Midnight Angel

by Lisa Marie Rice

  True to his word, the cabin heated up quickly. The shivers slowly subsided as she waited patiently, huddled in his huge jacket, comforted by the softness of the blanket.

  She heard the back door opening. “There you go, Dagda,” Douglas said. “Nice and safe and snug in your case.”

  She turned around. “Did you—”

  “Yes, I did. He’s not feeling the cold, I promise you.” The door closed and she smiled at the thought of Dagda safe and with her as she turned back around. The SUV dipped to take Douglas’ weight. He reached over her and pulled her seatbelt down and across, fastening it. He placed her evening clutch on her lap and she curled her hand around it. “Now then. I need to know your address.”

  She could see him in her mind’s eye, hands draped over the steering wheel, turned toward her. What she’d give to know what he looked like. Since she’d lost her sight, she’d only been with close friends, mostly Claire and Suzanne and Claire’s father, and the Parks’ housekeeper, Rosa, and Rosa’s family. She wasn’t used to having close dealings with someone whose face she couldn’t picture.

  “1046 Adams Drive. It’s across town, close to—”

  “I know where it is.” The SUV started moving, big wheels rattling over the gravel driveway.

  “I thought you were new to Portland? Just moved here.”

  “I am, but a good soldier always scouts the terrain. Are you comfortable? Do you want me to turn the heat up?”

  “No, I’m fine, thanks. When we get to my house can we call the hospital? Or maybe I can try Claire’s cell phone. I need to know what’s happening.” She couldn’t bear the thought of Claire alone at the hospital, maybe mourning the death of her man. Allegra hadn’t finished mourning the death of her father five months ago. It still seared her heart.

  “We don’t have to wait until we get to your house.” She heard the electronic beeps of a cell phone number being punched in.

  “Kowalski,” a tinny voice said. The car had a speakerphone. “What’s up?”

  “Larry, do you know what’s happened to Lieutenant Morrison?”

  “Bud? Hang on a sec, I’ll check.” There were muffled noises, then the voice came back online. He sounded grim. “Negative, Kowalski, no news. Bud’s still in surgery.”

  “Keep me posted, Larry.”

  “Will do.”

  Allegra huddled deeper in her swaddle of material. The shivers had started up again. Douglas switched on a button and a blast of hot air came from under the dashboard to warm her feet.

  “That better?”

  “Very much better, thanks. Next time I’ll be sure to wear satin boots.” She could feel the smile fade from her face. Next time…maybe the next time, Claire would have a shattered heart. “What do you think will happen to Bud?”

  “If a gunshot wound isn’t fatal immediately, there’s a ninety percent chance of recovery. If Bud made it to surgery, he’s going to make it the rest of the way.” That deep voice sounded so matter-of-fact, so certain, Allegra could feel her muscles relax.

  “Is that true or are you making it up to make me feel better?”

  “I would make it up to make you feel better, but it just so happens to be true. I’ve never known a soldier to die if he managed to make it into the helicopter taking him back to base and to surgery. With each minute that passes, Bud’s chances go up.”

  It was probably nonsense, but it did make her feel better.

  They drove on in silence. At one point, Douglas turned on the windshield wipers. She could hear them swishing back and forth. “Is it snowing?”

  “More like sleet. It won’t stick. But the roads are icy.”

  Allegra couldn’t see him in action, but she just knew that Douglas was a good driver. Even though the roads were slick with ice, the vehicle felt steady, the braking and curves were smooth. Two days before she’d had to take a taxi to the neurologist and the man had driven like a maniac, scaring her half to death. “Thanks for driving me. I’m glad I didn’t have to take a taxi home.”

  “I’d never have let you take a taxi.”

  Allegra turned her head toward Douglas at that, but he didn’t say anything else. It was warm now in the cab, and the aftermath of the violence was beginning to take its toll. It was a forty minute drive to her house. The silence, the feel of the big powerful machine rumbling beneath her, the regular swishing beat of the windshield wipers lulled her. Allegra was dozing off when the shrill ring of a phone jolted her awake.

  “Yeah?” she heard Douglas say.

