Unnatural Calamities

by Summer Devon

  “Be my guest,” said Janey blandly.

  She clearly wasn’t entertaining enough, or maybe Zack finally figured out he wasn’t going to annoy her. He grunted and lay back down. After a moment she heard tinkling mechanical beeps as he played the game on the cell phone he’d taken from Toph.

  Janey started humming a song from her past. From the past with Buddy and all the other losers? No, never mind, thank you. She switched over to “Modern Major General” again.

  Toph enjoyed listening to Janey’s soft humming, but he couldn’t keep quiet.

  “Your mother kicked you out when you were fifteen?” He twisted around so he could see her face.

  She turned pink. “Oh. I thought you were asleep. When we were sixteen, actually. That’s when Penny got pregnant. Millie, that is, Mom, kicked Penny out then, when I yelled—I mean, really hollered—Millie kicked me out too.”

  “But. My God…I can’t imagine.”

  She shook her head. “Me neither.”

  He meant his own child and knew she did too. He understood now that Rachel was Janey’s child. Penny’s by birth, and maybe even in practice. But in Janey’s heart, Rachel was her child. “A blessing,” she had said. He’d never heard it expressed better.

  The beeps had ended and now a quiet snore came from the backseat. Zack shuffled and mumbled something.

  “What should we do?” she whispered. “I mean what should I do, since you can’t even budge.”

  Toph looked out the window into the next lane and a minivan full of laughing kids. They stared straight ahead at a television screen. No help there.

  He was already haunted by the image of Janey’s pale, frightened face after Zack’s shot grazed her arm. And now she wanted to attempt that nonsense again? He answered more angrily than he should have. “No. We’re not going to risk another run-in with him and that gun. That’s a revolver so he may have five more bullets he could pump into you.”

  He sucked in a calming breath. Useless anger was not his style.

  But she wasn’t offended by his furious tone. “You know about guns?”

  “Not really. I can tell a revolver from an automatic, but that’s about it.”

  “You know a heck of a lot more than I do. Must be something to do with the male chromosome.”

  She glanced out the side window then checked the rearview mirror. “If I had my bag, I could use the lipstick, maybe write on the window. Help, or something.”

  “Okay, if we’re going to take stupid chances, we should wait until we’re out of the car. I was thinking we could split up, take off in two different directions. He’d probably go after me since I’m the meal ticket. You could get help.”

  “I don’t like that idea.”

  Toph shrugged, and the handcuffs rattled. “Let me know if you come up with a better plan.”

  “Yeah. Okay. Maybe instead of the gun we should try to sneak your phone from him.” She glanced over at him, and her eyes looked desolate. “Good gosh, I wish I’d shoved that idiot out of the apartment or called the police when he showed up. I’m really, really sorry.”

  “Hey, I had nothing much planned for the day,” he said and was glad to see her furrowed brow relax.

  Her smile was wry. “A little R and R with a kidnapper? That your idea of fun?”

  “It’s something new and I’m always up for new experiences. Okay, almost always. But listen, none of this is your fault. I know a bunch of guys in insurance, and I bet even they’d say that Zack Blair qualifies as an ‘act of God’. Anyway, forget about the genius in the backseat. Tell me. What did your father say when your mother kicked you out?”

  Janey passed the minivan and a Honda before answering. “Joey the yes man? He was an office kind of a guy who worked every day until 8 p.m. Didn’t get involved in what he called the ‘girls’ stuff’, as in, our lives. When Millie told us to go, Joey said see ya. I think he was just relieved the scenes with us drama queens would be over at last. To be fair, I was too. Sort of.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  She raised her pale eyebrows. “Now you’re the one making apologies for acts of God. What’re you sorry for?”

  He wasn’t sure why he’d said it. Maybe because he’d been so lucky in his own parents. “Um. For your rotten adolescence.”

  She laughed. “It had its ups too. Wasn’t all downs. And back then…I bet if we’d been the same age? And you said you felt sorry for me? I would have done something sweet like knee you in the balls.”

  He grimaced. “It’s hard to picture you doing that.”

