.” I look over his broad shoulders and handsome face. “You’re—"
His phone beeps at him. “We got a fire. I have to go. Can I leave Max here with you?”
“Of course. I’ll let him out with Sugar after you go.”
“Thank you.” He kisses me goodbye at the door, and I would have made him linger, but there was a fire, after all.
I wait a good ten minutes, before letting the dogs out to do their business.
I don’t want Max to try to follow his dad home or something silly like that.
They play in the front yard for a minute, before I turn my attention to the dishes.
I figure they can come back through her dog door when they are ready.
She’s usually back in five minutes or so.
As I start to clean up, I realize I’ve made a connection with someone, and it feels good, but also dangerous. I should call Wes and tell him about the surveillance equipment in the forest after I clean up. It’s sort of nice to be cleaning up double the dishes. And last night was something else.
I never come from penetration. Hell, I never come with someone else in the room.
But it’s like his body was perfectly crafted for mine.
I’m not one to believe in signs, but if I were, I’d think I was in for a wild ride with Jordan Waters.
There’s something risky about the whole thing, yet he makes me feel so safe. I haven’t felt that in a long time.
My front door opens, startling me. I drop a plate into the sink. It shatters loudly, as I turn around. I expect to see Jordan.
It’s not Jordan.
“What are you doing here?”
A man, covered head to toe in black, slams the front door shut and rushes me. He has a small gun. “Turn around.”
I follow his direction and try not to shake.
“Put your hands behind your back.”
“No.”
“Riker wants to talk to you, Stella.” His voice is familiar, but I can’t place it. I wonder if he was one of Riker’s goons I met back in the day.
“I don’t want to talk to him.”
He chuckles, “That is not one of the options. Hands behind your back, don’t make me make you. You don’t need your fingers to have a conversation, and I wouldn’t mind adding to my collection.”
“Leave me my middle finger, at least. I’ll need it to talk to Riker.”
He laughs. “He didn’t tell me you’re funny.” Then, he reaches around for my hands.
I grab a shard of the broken plate and slash his hand, then I turn to face him. “Get the hell out of my house, NOW!”
Again, he laughs. “Drop it, you silly bitch. I’m done playing with you.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you!”
He begins to aim his gun at my leg, but the front door opens again.
Jordan picks the man up from behind and slams him onto the floor.
The man’s gun slides across the floor, while he scrambles out the door and runs into the woods.
Jordan chases after him until he reaches the edge of the forest, then he comes back.
The dogs follow him in. As they come closer, my knees give out.
I can’t hear his words or feel Sugar’s tongue on my face.
Sounds ring in my ears and it’s like Charlie Brown’s teacher is shouting at me.
Suddenly, I’m in the air. I’d be scared except that Jordan is carrying me.
He lays me in bed, then elevates my legs with a pillow.
He drapes a spare blanket over me, then gets on his phone.
I can’t hear the words he says, but he seems very worried.
Max and Sugar, too. Their muzzles are on the bed, both of them watching me intently. I want to pet her and tell her I’ll be alright, but I can’t move my hand. A tear trickles from my eye into my ear, and that tickling sensation seems to bring my hearing back.
Jordan says, “I don’t care about any of that, Wes. Get your ass out here now!” Then he sees my eyes tracking him. “See you in thirty.” He hangs up, then kneels next to me. “Are you with me?”
I nod slightly and it takes all the effort I can make to whisper, “Yes.”
He takes a deep breath, then asks, “Did he hurt you?”
“No.”
“Are you sure? Your hand is bleeding.”
“It is?”
He shows me my own hand, then looks at it again. “Wait,” he wipes it off with his shirttail. “That’s not yours.”
I shake my head. “I cut him.”
He smiles proudly. “Good.” But then his smile drops. “Oh hell, now my shirt is evidence.”
“Guess you’ll have to be topless,” I whisper and wink.
He looks so relieved or happy or something.
I can’t read his expressions, and it’s unsettling.
I’m usually good at reading everyone. But he kisses my forehead and that’s nice.
“I know you’re having a hard time speaking right now, Stella, so you don’t have to tell me what happened, but it would probably help to dictate it to your phone, while everything is still fresh in your mind. Is that okay?”
I nod. “Can you bring it here?”
“On it,” he runs downstairs and returns with the bourbon and my phone. “You get the bottle after the dictation.”