  “Larry here, big guy. Listen, we just got word that Bud’s out of surgery. He’s gonna be royally pissed when he wakes up, he’s got holes where he didn’t used to, he’s gonna hurt and he’s gonna have tubes runnin’ in and out for a while, but he’ll make it.”

  She heard Douglas suck in air sharply. “That’s great news. Just great. Thanks for calling, Larry.”

  “No prob. Listen, Detective Swanson says you gotta come in Monday morning. We need a deposition. From you and John Huntington. We’ll wait for Bud’s, for when he can talk, but you guys gotta come in.”

  “Right. See you Monday morning then.”

  Allegra let out a long shaky sigh of relief. “Oh, thank God! I’d been so worried. Claire would have been so devastated if something happened to Bud.” She brought trembling hands to her face, almost dazed with joy for Claire. Another loss would have been unbearable.

  “Yeah, that’s really good news.” Her left hand was caught in his much larger one and he brought it to his mouth. He kissed the palm, closed her hand into a fist and returned her hand to her lap. “Listen, if you want to nap, go right ahead. The road’s too icy for us to make good time. It’ll be at least another three quarters of an hour before we get to your house.”

  Allegra turned to him. “Where do you live, Douglas?” She kept her voice steady, as if unaffected by the kiss. She wasn’t. Her palm burned as she kept it curled in her lap, like a warm flower.

  “I found an apartment on East Meadows.”

  She winced. “That’s on the other side of town.” The Parks Foundation, her house and his apartment made a huge triangle. “I’m really sorry to take you so far out of your way.”

  They turned a corner and she swayed toward him. “Don’t even think about it. Rest now, I’ll wake you up when we get there. I’ll bet you’re tired.”

  She was tired? She wasn’t the one who’d gone into battle, rushing in to save the day like some superhero. Allegra opened her mouth indignantly to tell him so. “No, I’m not—” she began, but the word turned into a huge yawn, so sudden and uncontrollable she didn’t even have a chance to cover her mouth. “Tired,” she finished ruefully.

  “Uh huh.” He pressed something, and the back of the seat reclined several degrees. “Rest anyway.”

  “’Kay,” she mumbled. The seat was very comfortable. She turned slightly toward him and closed her eyes. The blanket was tucked more carefully around her and she smiled… The car rolled to a stop and Douglas cut the engine.

  Allegra sat up, blinking. “What’s up? What’s the matter?”

  “We’re here,” Douglas said matter-of-factly.

  “Here where?”

  “Your place. I’m parked right out in front of your gate.”

  “My place? Oh, my gosh, I did fall asleep!” She pushed her hair out of her face as she sat up straight. “I’m really sorry.”

  “No apology necessary.” He unbuckled her seatbelt and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Okay, you know the drill now. The same as before. We’ll get you in the house and then I’ll come back for Dagda. Is that okay with you?”

  “Fine.”

  “Right. Get out your house keys.” In the time it took her to fish her keys out of her bag, he was at the passenger door. “Let me have the keys and then lean forward,” he said, and she did, in utter faith that he would catch her. He swung her up in his arms, blanket and all, and started carrying her to her house. Again with that smooth, powerful stride, as if she weighed
nothing at all.

  It had turned incredibly cold and sleety. Snow struck every inch of her exposed skin. Douglas had wrapped her up, but her hands and cheeks were instantly numb with the cold. He still had on only his shirt but he didn’t seem to mind the cold. Even swaddled in his jacket and the blanket, she started shivering, but he didn’t. Maybe he didn’t feel the cold. It was possible, considering the enormous amount of heat radiating from his big body. Her entire right side was warm where it came into contact with him.

  It was thirty-five steps from the gate to her front door. She’d counted them. She’d had to count them, so she wouldn’t smack her face on the gate or stumble over the front porch steps. The ones Douglas was walking up easily. He had probably taken only twenty steps to get there.

  Somehow he managed to open the door without any trouble, even with her in his arms. He walked into the house and put her down gently. He didn’t let go until he was sure she was stable on her feet. As he put her down she had to slide down against him and Allegra was struck all over again by how tall he was. At least a head taller than she was, probably more.

