by Joss Wood
Oh, crap, she was in bigger trouble here than she’d thought.
Willa fought down the urge to panic and ignored the pain of his fingers digging into her arms. If she let him into the house she would be at his mercy...but if she didn’t he might just start hitting her here.
Because being hit was in her immediate future. She knew that as well as she knew her own name. He’d never done it before, but losing face with Vern would have pushed him over the edge. Wayne, being the narcissistic ass that he was, would always find someone else to blame.
Willa froze, every muscle in her body tensing. She wanted to fight him but she was so damn scared. She wanted to scream at him but knew that would just make him madder. She was trapped...
This was how Amy had felt, she thought. Terrified and alone... She remembered Amy’s bruises and injuries and she shuddered. Oh, Ames...
‘Open the bloody door or I swear I’ll just make it worse.’
Wayne shook her and Willa reached for the key. Maybe if she just listened to him he would come to his senses and she’d escape with nothing more than a slap...
Don’t go in the house, Willa. Fight.
Willa felt her anger swell and her courage return with the force of a tidal wave. She was not doing this again—she was not going to be Wayne’s wimpy wife ever again!
Whirling around, she slapped both her hands on Wayne’s chest and, shoving as hard as she could, pushed him back a couple of steps. She’d never, as long as she lived, forget the astonished look on his face. It gave her even more courage.
‘You want to take a swing at me? You do it right here, you bastard!’
Wayne’s eyes widened and Willa saw his fist clench. Instead of retreating, Willa got in his face.
‘But you should know that I’ll fight back, I’ll fight you with everything I have! And if you touch me you’d better kill me because I swear to God I will nail your saggy ass to a wall when I charge you with assault,’ she hissed.
Wayne stopped in his tracks and looked at her, hesitating. Willa felt her power surge again and she knew she wasn’t nearly done with him. She had no back-up but she didn’t need it...not this time.
She was Willa Moore, and she was going to take control of her life, dammit!
‘You will never disparage me, insult me or put me down again! You will never threaten me with violence, put your hands on me or make me feel less than I am.’ Willa’s chest heaved with anger and her eyes were laser-sharp.
‘Willa, calm down...’
Willa actually growled at him. ‘Don’t you dare tell me what to do! God damn you! You complete bastard moron!’
Wayne looked around and started inching his way towards the steps. ‘I think that you should—’
He was still talking? Really? Well, it wasn’t his time to talk, it was hers. She had eight years’ worth of anger needing an escape and he was in her target zone.
‘I actually don’t care what you think I should do, you spineless, pathetic, shiny-headed weasel. I’m not a little girl any more. Come to think of it, why can’t you have relationships with women who are women and not girls, Wayne? Are you that insecure?’
Willa gave him half a second to answer before storming in again.
‘Are you threatened by women being smarter, older? Do you see young girls as women you can mould? Are you just sick? I had so much to give, dammit, and you stifled me at every turn—’
‘I wanted to protect you!’ Wayne protested.
‘You wanted to control me and, well done, you succeeded...for a while.’ Willa shoved her hands into her hair and tugged. ‘But I’ve escaped your saggy clutches now, you horrible man, and I won’t be made to feel bad about it—especially not by you.’
‘Hey, Willa. Morning!’
They both whirled around and Willa saw her sprightly neighbours, Jerry and Luella, at the bottom of her driveway, their Alsatian Ben between them. She finally had Wayne on the back foot, she had so much more grief to give him, and she was being interrupted. Wayne, the soft, yellow-bellied coward, looked relieved.
Jerry frowned when Willa didn’t respond, and he and Ben walked towards her up the path. Ben growled and Jerry looked from Willa to Wayne.
‘Everything okay here?’
Wayne looked even more relieved. ‘I’m just leaving.’
Willa saw the enquiring look Jerry sent her and shrugged. ‘My revolting ex.’
Jerry, six two and still powerful, despite being in his sixties, crossed his tree trunk arms and glared at Wayne. ‘We’ll just wait until you do just that.’
