“I need a rifle,” he muttered.
When sober enough, Craig pondered where he might get his hands on a good gun. He could not buy one, not without enduring the waiting period. He dared not amble into the station to steal a rifle from the cabinets at the station, or from the locked trunk of a patrol car.
No, he knew where he could get one.
Cliff had a powerful hunting rifle at his house. He was single, lived alone, and Craig not just knew the hours he worked, he also knew where Cliff kept a spare key. Lifting the bottle as he pondered, Craig glanced at it, then set the whiskey back.
He needed a clear head if he was to drive on the streets again. The last pain pill he had taken had been this morning, and now it was close to three in the afternoon. Cliff would be home, sleeping, right now. By the time his shift started, Craig’s head would be clear.
Gazing longingly at the bottle, Craig imagined Taylor’s head exploding, and he kept his bandaged hands off of it. Not even that…thing could escape him this time. Yet, Craig tried not to think too hard about that monster. If he did, he would surely lose his nerve. Any time he did remember the huge creature with sail-like wings that shot fire at him, he felt his bladder get heavy. He’d wet his pants if he had to stare into those eyes again.
Shutting off the television with the remote, Craig rolled onto his side to get some sleep. Later that night, when most of the city slept, and Cliff had gone to work, Craig would enter his house. He would steal the hunting rifle with its scope and a box of shells, then find Taylor and her monster.
He fell asleep with a smile.
Chapter Seventeen
Without a sign of Craig, or any hint that he stalked her, Taylor reluctantly agreed that Jackie should return home.
“You know how Jean can get on my nerves,” Jackie complained over the phone. “That’s why we don’t live too close to one another.”
Taylor rubbed her face as she sat on the rear porch beside Kane, the girls playing in the backyard. “I know, Mom. We haven’t left the house in days, and I’m going stir crazy.”
“Craig is probably long gone,” Jackie replied. “To California. He can get into Mexico easily enough.”
“Mom, he’s only facing assault charges, not murder. And he may not even know he’s got warrants out for him.”
Taylor and Kane both agreed that Craig was probably hiding while he healed and hadn’t gone anywhere. Afraid of what might happen when he did heal from his burns, Taylor didn’t want her mother returning to her house. Yet, unless she told Jackie of what Kane truly was and how he nearly killed Craig, she had no good excuse to keep her mother away from Portland.
Her mother was determined to go home.
“Cops don’t do well in prison, Taylor, you know that. Even a few years for assault could get him killed, and he knows it.”
“True. Are you on the road now?”
“Yes. I’d go nuts if I stayed at Jean’s for even another hour.”
“I wish you got along better with her,” Taylor said. “I really wish you’d stay there. For your safety.”
“Didn’t you say the cops pulled the unit from watching the house?”
“Yeah. They did.”
“They wouldn’t do that if they thought Craig might still show up.”
Because they have gotten complacent doesn’t mean I have. “They had no choice. The officers were needed elsewhere, and since Craig hasn’t been seen or contacted me, they had to.”
“I promise I’ll be very careful, hon, but I need to be at home.”
“All right. Call me when you get there.”
“I will.”
Clicking her phone off, Taylor watched the twins play without really seeing them.
“You think Craig will go after your mother?” Kane asked.
“I don’t know.” She took his hand. “Since she’s been out of town, he may assume she’ll stay gone. But I can’t stop her. Without any sign of him, she thinks he’s taken off to another state.”
“Did he?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Taylor replied with a sigh. “With you burning him, mangling his gun, he may have lost all his nerve in trying anything again. He may not risk facing you again.”
“But you really don’t think that.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Taylor looked at him. “He’s too vengeful, Kane. I hurt his pride, and that’s not something he will ever forgive. His need to get back at me, to kill me, is too strong. He’ll risk a fire-breathing dragon if it means killing me.”
Kane nodded thoughtfully. “I can see that, I guess. He strode out into the open with a gun, planning to shoot four people, including two small children. That kind of determination, to take that kind of risk, means he’d do just about anything.”
“Exactly.”
“So, what are we going to do?”
Taylor dragged her fingers through her hair. “It’s been five days since that night,” she replied slowly. “I’m as sick of hanging around here as my mom is of being at her sister’s place. We should probably return the rental car and get my van back.”
“But Craig can track it.”
“One, we aren’t going anywhere, anyway. He probably knows we’re here if he’s been watching the house.” Taylor smiled slightly. “Second, maybe we can spend time trying to find the device. It might relieve my boredom.”
Kane shrugged. “Let’s do it.”
Calling in Megan and Lila from the yard and their current game of dressing their dolls under the tree, Taylor pondered the contentment she had fallen into. Life with Kane, outside of Craig’s threat, was great. She spent her nights sharing his bed, making hot, passionate love to him and discovered her growing love for him only deepened with time.
She enjoyed his company, found she could share all her intimate thoughts with him without fear that he’d laugh, condemn, or mock those thoughts. Not even her life with her daughters’ father compared to her life with Kane. His strength, his gentleness, his humor, and even his penchant for going out at night to fly endeared him to her.
