by Galen Rose
“No, Laney. I may not be ready for this but I want it. I want you and since I’m an extremely patient man I’ll wait until you come around to my way of thinking. But for now I am going to hold you. And even though I want to ask you about the man who scared you tonight, I won’t. That will be much more difficult to be patient on, since I came within a hairsbreadth of punching his smarmy face in. But I will wait until you want to talk about it.”
Sean moved a hand to my face and lifted my chin up. “Laney, you’re not alone. Remember that. If you ignore everything else I say, please remember that you are not alone.” He kissed the tip of my nose.
I leaned against Sean for a minute, closed my eyes, and breathed. A deep breath of him, his scent, and the comfort he was offering gave me strength. I opened my eyes and looked at him. “You’re nuts.”
He laughed, “Certifiably.” He stepped back and slowly let go of me. Taking my hand we started walking. “I’m hungry,” I said just as my stomach echoed my comment.
“Of course you are,” he chuckled. “Come on. Let’s get out of this neighborhood and find someplace real to eat. Pizza?”
I shook my head and looked at Sean. We both said “Muldoon’s” at the same time. Home.
Molly had gone to her sister’s in Washington for the week so we raided the refrigerator. I amazed Sean by using the microwave. “It’s not that difficult,” I said, ignoring his sarcasm. “I may even graduate to boiling water someday.”
After a snack of leftovers we sat on the floor of the family room and watched TV. “Go ahead.” I said munching some popcorn.
“What?”
“Go ahead and ask me about the man from the event tonight.”
“Does that mean you want to talk about him?” I thought for a moment. I guess it did. “If I don’t talk about it then he still has power over me, and I will not allow that ever again. He’s my cousin. James Edward Prescott. When I was five, my mother died and her sister Katherine let me live with them. I am not sure why, since every day of my life in that house was like being Cinderella. I was the ugly stepsister who had to do all the work. I was told I had to earn my keep, that I couldn’t be a freeloader like my dad. I had three cousins. Amy, who was my age; Christina, who was ten; and her twin, James. James is a cruel and sadistic bastard. I knew from the moment I met him that he would make my life a living hell. He started out ignoring me, but I knew by the way he looked at me that it was only a matter of time. I used to wake up at night and find him standing over my bed, staring at me. I started leaving things in the doorway to make noise so that I’d wake up when he tried to come in the room. I shared a room with Amy, who slept like a log.
“As we got older, his sisters learned to tell on him when he picked on them, so he started on me. He’d pinch me to make bruises, punch me, trip me. When I didn’t yell or cry, it only got worse. He read that if you put a bar of soap in some nylons you can beat without bruising. He learned not to leave marks on my face, but that bar of soap still bruised the rest of me plenty. Damn, it hurt. If I fought back he blamed it all on me, and Aunt Katherine would naturally side with her golden child. He could do no wrong. I only begged him to stop once. I was so humiliated that I never said one word to him again. He went off to boarding school when he was fourteen along with Christina so I was safe for awhile. Amy was a piece of cake to handle once her cohorts were gone.”
I had no idea what was on the TV. Telling my story had taken me back to those days and nights of hiding anywhere I could to stay away from James. I jumped as Sean took the bowl of popcorn out of my hands. He took my face in his hands, “I’m sorry.” I tried to pull away. I didn’t want his pity, but he wouldn’t let go.
“Laney, look at me. I’m sorry. Sorry for the little girl who had no one to turn to for help. But he can’t hurt you now. Not only can you stop him if he ever comes near you again, but you have so many people who care about you now. Those family and friends would go to the ends of the earth for you.”
I sighed. “I know. It just seems that every time I get things settled in the here and now, my past keeps popping up to haunt me.”
