I got dressed in a maxi dress and glanced out of the window to see that it was a beautiful day. I’d been planning to work in my office, but I was lured outside by the sunshine.
I grabbed a throw blanket and my laptop before heading to the back patio. If I had to write the stupid book, I could at least enjoy some sun.
John was around that day, so Tucker wouldn’t be in, which was fine. I could have the peace and quiet that I cherished so much. I sighed. Hearing him speak in that thick Cajun accent the night before had been enough to make me forget that I wanted time away from him.
I shook my head and made my way to the back patio. I pushed open the door and was about to walk out when I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. I jumped about a foot in the air and slapped my free hand over my heart. It was just a piece of paper. Hardly any reason to have a freak-out.
I grabbed the paper and pulled it off the window. Holding it up so I could read it, I realized there was more than enough reason to have a freak-out. I dropped my laptop and blanket and slammed the door shut. Locking it, I backed away, looking from side to side, expecting to see someone appear at any moment.
Sam had written again. Only, he’d gotten as close as my back door.
I didn’t have my phone. I didn’t have anything. What if he was still around? What if he was watching? I turned and ran towards the front of the house, my pulse pounding. What if he was at the front door? I didn’t know where he was. He could be inside. Had the door been locked before I opened it? I couldn’t remember.
Spinning around again, I saw movement from the kitchen and screamed.
“Jesus Christ! What’s wrong with you?” Gerald fanned himself with the paperwork he was holding and shook his head. “You scared the hell out of me!”
“Sam left a message. It was taped to the back door. He’s here, Gerald. Where do we go? What should we do?”
He strode forward and took the letter from me. He read it and his frown grew deep enough to cut through his Botox. “This isn’t good. He’s never gotten so close.”
“Should we leave? What if he’s in the house?”
“Go up to your room and lock the door. I’m going to call the police.”
I looked up the stairs and shivered. I didn’t want to go up there. I wanted to demand that we leave and check into a secure hotel, but I didn’t make the rules. I also didn’t want to beg Gerald to stay with me. “Okay.”
Feeling like I was in a horror movie and smart people in the audience were throwing popcorn at me and screaming that I shouldn’t go up the stairs, I went up the damn stairs. At least it wasn’t dark. There was that. I crept up as silently as I could and kept my eyes wide open so I wouldn’t miss anything.
Almost to my bedroom door, the door to my office jerked open suddenly and I screamed while throwing my arm out to stop who I thought was Sam from attacking me. I felt my fist connect a second before I realized it was only John. Why he’d been in my office was beyond me, but it was definitely him.
His face crumpled as he wheezed and fell to his knees. I’d landed a hard punch right to his stomach. I held out my hands in his direction, but kept moving towards my room. I was freaked out.
I locked myself in the bedroom and sat with my back pressed against the headboard. I grabbed my phone from the nightstand and held it to my chest as I waited for the cops to show up.
There’d been a time when I’d written off everything Sam did. He was gross and sick, but it wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard on the streets when I was a kid. Things had been escalating, though. He was getting attention in the news. He’d come into at least the yard of my home. It was too much.
I realized I was still clutching the note and dropped it on the bed. The words he’d written stared up at me. He wanted my blood on his hands.
My phone vibrated in my hand and made me jump. I stared down at it like it was a snake as I tried to recognize the number showing on the screen. I didn’t know it, but still, I raised it to my ear and answered. “Hello?”
“Charlie?” Tucker’s voice came through the line, strong and sure. The sound of rushing wind diluted it slightly, but his deep baritone was hard to miss. “You okay? What’s happening? I just heard a call over the scanner about your address.”
Embarrassingly, I wanted to cry again. “Sam left a note on the back door. I don’t know if it was locked. I don’t know if he came inside.”
He swore. “I’m already on my way. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Are you somewhere safe?”
“I’m in my room. I locked the door.”
“Is there anyone there with you?”
“Gerald’s downstairs and John might still be in the hallway.”
“Might still be?”
“He scared me. Gerald sent me to my room alone and John stepped out of my office and I was so jumpy that I punched him in the stomach. He went down pretty hard.”
There was silence from his end and then a small chuckle. “Good girl.”
A shiver went down my spine that I fought to ignore. “This sucks, Tucker. This is crazy, right? People don’t just do this shit to other people. The cops have to catch him. He was on my property. He can’t just be a fucking ghost—right?”
Tucker grunted. “No. He’s not a ghost.”
“I hate this.”
A heavy sigh was my answer. Tucker was so quiet that I wasn’t sure he was still there until he sighed again and the light sound of a meow came through the phone. “I’ll be there soon, Charlie. Just stay in your room. No matter what. I’ll check out the house and then come to you.”
I hesitated. “Do you have a cat with you?”
Yet another sigh. “It’s a long story.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll be there soon.”
I listened as he hung up, and pulled my knees to my chest. Tucker would be there soon and he’d make sure everything was safe. The cops didn’t seem to be too interested in catching Sam, but at least Tucker would be around to make sure that Sam never got to feel my blood on his hands.
