by Ash Harlow
“Really? That’s great.”
“Add that the media are in touch regularly, wanting to do all kinds of stories that will probably elicit more work for Vince and publicity for the service dog project, means the auction was a success in more ways than we ever thought it would be.”
“Yeah, the timing sucks.” She pushed to her feet. “Gotta leave you guys, I’m running late for the VA home visits and Joker’s still down at HQ schmoozing a scared little dog.”
The message on her phone came as she climbed the steps to the home.
So sorry about the break. Let u down again. U ok?
It was good to hear from him but she wasn’t certain how to respond.
Sure, U?
Sorting out stuff. Calliope and I fine. On the road for a while.
Don’t get sucked into it. There were so many things she wanted to say. The urge to phone him back was overwhelming but he probably wouldn’t pick up. She sighed.
Have fun.
L, I’m sorry abt the auction. I miss you. xx
Miss you, too, buddy, but I’ll recover. Finally she sent a take care, added a smiley face, plastered a smile on her own face, and opened the door to the home.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Judging by the poor state of the exterior of Lulah’s father’s trailer, Vince was stunned anyone had the gall to charge Ray rent. The place seemed barely inhabitable. He paused for a moment, thinking that if Lulah were here, too, she’d probably want to bang the heads together of the two most annoying men in her life.
Now he was poking his nose into business that really wasn’t his. But, Butch had managed to track down Ray’s address after he’d dropped off Lulah’s radar and Vince wanted to do something for Lulah. If he could sort out the problem of Ray and his debt, that would take some pressure off her.
He’d left Calliope in the pickup, worried the dog would hurt herself nosing in the trash that littered the dusty yard. The address Butch sent turned out to be that of Ray’s landlord, and Ray’s accommodation—as the landlord so optimistically described it—was a mile farther up the road.
Two steps from the pickup, and he sensed something was off. He could feel it in the pit of his stomach, the base of his spine, the involuntary contraction of his muscles. Without a weapon he was exposed, but the woodpile had an old crowbar that could be useful. He grabbed it, and eased open the trailer door.
From the doorway, a quick scan of the dim interior had his heart pounding. Either Ray was a lousy housekeeper, or the place had been ransacked. He called out, his voice sounding loud and thin, the sort of voice that didn’t expect a reply.
Once he stepped inside he was committed to following through whatever the hell had gone down here, and every instinct screamed at him to turn, walk across the yard, climb in the pickup and drive the hell out of there.
This wasn’t his problem.
Except, it was. Finding Ray was something he’d set out to do for Lulah. Sure, she had no idea he’d taken on this mission, and she certainly hadn’t asked for his help, but he knew if he backed out now, he might as well start driving and never stop.
The immediate sense of danger pulled him to a place in his mind he didn’t want to visit, but when he shifted into the trailer, the metallic smell of blood overwhelmed him and he started to shake.
Jesus, not now, please.
He turned to the door, faced back into the yard and saw Calliope sitting on his seat in the pickup. His entire focus he aimed at the dog, imagining the weight of her head against his knee, the warm reassurance of her gentle tongue, her soft coat and dense muscle beneath his palm. Gradually he came back to a state where he could function better and he stepped properly into the trailer.
Vince saw a man sprawled across a bench squab, beaten. He froze. Recognizing his stillness he gave himself a mental kick. Not fucking trained to keep still. This place is secure, move it. With that, he was at Ray’s side, checking for a response, a pulse, something.
The pulse he found weak, the blood loss increasing, coming from a wound on Ray’s head. He fumbled in his pocket for his phone and found the charge good and the signal strong. “Hang in there, buddy,” he said to the unconscious man. “I’m calling for some help.”
With the call made for an ambulance, he set about checking Ray. His head wound bled profusely and he rummaged around for something clean to use as a compress.
“Stay with me, Ray. There’s someone who needs you.”
The scent of blood, mixed with the smell of the dust outside, threatened to take him to a place where he would be of no use to Ray at all.
It seemed to take an age for the ambulance to arrive and during that time, he sat there holding the compress to Ray’s head, telling the unconscious man about his daughter. How proud he’d be of her, how he had to hang in there to see her.
As he looked around the trailer, trying to keep his focus on staying in the present and not slipping into a flashback, he saw through the chaos that Ray appeared to have taken up painting again. And his talent was obvious. As he kept his study on the paintings he noticed the young girl with the Nordic-blonde hair who appeared somewhere in each creation. Lulah. He needed to call Lulah, but he didn’t want to risk leaving Ray.
Finally he heard the arrival of the ambulance and met them outside. He was no longer required in the trailer and there was no room for him there, anyway, so it was time to make the call to Lulah.
All the ways he’d practiced the story he would tell her, forming the words into an order that would make sense without causing too much alarm fled when he dialed her number. His heart sank as the call went straight through to message. He left a message, trying to keep some measure in his voice, asking her to call as soon as she could.
One of the medics was beside him, asking questions he couldn’t answer. “I’m sorry, he’s a friend’s father. I turned up to visit him as a favor and this is what I found. I’ve sent a message through to his daughter. How is he doing?”
