“You rotten bitch,” he yelled, then shook her. Hard.
Her head snapped back and forth on her slender neck, and she cried out. The murmurs rose to the sound of alarm and worry, yet no one stepped forward to stop him. They continued to hold their phones up, and Kane wondered what that was all about.
“Dave, stop it,” the pregnant woman cried.
That was when he hit her.
The flat of his hand cracked across her face. Her head snapped to the side, spittle flying. Oohs and aahs washed across the store, and a loudspeaker called for security. Kane didn’t wait. His anger propelled him out of his line, through the circle of shoppers with their phones up, and across to Dave and his sobbing woman. He grabbed Dave by his upper arm.
“What the fuck?” Dave squawked, glaring at Kane. “Let go of me.”
Kane lifted Dave up onto his toes and shook him as easily as he had shaken the girl. “I don’t like men who hit women,” he growled.
Chapter Four
Taylor watched Kane walk away, a weird emotion caught in her throat. The vulnerability she had seen in him earlier grew clearly evident in his rounded shoulders and lowered head. She could not say exactly what it was she felt—sorrow, tenderness, affection—or perhaps a combination of them all. But she knew she certainly felt lonely and lost without him.
The cab arrived earlier than expected, before Kane had vanished from her sight. Taylor got in, and the cab pulled smoothly away from the curb. Kane did not look up as the cab passed him, yet his obvious loneliness touched her heart.
“Where to?” the driver asked.
Taylor gave him her mother’s address, then settled back in the seat. Watching out the window, she thought of Kane, of Craig, of freedom from hurt and pain and grief. She thought of her daughters and the threats to their lives. I have to get them away from him. But how? Where can we go where he won’t find us?
Her mother’s small neat house was only a twenty-minute drive from Teddy’s. The cabbie stopped in front of it, near her own Honda minivan, and Taylor paid him from the cash in her wallet. As the cab pulled away, the front door opened to spill out Lila and Megan.
“Mommy!” they shrieked, almost in unison, running across the lawn to her. “Mommy, you back.”
Crouching, Taylor gathered them to her, small squirming bodies with rust-colored hair smelling of baby shampoo. “Look at my babies,” Taylor crooned, “how are you, babies?”
She kissed them, feeling their lips on her cheeks as they babbled about what they did at Grandma’s house. “Were you good for Grandma?” she asked, standing to hold a small hand in each of hers.
“Yeah,” Lila cried. “We played princesses.”
“I was Princess Jasmine,” Megan declared as they walked across the lawn.
Taylor’s mother, Jackie Ainslee, stood in the doorway. A small tidy woman, with only a small amount of gray in her hair, smiled at the procession. “We were getting worried,” she said. “I would complain that you could have called, except you left your phone here.”
“I know, Mom,” Taylor replied, following her into the house. “I’m sorry.”
Jackie had the same shape of eyes as Taylor, yet hers were hazel, not green, and her hair was brown. As Taylor’s father was blond with blue eyes, Taylors red hair had come from her mother’s mother. Yet, she still took heat from people for not looking much like her parents. Naturally, when she was young, her friends accused her of being adopted. Her parents constantly reassured her that she was not.
“Are you all right?” Jackie asked, closing the door.
Even at two and a half years old, her daughters were quick to pick up nuances and phrases. Thus, she did not want them to overhear what she planned to tell her mother. “Girls, go pack your things, we’re going home.”
The stampede of small feet running down the hallway coincided with delighted shrieks and screams. Once they were out of earshot, Taylor turned to Jackie.
“I am, Mom,” she said slowly. “But only because of a guy. I was so drunk last night, he stopped three guys at the bar from taking me out.”
Jackie’s eyes grew wide, horrified, and she covered her mouth with her fingers. “Oh, honey.”
“They would have raped me, maybe even killed me,” Taylor went on. “This guy took me to his hotel room to sleep it off.”
Jackie’s eyes narrowed. “And you’re sure he didn’t make it all up?”
