by Laura Day
“She hit a wall,” Caroline said, and when Dr. Watson looked up, her gaze sharp and steely, Caroline forced herself to breathe. “She was thrown into a wall. Maybe kicked. I didn’t see what happened very clearly.”
“Ah,” Dr. Watson said. She rubbed at the bridge of her nose for a moment. “Same asshole who did that to your face?”
Caroline nodded. She couldn’t bring herself to say anything.
“Have you been to a doctor yet? Or the police?”
Her silence spoke for her.
“You’re not local, so I assume you’re running away from him? That’s good for you, but it doesn’t help the next girl he takes his temper out on.”
“It’s not like that,” Caroline said, hearing fire in her tone that she didn’t expect. “I wasn’t dating the bastard.”
“Then you have even less reason to avoid the cops,” the vet said, her gaze cruel and hard. “Running away sounds good on paper, but sooner or later, you’ll have to face what happened.”
“That’s not today.” Caroline bit back, just as hard.
For the first time since Caroline carried her dog into the office, the vet cracked a smile. “My name’s Emily,” she said. “It’s good to meet you. Caroline, I think Heather said?”
“Yes. Did I stumble onto the underground railroad for abused women or something?”
Emily smiled broader. “Something like that. Are you going back to him?”
“I wasn’t with him in the first place. And no. Absolutely not. Never.”
“I’ll take care of your dog. She needs X-rays. I think she might have broken a rib, which is bad enough, but we need to make sure she’s in good shape. Why don’t you go down the street; there’s a salon called Debbie’s, and if you ask for Debbie and tell her I sent you, she’ll help you get your face sorted so people stop staring.” That cruel gaze softened for just a moment. “I know that when I was in your shoes, that was the hardest thing for me to face. The idea that somehow, everyone knew I’d been weak.”
“I wasn’t weak,” Caroline said. “He was just stronger.”
“Then you’re already better off than I was. And I’m glad for it. Now get out of here and let me see what good old Gloria needs from me. Do you have a cellphone number?”
Turning it on was frightening; there was a toggle for the GPS in the settings, but did that really turn it off? She didn’t know. She was good with software and numbers, not hardware. But it was Gloria. “Yes. My phone is charging, but I’ll have it on me again in an hour or so. In the meantime, you do whatever you need to. She’s my girl.”
***
Debbie clucked over the mess of Caroline’s face and took her into one of the makeover chairs. She talked lightly about nothing in particular while she very gently applied makeup to Caroline’s cheek and jaw, so gently that it almost didn’t hurt at all.
After that, Caroline walked to a small coffee shop next door, ordered a mocha—a rare exception to her rule that coffee was amazing on its own without being polluted by milk and sugar—and remembered what Mason had said about never going code white again. Every time the door opened, she jumped. A car in the street backfired, and she almost hit the ceiling. Her hands shook gently as she wrapped them around the cup.
She went back to the diner after that, hoping her phone would be charged enough to take with her. Heather passed it off with a smile, and Caroline went back to her motel room.
When she turned on the phone, she saw a dozen missed calls and texts from Jack. She listened to them, heard his voice get increasingly concerned as he asked where she was and begged her to check in and let him know she was okay.
It was the last text that confused her the most. Sent just over an hour ago, it read Just get in touch asap. We’re worried, Caro.
We? Who was the we? Jack and his wife? Her other co-workers? That still would have been just “I”. Who could he possibly have been talking to?
There was only one answer. Mason. Her heart clenched with hope that he wasn’t a dirtbag, that he was actually still trying to protect her. But letting that hope expand would be a mistake. It was too easy to excuse him, to say that he’d done what he’d done to try and get her out of Declan’s sight. After all, not even Declan had been convinced by Mason’s act. And there had been the address.
But he was dangerous. He had brought this into her life, and no matter how good he made her feel, she needed to be smart. For herself, and for Gloria. She couldn’t risk either one of them. Not again. And if she needed a reminder of why, the throb in her cheek would work very well.
Still, she dialed. Jack picked up his phone halfway through the first ring.
“Caroline? Is that you?”
“Hi, Jack,” she said. “Is he there with you right now?”
There was a long pause, and then he said, more quietly, “No. No, I’m alone in the office. Where are you?”
“I left town. I drove for a couple of hours, and I meant to keep going, but there’s something wrong with Gloria. So I’m stopping here a bit, I think. I’ll be back eventually, but—if you’ve talked to him, you have an idea of what happened, I imagine?”
“Yeah. Caro, you should come back. We can protect you.”
She felt her stomach clench and her hands start to shake. “I—Jack, I can’t. Not yet.”
“Tell me where you are. I’ll come get you.”