“His condition is serious. I’ve called in the helicopter, but we’ll start on our way and rendezvous on the highway to make the transfer.”
“Where are you taking him?”
“UMC Southern Nevada, it’s a Level One trauma center.” The medic looked over his shoulder, out to the road. “The police are here. Stick around, they’ll want to talk to you.”
Vince nodded. He expected that would be the case, and even though he knew he hadn’t done a thing wrong, the tight knot in his gut wouldn’t ease. He had a lot of blood on him, on his hands, the front of his shirt, and, oh, Jesus, the intense dry heat and the smell of Nevada dust were messing with him again.
He made for his truck, to release Calliope as his last hope to help him hold his shit together. But now someone yelled at him to stay where he was, and with that he lost sense of what was safe and who needed to be saved.
The violence of the flashback took him to his knees, and the sharp rock that dug into him where he knelt was a different rock; the person shouting, a stranger; the blood he could smell someone else’s.
The next thing he was aware of was Calliope against his chest, licking his neck and nudging under his chin. She had worked at the door handle releasing herself from the pickup, and in the process added to the confusion for the police, who thought she was attacking him.
After several minutes he’d convinced himself and the police that he was okay, but he had to convince them that he had no clue as to what had happened here, even though he had an exceptionally good idea. Vince wanted first go at the thug who had done this to Ray. Then the cops could have their turn.
Finally they let him go. After giving Calliope a drink, he refilled her water container, and set off for the hospital in Vegas.
Vince was about to take Calliope for a break when Lulah appeared at the door of Ray’s hospital room where he waited. It was her short sob, choked into submission before it overwhelmed her, that signaled her presence. Her eyes were fixed on her bruised and broken father.
“Oh, fie
ry hell, what have I done?” One hand went to her mouth, to cover the horror and maybe catch her words.
Vince stood and crossed the room, his hands gripping her shoulders. “Lulah, stop. Don’t say that, don’t think that. Don’t for a minute let what you think and feel right now become part of you. This is none of your doing.” Her eyes were wide, staring up at him, rimmed red and swollen from tears that fell through the past hours.
“It was only money. How could I be so selfish? I should have given him the money.”
“No, Lulah.” He gripped her harder fighting the urge to shake her. “This…this was inevitable. If you’d given him the money, next time it would all have happened again. You knew that as long as you kept giving him the money, he would continue gambling. I know you’re blaming yourself right now, but that has to stop. Do you understand?”
She shook her head. “It was only freakin’ money.”
“Shh.” He pulled her against his chest as the emotion of seeing Lulah, actually being in a room with her when he intended to never hold her again, flooded his system. Her distress and his need to alleviate it, built on the horror of the past days, the loss of Doc, the recriminations of abandoning Lulah when she wanted him at the auction in Seattle, all of it rose to become one deep shuddering breath.
He released his hold around her, taking her shoulders again. “Look at me,” he said, gentling the force of his words. He waited for her to meet his eyes before continuing. “Ray is going to be fine, and so are you. Go and talk to him because he will hear you. I’ll leave you—”
“Don’t leave me, Vince.”
He hated seeing Lulah this vulnerable. “Only for an hour, imp, to give you some privacy. Say all those things on the tip of your tongue. Don’t hold onto it, you hear me? You have my number, so call if you need me sooner.”
“Okay,” she whispered, fresh tears brightening her eyes.
He gave her shoulders one last squeeze. “Lots of tissues in the box on the bedside table if you need them.” He took the bottom of his t-shirt, dried the new tears and left the room. Ray would be okay. He was certain of that, because the ones who weren’t okay blindsided you. No warning, no easing into it, they simply vanished in a snap.
An hour later he returned to the room. He’d walked Calliope at a park close to the hospital, formulating a battle plan, and preparing himself for his final mission for Lulah. Seeing her in that state tugged at something deep within him. When he held her he’d never wanted to let her go.
In this past week, his loss at not seeing her was immeasurable and completely selfish. Without Doc, the drive to continue with therapy died because the thought of having to start again, the unlikelihood of being lucky enough to find another therapist with whom he could build even half the rapport he and Doc shared killed any sort of motivation to go on. Best now that he and Calliope moved on.
He’d always be grateful for what Lulah and the others at the Sanctuary had done for him, but being around them, mixing with people so stable and happy, made him feel like the dark warlock, as if his presence cast a bad spell on everyone.
If he really loved Lulah, and yes, he did, he would move on. Any feelings for him would die and she’d find herself a nice guy, a ‘Mike’ to love, to marry, and with whom to have children.
Oh, no you won’t.
She sat with her back to him as he stood at the door of Ray’s room. Her hand clasped her father’s, her head bowed. The pull of two desires, one to turn and leave, the other to take Lulah in his arms held him as if spinning between two magnets.
Perhaps she sensed him standing there because her head jerked a little, as he was about to turn and walk, and she looked to him. Her lips were pressed tight, but her face had lost a little of the anguish.
“He opened his eyes. He’s asleep again now, but he woke.”
Thank you, God. “That’s great, Lulah. I’m so pleased.”