Ben went to sit next to Willa’s legs and growled when Wayne took a half-step towards her. Wayne muttered an obscenity, sent Willa a furious look, and when neither she nor Jerry—nor Ben—moved he whirled away and stomped down the driveway.
Jerry waited until he saw Wayne roar off in his Ferrari before he placed a meaty hand on Willa’s shaking shoulder. ‘You okay, hun? He looked like a nasty piece of work.’
Willa released the breath she was holding. ‘He is. But today—’ she grinned at him ‘—I was nastier. Thanks, Jerry.’ She rubbed Ben between the ears. ‘You too, Ben.’
Jerry took the key from her shaking hand, put it in the lock and pushed her door open for her. ‘Lock it behind you and be careful. Where’s that nice guy who’s been hanging around?’
‘Rob?’ Willa pushed her hand through her hair. ‘He’ll be around later.’
‘Good.’ Jerry pushed her inside. ‘Take care and call me if the other guy comes back.’
‘Thanks, Jerry.’
Willa blew him a kiss, slipped inside her house, closed the door and locked it. Leaning against the door, she slid to the floor, wrapped her arms around her knees and cried.
She shouldn’t be crying, Willa thought, brushing at her tears. She’d fought the monster under her bed, the one inside her head, and she’d won. She should be laughing, dancing, celebrating...
She had her self-respect back. She hadn’t disappointed herself again. She’d fought back. So why was she crying?
Cleansing tears, she realised eventually. Facing Wayne down had been like removing a festering thorn: the irritant was out, but there was still some muck in the hole.
So Willa, her back to the door and her head on her knees, allowed herself to cry. To be cleansed.
* * *
When Rob got to Willa’s at midday he had to wait while she answered the front door, which for once was locked. Silently, he followed her stiff back to the study. He had enough experience with women to realise that something was amiss, and he ran back through their last couple of conversations to see if he’d put his foot in it or forgotten something important... He couldn’t think of anything in particular, but who knew?
Maybe it wasn’t him... Maybe she’d had a fight with one of her girlfriends—or might she be getting sick? Did she look a little red? Rob shook his head at the urge to place the back of his hand against her forehead to see if she was running a temperature.
He was, he was humiliated to admit, a sap. Why did he care so much? He was just here, with her, for a little company, a lot of sex. Some laughs...
He wasn’t here to fix her, protect her, look after her. That wasn’t his job.
Willa, dressed in a pair of cut-off jeans and a long-sleeved tee—it was about a million degrees outside...why the long sleeves?—walked around her desk and sank into her chair.
‘We need to go through the cost projections for the store and the cash-flow projections for the gym,’ Willa said crisply, looking at her computer screen. ‘Let me just print them out.’
Rob frowned, conscious of the fact that Willa hadn’t yet met his eyes. He peered into her face, noticing that she looked a little pale. Hell, maybe she was getting sick...
‘Hey, are you okay?’
‘I’m fi
ne,’ she snapped.
Okay, then, bite my head off, why don’t you?
‘You’re looking out of sorts and you’re wearing sleeves on a steaming hot day. Are you getting sick?’ Rob persisted.
‘Maybe.’ Willa gestured to her desk. ‘Can we get to work, please?’
‘No.’ Rob walked around the desk, lifted her chin and looked into her unhappy red-rimmed eyes. ‘Have you been crying?’
‘Rob, enough! I just want to get to work; we have so much to do!’
Rob placed his hands on the armrests of her chair and shook his head. ‘Firstly, it’s Sunday—and it’s against my religion to work on a Sunday.’
Willa snorted. ‘What religion is that? Paganism?’
‘And secondly something big is bothering you.’
Rob placed his hands on her arms and his blood froze when she let out a smothered yelp of pain. Instinctively he recognised that sound: the sound of someone—a woman...his woman!—trying to hide an injury. Dropping her back into her chair, he swiftly reached for the hem of her T-shirt and tugged it up.
‘What are you doing? I’m not getting naked right now!’