“No!” She took a deep breath, then another one, and forced herself to settle down. “I can’t go back there, Jack. I’m not… I don’t want to walk back into my house right now. I have to figure out how to handle this.”
“You don’t have to figure it out alone.”
“I kind of do. He came after me; he hurt Gloria. I need to be able to keep myself safe, Jack, because no one can protect me forever.”
There was another long pause, and then she heard him sigh. “Okay. But check in, okay? Every other day, at least.”
“I will,” she said. “I promise. And you can call in the cavalry if you haven’t heard from me in 48 hours.”
“Be careful,” he said, and the line disconnected.
She felt just a little bit safer.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Mason watched as Jack hung up the phone. “Well? Where is she?”
He shook his head. “She wouldn’t tell me. But if she drove a couple of hours, assuming the main roads, and somewhere there’s a good vet… hold on.”
Jack turned to his computer, and Mason fought not to wrench the keyboard away from him and demand answers as Jack tapped away.
A few minutes later, he turned the screen and pointed. “My money’s on Belleview. It’s a mountain town, couple of hours from here, and it has a proper town center, which a lot of those little towns down south don’t. North isn’t an option,” Mason started to speak but Jack cut him off. “She’d be in Canada, and she doesn’t have a current passport. East and West—there’s no convenient way to get there. Blue highways would be a pipe dream.” He stared at Mason. "She went south. Try Belleview. And if you could, try and keep her from killing me for telling you. That would be awesome.”
Mason nodded, already standing. “I’ll do what I can.” He was still for a moment, thinking. “Can I borrow your car?”
“Why?”
“I don’t have a spare helmet with me, and honestly, all she’d have to do is refuse to keep it on, and we’d be stuck. If I can talk her into a car, I hit the childlocks, and we'll head north.”
“Yeah. Yeah, all right.” Jack dug the keys out of his pocket and passed them over. “Take care of her, okay?”
“I hear she and I have a date with you and your wife,” Mason said as he stood. “I’ll make sure it’s kept.”
Jack hadn’t managed a response before Mason was out the door.
***
After she talked to Jack, Caroline laid down for a bit to try and rest but couldn’t get her eyes to stay shut. Every time she did, she saw Declan’s hand flying at her face again, or felt his arms circling her, holding her down. Wi
thout Gloria’s comforting bulk to soothe her, it was hard to feel safe.
When she was finally drifting off, her phone buzzed on the pillow next to her. She picked it up quickly, hoping for good news. “Hello?”
“Ms. Lewis?” The voice was unfamiliar, but cultured, and female. It was the only reason she managed to choke out a response.
“Yes?”
“This is Dr. Watson. The vet?”
Caroline sat up in bed and forced herself awake. “Yes. How’s Gloria?”
“Better than I’d hoped, but not as good as I could wish. She’s badly bruised, and she has a cracked rib, but no internal bleeding. Still, there’s some generalized swelling, and she still seems fairly… shaky, for lack of a really better word. I’d like to keep her here to watch her if that’s all right.”
She chewed on her lip, not sure what to say or what the right thing to do would be. She should keep on the move, most likely. Drive further south or change direction and head west into New York. Get on a train, maybe. One of those trips where you crossed the entire country, following the historic routes that the settlers had used through the country. Clean out all of her bank accounts, and start over in Portland or somewhere. Somewhere thugs didn’t come into your house and hurt your dog and wreck the best thing that had happened in your entire life.
Let that bastard take away her entire life, and by doing so, making sure that she got to keep living.
“If it’s about the money,” Dr. Watson said, carefully and quietly, misinterpreting her silence, “Or about someone telling you not to use your credit cards—which is a good suggestion, if you’re trying to stay under the radar—then this is all off the books, and on me. I just want to make sure Gloria is okay, and see you safely on your way to wherever you go next. Home, or somewhere else.”
“I don’t know if I can go home,” Caroline said. “I don’t know if it’s safe. For either one of us.”
There was another long pause from the vet. “I don’t know, either. I won’t make a promise that I can’t personally keep. But I strongly believe that your chances go up tremendously if you go to the ER. Get that cheek seen to. The ER here… I’ve had to bring people there before. They aren’t going to shame you, or ask what you did to provoke him. I can call ahead, find out who’s on call, and tell you who to ask for. I’m happy to do that for you, if it will help. I’ll go with you, if you want. If you need someone with you.”
“I wasn’t raped,” Caroline said, shocked at the tone of her voice.
“Okay,” the vet said. “But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be safe from the fucker.”
“I’ll think about it,” she said. “Take care of Gloria. Okay?”
This time, the woman read her mind perfectly. “She needs you, Caroline. She needs you as much as you need her.”
She wiped away a tear and forced strength back into her voice. “She needs to be safe. She’s a good dog. She loves kids. Thank you.”