“You’re a mean man,” I pout. Then, I tell my phone everything, and I’m rewarded with bourbon. “After all that, I need a shower.”
“You can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Why not?”
“You have evidence on you. They’re going to want to swab your hands down.”
I sigh. “Oh right. My life is hell. You keep making me forget that.”
He smiles, “I’m happy to help your forget again, once you’re not covered in evidence.”
“Promise?”
“Hell yes.”
But as I sit there on my bed, waiting for Wes and whoever else to show up, I can’t help but think, “This is my life now. Riker knows where I am. He always finds out. I should have just let him take me and be done with it.”
But then I remember all the people he helped murder by selling guns to bad guys, and I recall the look on the man’s face when he shot him, and I can’t give up.
Tommy Kowalski. I’ll never forget his name.
Since he shot that thug in front of me, I see that look in my mind at least once a day.
I could be watching TV or reading a book about dogs, it doesn’t matter.
At some point, Tommy’s face materializes in my brain.
Sometimes, it’s when I’m falling asleep. Those nights, I don’t sleep.
When Wes arrives, all I can do is cry. Wes was the first man to comfort me after Tommy’s death, and the first to realize I had nothing to do with any of the gun smuggling. I send him the dictation, grateful to Jordan for having thought of it. He holds me until I quiet down.
Wes Jennings has been my rock in the white water rapids of my life.
His chestnut hair and friendly green eyes were the balm I needed after everything.
If he hadn’t been happily married, I would have had a hard time keeping my hands off him when we met.
“Thank you for coming all the way out here, Wes.”
He frowns. “You know that’s my job, right?” Then, he smiles. The kidder.
I roll my eyes, “You know I’m grateful, right?”
“Yeah. Jordan’s getting swabbed for evidence by the agents downstairs, just to be on the safe side. I’m sorry about all the confusion with him. He’s a great guy though. I trust him with my life.”
“And mine, apparently.”
He winces, then gives an excuse, “Well, Floyd is a long way out, and we can’t be everywhere all the time, sadly.”
“I’m glad he’s here, Wes. He seems to be really wonderful. And his timing was perfect. I…wait, why did he come back? He had a call for a fire.”
Wes nods, “Before he got into town, the fire department called him back. The call was to an address that doesn’t exist. So when the call was cancelled, he thought something might be up with you.
And it’s a good thing I told him about your situation, or else he never would have thought anything was wrong here—"
“Look, I get it. Tag the whole town in, if you want to. Just let me know ahead of time, so I don’t feel like an idiot, okay?”
He smiles. “Will do. How are you feeling?”
“Well, I already threw up breakfast and post-break-in bourbon, so I’m feeling great now.”
“That’s the spirit. We have the surveillance footage, the samples from you, your dictation, all that. But if there’s anything else that comes to mind—"
“You’ll be the first and only person I call,” I promise.
“Here’s your new phone. And I’ll see about getting you relocated as soon as we can, but—"
“Why is there a ‘but’ in that sentence, Wes?”
He frowns. “Fast relocations are for witnesses who follow the rules.”
“I follow the damn rules!”
Wes raises an eyebrow, “All of them?”
“All of the ones that make sense.” My voice sounds petulant in my own head, so I know he hears it, too. I hate when I sound like this, but I am just over all of it. My life is a mess, and the Witness Protection rules suck, which makes everything so much worse. “Not my fault your rules are dumb.”
“And that’s why my boss denied a fast relocation for you. If you’re not careful, Stella, you could lose all of the program’s privileges and rights. I need you to take that seriously. Nothing is worth that.”
Jordan walks in and asks, “What else is wrong?”
I shake my head. “You two are friends, right?”
He nods. “Yeah.”
“Then, talk some sense into him for me. I need some crackers to settle my stomach.” I stomp down the stairs and think I’ll probably be found dead on them one day.
I search for a box of saltines and maybe some bourbon.
The agents in the kitchen have most of everything bagged up, so I’m not in their way.
I’m glad for it. The sooner they leave, the sooner I can pretend this is all just a nightmare.
One of them stares at me. “What?”
She smiles bashfully, “Way to go.”
“What are you talking about?”
Then, she points to the blood splatter on the floor and gives me a thumbs up. I want to vomit when I see the blood, but her pride in me gives me another thought.
I can fight back.