“As far as I can tell, he told me the truth,” Taylor replied, listening to the girls in their room. “He didn’t touch me, Mom. I showered, then he took me to breakfast, and that was it.”
“Promise me you will never do that again, Taylor,” Jackie pleaded. “Living with Craig is bad enough. But to get drunk in public, alone, is asking for too much trouble. You have enough as it is.”
“That’s an easy promise to make,” Taylor replied with a chuckle. “No worries on that. I learned my lesson.”
“Good. I’m still concerned that this man lied to you, made it all up.”
“I bet the security cameras at Teddy’s will confirm what he said, but I may ask Ted to show them to me.”
“I am just glad you are all right.” Jackie glanced down the hall to the room the kids stayed in when they visited and lowered her voice. “Do you have enough money to leave him yet?”
Taylor also glanced in that direction. “No, I have only a few thousand saved up. When we do make a run for it, I have to be able to change my name, get a new social security number. The same for the girls. I’m certain new identities are expensive on the black market.”
Jackie shook her head. “That it’s come to this is so unreal. The man should be in jail.”
“But he isn’t. And he has the means to track me down if I just take them and run.”
Jackie’s face tightened with anger; her eyes sparked fury and hatred. “Someone should just put him down. He’s a rabid dog, and that’s what you do. You put them down.”
“Mom!”
Taylor had little opportunity for more than that, as Lila and Megan ran back down the hall with filmy princess gowns, tiaras, and tutus fluttering in the breeze they made. “Mommy, we got stuff.”
“Okay, I guess you need help with your other stuff.”
Taylor hugged her mother. “It’ll be all right. Somehow.”
She then followed her giggling, screeching daughters back to their room to pack their things.
Taylor had just gotten the twins asleep for their afternoon nap when Craig walked in the door. She knew by the fumes wafting around his head like an invisible cloud that he had gone drinking with his buddies after he had finished his three-to-eleven shift. Handsome, in a dark, brooding sort of way, his brown eyes held tendrils of red, and his skin sagged from the excessive drinking.
Busy folding laundry when he ambled in, Taylor glanced up. “Hi,” she said simply.
Craig Westerman leaned against the jamb, his badge glinting in the soft light. He had taken off his service belt with its gun, dual handcuffs, can of mace, and taser, and his shirttails hung over his trousers. By the bulge, he still wore his Kevlar vest under his shirt.
“Hi,” he replied, and by his tone, Taylor judged he was feeling mellow. “Where are the girls?”
“Taking their nap.”
She didn’t get a kiss of greeting, nor did she expect one. Craig had ceased those shortly before using his fists rather than kisses to express his feelings. He knew she had gone to see Jackie the evening before but he had no idea she had been out all night. And woke up in the hotel room with Thor.
If he had known, he would not be feeling at all mellow.
“How was work?” she asked, having learned early what were safe topics and what were not.
He shrugged lazily. “Okay, I guess. That son of a whore Johnson might write me up for excessive force.”
His voice changed to a childish whine. “All I did was sock a perp in the gut while cuffed. Well, he mouthed off. Christ, you gotta make these guys show some respect, you know? We’re c
ops; we deserve respect, not being mouthed off to.”
“I’m sure the perp had it coming.”
Of course, she had to agree with him, even if she privately knew that as a violent man holding onto a temper with a frayed leash, Craig should be written up. And prosecuted. That she hoped for every day that he would be fired, and charged with a criminal complaint, then sent to prison. Cops had a short life span in prison if they were put in with the general population.
“He sure did.” Craig laughed. “Bet he won’t do that again.”
Craig’s lieutenant, a big man named Horace Johnson, had once been her hope and salvation. After Craig had put her in the hospital, Lieutenant Johnson came to ask her if Craig had done it. She told him he had, but Craig’s friends and drinking buddies on the police department had run interference for him.