  “You mean because I’m basically civilized now? I only spent a year or so trying to be hard as nails. Drinking a lot helped make me a-a biker babe from hell. Or at least one in training.”

  Janey gave a yelp of laughter, obviously amused by some memory.

  “Whoops.” She glanced nervously in the rear view mirror, checking on Zack.

  “Still asleep,” Toph reassured her.

  In a quieter voice, Janey continued, “You should have seen me back then. I dyed my hair jet black, and then red. Lots of black eye makeup. I looked like a demented skunk crossed with a raccoon. Little leather skirts and tight, ripped tee-shirts.”

  The clothes sounded intriguing. He liked the clothes. But not the makeup or hair dye. Janey had wonderful hair, what his Regency-reading British mum would call guinea gold—mixed with dandelion fluff.

  She grinned at him. “When I finally woke up and saw myself, and my stupid life, I gave up the role. I’d only tried it all out to annoy my poor mother. The funniest part is that Penny dropped out of high school, but I never missed a day of school even after we moved out of the house. Except when the principal sent me home for wearing obscene clothing, and the day Rachel was born.”

  “So you outgrew being mouthy.”

  “Nah. More it was that Rachel got old enough to understand me. Well, after that I had no choice, did I? Now I’m the type who apologizes every time I bump into a person or anything else. Even tables. Rachel and I have a curse jar at home. A quarter a curse. I gave up cursing after I starting going broke just about every week. Damn. Too bad Millie isn’t around to see the meek and mild me.”

  “Is she dead?”

  “Car accident. They both died on their way to an office party.”

  Still angry with Millie and Joey Carmody he said, “They don’t sound like they deserved a great daughter like you.”

  Janey whistled softly and he heard her quiet amusement. “I don’t think anyone who knew us back then would agree.”

  “Listen. I don’t yet know what full-blown adolescence does to daughters. So I could be wrong, but I bet the essential Janey was there the whole time. Your mother should have had faith you’d outgrow the stage and turn back into a sweet person.”

  “You’re full of it. But I like a little flattery now and then.”

  “I am not trying to flatter you and you know it, dammit.”

  “Huh,” she said, clearly unconvinced.

  He was annoyed. Didn’t the woman understand he wasn’t yanking her chain?

  Maybe she didn’t understand. He’d heard part of her history. Perhaps with a mother like that, Janey truly believed she was not a fine person. The thought startled him. He didn’t understand insecurity, not the deeply ingrained sort. Just the kind that lay on the surface and that could be coaxed away, like a child’s nightmare.

  What was he supposed to say to someone who was thoroughly insecure? Never mind, he knew how to deal with people who called him full of it.

  “Want me to argue with you?” he challenged her. “I will, you know. I’d be happy to go over the subject point by point.”

  “Nah,” she said almost cheerful, and shoved a wisp of hair behind her ear. “It’s okay. When you say something nice, I should just say thanks, right? And then let it go?”

  “Mind reader,” he said and settled back down with some clinking and rattling. He twisted, even though that shoved him into an awkward position. He wanted to be able to wa
tch her.

  She glanced over at him and gave him a quick smile. She had a contagious smile, a lovely sight on that sweet, full mouth. The kind of mouth that gave a man ideas. God, yes, he wanted that mouth and body.

  But the whole woman intrigued him. Janey wasn’t timid and probably wasn’t really insecure. She was the kind of person who’d been through enough not to bother with bull. She’d forgiven her unforgiving mother, learned to be a good aunt-mother in her turn. She’d taken over her own life and responsibilities and her sister’s as well. Even now, kidnapped by a man who sounded like a major loser from her unhappy past, she kept her cool and her sense of humor.

  Toph’s friends told him often enough he was a tower of strength. Easy enough to be strong when you’re born into a wealthy, happy family who supported just about every decision you made from your first word. He wondered if he could have been as resilient as Janey Carmody if he’d faced the same obstacles she had.

  Janey pointed her chin at an exit for Allentown. “I’ve been there,” she whispered. “And I know exactly where the police station is.”

  Toph nodded. “Much better plan.”