“I understand,” Sean shifted to look at me, “Tommy and Molly took me in when I was eight. Tommy found me digging in his trash cans. My mother had abandoned me when I was six to find some rich moneyman and left me with my grandmother. Grandma did her best when she could, but by the time I was eight her health was going and so was her memory. I learned early on to not trust anyone and how to raid a dumpster for the good stuff. Needless to say, when Tommy found me I was a little hellion. But he proved that no matter what I did, I would be given love and respect. Short supply of those, where I had come from. My mother used to show up now and then just to pretend to see how I was doing. She’d try to hit Tommy up for money but he wouldn’t give her any. The first few times it happened I was terrified that I would get sent back to live with her. I hid in the cellar one time so no one could find me and make me go back. Eventually Tommy and Molly convinced me that I was here to stay.
“I faced her one day, Laney. Once I stood up to her and told her to go away, she stopped scaring me. It takes time to trust. But I think it takes even more time to truly believe in someone. The one thing you need to remember is that you are not alone. Whatever came before in many ways doesn’t matter. It doesn’t have to define who you are now.”
I looked into those eyes of his and was entranced. I couldn’t have stopped myself from drowning for all the tea in China. A little voice in my head was shouting out warnings but I squelched it. I ran my hands up his arms and pulled him toward me. His eyes never left mine as I drew him into a kiss just as — wouldn’t you know it? — the phone rang. Sean sighed and I had to laugh. “Be right back.” and he got up to answer the phone. I heard him say a couple of “uh huhs” and then he handed the phone to me “It’s Chase.”
“Hello?”
“You need to be at the Well-Kept Secret Bookstore at Eighth and Brannon at ten tomorrow. You’re spending the day at a book signing for Amelia Heart. Ever heard of her?”
“Nope.”
“Then I suggest you do some research.” Chase’s voice was curt. “I’ll fax over the intro form to Tommy’s for you to read. All the information is on it. You’ll be with her at all the signings she has scheduled in the area. I have Jason on for the night shifts.” He hung up. Well boy, howdy, what the hell did I do now? I replaced the receiver back in the cradle and looked at Sean. “So I guess I have a job tomorrow. I get to watch over an author. Amelia Heart. Chase is faxing over the intro sheet. You ever heard of her?”
“You know, I think Molly reads her stuff. Her books are in the office.” We went down the hall in search of the books. As neat at Molly kept the house, I had no idea how she was able to stand not cleaning up Tommy’s half of the office. No wonder he kept the door closed. He had stuff piled on stuff. Old receipts, photo albums, Irish newspapers, police reports.
“Wait. Police reports?” Before I even got a chance to try and pull the file folder out, Sean had a book in one hand and my arm in the other. “Come on, Nancy Drew. Da gets bent if you snoop. Trust me, I know.”
“But.”
“Yes, you have a nice one. Now come on before we get caught and you try to pin it on me again.”
I looked at him, aghast. “Me? I didn’t do that.”
“Like hell you didn’t.”
I grabbed a hold of the doorframe and would not let go.
“Come on. Let go,” Sean said through gritted teeth as I tugged harder.
“No.”
“Okay, you asked for it.” Sean dropped the book. “It seems that you have forgotten who put you on the mat in less than two seconds during your test. Care to have that repeated?”
“No. Do you?”
“Oh sure, your highness. I’d like nothing more than to have you under me on a mat.”
“Go for it.” I was ready this time and got out of the way. When he lunged again for me I jumped up, wrapping my arms around his neck and hitching my
legs around his waist and planting my lips on his before he could blink. Heat was all I could feel. Blistering, intense heat as his arms came around me and we staggered back against the wall, knocking over a table on our way. My hands locked in his hair and I dragged his head back to take my teeth along his throat. I don’t know who moaned first or why — him, with pleasure? Or me, with my discovery of this new territory? It really didn’t matter.
What did matter was Tommy standing behind us and clearing his throat. Sean slowly set me down on the ground and turned around. “Evening, Tommy,” I said, pulling my hair back out of my face.
“Laney. Sean. One of you knocked over the table. You might want to fix that.” Tommy walked into his office and went to his desk.
