Chapter Ten
He looked like he had simply taken a turn down the wrong aisle at the grocery store after work.
Everything about him was dress-code appropriate.
His blond hair was neat and cut close, his outfit was a collared shirt tucked into khakis, and his shoes might have been sneakers, but they could definitely pass if he wore them out to church.
It wasn’t just his clothes and hairstyle that gave the impression of office worker winding down from a long day, it was his looks that really sold the image well.
He was around Rose’s age and boy-next-door handsome.
Not so much that it made those around him gawk but enough to appreciate.
He had all the angles and hard lines across his face and dark eyes that ran more rich than muddy.
The rest of him was just as middle-of-the-road.
He looked around average-height and build.
His clothes fit him comfortably, not too snug.
This man, in all respects, was the neighbor you said hi to on walks or shared pleasantries with in the concession stand line of the local high school football games.
He looked…nice.
To Rose, he was utterly terrifying.
He cocked his head to the side and slid his hands into his pockets.
“You’re Deputy Little.” It wasn’t a question.
Rose wanted to make sure he knew it was an answer regardless.
“I am a deputy with the McCoy County Sheriff’s Department, yes.”
The man kept his head on that tilt and scanned her and the tub. The bubbles she had contemplated earlier had thinned but it was enough to give her a little cover. Still, she internally squirmed at the look.
That squirm went right back to terror when he snorted.
“Congratulations, Deputy with the McCoy County Sheriff’s Department.” He straightened his neck and pulled his hands free from his pockets. “You’ll be the first person I’ve ever drowned in a tub.”
Rose was already moving, water sloshing as she scrambled to stand.
The man was just as quick.
He cut across the bathroom and grabbed her by the throat before she could get her legs beneath her.
On reflex her hands went up to try and slip beneath his grip but her body was trying to do too many things at once.
She couldn’t get a finger beneath his hold, and she couldn’t get her balance in the tub either.
Both problems together created a new one as her feet slid out beneath her.
If she hadn’t been so petite she believed the fight would have gone a little differently here, but as it was, the man easily followed her fall down alongside the tub.
His hand stayed around her throat as he took a knee on the tile on the other side of the tub’s edge.
The air against Rose’s chest and stomach was replaced by the warm water rushing back over her.
She threw one hand out to stop her backward descent, but he still had one hand free.
He swatted it away with little difficulty.
“Don’t worry. This might be my first time, but it will be fast.”
He pushed down with the hand around her neck. She tried again to swing out at him, to claw him, to do something to his arm or face or anything.
But she was too small. Her opponent was too big. The disadvantage of being in the tub was too challenging.
Still, she wasn’t simply going to lie there and take it without some pushback.
Rose lifted her leg and kicked out at the man’s side.
The hit landed.
It wasn’t enough to end the fight, but it was enough to make his grip on her slip.
Rose didn’t waste time trying to stand again. She didn’t waste breath trying to threaten him or plead with him. She didn’t even use the precious few seconds to take a good, decent breath.
All the air left in Rose’s lungs formed one thing and one thing only.
“James!”
No sooner had his name left her mouth than the intruder’s efforts followed through.
The calming bath with lavender bubbles turned into a burning nightmare.
Rose thrashed around with her legs but couldn’t get any real traction.
She blindly beat at the man’s arm with one hand while trying to pry free the other from around her neck.
She was so all-consumed with trying to shift him off her that realizing she couldn’t breathe seemed to come last.
But it came with a quiet wallop.
Adrenaline and panic bloomed a field of screaming flowers within her, each one yelling something different.
She was Wildcard Rose and yet she was going to die in a bathtub.
Her parents were going to be devastated.
Who was this guy?
How had he gotten in?
Was James…?
Rose’s head was pounding. Her chest burned. So did her eyes. She hadn’t shut them despite the soap and water above her. The blurry image of the man to the side of the tub warped and moved.
That panic turned to rage.
At this man. At his audacity.
He might kill her, but she would leave her mark.
Rose always kept her nails short for work but when it came to a last act on Earth, they could still do the job. She heard the warbled cry of pain from the man as she used both hands to clamp onto his arm and dug her nails into his skin.
If he got away, they would be able to get his DNA from under her fingernails.
It was a small, shrinking thought as Rose started to lose the will to fight.
Her vision started to tunnel as a much smaller thought bubbled to the surface.
It was guilt.
The littlest Little would scar James’s forever home with her death.
It wasn’t a bomb in his shop, but it was a shame all the same.
She tried to picture James standing in that field earlier.
So peaceful.
The James who roared into the bathroom was not.
* * *
HE DIDN’T NEED any context. He didn’t need any explanations or to ask any questions.
James Keller took in only one detail when he ran into the bathroom.
Some guy was hurting Rose.
That was all he needed.
James grabbed the man by the scruff of his shirt and yanked him with every bit of force he had. It was more than enough.
The man was a leaf on the wind as he flew backward and crashed onto his back on the tile. The impact pushed the air out of his lungs. More importantly, it freed Rose. Though she wasn’t surfacing.
James closed the distance to the tub in two strides and plunged his arms into the water. In the next moment Rose was out and up against him.
The man behind him squelched against the tile. James spun around, Rose against his chest, and kicked the man hard. He was back against the tile and sliding toward the wall.
James would have done more, but if Rose wasn’t breathing, then he—
Rose’s body was wracked with coughing. She spluttered and gasped and slapped at her chest.