“Let’s hope the van wasn’t towed,” she commented as the two of them buckled the girls into their car seats. “That would be bad.”
“I suppose it would,” Kane answered, sitting in the passenger seat. “You know, I should probably learn to drive.”
Taylor glanced at him as she clicked the remote to open the garage door. “Maybe you should. You will have to if you want to apply for a job with the police department.”
“I will need proper papers,” Kane pointed out. “I don’t have them.”
Taylor grinned as she turned to look back while backing the car out of the driveway. “You let me handle that.”
“How will you get me papers?”
Driving down the street, Taylor answered, “Before you came into my life, I had planned on getting a new identity. Then I was going to leave Craig, and he’d not know where to look for me. I’d have a new social security number, new driver's license, new name. We can do that for you. They come expensive, but it’s the only way you can get a job.”
“It sounds easy then.”
She laughed. “Not easy, but possible.”
The van hadn’t been towed, but it did have a warning sticker on it that said it would be towed if it wasn’t moved soon. Transferring the car seats to the van, Kane would stay with the kids there while Taylor returned the rental, then walked back.
Before getting in behind the wheel, Taylor gestured toward a nearby shop. “Would you mind getting them ice cream while you wait for me?”
“Ice cream,” cried Lila while Megan yelled, “Yay.”
Kane laughed. “Why not?”
“I’d rather you weren’t out in the open near the van,” Taylor admitted, getting into the rental. “You know.”
“I do. Come on, girls, take my hands. Show me what ice cream is.”
As Kane took the twins to the strip mall, Taylor drove down the street, as always keeping a watch for C
raig’s car. As it was a rather nondescript sedan, there were many just like it. But none of them followed her, nor did she see any in the vicinity of the van or strip mall.
Feeling more vulnerable than ever, exposed as she strode quickly down the street after returning the rental, Taylor tried to see everywhere at once. Constantly glancing over her shoulder, she knew she probably appeared like a tweaker to anyone who might be watching.
If Craig was anywhere nearby, he failed to show himself. Taylor entered the ice cream parlor to find her daughters happily getting chocolate chip ice cream all over their faces, clothes, and the table. Kane looked up at her with a grin.
“Ice cream is pretty tasty,” he commented as she joined them. “Want one?”
“Sure. How about a strawberry cone?”
“Coming right up.”
Kane went to order it from the counter, standing in line with others while Taylor tried to relax. “Are you getting any of that in your mouths?” she asked Lila and Megan.
“Uh-huh.”
Their ice cream had melted a great deal, but there was still some solid stuff in their cones that they hadn’t started to eat yet. They licked and nibbled, stuck their fingers in it to put in their mouths, making Taylor think that it was time they learned to eat properly.
“You two need to stop eating with your fingers,” she stated, earning for herself twin looks of astonishment.
“Kay,” Megan replied.
“Uh-huh,” added Lila.
They continued picking at the melted stuff, plucking out the chocolate chips to eat separately.
Kane returned a few minutes later with her strawberry cone and another for himself. “If I had known you people had ice cream,” he commented, sitting down, “I’d have come south a long time ago.”
“Perhaps we should create a trade agreement,” Taylor replied. “You get ice cream in the frozen north, and we demolition experts.”
Kane eyed her sidelong. “Is there a problem?”
“Don’t mind me,” Taylor said with a sigh, “I’m just on edge.”
She ate her cone while watching the street through the windows, yet saw nothing out of the ordinary. Despite that, the nervousness, the feeling of being horribly exposed, would not leave her. Even if Craig was out there, what could he do? He had burned hands, and those weren’t likely to heal well enough by now for him to try anything.
What if he’s willing to risk the pain?
Her cone no longer tasted very good. Finishing it anyway, Taylor remarked, “We should go. I need to wash these two up in the ladies’ room.”
Kane watched her with clear concern but said nothing as she took the protesting twins into the bathroom. With wet paper towels, she washed faces and hands, asked them if they needed to go potty. At the negative answers, she held their now-clean hands as she brought them back into the parlor.
She and Kane buckled Lila and Megan into their seats, then climbed into the front of the Honda. The van started easily, and she pulled it out into traffic. Only when they reached the speed limit, cars and trucks on all sides of the van, did Taylor start to relax.
“Sorry,” she said. “I don’t know why I’m on edge. Maybe I’m just being paranoid.”
“Being paranoid doesn’t mean that someone isn’t out to get you.” Kane grinned.
Taylor laughed. “Well, that’s—”
She felt something hard strike her in the upper arm at the same time a hole appeared in the Honda’s windshield. Another hole blasted near the first, and she heard something strike the leather seat beside her head. Taylor slammed her foot down on the brake, feeling the entire van skid sideways. Then another car hit the van, crashing into the right rear quarter.
Cars flashed past, horns blaring, and yet a second vehicle hit the Honda broadside. Taylor saw a world of white, then nothing at all.
A steady beeping entered her consciousness. It sounded familiar somehow, yet she couldn’t place it. Voices swam eerily close, then faded, only to come close again. Taylor frowned, wanted the noises to go away. Where was she? Memory returned in bits and flashes. The holes in the windshield. Something striking her seat.