They claimed Taylor lied and had actually been beaten up by prostitutes who resented her trying to horn in on their customers. They trotted in the hookers themselves, who confessed to beating her up. As Taylor refused to press charges against them, they were innocent after all, they were set loose.
And Craig put her straight back into the hospital.
Yet, this time he added a twist. Should Taylor try anything like that again, not only would he kill her, he would kill Lila and Megan as well.
She had never turned to the police again.
“Are you hungry?” she asked. “I can fix you something.”
He nodded, unbuttoning his shirt, pulling it off. “Yeah. I’m gonna shower first, though.”
Ambling away, yanking the Velcro straps off his body armor, Craig vanished into the bedroom they shared. Taylor heard the shower come on and continued folding clothes. Secretly, she plotted her escape, telling no one except her mother. To the world, they seemed a happy couple.
After the last hospital visit, he had toned down the damage he did. He punched her torso, kicked her, forced her into sex with him, twisted her arms to the point of nearly breaking.
But he never hit her face.
Taylor lived in constant fear. Not of being abused, that was a given. But of the veiled threat she saw in his dark eyes. I will kill Lila and Megan. It didn’t matter that after she and her daughters were dead, he planned to kill himself. He could kill himself now and be done with it, Taylor often thought.
Taking the folded clothes into the bedroom to put away, Taylor mused on her slowly growing bank account. For a control freak, Craig never balanced the checkbook. Taylor always suspected it was because he never learned how, but she had never asked him straight out.
Thus, she sent a few dollars here, a few more there, into an account in her name. All the information regarding it was sent to her mother’s address, including the debit card that came with the account.
At the library, she researched how to get false identification—all on the dark net. When the time came, she would convert some of her money into Bitcoin and buy new names and identities for all of them. Once that was done, and Craig left for work, she and the twins would be on the bus to a new life.
I’m not there yet. I must wait a while longer, endure him for a while longer.
When the shower cut off, Taylor left her laundry and headed for the kitchen. Listening for any hint the twins had awakened, she put together a sandwich and chips for him. He would sit in the den with his late lunch and a beer, watching soaps until he grew sleepy. Then he’d crawl into bed, sleep until midnight or so, then wake her up for sex.
Craig strolled into the kitchen wearing only his boxers, a habit Taylor had thought disgusting to the extreme. Curly black hair covered his muscular chest, and he scratched his balls through his underwear. “What you got for me?”
“Tuna salad.”
His eyes flattened. Seeing the danger signs, Taylor tried to back away, but she wasn’t quick enough. Craig seized her left arm, forcing her to drop the plate of food she had made for him with a crash. That’ll wake the babies up. Her single coherent thought was all she managed before he forced her arm up behind her back.
“You bitch,” he snarled in her ear. “You’re trying to poison me.
The agony of her arm, bent at an unnatural angle, made her whimper. Taylor had long since learned the penalty of crying or screaming aloud. “No,” she wept. “I didn’t. It’s just tuna.”
Beer and whiskey fumes wafted into her nose and mouth. He was always worse when he drank. Putting more pressure on her arm, almost to the breaking point but not quite, Craig sneered. “Gotta show you who’s boss, bitch.”
Taylor closed her eyes when she felt her arm begin to shatter.
Chapter Five
Kane stared into Dave’s now frightened and panicked eyes but did not release his grip. “A man who hits a woman is no man at all.”
Voices abounded all around as customers in the store watched the drama. Kane had no idea why they all had their phones out, but his concern was for the man whose throat he craved to choke.
Dave whimpered, his free arm trying to shove Kane away from him, to protect himself. Kane stood immoveable, disgusted by the craven cowardice in the man’s eyes. “How do you like the situation now, Dave?” he gritted. “Go on. Take a swing at me.”
But Dave only shrank away, trying desperately to escape, not fight.
Then two men shoved their way through the onlookers, in uniforms with badges on their shirts.
“What’s going on here?” one demanded while another ordered, “Sir, let him go.”