The vet started to protest but Caroline ended the call with a sharp press of her finger. It rang again, almost immediately, and she turned the phone off. She thought about flinging it across the room, but as satisfying as it would be to hear it smash, she didn’t think she’d feel any better afterwards. And she wouldn’t have a phone.
The rage enveloping her was so intense that she didn’t think when someone knocked on the door. She stomped to it, flung it open, and snarled “What?” at the unlucky ass that’d interrupted the hardest thing she’d ever had to do.
So she was completely unprepared for Mason as he pushed his way inside, shutting the door firmly behind him.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
She was too shocked to scream, but only for a second. She drew in a deep breath as she scrambled to pick up the rickety chair pushed under the moisture-stained desk in the corner of the seedy room, but before she could hit him or scream at him, she saw him press himself back against the door, his hands up in surrender. That made her pause. Declan had come at her, full-bore, and threatened her from the second that he was within range. Mason was saying something, words that she hadn’t entirely heard until she forced a few more deep breaths into and out of her lungs.
“I'm so sorry,” he was saying, “I’m so incredibly sorry that he hurt you. Jesus, baby, your face, are you okay?”
“Do not call me baby,” she growled. The chair was up over her head somehow, but his eyes were locked on hers. “I’m not your baby. I never was.”
“Okay,” Mason said. “I’m sorry, Caroline. I’m sorry I got you caught up in this. I swear to you, I never once thought that there was anything more going on than someone skimming from the garage. I’m going to deal with Declan, I swear it, but first, I have to know that you’re safe.” He reached out and touched her bruised cheek, and she flinched away from the pain of it, both physical and emotional. “God, your face. Did he break anything?”
The chair was heavy, anyway, and even if she broke it over his ugly, stubborn head, it probably wouldn’t do anything. She let it fall to the ground, and let herself follow. He went with her, though he was smart enough not to touch her. Not yet, anyway.
“He broke Gloria,” she said, and watched Mason’s face crumple. He deserved to hurt, but it felt like bad karma to lie about this. “She’s at the vet’s now. They think she’ll be okay, but…” She shuddered. “Why are you here? Are you just trying to drag me back to him?”
“No,” Mason said. “I’m here to keep you safe.”
“I’m safe,” she said. “I have a plan.”
“What are you going to do?”
“It wouldn’t be much of a plan if I told the person most likely to tell the guy who's about to come after me.”
Mason stared at her for a moment. “I told you that I was trying to fake him out. I told you to come to me. I gave you the damn address!”
“Oh, is that what you did? Because all I noticed was you being all buddy-buddy with the guy who assaulted me.”
She wasn’t sure exactly where all this rage was coming from. Some of it was about being assaulted in her own home, and some was about giving up her very best friend, and some was about the fact that he hadn’t punched the crap out of that jerk when he had the chance. Some of it was that he was even here. And why was he here?
“How did you even find me?”
The answer came all at once, and this time she did reach out and slug him on the arm, and he rocked a little bit, though she thought he might have moved on purpose, just to make her feel better.
“Jack ratted me out, didn’t he? That dirtbag.”
“That dirtbag is looking out for you, Caro. I don’t think Declan is going to come for you, but if he does, it’ll be without mercy, and I can’t handle that. I can’t take him down while I’m worried about what’s going to happen to you. You need to come back with me.”
“What? No! I’m not going back.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “You think you can stop me taking you back?”
“Since I imagine that you’ve got your motorcycle with you, yeah, I think I can.”
“Jack loaned me his car.”
Well, that put a different spin on her getaway plans, didn’t it? “That son of a bitch.”
“Caro, come on. Be reasonable.”
“No,” she said. “No, definitely not. I’ve been reasonable all my life. I just reasonably gave away my dog because it’s safer for her than to bring her with me, wherever I end up. I dated reasonable men, got a reasonable job, acted reasonably all the damn time, and look where I am now,”
“Where are you?” He reached out and touched her hand, his fingers tracing a pattern over her skin that he wasn’t supposed to know, some sort of mystical key that made her trust him, that told her he was safe, that unlocked her heart.
“I’m in a skeezy motel room with a guy I’m falling for, who is the worst thing who ever happened to me, and all I can think about doing is fucking kissing you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
They fell together, fast and hard, kn
eeling on the floor. His hands cupped her head, forcefully bringing her to the angle he wanted, and her mouth was already open for him when his tongue sought permission to enter her. His hands traced over her breasts, lifting them, then sliding down to her waist and pulling her into his lap. “Just kissing me?”
She reached between their bodies and traced her hand over the outline of his cock in his jeans. “No. I kind of hate myself for it, but no. There’s so much more than I want from you.”