Taking Charge

by Mandy Baggot

  “Oh my God, Cole! Where is all this coming from? I have a bit of a thing with the rapist turning up and you go all caveman on me and want to be my protector? I appreciate you having my back with Jason, but…” Robyn began.

  “Close your eyes,” Cole told her.

  “Why?”

  “I’m going to kiss you. And although I know I shouldn’t, I want it to be a prologue to something,” he whispered.

  Her eyes closed of their own accord, like a magnetic clasp had drawn them shut, and she felt the soft, smooth lips on hers, tempting her mouth to open. She wanted to let the feeling he gave her fill her whole body and take away every horrible memory. She reached for him, drawing his head closer to hers, her lips demanding more from his, until tears were seeping from the corners of her eyes.

  She broke away, out of breath, her cheeks damp, and her heart hammering in her chest. Cole took hold of her hand and gripped it tightly in his.

  “You felt that, right?” he asked.

  Robyn watched the rise and fall of his chest and nodded her head. She had felt more from every kiss they’d shared than she had felt for the last nine years. Her heart was racing, her palms were itchy, and she couldn’t stop looking at him.

  “Marry me,” he said, his eyes not leaving her for a second.

  “What?”

  “You heard me,” Cole said steadily.

  His expression was serious. The inky eyes were focused on her and the intensity made her shiver.

  “Is this a dare? Have one of the team put you up to this?”

  “Marry me,” Cole repeated.

  “I heard you, but one more time, and I’ll think you actually mean it. I’ll hold you to it,” Robyn said with a swallow.

  “Marry me.”

  “We’ve known each other three days.”

  “You haven’t given me an answer.”

  “We have a game tomorrow, the biggest game of the season. I have to focus on that.”

  “You’re changing the subject.”

  “Of course I am. You’re being crazy!”

  “Yeah, maybe I am. I mean, I’ve never thought about marriage before, you know that. And I really didn’t ever have a scrapbook of potential outfits. Hell, after the year I’ve had, I was never having any sort of relationship ever again. But then I met you and you’re messing things up, messing me up.”

  “We should rewind. We can forget I said I wanted to kiss you, we can forget you kissing me, and we can go and ask the refrigerator what it suggests we snack on at this time of night.”

  “Are you saying no?” Cole asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Yes? You’re saying yes?”

  “No! I’m not saying yes. This is insane.”

  “Do you want me to ask your dad first? Because I’m serious about this. I don’t know why, I can’t explain it, just call it a chemical reaction I can’t analyze yet.”

  “Jeez! Are you for real?”

  “I’m going to ask one more time. Robyn Matthers, will you marry me?”

  She pulled at a section of hair in her ponytail while biting the inside of her cheek. She raised her eyes to meet his.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  “Did you say yes?” Cole asked.

  “I…I don’t know. Did I?”

  “I think so.”

  “This is weird.”

  “Yeah. I wasn’t sure you’d say yes.”

  “Why did you ask me?”

  “Because you make me feel…I don’t know…better. When I’m with you it’s like finally something else matters. D’you know, since you’ve been living here, I haven’t thought about work once when I’ve come home. Not even when you made me sit through every replay of the Red Wings game twice last night. I can switch off, I can be twenty-five, playing hockey, being who I am without the white coat and the safety glasses.”

  “I’m not like other girls. I don’t do emotion and Meg Ryan films or the color pink.”

  “I know that. I live with you,” Cole reminded her.

  “I’m screwed up, and I’ve been sleeping with someone who pays my bills and keeps me in crisps and beer.”

  “I know that, too. And I hated it. I hated it so much, I almost had another crack at the mirror in the Gen-All bathroom.”

  “You’re smart, Cole, and really clever…and whenever you walk into anywhere, every woman checks you out.”

  “Now you’re making things up.”

  “They look you up and down and mouth wow as nudge their friends.”

  “They do not!”

  “You’ve played for the Wolves, and you’ve had a nice, normal relationship with someone called Veronica. She sounds very sensible and attractive and probably had a really high-powered job wearing expensive suits and make-up. I don’t do make-up, by the way, just lip-gloss,” Robyn continued.

  “Come on! Normal? She had an affair with my brother.”

  “But I bet she was normal once. She hadn’t been raped and she hadn’t slept with her married boss. She liked Meg Ryan, too, didn’t she?”

  “Listen to me. Make that fresh start and make it with me. We can both start again. Just be Robyn. That’s who I met at the airport and on the plane. That Robyn had a mouth full of opinions and she said I was cute,” Cole told her, taking hold of her hands.

  “I did, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “Must have been the altitude.”

  “Or maybe the jetlag.”

  “Or maybe the hostesses nudging each other and going wow.”

  “Maybe that did it,” Cole replied with a smile.

  “This is weird,” Robyn said.

  She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know how she should behave. She didn’t know if she was thinking straight. It had come so out of the blue. But she had reacted with her gut and her gut had said yes. Her instincts had told her that saying yes was the right thing to do. Her instincts were rarely wrong. They were about the only thing she still trusted. But wasn’t it madness agreeing to marry someone after only knowing them three days?