“Yes, sir,” I said, while Sean moved around me and knelt down to right the table and pick up the bowl that had fallen to the floor. Tommy came back out of the office and handed me a paper. “You might want this.” He went back to the bar. I folded the paper up and tucked it into my pocket and picked the paperback book off the floor. Sean stood up and ran his hands through his hair. We stood there looking at each other and then fell over laughing. It took about ten minutes for us to finally get our breath back. “I should go, we both have assignments tomorrow.”
“Yeah. And it looks like I will have some reading to do.” I turned the book over to read the cover. “Love’s Sweet Magic? Oh good Lord, help me, I have to guard a romance writer? Great.”
“Could be worse. You could have to guard Boris tomorrow,” Sean said, affecting a bad Russian accent. “You might have to escort big jewelry merchant to get Borscht and then to Diamond Mart.”
“Trade ya,” I said earnestly.
“No way, babe. I like Boris. He always buys me lunch.” Sean got his jacket from the living room, “I’m finally back in my own place tonight. You know, you might learn something hanging out with a romance writer.”
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
“Like this,” he pulled me into his arms and gently kissed me, framing my face with his hands. “Sweet dreams, Laney. I’d be happy to hear if you dream of me.”
“Go home,” I playfully shoved him out the door, “you’re nuts,” I said, smiling.
“Yes I am. Goodnight.” I closed the door and I stood there smiling like a loon. My God what was happening to me? Well whatever it was it was warm and comforting and was absolutely amazing. I could live with that for now.
I did a little cleaning up the kitchen before heading back to the bar to say goodnight to Tommy. Tommy was leaning on the bar talking to Chase and Mason. They stopped talking when I came under the pass thru. “Yeah, well, goodnight. If you give me a minute I’ll be upstairs so you can finish talking about me.”
Mason smiled at me, Chase nodded his encouragement, and Tommy didn’t even look at me. Well, to hell with all of them. I slammed the door on my way upstairs. I turned on my boombox to listen to some heavy metal music Mike had loaned me. Not bad, I thought, as I changed into my T-shirt and sweats and got into bed. I remembered the intro sheet on the new client and got it out of my back pocket. Amelia Heart, great name for a romance writer. Age, forty-five. Divorced. She’d been a writer for ten years and had six books make the top five on the bestseller list. Had been receiving threats from several groups. Current book seemed to have upset the magicians’ community. Revealed some trade secrets. Last book dealt with logging and the paper mills. A logger dropped a load of timber on her Porsche. Damn. What the heck was she writing to get so many people riled up like that?
By three in the morning I had a pretty good idea of what had gotten people riled up. When you hear the words “romance novel” you might think of heaving breasts, ripped bodices, lairds of the castle kidnapping damsels, love at first fight. Blah, blah, blah. Not this book. This woman wrote in real time and real life. The characters in her book lived lives based in reality and the harshness that came with it. Yes, there were love and betrayal. There were life, death, taxes, and barely getting by. But there was also hope. I had to force myself to put the book down and get some sleep. I lay back in the dark and thought of Sean as I drifted off.
The dream hit me hard and fast. I was ten again. Hiding in the closet in Aunt Katherine’s bedroom. She and her husband, Ray, kept separate bedrooms. Her closet was long and deep, with several good spots to hide among the clothes. Katherine and Ray had gone out that night and James had wasted no time in trying to find me. If I could keep away from him for two more hours, just until they came back home, I would be safe. I heard him calling for me up and down the hallway. My teeth chattered with fear as I sat in the back of the closet. The bruises from my last beating at his hands had barely faded. I prayed over and over for someone to help me but no one came. No one ever did. I knew he would be gone in a few months. I had it marked on my calendar. But that seemed like an eternity when you lived with the devil.
Time ticked away and it was quiet. I had just decided that he had given up when the clothing was flung aside and a bright light blinded me. “Well hello, my little Helena. You picked a good spot this time. I almost gave up.” James reached for me and I kicked out at him. But he was much stronger than I was and he pinned me down easily. “You will be punished for that, my little monster.” With one hand he reached up to a hook on the wall and pulled down a long leather belt. Then he pulled the sash off of a robe and tied my hands. I screamed, kicked, cried, and in the end I begged him to stop hitting me. I begged him until I had no voice left.