Less than ten minutes later, there was loud banging on the front door that carried all the way up to me. Then there was shouting. Lots of shouting. I heard heavy footsteps come up the stairs and go past my room. Minutes later, they passed my room again and went back downstairs.
I waited another few minutes before I heard those heavy footsteps come back and stop outside of my door. I held my breath.
“Charlie. Let me in.”
I was getting used to Tucker saying that to me. I hurried over to the door and unlocked it. Throwing it open, I found him bracing his arms on either side of the door, staring down at me. I wanted to throw myself into his arms. I was scared and there was something about Tucker that told me he’d protect me, no matter what.
Throwing myself in his arms might’ve been a little much, though. I barely knew the guy. Instead, I stood there, staring up at him, not saying anything. I wrapped my arms around myself and tried to think of something to say. He finally let go of the doorframe and stepped closer. I held my breath as he moved around me and lightly pulled me out of the way so he could close the door.
His hands on my side felt hot and awareness flooded my body. He was man and I was all too eager about it.
“I’m going to check around in here for a minute. Stay right here.”
My libido died off again at the thought of Sam hiding in my room somewhere. I pressed my back against the door and watched as Tucker went from my closet to John’s closet and then into the bathroom. He even looked under the bed and behind curtains before coming back to stand in front of me.
“Breathe, Charlie.”
I realized that I was holding my breath still and let it out in a rough exhale. “Sorry.”
He shook his head. “I have to go get my cat. Maybe by the time I get back with her, the cops will be here.”
I stepped out of the way of the door and clenched my fingers together. “Is it safe?”
“From the stalker? Yes. From Gerald
and John? No. I may have lit Gerald up about not calling me in on shit like this. And John is pretty pissy about being punched and then locked out of the room.” He pulled open the door and then grinned back at me. “Good job on that hit.”
I bit back a smile. I wanted to ask him if he was coming back upstairs. I didn’t want to be alone, but I was fine. The house was cleared and Sam was probably long gone. I couldn’t revert back to some kind of weakling and beg Tucker to stay in my room with me. Besides, just a couple of days earlier, I’d been trying to get him fired. How stupid was it that I was suddenly all aboard the Tucker train?
“I’ll be right back.”
I watched as he closed the door, then went back to my bed. I didn’t know what to do. Writing that stupid book for Gerald seemed so asinine. It was the last thing I wanted to do.
My stomach growled and I pulled a pillow over it. I was hungry, somehow. Through all the stress, I’d kept my appetite. It figured. No matter how much Gerald starved me, I was never going to be a skinny girl at heart. I wanted to eat my feelings. I wanted to eat everyone’s feelings. If I’d had a cheesecake in front of me, I’d have devoured it whole by that point.
I was still sitting there, thinking about food, when Tucker stepped back into my room. He was carrying a small crate and wore a shit-eating grin on his face.
“What?”
“What?”
I rolled my eyes and stood up. “You look like you’re up to something.”
“Me? Nah. No way. I’m as pure as they come.” He nodded to the carrier. “Where can I put her? If you’re allergic, I can leave her in the crate. I just want to stay until the cops come and we decide how to handle this.”
I knew that John was slightly allergic. Not enough to put him in any real danger, but just enough to make him annoying as hell. “I’m not allergic. Go ahead and let her out on the bed, if you want to.”
For some reason, Tucker threw his head back and laughed. It made me feel a little wild, like he knew John was allergic and I was getting my revenge in a little way. I couldn’t help laughing with him.
A few seconds later, there was a huge cat wallowing around the bed, on John’s side. I stared at it with wide eyes and my mouth slightly hanging open.
“Don’t look at her like that.”
I shifted my amazed gaze to Tucker. “What is she?”
He scowled. “She’s a cat.”
“Is she supposed to be that big?”
“You’re not funny.”
I shook my head. “I think you might be feeding her too much, Tucker. She’s the size of a golden retriever.”
“That’s mean. She’s normal. She just eats a lot.” He crossed his arms over his chest and watched as the cat sniffed around, probably looking for more food. “She has an eating thing.”
I covered my mouth as a giggle escaped. “It’s no wonder you’re buff. If you’re lifting her, you’re definitely getting your arm days in.”
Chapter 12
Tucker
I flexed my arms, unable to help it. Charlie was off limits and something was messed up with her, but she turned me on. That giggle and hearing her curse earlier had sent blood rushing to my dick, as soon as I’d seen her and saw that she was safe. I was hard, just standing there, looking down at her. She was a surprise. I still wasn’t sure who was real—Charlie or Charlotte. But I liked Charlie.
“I’m glad you’re noticing my physique.”
Her cheeks reddened. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, I noticed, and she looked fucking sexy like that. There were freckles across her nose, but other than that, there was nothing else cute about her. Her mouth was pouty and it looked sinful, bare like it was. Her skin looked like silk without all the shit on top of it. Her eyes looked bigger without the makeup, the hooded expression in them making me think of how she’d look up at me after I made her come a few times. They were also a lot darker than I’d seen them before. Instead of the bright blue, they were dark, almost an indigo.
I’d been staring down at her for too long. I cleared my throat and looked back at Spark. “She is a little large for a cat, isn’t she?”
Charlie took a step to the side, bumping into the wall. “Yeah. What’s her name?”