Obeying, Kane released Dave. Off-balance while previously held upright onto his toes, Dave fell sprawling to the floor on his back. More oohs, aahs, and no few titters followed as he scrambled to his feet. The pregnant woman shrank from him in fear, and Kane wanted to slap the woman-beating inclination right out of him.
“What happened here?”
Before Kane could answer, a fat woman pushed her way to the front, furious, and stabbing a finger at Dave.
“We all saw it,” she snapped, her gray curls bobbing, her three chins wobbling in discord. “He hit her, and she’s pregnant! He hit her, slapped her. And that man stopped him from doing more.”
Kane stepped back when she pointed her finger at him. Suddenly, he realized, too late, that this was not the means to anonymity. He flushed as the security men stared first at Dave, then at him. The leader turned to the crowd. “I suppose someone got this on their cell.”
A dozen cell phones were thrust out at him, and he accepted one. After examining it, he showed his partner, who clicked a few buttons on it, then nodded.
“All right,” he said, “the police are on their way. Go back to your shopping.”
During the conversation and accusations, Dave had gotten slyly to his feet. Then he bolted, using the security men’s distraction as a means to escape. Kane’s hand lashed out, his fist connecting solidly with the man’s forehead. Knocked flat onto his back, Dave lay sprawled there, unconscious.
The security men looked at him, then at Dave, then back.
“Oookay,” breathed the leader. “I suppose that was caught on Facebook Live. Thanks for helping out, big guy; you can finish your shopping. But I bet the cops will need your statement. So please remain in the store.”
As Kane courteously pushed his way through the crowd, which had grown three times its size when he first confronted Dave, people touched him, clapping his shoulder his back, smiling. He heard words such as thanks for doing that, and that was so cool, and also, you’re a hero, man. He heard a few other comments similar to those but ignored them all.
Reclaiming his cart, he paid for his items, wishing people would cease staring at him and smiling, talking amongst themselves about him. He had no intention of waiting for the cops, and once free of the store, headed for his hotel with his purchases in bags.
As he left the parking lot, vehicles with lights flashing blue and red roared toward the Walmart front doors. He paused a moment to watch as uniformed men with guns ran inside. Kane put his head down and walked quickly to his hotel.
&
nbsp; The next few days dragged by with agonizing slowness. Kane had literally nothing to do. With little but time to kill, he slowly learned how to navigate the television with the slender box that ran it. But spending hour after hour watching movies, then clicking to the news channels, and ending up with the Weather Channel, which fascinated him, Kane had had enough.
He needed to fly.
Walking the streets late at night helped the urge to some extent, but it never really left him. The moon and the stars called to him, the wind whispered in his ears, and he constantly watched the sky. He saw helicopters pass over, the sound of their rotors thumping deep into his bones, but he knew he could dodge them easily.
They are so ungainly, it’s ridiculous.
In the distance, passenger jets took off and landed, and he knew he could avoid them as easily as the helicopters. So why don’t I do it? Give in to my blood, the calling to do what I was born to do?
He gave into his urges on the second night since he’d left Taylor. Climbing the stairs to the roof of the hotel, he found the door locked against him. Frustrated, angry, he broke the lock with a heavy shove of his shoulders. It was a flimsy lock, intended to prevent curious or suicidal guests from going through it.
Striding to the edge of the roof, he looked down. The vehicles on the street below, their headlights stabbing the darkness, rolled heavily even at this late hour. They appeared as small as toys down there, their engines muted with distance. Kane stared upward and knew he could hold off the urge no longer.
Changing forms, he leaped off the roof.
He dropped nearly to street level in freefall. Unfurling his wings, they snapped out, caught the wind. Blasting, silent, dark, almost invisible over the cars and their blind drivers, Kane soared up. Into the sky, he flew, his wings carrying him higher and higher, the wind’s song in his ears.
Dragon Fever: Limited Edition Holiday Romance Boxset Page 54