Forbidden

by R. R. Banks

  It's risky and I'm rolling the dice, hoping that I'm right about them not wanting to draw attention to themselves. I pick my way through the crowd, making my way toward our meeting spot, a knot in my stomach tightening. I don't like gambling with Calee's life like this, but we really don't have a whole lot of options.

  When I get to the Starbucks, I breathe a sigh of relief when I see her sitting at a table outside. But sitting across from her are the two men in Stetsons – Harold and Ennis. I catch Calee's eye and I see the relief flooding her face. That of course, makes the two men turn and look at me. And the only expression I see on their faces is anger.

  I give them both a big welcoming smile and sit down next to Calee, keeping my hand in my jacket pocket – and making sure they see me do it.

  “Afternoon gentlemen,” I say. “How can I help you?”

  “This don't concern you,” says the big man with the beard.

  I shrug. “Actually, it does,” I say. “See, I'm responsible for the health and well being of Calee here and –”

  “She's comin' back to the Ark with us,” the other man – who doesn't have a beard – cuts me off.

  “See, that's where you're wrong,” I say. “She's not. She's actually not going anywhere with you.”

  I take a quick look over at Calee and see that she's terrified. And probably with good reason. Who knows what sort of horrible things these two assholes did to her. She's sitting at the table, her eyes downcast, her face tight with fear. Her whole body is tense and she looks just like she did the first night I met her.

  And now I understand her fears just a little bit better. These two men are big. Imposing. They're intimidating. Hell, I'm not a small guy, but they intimidate me too. I'm just better at hiding it. And the fact that I've got a gun in my hand pointed at them helps my confidence levels a bit too.

  “And who the fuck are you?” asks the beard.

  “Nobody of any consequence to you,” I say.

  “Eric Galloway,” says the other man.

  I give him a smile. “Well, brownie points for you,” I say and turn to the beard. “If you already knew my name, then why bother asking me who I am?”

  The two men exchange a look and the anger on their faces only deepens. Calee is still silent, her gaze fixated on the top of the table. She looks paralyzed by her fear. I can only hope that she snaps out of it when it's time to move – which will be soon.

  “This asshole thinks he's funny,” says the beard.

  I lean forward, my hand still in my jacket pocket. “Tell me something,” I say. “You guys are supposedly, a religious cult, right?

  “We're a religious community,” non-beard man corrects me.

  I laugh and shake my head. “Okay great. Fine,” I say. “It's been a real long time since I've been to church, but I seem to recall something about God not being particularly fond of cursing. I also don't imagine he'd be on board with kidnapping, pedophilia, and murder. Not to mention –”

  “Shut the fuck up,” the beard says.

  “I'm pretty sure I read that in a book somewhere,” I go on. “The Bible – maybe you've heard of it?”

  “You ain't got a clue what you're talkin' about,” non-beard says.

  “You gonna believe this lyin' little whore?” the beard's voice is low, cold. “She tell you she's married and she went and fucked somebody else?”

  I shrug. “I also heard her parents sold her off to your boss when she was what, thirteen?” I say. “Well below the age of consent, isn't it? And also – a crime.”

  “Shut the fuck up,” beard says.

  “Such witty repartee,” I say and roll my eyes.

  “Witty what?” non-beard man asks.

  “Forget it,” I say. “It'd be lost on you anyway.”

  The two men exchange another look and I can tell they're antsy to get this show on the road. The prize they came to claim is sitting two feet from them and I can see in their eyes they really think they're walking out of here with her.

  Which means, it's time to disabuse them of that notion.

  I clear my throat and lean back in my chair, making sure they see that my hand is still in my coat pocket. I tap the butt of the gun on the table to get their attention. Leaning forward slightly, I lock eyes with the beard.

  “In my pocket,” I say, pitching my voice low to avoid being overheard, “is a forty-five-caliber pistol. I know you're both armed, but I guarantee you that I'll be able to put two holes in each of your chests before you even draw. And believe me, gentlemen, forty-fives can do some nasty damage. Especially up close and personal like we are.”

  The two men exchange a look that tells me they're trying to determine whether or not I'm telling the truth. I pull the hammer back on the gun, letting them hear the distinctive sound of a weapon being cocked. They look at me and narrow their eyes.

  “Okay fellas, as much as I'd love to stay and continue with this scintillating conversation, I'm sure we all have better things to be doing with our time,” I say. “So, we're going –”

  “The whore is comin' with us,” beard says.

  I sigh and tap the butt of the gun on the table again to emphasize the fact that they have no leverage in this deal.

  “Here's what's going to happen,” I say. “Calee and I are going to stand up and walk out of here. And you're going to sit there and watch us go.”

  “The hell we will,” non-beard guy spits.

  “Oh, you will,” I say. “Otherwise, I will put two in your chest. Last I checked, Colorado is a stand your ground state, so all I have to do is claim self-defence – and Calee, of course, will back me up on that. So, when they find the weapons on your corpses, everything is going to check out and we'll walk away anyway. So why don't we skip all the unpleasantness, drama with the cops, and oh yeah, your bloody deaths and just go our own way?”

