Begging for Bad Boys

by Willow Winters

  “Jesus, Robin. I have a real problem with that. He shouldn’t be showing up in the first place. Wait a second. Has he…has that bastard hurt you?”

  “I need to get home,” she announces, avoiding my question. “It’s none of your business.”

  “I’m making it my business.”

  “Look, you don’t have any reason to do that. You’re not my friend, you’re not family, you’re not even a coworker. Just let it go. I can take care of myself.”

  “You know I can’t do that, Robin.”

  “Then you’re no different from him,” she shouts.

  This woman is testing my patience right now. “I’m nothing like him. Can I at least walk you to your car and make sure you get home in one piece? I’ll drive my own car, and I’ll only wait a few minutes. I’ll even stay outside your place. You don’t have to let me in.”

  She mulls it over for some time, and looks up at me. “Okay.”

  “Good. Let’s get you out of here.”

  I take her hand again and lead her outside. Leo and Beau are in the parking lot waiting for us.

  “Is he gone?”

  “Yeah,” Leo answers. “It took some convincing.”

  “Thanks. Did you get his plate number?”

  “Got it. He was driving a red Jeep Grand Cherokee.”

  “I’ll keep an eye out.”

  “Beau and I need to get back to the office. Give us a holler if he shows up again.” Leo pulls out a business card and passes it to Robin. “Take care with that one,” he tells her. “I’ve got a kid sister your age, and ain’t no way I’d let a man like that near her. Our emergency number is on there. Call anytime at all if you have a problem with him.”

  Robin hesitates for a moment, seeming to contemplate whether or not to accept the card. “Thanks,” she answers, and takes it, sliding it into her purse.

  I walk her to her truck. There’s a lot I want to tell her, but she has already insisted that she doesn’t want me to stick around at her place, so I respect her wishes. Still, I follow her for her trek home, watching my rearview mirror like a hawk just in case this dickbag shows up. We take the side roads to get to the small, detached one-level house she’s renting out near that spot where she was taking pictures. The place is secluded. On her side of the road, the houses are separated by large yards, and there’s nothing but bare land, cattle, and a few barns on the other side.

  Robin steps over to my driver side door once she parks in her driveway and unloads her purse, guitar, and a file folder that was in her back seat.

  “I’m good from here,” she tells me.

  “I don’t agree, but I’m not gonna argue.”

  “Thanks. Have a good night.”

  The unsettled feeling in my chest doesn’t let up after she goes inside and locks up. It’s still with me when I get home. I twist and turn all night, and there are several points where I want to vault out of bed to check up on her. The next morning, just so that I don’t end up going batshit crazy, I take the long way to the office, intent on passing by her house.

  Except I don’t count on seeing Robin’s baby blue relic of a Chevy truck a few cars ahead—or a dark gray late model Honda sedan that seems to be following her.

  Chapter 11

  Robin

  Some wise and wholesome sage said to never take your smartphone with you into the bathroom.

  Bad advice.

  Crappy, if you ask me. No pun intended.

  The one time I decide to mosey on into my bathroom without it, all hell breaks loose.

  I shouldn’t even be here this late in the morning. Normally, by now I’m sitting at my desk at work, waiting for Mr. Rochford, my one-man-show do-everything lawyer boss, to belt out all manner of unreasonable demands that I follow, no questions asked. I may have a passion for singing country western classics, but I have to remind myself that my voice and guitar playing skills don’t pay all the bills.

  Today, I get in my beat-up truck, drive halfway to work, and what do I do? I forget something at home. The file folder. It’s the one my boss sent me home with to research well into the night. And it’s sitting right where I left it at two o’clock this morning. I can blame both this morning’s forgetfulness and my lateness on the sleep deprivation, or on that mini-standoff between Reid and Dave, but my boss won’t care.

  After the fifteen-minute return drive to my tiny old one-story house about twenty-five miles west of the Las Vegas Strip, I hurry inside. Rush hour isn’t bad on the highway, but it’s way too late for me to get in before Mr. Rochford today. I drop my keys and phone on the wall-mounted all-in-one coat rack shelving in the entryway, get the file, and then my nervous stomach kicks in. I’m sure to be late, but I know better than to leave the house without taking care of my bodily functions.

  As I’m sitting there wishing I had my phone to at least call my boss and tell him about my lateness, I hear a loud thud. The floor and walls shake. There’s an ear-popping noise next, and the sound of glass breaking.

  I lift the curtain covering the window behind me and crane my neck to look out the window that faces the backyard. The sky is still blue. There’s not a cloud around or anything else in the sky, which means that ruckus can’t be daytime fireworks, aircraft flying overhead, or rare bad weather.

  My ears start to ring from the pressure change.

  It can’t just be someone opening the front door, but I have hope for a logical explanation.

  “Hello?” I call out, praying that it’s Josh, my older brother, and that he just used his set of keys, slammed the door really hard, and broke something on his way in. It’s a longshot, given that he lives and works over half-hour away in North Vegas. Still, I’m wishing for a simple reason for whatever is happening on the other side of this door.

  “Josh? Is that you?” I shout.