  “Be right back with Dagda.” The door closed quietly behind her and she was alone.

  After the warmth of the SUV and his body heat, the house felt cold. Empty. Barren. Dark.

  The way it always felt.

  Panic and bile rose from her gut to her throat.

  Allegra didn’t know where she was in the living room. She hadn’t been paying attention when Douglas walked into the house, too distracted by the feel of his hard muscles bunching against her as he carried her, by the intense heat he radiated, so that all she wanted to do was snuggle even more closely to him. Had he turned slightly to the left or the right while walking in?

  Allegra froze, completely disoriented in her own home. Where had he put her down? If he’d put her down by the settee, she’d trip over the hassock if she moved to the right. If she was close by the window, on the other hand, moving left would mean running smack into the wrought iron floor lamp in the shape of petals with wicked cutting edges.

  Suzanne had wanted to “blind-proof” her house, as she’d put it. Bless her, Suzanne had read up on architecture for the blind and had gotten all excited about putting tactile orienting strips on the floor, motion-sensitive acoustic cues in all the rooms, push-bars on all the doors.

  Allegra had put her foot down at that. No, no way. She wasn’t going to be blind forever. She believed that with every cell in her body. The doctors had said there was an operation. New, experimental stuff, even potentially dangerous, the doctors had said, but everybody knew how fast medicine advanced. If the technique had been experimental in September, it would be current practice by now. So damn it, she wasn’t going to get used to being blind. She was not.

  She wasn’t going to learn Braille. She wasn’t going to get a white cane. She wasn’t going to get a seeing-eye dog. Above all, she wasn’t going to rip up her home.

  And now she was totally lost in her own living room, with nothing to guide her. The only thing she knew was up and down. Everything else was a black abyss.

  The panic rolled in, the oppressive blind panic that roiled through her and devastated her several times a day, leaving her lost and shaken, in tears. She couldn’t see.

  She had nightmares, often. Scenes she barely remembered as she woke in a panic, heart pounding, tears drying on her cheeks. At times the dreams were of drowning, at times of being buried alive. At times of being beaten. Whatever it was, it was always, always, heart-stoppingly horrifying.

  She’d had a waking nightmare this evening, when she’d seen her father, a first. Which meant she could count on having a particularly horrible nightmare tonight.

  She faced it all alone. The oppressive silence and darkness of her house. The stumbling over objects she’d forgotten to put back in their habitual position. The fear of going out for a walk.

  The terrifying nightmares, waking up in horror to an eternally bleak blackness, groping for a light that could never be turned on.

  Allegra could feel the panic building as she stood there, rooted to the spot because she was afraid to move. Almost afraid to breathe, tight bands around her chest squeezing her heart. The heart that was thumping wildly in her chest, like a bird suddenly caged.

  Tonight was going to be a bad night, she could feel it. The terror and violence at the Parks Foundation had eaten away at her reserves. That was why she’d had the waking nightmare and had seen her father. Dead and bloody.

  Tonight would be terrifying.

  Behind her, the door opened, letting in a swirl of cold. She could hear Douglas putting Dagda down. Instinctively, he was choosing Dagda’s habitual spot—in the front right corner. Footsteps behind her, circling her. He moved quietly for such a big man, but her ears were attuned to silence.

  She could hear his breathing, feel his heat.

  She could almost read his mind. He’d accompanied her home, Dagda was safe. He had at least another half-hour drive ahead of him, probably more, in this bad weather. He’d want to be heading home.

  In a flash, Allegra knew that she couldn’t spend tonight, of all nights, alone. Simply couldn’t. She’d rather die than wake up sweaty and shaking, a scream choking in her throat. Alone, in the darkness.

  She twisted her hands together, gathering courage. She tried to keep her voice even, but it didn’t work. She thought she might approach the subject in a roundabout way, but she couldn’t do it. What she was feeling was too big, too scary to grope for words. It came out a stark plea.

  She tried to feel where he was, but she couldn’t. All she knew was that he was in the room with her.