I woke up on the floor of my apartment, biting back a scream. “Jesus!” I got up and staggered to the bathroom and threw up. After splashing cold water on my face I sat on the hard tile floor until my body stopped shaking. I stayed there until my alarm went off several hours later. My body was stiff and cold as I slowly stood up and climbed into the shower. The hot water didn’t warm me up; I didn’t feel I could ever be warm again. Tommy wasn’t around so I breezed through the kitchen and drank two cups of coffee to wake up. I was glad he wasn’t there to ask any questions. I knew I looked like hell and no amount of makeup was going to hide it. I put on my sunglasses and walked to the bus stop. I hadn’t had that dream in almost five years. It wasn’t fair that it all came back with one chance meeting. But, as I knew, life was rarely fair.
Chapter Nine
I arrived at the Well-Kept Secret Bookstore an hour early to get a feel for the place. It was a huge old building that had been completely remodeled when the area gentrified. As bookstores tend to do these days, it had a café and a music section. But it had a great family feel to it — no trendy, impersonal avenues of books but old mahogany shelves, comfortable plush chairs in jewel tones, and out-of-the-way nooks for a quiet place to read.
After checking in with the head manager, I essentially cased the place for exits and hiding places, and plotted out scenarios. It was an old habit of mine to plot out “what if” scenarios. If this happens how might this person react? How would I react? A habit that seemed to work well as I grew up on the street. It had kept me alert and safe.
Once the signing tables had been set up I made some adjustments with the manager as to placement. I was just wrapping up my preparation when Amelia and her entourage showed up and chaos ensued.
Miss Heart was a beautiful, vivacious blond who could not have cared less about the possibility of danger. I walked up to her, and extended my hand, and flashed my ID. “Miss Heart,” I said, “I’m Laney Murphy from Woo Security.” She had a firm handshake and looked me over.
“Well, Laney, this is what I think. I think you’re wasting your time here but Joan,” she motioned to the tiny, harried-looking woman at her side, “thinks these people are serious, so I have allowed this — for Joan’s sake. She worries far too much about me.” Miss Heart looked at her secretary with affection. “Now, as for the signing, I intend to be here for several hours. I don’t want you intimidating my fans, so don’t crowd me.” I slipped on my sunglasses.
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll stand over here and try not to look intimid
ating.” Miss Heart studied me for a minute and then laughed. “You’ll do.” She turned away to speak with the store manager. Her assistant, Joan, introduced herself and sighed. “I’m sorry. She is as stubborn as the wind. But I do take the threats seriously and I appreciate you being here.”
“Thank you. Don’t worry, I can be stubborn too.”
“Well, good. Now how can I help you with Amelia?” Joan and I spent several minutes going over the layout of the signing table and the itinerary for the next several days.
That is until Steven Ray showed up. Steven was Amelia’s publicist and a perfect ass. Slim, styled, and wearing an Italian suit, his main purpose was making Amelia look good so he would look good as well. He vaguely noted my presence and then proceeded to rearrange the tables so that Amelia was far too accessible.
“Mr. Ray, I had the tables placed the other way so that the flow of the crowd could be better controlled.” I was polite and patient, even if I didn’t feel like it on the inside.
“Who are you again?” Steven looked down his nose at me.
“Laney Murphy. I am with Woo security and I’m here to protect Miss Heart.”
“Oh, right. Well, Elaine, you just stay right over there and I am sure Amelia will be fine.” At first he made a shooing motion with his hands. When that didn’t make me move, he placed his hands on my shoulders and pushed. I still didn’t move. He made some sort of growling noise that sounded more like a miniature poodle. It took everything I had not to laugh in his face as he stalked away. Round one went to me and I placed the tables back the way I had them.
I spent six hours on my feet that day with only one restroom break — which happened only because Miss Heart went to the restroom as well. By the time I got back to Muldoon’s I was exhausted. I changed into my sweats and T-shirt and went to dig up some dinner. I placed a bowl of soup in the microwave and was making a sandwich as Chase walked in.