  The two men look at each other and I can tell they're thinking about reaching for their guns. I really don't want this to devolve into a gun battle in the middle of the shopping mall and want to avoid that if at all possible.

  I tap the butt of the gun in my pocket on the table again for emphasis. “I have the high ground here, guys,” I say. “I'm a trained soldier. A marksman. You'll both be dead long before your guns clear your holsters. I guarantee you that.”

  With my other hand, I take Calee by the arm and together, we stand up. The two men stare holes through me, but neither seems willing to challenge me.

  “Come on,” I say to Calee. “We need to get out of here.”

  Together, we turn and hurry out of the shopping center and through the parking lot. I look behind us but don't spot the cowboys following behind. No doubt, they believe they can pick us up anytime with the tracking device they'd planted in Calee's boot.

  Good thing I left it on the hood of their car after I'd trashed it.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  Calee looks at me and nods, but still looks pretty shaken up. I imagine seeing the two men again after all she'd suffered at their hands couldn't have been easy for her.

  “I guess I was pretty useless, huh?” she asks, giving me a weak smile. “I just – I just froze up.”

  “Nonsense,” I say. “You did great. You got them where I wanted them to be and you held your ground. You could have let them take you away and you didn't. That took guts, and that's a win, Calee. You were great.”

  She looks at me, her eyes hopeful. “Really?”

  I nod. “Really.”

  She stands a little bit straighter and the air of defeat that had been clinging to her starts to dissipate. The smile on her face becomes less false and uncertain, replaced by one that's more genuine. She looks behind us, intently scanning the crowd.

  “What if they follow us?” she asks.

  “That's going to be difficult for them to do.”

  She looks at me, her expression curious. “Why is that?”

  “I disabled their car,” I reply. “They won't be going anywhere for a while.”

 
; She smiles again as I open the door to our car and usher her inside. Some of the tension in her shoulders eases and she starts to giggle. She looks up at me, her eyes wide and filled with wonder.

  “So, does this mean we're free?” she asks. “We're finally free?”

  I nod. “Looks that way,” I reply. “You won't have to spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder.”

  Her giggles become outright laughter as I close the door and walk around to the driver's side. Slipping behind the wheel, I start the car.

  “Thank you, Eric,” she says.

  And then she leans over and kisses my cheek. The warm feel of her lips on my skin, innocent though it was, lingers. It stirs something in me that I can't place or understand. It's just – different. I don't have time to think about it though. We need to put some distance between us and the cowboys.

  Putting the car in gear, I pull out of the parking lot and we head for the freeway. We head for home.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Oh my, God,” Calee exclaims. “This is your house? You live here?”

  “The house belonged to my family,” I say. “And yeah, I live here.”

  We finished the last leg of our trip that morning. I'm a little stiff and sore from being behind the wheel since about sunup, but it had taken a little less time than I'd expected it to, which is a good thing. I drop my bag next to the door and the keys on the small table in the entryway.

  She walks around the ground floor, her eyes wide, an awed expression on her face. I look around, trying to see what the big deal is. It's a house. My parents, although they were absolutely loaded and given to some of the trappings of the privileged – country club memberships, exotic vacations now and then – they never went in for the huge, ostentatious mansions favored by some. For the most part, my folks were pretty down to earth and relatively frugal for their income bracket.

  Yeah, it's a decently-sized house – seven bedrooms, six bathrooms, three floors – but it's not enormous.

  The best selling point of the house, to me, is the fact that I can open up the back doors, walk the five feet, and have my toes in the sand of the Pacific Ocean. As a kid, I spent more time on that beach than I can even remember. I love the ocean. It calms and soothes me like little else in this world.

  I walk her around through the great room, the dining room, and even the kitchen. She takes it all in like she's looking at a museum or some high-quality piece of art. Done mostly in dark woods and earthy tones, it's nicely decorated, I'll admit that.

  “This place is amazing,” she says.

  I shrug. “It's okay, yeah,” I say. “It's home.”

  “I – I've never seen a house this nice before,” she says, her voice still tinged with awe. “Let alone, set foot in one.”

  “Well, I suppose now you're going to have to get used to living in one,” I say.

  She turns to me, eyes wide. “A – are you kidding me?”

  I laugh out loud. “Where did you think you were going to be living?”

  She suddenly draws inward a little and the light in her face begins to dim. I don't have to be a psychic to know what's going through her mind. It hadn't gone particularly well the last time she lived with a man and I'm reasonably sure she's remembering all of that.

  “Don't worry,” I say. “The house is big enough that we can go for days without seeing each other. The entire third floor hasn't been used in – I don't even know how long, to be honest. It's yours. The whole floor. After my mom had a stroke, they did a little remodeling and that's where her live-in nurse stayed, so there's a small kitchen, bathroom, and outdoor deck up there. It should be comfortable enough for you.”

  Calee looks up at me and the light in her eyes begins to shine again. The smile creeps back across her face and she quickly clamps her hands over her mouth.

  “I don't even know what to say,” she says. “Or tell you how grateful I am.”