“He’s going to be okay, isn’t he?”
“Of course he is. You know that.”
She slipped her hand from her father’s loose clasp and stood, watching him, making sure he stayed sleeping. “What now?”
“I have a hotel room if you want to share. We can go when you’re ready or I can return to pick you up later.”
“Let’s go. I’m exhausted and I need to try and sleep. They’ll call if anything changes.”
“Come on.” He wanted to hold his hand out to her, walk her with an arm around her shoulder so that she wasn’t alone. But if at the end of this he was going to walk away, touching her now would make it worse.
The’d ordered up some room service but Lulah only picked at her overdressed salad. Most of it now lay drowned and limp in a pool of dressing.
“I’m sorry about Doc, Vince. I wish you’d told me before you left, because I started all this second-guessing shit and it was terrible. I don’t second-guess, you know that, but for some reason I couldn’t find a place of peace in my mind for you.”
“I know, I’m really sorry. When I heard the news, I ran. Nobody stays in my life, Lulah. It’s like I’m jinxed. It’s stupid and superstitious but hell, track record, you know? I don’t mean to be selfish, to you of all people, I don’t want that, but it seems I’m really no better, no closer, after all. Still fucked-up and broken.”
“Can’t you try...?”
He saw the way she tried to catch herself before she said those words that rolled around in her head, feeding the frustration she felt with him. Her eyes widened, filled with alarm, tears pooling so that one blink would send them on their course down her cheek. He tried to contain himself, smother every emotion that roared to the surface. Try? Really?
“Oh, God, Vince, I didn’t mean that. You know I didn’t mean that. Please…”
Emotion first, apology later. The stress he’d caused her, topped up by her father’s beating, meant all of her boundaries were flattened, and there in her words he discovered how much over the past year she’d managed to keep everything in check.
How many times had she wanted to say those words that others, the ones who didn’t care enough to monitor their thoughts before voicing their frustration, said?
“It’s not your fault, it’s what I do to people. I’ll help you with Ray, help you organize things down here, and I’ll get out of your way.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Ah, hell, the tears were running now and he really wanted to clear them away but moving out of her life started now. “Lulah, it’s what you honestly feel, and I’m not going to give you a life of insecurity because you deserve so much better.”
“You’re right, I do. But you deserve better, too, Vince. This isn’t just about me. If it was, I wouldn’t be feeling this way. It’s about us. Somewhere along the line we made a connection, remember that?”
How could he forget?
“I don’t know how you operate, but I don’t go around putting out for any guy because I’m feeling a bit horny, okay?”
“Hey, I would never think that about you. Yes, we made a connection, and that’s something I’ll treasure forever, even though I should never have allowed myself that. But I did because I thought I was improving. Yet, now, it’s like I’m right back where I started.”
“I know you can’t get better alone but we can fight your battle together—”
“With no effort at all, look at how unhappy I’ve made you. I’m not going to risk taking you down with me, Lulah.”
“It’s too late.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Crap. Too late and all his fault. For months he’d kept it in check, his desire for Lulah, understanding what her life had been like, recognizing that she was trying to make a stable life for herself. Why couldn’t he have stayed away?
“Don’t even dare think of taking a break, Vince.”
“Lulah—”
“I mean that. Right now, I need you. I need you…that wonderful person I’ve seen and admired. I don’t want you to solve anything for me, but I need you as that sturdy for
ce you are, to stand alongside me, take my hand and give me strength. I’m doing my best not to beat myself up about Dad. I’m supposed to be on my lab right now and I’ve canceled it, so I’ve kissed goodbye my Animal Behavior degree, my promotion, my future and security. I’m going to pay off Dad’s debt, because if I don’t, they’ll come for him again. Give me a day of you, please?”
A day? In his heart he would give her forever. “I’m not going anywhere until we get Ray sorted out. Do you have any info about who he borrowed the money from?”
“Thank you, I mean that.” Lulah took a bunch of papers from her bag and brought them to him, settling beside him on the sofa. These few days of being away from her and he’d missed her so much. He wanted to reach around and pull her in close, forget about Ray, forget about Doc, pretend they were taking a vacation together. She looked exhausted.
“This is the stuff here.” She handed him a wad of papers. “LoanStar EZ Finance. Seems they have a sense of humor, I bet they have an office in Texas, too. Loans with a laugh, at least until they send the thugs in.”
“Leave it to me and I’ll fix it.”
“Oh, no. I need to eyeball the bastard who beat my father.”
“I doubt the enforcer will be at the office. And I’m thinking that even Angry Lulah would meet her match with him.”
“Yeah, but I’d get a kick in to let him know what a lowlife he is.”
Vince nudged her. “Tough little imp, aren’t you?”
She nudged him back but her face was solemn. “Not always, not right now.”
Two breaths, just two, before his self-control vaporized. He intended to count to ten, a thousand even, if it would take a long count, filled with silence, to keep away from her. But it was only two breaths before he reached over to touch the fingertips of one hand to the softness of her cheek. He bent lower, his lips a gentle press to the corner of her slightly parted mouth and they shared his breath as he continued to count.