‘Take the T-shirt off, Willa,’ Rob stated, his voice low and hard. His tone suggested that she did not argue with him.
Willa’s voice broke. ‘Please, Rob, just let it go.’
Like hell. ‘Off. Now.’
He tugged the hem of the shirt again and, feeling the resistance leave her, gently pulled the T-shirt over her head. His eyes scanned her torso and then he saw the purple, perfect bruises that indicated fingers holding her left arm far too tight. His eyes jumped to her other arm where she had a matching set.
‘When was he here?’ he growled, stepping back and looking at her through a red mist of temper. He had to control it this one time. He had to be better than he was.
‘It’s nothing—’
‘It’s something, Willa. Let’s have it,’ Rob said, struggling to keep his composure.
‘Early this morning,’ Willa admitted reluctantly. ‘He was waiting for me when I came back from my run.’
Willa yanked her T-shirt out of his hands and pulled it over her head. Somewhere, in the place that wasn’t all caveman, he realised that her voice radiated frustration and temper but no timidity.
‘He said that I’d embarrassed him and he was going to teach me a lesson... I think if he’d got me into the house then he would’ve slapped me around.’
Rob felt his gut clench and nausea roil through him. He breathed through his nose and ordered his stomach to settle down. ‘Dear God...’
The words were more of a plea than a blasphemy.
‘For far too many minutes I just stood there...couldn’t fight him. Couldn’t say a damn thing... I’ve never seen him look like that... I was so scared.’ Willa wrapped her arms around her middle and dropped her head.
Rob couldn’t comfort her—he was too angry. Instead he pivoted on his heel and slammed his fist into a wooden cupboard behind him. Willa gasped, and fire rocketed up his arm, but it was worth it because for a moment—just a moment—he imagined that it was Wayne Fisher’s face on the other side of his fist.
Then he rested his head against the cupboard as he pulled in deep breaths, grateful that the punch had taken the edge off. When he thought he could face her again with a measure of calm, he turned around.
Willa’s mouth had dropped open and he was, on one level, pleased to see a spark back in her eyes.
‘Was that necessary? Jeez—calm down, Rob.’
He was calm. Just... But he was still in the zone. To prove his point, if only to himself, he lowered his voice even further. ‘He put his hands on you...he was going to beat you—terrorise you! I’m trying, very hard, to stop myself from going caveman.’
‘I handled him!’ Willa cried. ‘If you could pull your head out of your ass for five seconds and concentrate, you’d actually hear what is important here! I stood up to him—without you, I might add. I tore into him and it felt brilliant! This isn’t your problem, Rob!’ she stated, leaning forward. ‘He’s my ex-husband, my problem, my issue! He pushed and I pushed back harder! He left with his tail between his legs...’
Rob stared at a spot on the wall past her head, his back teeth grinding together. At this rate he might have to get them crowned. ‘I should’ve been here...’
‘I’m glad you weren’t,’ Willa admitted candidly, and rolled her eyes at his ferocious scowl. ‘I needed to do that, Rob! I needed to take him on, to fight back—’
‘You could’ve made it worse.’
‘Coulda, woulda, shoulda... I didn’t! He backed down and he’ll never try that again.’
‘You hope. Still, if I’d been here...’
‘If you’d been here I might have let you handle him—but I needed to. Can’t you understand that?’ Willa sighed and rubbed her hands over her face.
‘He put bruises on your arms and he made you cry,’ Rob stated in a bleak voice.
‘The bruises will fade and I cried because I felt like this huge weight was finally off my shoulders.’ Willa stood up, took a step towards him and wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face in his chest. ‘I need you to let this go. I was getting there, and now I’m upset because you’re upset. He’s not worth it, Rob.’
Rob allowed himself to run his uninjured hand down her back. ‘He can’t be allowed to get away with threatening you; that’s not acceptable, Wills.’
‘I’ll tell Kate. She’ll know what to do,’ Willa conceded and Rob felt his temper start to drain away.
‘Call her now,’ he insisted.