  There’s no answer. Then something else crashes nearby. I’m one hundred percent sure that I did not leave the front door open, so the sound has to be coming from inside the house. I finish my business in the bathroom, making sure to flush and quickly wash my hands, just in case it’s my landlord. I highly doubt it, on account of the fact that he’s a busy part-time casino owner and full-time cattle rancher who owns all the land around here for at least half a mile in each direction.

  “Hello? Who’s there?” I shout out one more time over my shoulder as I dry my hands on a towel.

  As I turn to reach for the doorknob, I notice the smoke.

  What the hell?

  Smoke starts to seep into the bathroom from under the door. It’s thick and black. I take a chance and touch the doorknob lightly. It’s hot as hell. That can’t be good. My father is a retired fire chief, and Josh is also a firefighter, as are pretty much all my male cousins, so I know what this means.

  Fire.

  A serious one, likely from some type of explosion so hot that it immediately burned some of the house contents to ash. The knot grows in my stomach as a new reality sets in.

  I am trapped in the bathroom.

  Part of me wants to push the door open and run like hell out the only other door that can let me outside fast—the kitchen door at the back of the house. I know better. I’d be unconscious from smoke inhalation, and probably dead from the killer heat before I make it ten feet. Shit. I should be thinking about my immediate survival, but my judgment is temporarily clouded by the panic-inducing fact that all my worldly belongings are burning on the other side of this door, including my phone and my boss’s files. If I survive this blaze, Mr. Rochford will kill me.

  Giving up is not something I’ve ever done willingly before, so I begin to problem-solve. I grab all the towels on the rack, dump them in the bathtub and turn on the shower faucet to soak them. Once they’re good and wet, I wrap one around my mouth, nose, and head. Bundling up the rest, I jam them up against the opening at the bottom of the door. It does a good job of stopping more smoke from coming in, but I can’t delude myself about the trouble I’m in. A quick exit from this death trap is the only thing
that will save my hide.

  I look around the bathroom and check the double-hung window behind the curtain above the toilet tank. Each section on its own is way too small to get my hips through. Even if I strip down naked and grease myself down with petroleum jelly or lube, I’m sure to get my ass stuck. But hell, I’m willing to try anything. If I can punch or kick out two sections of glass and their wooden frame, maybe I can squeeze out sideways.

  Opening this window is risky all on its own. I have to make certain assumptions, the biggest one being that once I break glass in this window, it’s not going to become another venting route for this blazing inferno on the other side of this door. Just case it is, I douse myself with the leftover water in the bathtub. Climbing up on the ledge of the tub, I drag down the curtain rod, throw the plastic shower curtain as far away from me as possible, and I slam one metal edge of the curtain rod through the window to break it. I make myself a small as possible in the tub, counting to thirty just to be safe.

  No backdraft.

  Probably because the front window must be open and feeding enough oxygen to the blaze. Nothing changes in the room except for the fresh air entering through the now broken window. That’s a great sign. I remove as much of the glass from the window as possible, and when that’s done, I begin to bang against the wooden frame at the center of each double hung section. You would think panic has allowed the adrenaline and accompanying superhuman strength to kick in, but I’m no stronger than I was five minutes ago, before this all happened.

  As I work at it, I call out for help. Not even my head and shoulders can fit through this quarter of the windowpane. If I can get higher, I might be able to kick out the wooden sections, but there’s nothing in this room that can support my weight. Standing on the toilet seat cover doesn’t help either.

  It’s no use. I’m really trapped.

  I can only pray that someone is driving along the road in front of my place, and that they’re paying enough attention to notice my house is on fire. All the homes on this side of the road are so far apart that none of my neighbors will hear me unless they’re right outside. And it’s all desert fields, cattle, and tumbleweed on the other side of the road.

  “Help! Fire! Help me! If anyone can hear me, please call 9-1-1!” I shout, using the curtain rod to make more noise as I bang it repeatedly against the wooden window frame.

  If this is going to be the last few minutes I spend on earth, I won’t go quietly.

  That’s when the sexiest, yet second most unnerving voice booms through the window from outside.

  Chapter 12

  Reid

  “Stand back, Robin!” I shout through the broken window at the back of the house.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Robin asks.

  “Hopefully, saving your life. Get as far away from the window as possible. Completely out of its trajectory.”

  “Got it.” She’s quiet for a second, then shouts out, “I’m in the bathtub!”

  “Good.” I use the gutter’s downspout nearby to scale the wall. Bracing my arms and legs at the rooftop just above the window, I pump my legs out, swing my body down, and kick the wooden window frame. With a loud thud, the horizontal frame shatters. My legs dangle inside the window now, and I just need to hold on long enough for Robin to climb up, at which point I can hopefully teeter backward and drop to the ground outside. Neither of us can afford to have anything else go wrong, or we’ll both end up stuck inside the bathroom.

  “I need you to climb up my legs now, Robin,” I tell her. “Make it quick. I’m not sure how long I can hold on.”

  “Coming!” She steps up on the toilet tank. “Where am I supposed to hang on to you?”

  “As high as you can reach on my chest.” I tighten my grip on the gutter. “Now, Robin.”

  “I’m…just…trying to avoid…your junk.”