  “You don't need to,” I say and shrug. “And besides, it might be nice to have some company in the house sometimes.”

  She looks through the great room to the floor-to-ceiling windows that give us a view of the ocean. I didn't think her smile could grow any wider or the light in her eyes could shine any brighter, but they do. She stares at the view in silence for a few moments, absorbing it.

  “Is that the ocean?” she finally asks.

  “Beautiful, isn't it?”

  “I never thought I'd actually see it,” she says, her voice soft. “I mean, I dreamed about it. Wanted to. But never thought I'd actually get to see it.”

  “Well, how about we go and touch it?”

  She looks at me, the expression on her face that of a child on Christmas morning. “C – can we?”

  I nod and smile. “Of course, we can.”

  I take her hand and lead her through the great room, then unlock the back doors, slide them open, and we're both immediately treated to a flood of sensory sensation. The cool ocean breeze, tinged with the smell and taste of salt, rushes in. The sound of the waves crashing and the plaintive cries of the seagulls overhead fill the room.

  We stand for a moment, just taking it in. I look at Calee and see her eyes sparkling, the expression of awe and wonder on her face are priceless. Bending down, I take off my shoes and roll up my pant legs.

  “You might want to take your boots off too,” I say. “You want the full beach experience, don't you?”

  She giggles and quickly strips her boots off, rolling her pants up like I had. With that done, I take her hand again and lead her down the short flight of steps and to the back gate. Holding it open, I escort her through and then we're on the sand, walking down to the edge of the sea.

  “Nothing like the feeling of sand between your toes, huh?” I say.

  “It's so soft,” she says. “I never imagined it would be so soft.”

  The day is warm, but not unpleasantly so. There's a breeze coming off the ocean that keeps the temperature down. I let go of her hand and watch Calee shuffling through the sand, awed by the feel of it on her feet. There's a soft slope leading down to the water's edge and I sit myself down on it as Calee heads for the water.

  She approaches is slowly, almost as if she's afraid of it. A small wave crashes, sending a rush of foamy water up the sand. I laugh as she squeals when the water hits her feet, washing up around her ankles. Calee turns to me, smiling and laughing, the breeze blowing through her long, dark hair, and the sun almost making her porcelain colored skin glow – and I don't know that I've ever seen a more beautiful sight.

  Shaking my head, I try to banish the thought from my mind. I chastise myself for even having allowed that thought to pop into my brain. I remind myself why she's here – and what she escaped from. The last thing she needs is for somebody like me to start coming on to her.

  The train of thought though, stops me in my tracks. Coming on to her? The most beautiful thing I've ever seen? Where did those thoughts even come from? Yeah, she was an attractive girl, but that's not why I brought her out here. That's not why I've been helping her. She'd looked so lost and empty the first time I laid eyes on her, and that's what compelled me. That's what drew me to her.

  I've been helping her because she needed help and it was the right thing to do. No more and no less. And yet, there I am, acting like an idiot with a crush.

  I push all those thoughts out of my head and lock them down. The last thing she needs – hell, the last thing I need – is to let those ridiculous feelings I shouldn't even be having to begin with, run rampant. Left unchecked, just like any disease, they can spread, multiply, and become unmanageable.

  Calee bounds up the short slope to where I'm sitting, her face absolutely radiant.

  “You should do that more often,” I say.

  “What's that?”

  “Smile,” I reply. “It really makes you glow. It looks good on you.”

  I see her cheeks flare with color and she looks away before seemingly forcing her eyes back to mine.

  “
Well, it seems like I have a lot more reason to now,” she says. “This is amazing, Eric. The water is so cool and the sand is so soft – this is like heaven.”

  I laugh and nod. “I've always been partial to the ocean too,” I say. “My folks always had a hard time getting me out of the water.”

  She cocks her head. “Where are your folks?”

  “Passed away a few years back,” I say. “My mom didn't end up living very long after her stroke. Dad went not all that long after her.”

  Her face falls and is creased with sadness. “I'm sorry,” she says. “I didn't know.”

  I give her a warm smile. “How could you have known?” I reply. “And it's okay. It was a while ago. Time heals all wounds and all that.”

  There's an awkward moment of silence between us, the air saturated with the taste of salt and the sound of the waves thundering as they break. It's been a long, but good day and the last thing I want is for the mood to grow somber.

  “So?” I ask. “What do you think? Think you can handle living here?”

  She looks at the house beyond me and then turns and stares at the ocean behind her – her face automatically lighting up again.

  “This place is magical,” she says. “I think I can be very happy here.”

  “Good to hear,” I say. “How about this? Why don't we go get cleaned up, get a little bit of rest – give you some time to check out your new digs – and we'll meet back up for some dinner in a little while?”

  “I – I'd like that.”

  “Good, it's settled then,” I say. “Let's head back up to the house.”

  We walk back to the house, using the outdoor shower – which charmingly enough, seems to delight her – to wash off our feet. After that, I show her upstairs and leave her to it. I walk back downstairs to my office and make a few calls before I head to my room to shower and sack out for a couple of hours.

  Chapter Twenty-Six