“Spark. My neighbor got her for her son, but then they found out that he’s allergic to cats. So, I got her. She’s okay for a cat.”
“Spark? Did the boy name her?”
I sat down on the edge of the bed and smiled when Spark hurried over to my lap. She sat on me and purred as her tail whacked me. “He named her… something else. I changed it to Spark. She’s a dignified cat. She needed a better name.”
“What was it?”
I shook my head. “It’s not important.”
Charlie tilted her head and batted her eyes at me. I wasn’t even sure she was aware she was giving that look to me, but it was hard to ignore.
“He named her Sparkles.”
Charlie laughed full out. She threw her head back and laughed like I’d never seen her laugh. It wasn’t dainty or refined, by any means. It was loud and it burst out of her like gunfire from a machine gun. The way it stretched her throat and crinkled her eyes was so damn human that I got the urge to drag her into my lap and kiss the shit out of her. I was on the verge of doing just that when the bedroom door opened and John stepped inside.
He glared at me and then at the cat and practically hissed himself. “What the fuck is that thing doing on my bed? You know I’m allergic, Charlotte!”
Her laughter died away and she pulled in on herself. She crossed her arms across her stomach in a protective way and frowned. “She needed out. We can wash the sheets.”
“We’ll talk about it later. When the help is gone.” He glared at me again and pushed the door open wider. “The cops are coming up the driveway. You should probably be down there with them, instead of in my room with my wife.”
I wanted to throat-punch the little asshole, but he had a point. She was his wife. No matter how many men he fucked, she was still his wife. I stood up and eased Spark towards her crate, but Charlie put her hand on my wrist.
“Leave her out. She could probably use the exercise.”
I fought a smile and gave her a look before nodding and heading out. I made sure John was following me before heading down the stairs. There was something about him that I didn’t like. He looked at Charlie like she was a bug under his magnifying glass. I wanted him away from her.
The cops that pulled up were two rookies who’d probably never been out on a call before. One of them kept looking around, trying to spot Charlie probably, while the other one scratched his head and took notes with a number 2 pencil. I listened while Gerald told them what had happened and then listened while they gave the textbook bullshit that a cop who didn’t want to do anything gave out. It was probably someone messing around with Charlie because of the news coverage. Neighborhood kids, yada-blah-yada.
I clenched my jaw and tried to remind myself that they weren’t the cops who’d locked Mercer up. Mercer, who was still in fucking jail.
“Where’s the note?” I looked from Gerald to John, who both just shrugged. “It’d probably be a great idea to show it to them, so they can get how serious this shit is.”
Gerald nodded. “Of course. John, would you grab it from Charlotte?”
“Let Tucker do it. He was up there with her. He could’ve grabbed it then, but he was too busy petting his cat.”
Understandably, the cops looked between us with wide eyes. I was probably smoking from my ears at that point. I wanted to strangle John to within an inch of his life, but instead I just gave him an easy smile. “I love cats. What can I say?”
Gerald put his hand on John’s shoulder. “Please, go get it. Check on your wife. I know this is a stressful time for you, too, but make sure Charlotte is okay. She needs you.”
I looked up at the ceiling and rested my hands on my hips. The bullshit was so thick, we were all going to need waders if Gerald kept it up. Maybe Gerald would be the b
est option for strangling. He seemed to control John like a puppet on a string.
John left and came back a couple of minutes later with the crinkled note and a forced smile on his face. “She’s okay right now. She’s tough.”
The cops took the note and one of them slipped it into his pocket, with a promise to put it in the case file. A few more minutes of them assuring us all that it was just neighborhood kids playing a prank and they moved to leave. When they opened the front door, they both gasped and then preened before heading out.
I glanced out to see a crowd of reporters gathered on the street, pointing their cameras at the house. I groaned and shoved the door shut.
“What are you doing? We need to go out and make a statement!”
I glared down at Gerald. “Why?”
“Because.”
I shook my head. “You go out there and inadvertently tell them anything, this asshole knows more about how to get to Charlie. This isn’t a chance to go viral. It’s your client’s life we’re talking about.”
“I’m well aware of the stakes, Mr. Fields. If you’ll kindly stick to your job, I’ll stick to mine. Which is making my client work and getting her money. I’m going to go do that, now. Sorry to burst your bubble, but this sells. I wish it wasn’t happening to her, I do, but it is. I’m not wasting a chance to make money.”
I shook my head as they both went out the front door, suddenly wearing the faces of people who gave a shit.
I listened as they talked about “How traumatizing the whole situation has been for Charlotte. She’s still pushing on and being strong, though. She wouldn’t dare miss any of her upcoming appearances. She’s tougher than that. If anything, she’ll be using this whole ordeal to empower herself and maybe even reach out to other people who might be going through hard times, too.”
It was all such shit. All I could do was shake my head and hope that life gave me a chance to punch them in the face at some point.
When they finally came in, Gerald rolled his shoulders and looked at me. “We’ll need the services of Black Dog Security full-time. Is that possible? Money isn’t an issue. We just want to make sure our Charlotte is safe.”
Black Dog Security- Complete 5-Part Series Page 38