  “Right now Robin! I’m losing my grip.”

  “Okay!” She jumps up and clings to my neck, turning her body sideways.

  Easing my back into a slight arch, I pull us out of the window. “Hold on tight and wrap your legs around my waist. I’m going to let go now.”

  She does so with some hesitation, and with another slight kick backward, I let go. The fall isn’t too bad at all, and I manage to land feet first, but with the distance of the jump, the force pushes me backward, and I fall on my back, with her on top of me. I’ve never seen a woman scramble to get off of me so quickly.

  “Thank you,” Robin says to me, dusting off her hands. “Did you call 9-1-1?”

  “Yes. They’re on the way.”

  She promptly turns around and heads to the front of the house in a jog. I pull her arm back when I realize she’s about to climb the front porch steps. “You can’t go in there.”

  “But my phone is inside. Any my guitar, my purse and car keys… oh my God, my boss’s files!” She tries to wrench her arm away, but I pull her to the side of the house. “Let me go, Reid! I have to get some things.”

  She must be in shock, or in denial about the blaze in front of us.

  “We have to wait,” I insist. “The house is fully involved. Just look at it. Even your truck is damaged.”

  Robin looks up and stares at the flames and smoke billowing up to the sky as though she is seeing it clearly for the first time. She looks up at me, takes my hand, and says, “Thank you,” like she means it.

  Robin and I sit in my vehicle parked at the other side of the street while we wait for the emergency responders to arrive. The only three calls that she makes are to the boss at her day job, her insurance company, and her brother, Josh. She leaves a message for her boss, who is at a court hearing, and strangely enough, her brother was just redeployed from North Las Vegas where he works to support a forest fire emergency on the Carson Range spur of the Sierra Nevada. The insurance company takes some basic information to start her claim, and instruct her to call back once fire responders have had an opportunity to forward a report. Her parents, sister, and singing partner are all out of town at the moment.

  “How did you know to come find me here?” she asks after some time, as I type out a text to let Leo know what I’m up to.

  “After your ex-boyfriend got so worked up at Whiskey Jacks last night, I figured I’d pass by on my way to work to see if you’re okay.”

  “I don’t understand how the fire started so quickly. There was a crashing sound in the living room, and then the smoke started seeping into the bathroom. I wasn’t even supposed to be here.”

  “I saw. My SUV was a few vehicles behind you when you turned into your driveway.”

  “So, wait. You saw me park? That means you must have seen how this happened.”

  “Someone driving a dark gray, late model Honda sedan was following you. He parked a little way down the road, and I’m sorry, Robin. I wasn’t close enough to stop him. I saw him throw what must have been a homemade Molotov cocktail through your front window. The person was wearing a red baseball cap, but I’m almost sure it was your ex.”

  Her jaw drops, and her lips start to tremble. “Dave? He did this? He tried to…kill me?”

  “It happened so fast, I wasn’t able to stop him, not without leaving you inside.”

  “So he’s still out there?”

  “Yes, but the police will find him.”

  If I don’t find him first.

  I can’t stand witnessing her heartbreak on learning someone she was close to did this to her intentionally. I’m even more relieved to see an ambulance van and two police cars arriving on the scene in my rearview mirror, followed shortly by a fire truck. They all quickly move into action. A paramedic checks out Robin for possible smoke inhalation while firefighters set up to fight the blaze. The police direct the roadway traffic, and one of the officers takes Robin’s and my initial statements and our contact information.

  We’re cleared to leave soon afterward, but Robin refuses to come to my place. She demands that I take her to her day job.

  “You can’t go to wo
rk in this state.”

  “I have to,” she tells me. “I just lost everything. I can’t just sit around.”

  Her boss phones her back just in time. He tells her not to come in, thankfully, but that only fuels her need to remain outside her burnt up shell of a rental house. She won’t eat or drink. It takes a lot of coaxing to make her sip on a bottle of water to avoid dehydration. By the time the firefighters put out the last of the blaze, they come by and confirm what I expected. The structure is not cleared for re-entry until their fire investigators return to the scene to determine the cause. They’ve even cordoned off her truck.

  Robin is shaking at the shock of the news.

  I offer to take her to her parents’ place, but she can’t go there either. They’re out of town, and Robin’s spare key for their house is on her key chain—inside of her cordoned off rental house. She’s cried so much in the last couple of hours that she can hardly speak.

  “You’re coming to my place,” I tell her. “It’s not a request. If Dave can do this once, he’ll try it again once he realizes he didn’t succeed the first time, but he won’t know to look for you at my condo. You’ll be safe. There’s lots of room. You can stay in the guest room until your family or friend gets back.”

  Taking her nonresponse as consent, I drive her to my low-rise condo building and show her up to my unit. Robin uses the bathroom, drinks another bottle of water, and curls up on the spare room bed. I sit in the armchair beside the bed. After she drifts off to sleep, I go to my home office and use the time to get some work done.

  Leo phones me for an update, and I keep up with emails and other tasks I can handle from home. I check her room every so often, but with the exception of bathroom pit stops, Robin doesn’t move from that bed for the entire rest of the day, evening and night.