  But as they pulled from the highway onto the exit ramp, Zack’s bleary voice piped up from the back. “Hey! You’re slowing down. Why are you slowing down?”

  Janey flushed and glanced uneasily at Toph who answered at once. “No big deal. I need to use the john.”

  Toph wondered if Zack had overheard the plan to split up—he kept one of them handcuffed in the car when he let the other out at the deserted rest stop where he finally agreed to stop.

  More driving, then beeping from the backseat, followed by some muttered cursing. Zack opened the window and threw out the phone.

  “Fucking stupid game,” he growled. So much for any escape plan involving the cell phone. And so much for any hope the police would use Toph’s phone’s GPS to find them.

  Zack called a halt at about eight p.m. They’d logged several hundred miles of aimless driving and had ended down in Maryland, near the Pennsylvania border.

  He directed Toph, who was driving again, to a Holiday Inn on the edge of a town. Toph got out of the car, stiff and discouraged. Early on he’d figured out Zack was no mastermind, but the man seemed to operate completely on electrical impulses rather than actual brainpower.

  If he’d been alone, Toph might have rushed Zack. But he seemed to usually aim the gun at Janey, as if he understood Toph’s protective instinct. Or perhaps he pointed the gun at her for another, simpler reason: because he watched Janey for entertainment purposes.

  Toph noticed the leer in Zack’s eyes when the jerk shoved the gun back into his jacket pocket and pressed it against the small of Janey’s back. His other hand reached over and rubbed her rear end again.

  Oh hell, thought Toph. Maybe he’d have to rush the bastard after all.

  Chapter Seven

  Janey fumed. Unbelievable. Were the people who served the public so jaded that they never expressed any prurient curiosity? She wasn’t surprised the guy in the sex shop where they bought the handcuffs didn’t take the time to gawk at them. But the hotel clerk didn’t even glance at the two men and a woman who asked for one room.

  “Here’s an extra twenty for you if you put us somewhere no one else is. We’re gonna party,” said Zack. “Don’t want to disturb the other guests.”

  Look up, Janey silently commanded the pimply hotel clerk. Stop staring at a computer screen. Recognize Mr. Bigshot Dunham. Call the police. Please.

  Instead the clerk answered a phone and turned his back on them to talk.

  Zack nudged the small of Janey’s back with his hidden gun. “Move it.”

  Room 210 had the anonymous, clean plastic scent of a mid-rate hotel room. The fair-sized space had two double beds with orange and green spreads, a desk, two bureaus and a big television in a cabinet.

  “This is a way finer place than any I’ve crashed lately,” Zack said happily.

  He waved the pistol at one of the beds. “Sit down.”

  Toph and Janey sat side by side. Janey inched close to Toph. Her thigh touched his solid muscular leg and her heart lifted at once. As long as she had his company, she was nearly sure she could cope.

  Zack pulled out the pairs of handcuffs and squinted around the room, frowning as he took inventory.

  “The damn bed doesn’t have a headboard. The desk is too lightweight. The TV thing, yeah, but you’d be in the way.”

  He forced them into the bathroom, hunting for a spot to cuff them.

  “I want to take a dump without an audience so it’ll have to be the TV thing,” he said. “Come on back out.”

  “May I use the bathroom?” Janey asked in a small voice. “I mean, to take a shower too?”

  Zack leered at her. “As long as I can watch.”

  She sighed. “Forget the shower.”

  She almost silently locked the door behind her.

  “I heard you throw that lock. Fine. You got ten minutes before I do something nasty to Mr. Money-man here,” shouted Zack.

  When she came out, Zack let Toph have ten minutes too.

  Janey sat on the edge of one of the beds. Zack plopped down on the bed near her, watching her with a broad sleazy grin on his face, as if daring her to move or speak. He stroked the gun with his hand suggestively. Yuck.

  Come on, Toph, hurry. She didn’t think Zack would actually do anything after ten minutes, but she hated being alone with him. That feeling was nothing new. She had always hated it.

  Toph took about five minutes. When he emerged from the bathroom, his face and hair were damp, his dark hair slicked back from his face, and he carried his tie and jacket. He’d untucked his shirt and undone its top buttons. He looked like a handsome businessman relaxing after a hard day.