The cars crashing into the van.
“My babies!”
Taylor lunged upward, panicked, frantic, terrified. She felt something rip from her arm, stinging, and then hands seized her. “My babies!”
“Taylor, calm down, calm down, Taylor.”
The hands wouldn’t let her go. She fought them, weeping, shrieking, until they forced her back down and held her pinned. Her hair fell over her face, blinding her, preventing her from seeing anything.
Over and over, a voice told her to calm down, soothing, and at last, sobbing, she peered through her hair. A dark face loomed over her, at last saying something she understood.
“Your babies are fine, Taylor, they are fine. They have some cuts and bruises, but the child seats and the airbags saved them. Calm down now; the twins are just fine.”
Two sets of hands held her down, but a dark one brushed her hair from her face. Staring up, she realized she recognized him. “Lieutenant?”
Rather than answer her, Lieutenant Johnson spoke over her to someone else. “She’ll be all right now.”
“I have to reinsert her drip. I’ll need to switch sides with you.”
Johnson moved away, and a nurse in green scrubs took his place, lifting her arm. Taylor watched, fascinated, as she opened a packet containing a sterile needle, inserted it into her arm, then attached a line to it. She finally gazed at Taylor’s face.
“How do you feel?” she asked. “Outside of scared for your babies?”
“I—I don’t know.” Taylor stared wildly around the room again. “Kane? Where’s Kane?”
“He’s beat all to hell,” Johnson replied, standing beside her again. “Refused medical treatment, though. Tough guy.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s outside with your girls,” he told her. “Taylor, I need you to relax. We need to talk about what happened.”
“What happened?”
Johnson glanced at the nurse, who scribbled on a metal clipboard, often looking at the monitors. He sighed. “You were shot, sweetie,” he said. “The other bullet missed your face by an inch. Maybe.”
Taylor’s memory surged as she recalled the two holes in the windshield, something hard hitting her arm. Glancing at her upper right arm, she saw it was wrapped in bandages, but blood had leaked through in a round spot. “Craig.”
“Give the lady her prize.” Lieutenant Johnson sighed. “We’re sure it was him. Before I give you what I know, you tell me what you know.”
Slowly, Taylor recounted turning in the rental, walking back to the van while Kane got the girls ice cream.
“Why did you rent a car?” he asked, interrupting her.
“I felt certain Craig had put a tracking device on mine,” she replied, her mouth dry. “We left it for a few days, then came back for it. I was going to try to find the bug. Can I have some water?”
The nurse poured water into a cup, inserted a straw, then held it to Taylor’s lips. It tasted wonderful and soothed her throat.
“Okay, go on.”
“We hadn’t seen anything of Craig,” she continued. “I didn’t dare hope he was gone, but I had been stuck in the house. I wanted the van back. We got ice cream.”
Unable to halt it, Taylor started to cry. Lifting her arm with the needle in it, attaching her to the drip, she tried to cover her face. Her tears flowed out from under her fingers, and her wounded arm, unfelt until then, started to ache as she sobbed uncontrollably.
Johnson stuffed a wad of tissues under her wet fingers, and she wiped her face and nose while trying to get herself under control. She felt the nurse patting her arm, making shushing noises, and at last, Taylor finally managed to stop crying.
“Sorry,” she muttered, feeling weak, sore, and very tired.
“Don’t worry about it, sweetie,” Johnson replied, his voice kind. “Now, you had ice cr
eam.”
“We got into the van,” she went on, hoarse. “I told Kane I was on edge, that I felt paranoid. Kane made a comment that it didn’t mean someone was out to get me. You know, that old joke.”
“Yeah, I know it. And then?”
Taylor half lifted her wounded arm. “I got shot. I heard something hit the seat, then I hit the brakes. Cars slammed into us.”
Johnson asked her a few questions about her edgy feelings, then said, “Westerman’s former partner reported yesterday that his hunting rifle had vanished from his house: scope, shells, and all.”
Taylor stared.
“No sign of a break-in,” Johnson continued, his dark eyes on hers. “He admitted that Westerman knew where he kept the spare key. The slug we took from your van and your arm matched the type of rifle stolen.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Oh, shit is right. There were no witnesses to the shooting, so we think he hid behind a tree or a shrub to fire, then got into his car right away to escape.”
“He knew right where the van was,” Taylor whispered. “He waited for me to come get it.”
“We’ll look for a tracker,” Johnson said. “Now that we know it might be there. So yeah, if he knew where your van was because of this device, then he most likely waited.”
Taylor closed her eyes. “It’s my fault. I should never have gone back for it. I’m so stupid.”
“Hey, now, that ain’t right. It’s your property. Westerman is to blame, not you.”
“How are the other occupants of the crash?”
“Battered but alive.”
“Thank God.”
Opening them again, Taylor fumbled for Johnson’s hand. “Thanks.”
“Just so you know,” Johnson went on, gazing down at her with compassion. “We’ll be adding four counts of attempted murder to the charges we already have. He’ll go away for a very long time, honey.”
“Can I see Kane and my daughters now?”
Dragon Fever: Limited Edition Holiday Romance Boxset Page 62