  “Cole, this is crazy. This is a sympathy proposal. The psycho turned up, you feel sorry for me, you want to protect me, and this is your way of doing it. You don’t need to. It isn’t your place.”

  “I’d like it to be.”

  “This isn’t how things usually go. There’s usually a prologue.”

  “I think ours started at the airport.”

  “You’re on the rebound.”

  “No, been there, done that. Sally, Avril, and a real crazy chick called Cleo.”

  “I’m not right for you. I’m not educated and I’ve been stealing from your t-shirt collection,” Robyn admitted bashfully.

  “I know all that. I also know you drink way too much, and I know how bad you look before your first coffee in the morning. We’re just right together, Robyn, don’t ask me to explain it. When we first met, you bowled me over, just because you were you. Robyn Matthers, straight talking, unpretentious, bossy, opinionated, determined…” Cole began.

  “You can stop now.”

  “I like you, you like me. You can’t deny that. It doesn’t matter whether we’ve known each other three days or three decades.”

  “Is being attracted to each other enough, though?”

  “How does everyone else start off?”

  “On a date.”

  “And you don’t do dates, so why don’t we start off with a proposal,” Cole suggested.

  Robyn let out a laugh and shook her head. She took a deep breath and looked at him. He was perfect. In every way he was perfect—and he was asking her to marry him. Despite the anxiety she felt, the overriding emotion was excitement and the promise of a life with someone who knew everything about her and only cared about her all the more for it.

  “What?” Cole asked, looking at her intently.

  “I don’t need looking after.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “Good.”

  “
Good.”

  She threw her arms around him and pushed him down onto the sofa, savoring the way his mouth tasted entwined with hers. She ran her fingers through his thick, black hair and felt him hold her to him so tightly. She wanted so much for it to be real. She wanted the way she felt for him to be what she had been too scared to look for. She wanted to be free from everything she’d been before. She wanted a new start and she wanted to share that with him.

  She stopped kissing him and held him away from her, drinking in his masculine beauty.

  “Your mother’s going to hate me. I’m no good with the vacuum,” she spoke, touching his lips with a finger.

  “And she does love the color pink.”

  “Stop it!”

  He’d just proposed. In the middle of the den of a house he had only spent a few days living in, in a state he had just moved to, to a girl he had met at the airport. It was crazy, one of those stories you read in magazines. A hurried proposal, a short-lived romance, and a messy divorce. But he didn’t feel that way about it. He felt invigorated. He felt alive. So much for choosing the single life! So much for focusing on his work, giving the project his full and undivided attention, and steering clear of potential heartache. She’d somehow got inside him. He felt more for her than he had ever felt for anyone. They shared an undeniable connection. She needed stability in her life and he could give her that. He could be the person to show her that life was full of ruts in the road, but the damaged tires made you stronger, you just had to put on a new tread and keep going. That’s what he’d done and he was hanging on despite himself. Maybe they needed each other.

  He smiled. She was singing in the bathroom. Tammy Wynette.

  The weather was terrible. The Panthers had lost three-zero and her dad was staying behind lecturing them, making them train for an hour before he let them leave the arena. They had been awful, Brad had got injured just before half time, they had lacked pace, and their mistakes in defense had given away the goals.

  Robyn was walking home and the wind was threatening a bad storm. It started to rain and she quickened her pace, breaking into a jog. She was wearing jeans, her Panthers shirt, and her mom’s bright yellow rain coat. It started to stick to her as she sweated and it rained. She was concentrating so much on getting out of the weather, she didn’t see, hear, or feel anything before it was happening.

  Suddenly everything went dark, someone grabbed her. Her head was covered, she couldn’t see and she couldn’t breathe. Hands were pulling at her, dragging her off the roadside. She screamed, but the wind was too loud, the rain too heavy. His gloved fingers dug into her arms as he wrenched her out of sight. She gasped for air, she couldn’t see, the Panthers had lost, and she was going to die.

  Robyn bolted upright in bed, her breathing rapid, sweat forming on her brow. It was the dream again. She hadn’t had the dream since she had arrived back in Portage, but here it was, same as always. She usually could never get through a week without having the nightmare. It never changed; it was just a re-run of events leading up to what happened that night.

  She looked at her watch. It was almost 3:00 a.m. The wind blew a gale outside and the rain battered the windows. She was never going to get back to sleep.

  She got out of bed, went to the door, and opened it. Just across the landing was Cole’s bedroom. He was probably asleep. Her head ached. She had drank too much at Taboo—everyone had. She only hoped they recovered before the game that evening. They had to win, or at least draw. She couldn’t have the humiliation of defeat on her hands.

  She crept across the landing and knocked on the door. She didn’t wait for a reply but opened it. Cole raised his head from the pillow and looked over at her, his eyes half open.

  “Are you awake?” Robyn asked, self-consciously pulling her t-shirt down over her thighs.

  “I am now. You okay?” Cole asked, propping himself up, straightening the covers, and flicking on the lamp.