  “Sit on the floor,” Zack ordered them both. He tried arranging them, one on each side of the armoire. Then he pushed Toph close to the armoire and Janey over to the desk. All the while he muttered to himself. “All I wanna do is lie on the bed and sleep and watch TV for-flippin-ever.”

  At last he handcuffed Janey to the leg of the armoire then cuffed Toph to her other hand.

  Zack took a step back and tilted his head as he examined them. “What do you think?”

  Janey realized he actually wanted to know if they were comfortable.

  “It’s…it’s okay,” she said. She had to lie down on the carpet on her back to be completely comfortable but she didn’t want to make Zack irritated when he seemed in a good mood.

  He headed into the bathroom.

  As soon as Janey heard the water start for a shower, she used her hand attached to the armoire to feebly yank at its leg, which seemed to be made of some sort of steel.

  “Let me,” Toph said.

  For a brief second she sensed the warmth and sheer bulk of the man as he climbed over her. The hand cuffed to hers skimmed the edge of her breast. Oh my good gosh.

  “Oops, sorry,” he whispered.

  She awkwardly twisted to her side, and with clanking and thumping, they worked together and attempted to lift the thing. It didn’t budge. He drew in his breath and, without brushing against her this time, climbed back over her again.

  He slid back and peered behind the large chunky object. “Duh. It’s bolted to the wall.”

  Janey carefully twisted her wrist in the handcuffs then flopped down flat on her back. She looked up at him. “I’m so sorry. You were just being a nice guy and…and all this happened. You have no idea how sorry I am.”

  Toph settled cross-legged next to her and looked down into her eyes. His smile and that rich dark gaze warmed her.

  “Listen, I already told you, none of this is your fault. Zack isn’t human. He’s a phenomenon…a calamity.” With his free hand, he pushed a lock of her unruly hair out of her eyes. She murmured her thanks.

  “What I can’t understand is how a man like that produced Rachel,” Toph said thoughtfully.

  Janey laughed. It tasted like her first real laugh
that day. “I’ve wondered that for years. And you haven’t even met my sister.”

  “Does she look like you?”

  “We’re identical except her hair is always buzz-cut. And she’s much thinner.”

  “So you’re the cute one.”

  Unbelievable. Kidnapped, handcuffed, held for ransom by a nut cake, and the man was flirting.

  She grinned at him like a fool.

  Toph shifted, leaning down and toward her. She was wondering if he was about to kiss her when he pushed up his shirt, reached into his back pocket and pulled out the scissors, file and tweezers.

  “My damn pockets are too shallow. These’ll show, so where should we stash them? I don’t have a clue if they’ll do us any good. If the light was better, I’d mess around with these cuffs. Do you wear hair pins by any chance?”

  “Sorry, no hair pins. How about in the TV cabinet? There’s a hidden place behind there.”

  He nodded. To get to the TV he had to climb across her. Again. She didn’t mind in the least. She closed her eyes to enjoy the clean scent of him and the crisp warmth of his shirt as he leaned over her. Her eyes flicked open when his dry, soft lips brush hers.

  He hovered a couple of inches above her face. His breath touched her cheek.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” he said. “It seemed like the right thing to do. Under the circumstances.”

  In answer, she pushed her head up to meet his lips again.

  With a groan and jangle of handcuffs, they fell into a kiss that stunned Janey. Good glory. It had been six years since she’d done anything even remotely like this and, if she recalled correctly, that experience was nothing as earth shattering as this simple, delicious meeting of mouths and the tentative first exploration with tongues.

  The kiss expanded and deepened and grew bolder. The warmth spread to her quickly beating heart, right on down to the base of her belly which almost at once turned thick and heavy with pure, greedy lust. She couldn’t stop the eager sound from her throat.

  The shower in the bathroom fell silent.

  She looked into Toph’s passion-heated eyes. “My oh my,” she whispered. Not exactly eloquent, but she doubted words mattered. The way they breathed as they stared at each other spoke clearly enough.