Willa nodded and dropped her arms. She lifted his hand and winced at his scraped and swelling knuckles. ‘Oh, Rob, dammit. This needs ice.’
Rob looked at his hand and shrugged. He couldn’t feel anything at the moment—adrenalin was keeping the pain at bay—but he knew that in an hour or so he’d be feeling the effects of punching a solid oak cabinet.
He slid a glance to the cupboard, where a fist-sized dent was impossible to miss. ‘Sorry, Willa, I’ve ruined it.’
‘I don’t give a damn about the cupboard; I’m just worried that you’ve broken some fingers!’
Rob wiggled his fingers and felt pain shooting up his hand. Hellfire and all its demons. ‘Not broken.’
‘You need an ice pack.’ Willa dropped his hand and rested her forehead against his chest. ‘Despite the fact that you went all Neanderthal on me, I’m so glad you’re here now, Rob.’
Rob wrapped his arms around her cold body and pulled her into him, trying to get her as close as possible. ‘I should have decked him the other night, Wills.’
‘He went home today feeling terrible, Rob. He heard me—he finally heard me. That’s all that matters right now.’
* * *
An hour later Kate paced Willa’s kitchen, an untouched cup of coffee in her hands, her mouth pursed and her eyes flashing with anger. She looked from Willa to Rob, who was holding a bag of peas against his now swollen hand, and back again.
‘The problem is that he didn’t actually do anything,’ Kate said, having listened to Willa telling the story of her encounter with Wayne.
‘He threatened her, Kate! Bruised her!’
‘Rob, if the police arrested people on threats our jails would be jam-packed. And he could easily claim the bruises weren’t caused by him,’ Kate retorted. ‘I want to tell you that there’s something we can do but there isn’t! Dammit.’
Rob just growled his displeasure.
Willa looked at her dark knight and swallowed her smile. She really believed that he and Kate were both overreacting. She knew Wayne and he was a consummate bully. He’d scuttled away from her and he wouldn’t try anything ever again. He’d cut her out of his life, wouldn’t acknowledge her ever again and she was so o
kay with that.
Rob, however, was still vibrating with suppressed anger. For her.
‘I hear what you’re saying, Kate, and I understand. Wayne was in a temper. He was furious that he’d lost the deal with Vern and it’s in his nature to look for a scapegoat. I was it. He won’t try this again...he can’t afford to get arrested on a charge of assault.’
Kate nodded, finally took a sip of her now cold coffee and grimaced. ‘I agree. However, I will be making a call to his attorney in a minute and I will tell him what happened this morning. I will also tell him that if his client comes within a hundred metres of you, I will take out a restraining order on your behalf. Will your neighbour back up your claims?’
‘He can tell you that he was holding me and acting crazy and threatening,’ Willa said.
‘Good.’
Rob pulled out his mobile from his pocket and fiddled with the buttons. ‘Take your T-shirt off, Willa.’
‘Haven’t we sung this song already today?’ Willa complained.
‘Photo evidence,’ Rob replied, impatient.
‘It’s a good idea, Willa,’ Kate agreed. ‘I’ll attach it to the follow-up e-mail I’ll be sending his lawyer.’
‘Dammit...’ Willa muttered, and took her shirt off for the second time.
Rob’s lips firmed and his jaw clenched as he lifted his mobile to photograph her arm. Willa looked down and grimaced. What had been faint blue smudges this morning were now livid purple bruises.
‘Don’t punch anything,’ she warned Rob, who looked ready to do that again.
Rob glared at her as the phone’s camera did its thing, and when he was finished he pushed his chair back from the table, handed Kate his mobile and stalked from the room.
Willa started to go after him but Kate’s hand on her arm halted her flight across the room. ‘He needs some time on his own, Willa. Leave him. He needs to work through his anger—to process what’s happened.’
‘He’s so angry, Kate.’
‘Of course he is; he wasn’t able to protect you, and to an alpha male like Rob that is like a massive kick in the nuts by a little girl. Give him time, Wills. He’ll come back when he’s worked through it.’