  “Look, being as how we’re engaged and everything—or did I imagine that? Because I can tell I drank a lot tonight and I’m not so good at recalling everything perfectly when I’ve had a few drinks—but if I’m right and we are engaged, can I sleep with you? And even if we’re not engaged, could I still sleep with you? You know, have a pillow or two, share the duvet,” Robyn said, her cheeks flushing as she spoke.

  “You don’t like the wind? I would have thought you would love the Michigan elements,” Cole remarked with a smile.

  “Not all of them,” Robyn admitted.

  “Come here,” Cole said, opening up the covers for her.

  “You do have some sort of clothing on under there, don’t you?”

  The thought of lying next to him naked gave her a dual emotion. One half of her felt a jolt of excitement and the other half was stricken with fear, like a nervous virgin in a room full of dildos.

  “No. Generally don’t sleep in my clothes.”

  “Oh,” Robyn said, pausing by the bed and wondering what to do.

  “Relax, Calvin Klein’s covering me up, get in,” Cole urged her.

  Robyn got into the bed and he put his arms around her, pulling her into him.

  “Listen, about this getting married stuff,” Robyn said, turning over and facing him.

  “Yes?”

  “Can we keep it to ourselves for a while?”

  “Sure,” Cole agreed.

  “I’m not having second thoughts, but in the morning that might be different. You know after about three pints of water and some Advil. It’s just my dad hasn’t had his bypass yet and…” Robyn started.

  “You think the news might make him have another coronary,” Cole said with a smile.

  “I don’t know, maybe, I mean, it’s almost making me have one,” Robyn admitted.

  “I’m not perfect, Robyn,” Cole whispered, looking at her.

  “You’re not?”

  “No. But I think we might be pretty perfect for each other,” he said, linking his hand with hers.

  “I’m really not very good with the vacuum, is it going to be a deal breaker with your mom?”

  “How about I do the vacuuming and you fix Leonora.”

  “And you’ll cook, right? And fold sheets.”

  “Right, that’s it. I’m turning off the light.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The doorbell rang.

  Robyn opened her eyes and closed her mouth. For a second she couldn’t remember where she was, and then she felt Cole’s arm around her and suddenly memories of the previous night came flooding back, along with a banging headache.

  “Cole, there’s someone at the door. What time is it?” Robyn asked, nudging him awake.

  He opened his eyes and looked at his watch.

  “It’s not even nine,” he replied with a groan.

  The doorbell rang again.

  “It might be important. Go and see who it is,” Robyn urged, tugging at his arm.

  “Man, if I’m vacuuming in this relationship, can’t you be the one who opens the door when people call too early?” Cole asked, reluctantly getting up and throwing a t-shirt over his head.

  “Is this our first row?” Robyn asked innocently.

  He hurried down the stairs as the doorbell rang again, this time incessantly. He opened the door.

  “Hey Sarah. Robyn, Sarah’s here!” Cole called up the stairs.

  She couldn’t hear what Sarah was saying to him, but it sounded probing. Poor Cole, having to endure a hundred questions from her inquisitive friend who could very easily have got a job with the FBI. She grabbed the closest thing and made her way down the stairs.

  “…it just made sense,” Robyn heard Cole say.

  “What made sense?” Robyn asked as she entered the kitchen, wrapping Cole’s robe around her.

  “Cole was just telling me about you moving in here.”

  “Oh yeah, old news,” Robyn replied stiffly.

  “Oh Robyn, I am so sorry about everything I said about Jason. Mickey told me about last night, said he
turned up at the go-kart center,” Sarah said, tears pricking her eyes.

  “Yeah,” Robyn answered.

  “Are you okay? I mean, Mickey said he basically attacked you, insisted he speak with you,” Sarah carried on.

  “I’m okay,” Robyn replied, knowing she didn’t sound very convincing.

  “I’m going to call Grant; I’m going to tell him what I think of him. He should have told you he was back, he should have told us he was coming back,” Sarah exclaimed.

  “No. Don’t do that. I’ll be seeing Grant later at the arena. I don’t want anyone to do anything on my behalf. I can deal with it,” Robyn insisted.

  “Can you?”

  “Yes.”

  “It might be worth speaking to the cops. I mean, it is harassment,” Cole told her.

  “Haven’t you made coffee yet?” Robyn asked, tightening the robe around her.

  “Shall I remind you where the vacuum lives?” he retorted.

  “God, you two sound like a couple,” Sarah remarked, looking at Robyn with wide eyes.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, we’ve…” Robyn began.

  “Only known each other four days,” Cole added.

  “Do you want to listen to the fridge? If I open the door, it’ll say something really cool,” Robyn said, heading for the door.

  “Robyn, you should have called the police. He can’t be hassling you like that,” Sarah said.

  “I don’t want the police, I just want to—I don’t know—make a fresh start, move on,” Robyn said, looking up at Cole.

  “And you can do that now?”

  “I don’t know, I hope so. We’ll have to see, won’t we,” Robyn answered.

  She wasn’t sure of anything. She only had to hear his name and bile rose in her throat. She didn’t know whether she could move on yet, especially now that he was back in town. But what else could she do? She was so tired of being a victim.

  “I’ll look after her,” Cole stated, looking at Sarah.