It was a beautiful sight.
One that spelled out his next step.
James ran out of the bathroom and dropped Rose onto the bed. She was still coughing as she looked up at him, red eyes wide.
“Phone’s in my room,” was all he said.
Then he went back into the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind him.
He locked it.
The man who had dared to lay a hand on Rose was getting to his feet.
His eyes widened too.
James smiled.
“I’m no unsuspecting woman in a bathtub but I sure hope you won’t mind fighting me.”
He didn’t know if the man had a weapon hidden in his clothes but didn’t give him a chance to grab for any. He was on the stranger in a few steps. He threw a hit the second he was close enough.
The man didn’t dodge it, but he did block. That was the same for the next few hits James tried to land. He was hoping for a knockout punch but instead he was bruising the man’s forearms and sides.
Which was fine by him.
They were still hits. He was still damaging the body, even if he wasn’t hitting his target.
The man must have realized that too. He took a chance and dropped low. James’s fist hit empty air. It left an opening that allowed the other man to spring up and across at him.
His shoulder connected with James’s ribs.
It made him stagger back.
The other man must have thought this was a winning move. The beginning to an end he surely wanted.
But James had been through worse in his life, even before the bomb in the auto shop.
His life had built him up to one truth.
He endured.
James tightened the muscles in his legs and did a move he had only ever seen used once. He left his face and chest open and grabbed each of the man’s biceps in his hands. James pushed the man away from him but didn’t let go.
It created obvious confusion in the assailant.
James gritted his teeth.
He didn’t need to land a punch to knock someone out.
Instead, he could simply use his head.
And he did.
James slammed his head against the man’s without mercy. The man could no more dodge the hit than he could block it. Pain exploded behind James’s eyes and his vision spotted.
But he stayed standing.
The other man did not.
His body went limp in James’s hands.
James let him drop the rest of the way to the tile floor.
It wasn’t a knockout punch, but it would do.
James hesitated only long enough to make sure he wasn’t getting back up and then hurried to unlock the door. He flung it open just in time to see a flurry of motion enter from his right.
His fist went up, ready to rumble with whoever the intruder had brought, but the source of the motion was the woman he was ready to rumble for.
Rose was wrapped in a sheet, still dripping wet from head to toe, and a phone pressed against her cheek. Soap bubbles were still scattered across her hair. They offset the severity of the red handprint around her neck.
“Are you okay? Where is he?” Her voice was hoarse. It made the anger in him mount again.
“I’m good,” he answered. He thumbed over his shoulder. “He’s out. For now. Do you have your cuffs with you?”
Rose relayed the details to whoever she was on the phone with but nodded to James. She pointed to her bag in the corner. James went through it with as much respect as possible, only lightly noting her handcuffs were tangled up with a pair of underthings.
“Behind his back,” she instructed.
James could hear whoever was on the other side of the phone talking quick. Rose replied in kind, but he had moved too far away to hear exactly what. Instead, his focus moved to the man as he rearranged him to cuff his wrists behind his back.
Who was he?
Where had he come from?
James had been in the kitchen when he’d heard Rose yell for him. Before that he had been in the living room. Both places gave him an easy view of the front and back doors. And even if they didn’t, where he had been in each room had given him a clear sight line to the bottom of the stairs.
Had the man still managed to sneak by him?
Had he found a different way to the second floor?
Or had he already been in the house before Rose had gone upstairs?
If so, then why did he wait to attack her when she was in the bath?
James finished his task and sat back on the tile floor to face him.
His hit had busted the man’s nose. Broken it, maybe. It was a mercy if that was all. James could have done a lot more.
Rose appeared at his side. Instead of sitting next to him where he had leaned back to rest on the tile, she pulled up on his elbow. Her hand was still wet. He let her lead him back out to the bedroom. She was no longer on the phone.
“The sheriff is on the way,” she said. “I need to get dressed but I’m getting kind of uncomfortable at the thought of changing with him in there and someone maybe coming up the stairs.”
James understood what she was asking. She’d stopped him at the one spot in the room where he could see the bathroom and into the hallway without having to turn toward each.
He nodded.
“I’ll keep watch, you change.”
“Thank you.” Her voice was still hoarse. It grated at James.
He couldn’t believe she had been attacked in his home.
He was supposed to protect her.
What if he hadn’t heard her?
What if he’d been too late?
The what-ifs were brutal. James tried to keep his anger from boiling over while Rose went out of his sight line behind him to dress.
“That’s not Damon.” The sound of sliding fabric was a background to a solid-sounding Rose. “If you were wondering,” she added. “I don’t recognize him at all.”
“Just like you didn’t recognize the men at the auto shop.”
“Just like I didn’t recognize the men at the auto shop,” she repeated.
There was strength in her voice, but that voice went quiet. So did James. Over a week of two attempts on her life, three counting the bomb, and there she was still standing. Not silent, not silenced.
James marveled at her resilience.
Even when he felt something against the middle of his back.
His mind was fast to stay his reflexes when he realized it was Rose. She was leaning against him, her forehead warm even through the back of his shirt.
He felt her sigh out more than he heard it.
There was no denying that it shook. So did her voice when she spoke.
“Good news, we survived another round. Bad news, I—I think this round was a little too much for me. I—I might cry. C-can I stay here until they arrive?”
James knew she was already crying. He wasn’t going to point it out.
Instead, he nodded.
“Do what you need to do, Wildcard. I’m not going anywhere.”