  The words came tumbling out, short and stark. “Douglas,” she said, her voice shaking, speaking to thin air for all she knew, “please don’t leave me alone tonight. I don’t think I could stand it. Please.”

  He was in front of her. A big hand touched her hair, then he pulled her into his arms. Her head was resting against him, ear pressed to his chest, so she felt the words vibrate in his chest as he spoke them.

  “No, of course I won’t leave.” His arms tightened. “There isn’t a force in the world strong enough to make me leave you tonight.”

  Chapter Six

  Please don’t leave me alone tonight.

  Allegra stood there in the center of her living room, forlorn and bedraggled, in his oversize jacket and his car blanket over that, one white hand emerging from the swathes of cloth to keep them around her.

  She was deathly pale, the darkening bruise on her forehead standing out in shocking contrast. The glossy red hair he’d so admired was tangled, falling over her shoulders in rough red ringlets. The little makeup she’d been wearing was long gone. The unfocused green eyes had lost any mascara, the full lips were pale.

  She was disheveled, frightened, lost.

  She was so beautiful it hurt the eyes to look at her.

  Kowalski held her even more tightly. He’d spoken the bald truth. There wasn’t a power on earth strong enough to make him go away. All during the trip across town he’d been trying to figure out a way to stay with her and get her eventually back into his arms.

  He was good at making strategic and tactical plans before action. He had his all mapped out in his head.

  He’d make her some tea, taking his time, maybe even fix her something to eat. Say that he needed to stick around to see if she really was concussed. Say that he’d just bunk down on her couch.

  See what happened tomorrow morning. See if he could wrangle a repeat of that amazing kiss and take it further.

  It turned out that he didn’t need to do any of that, and the reason was his own fucking stupidity. He’d scared the shit out of her. He’d just dumped her on her feet and left because he wanted to get the harp in and be back with her as quickly as possible.

  Asshole blockhead that he was, he’d completely forgotten that she was blind. That she couldn’t possibly know where he’d put her down. What was he thinking? He’d just dumped her and
disappeared. When he came back in, he found her exactly where he’d put her. Looking so beautiful, and so lost.

  Had he bothered to tell her where she was in her house? Nope. He’d been in too much of a rush. Result? She had no cues at all. What would it have taken to reassure her? Nothing. All he’d had to do was say—you’re next to the couch, to your right is the hassock, in front of you is the coffeetable.

  Shit, if she got it wrong, she’d have stumbled over the hassock and fallen onto the glass tabletop. Cut herself, maybe badly. His blood ran cold at the thought and his arms tightened even further around her.

  Her arms emerged from his jacket and the blanket to embrace him. It was so mind-blowing, the way she responded to him. The way every movement of his was matched by one of hers.

  “You’re shaking,” he said, and she nodded against his shirt. Short little tremors ran through her. It wasn’t the cold. Her house was heated and she was covered in layers. “You’re having a stress reaction.”

  “Is that what this is?” she murmured.

  “Yeah. It’ll pass. Not a whole lot of fun, though, while you’re in it.”

  How often he’d seen it—the tremors that came after violent action. She’d been brave—amazingly brave considering her condition—and she hadn’t broken down so far, but the delayed stress was finally getting to her. She was trembling. Tears were probably next.

  That was cool. Physiology 101. Stress hormones are released via tear ducts.

  His men didn’t cry after the stress of battle—they usually drank themselves into oblivion, got into a fight, or fucked their way back to sanity if a woman was available. If not, it was the good old fist.

  Kowalski had tried them all, every way he knew to bleed out stress, except for the tears. Fucking, drinking, fighting, jerking off. Once, after a particularly vicious firefight where he’d lost four men, none of the usual remedies had held even remote appeal, so he’d donned sweats and ran all night. The base had a three-mile obstacle course and he ran around it over and over and over again for hours, until his legs turned to mush, until his breath seared his lungs, until his crotch burned with sweat. He ran until the sky turned pink with the coming dawn and then he finally ran back to his bunk, slipping between the sheets and staring at the cracked wooden ceiling until the military day started at oh-six-hundred.