Scott set the file down on the bed. “I see you need more convincing.” He crawled up toward the head board against which I was leaning, sat, and pulled me onto his lap.
“Name your pleasure.” He breathed in my ear and kissed my neck.
I sighed. “Scott, this is selfish on my part. I’m not giving up on him just so you can…pleasure me all night.”
“Please.” A kiss to my shoulder. “Please, pretty please.” He lifted my arm and kissed the sensitive flesh inside my bicep. Lower still to the crook of my arm. Another kiss. “I can’t stand to think of something bad happening to you. It kills me.” A kiss inside my wrist and my palm. Each fingertip he punctuated with a kiss and a word. “I do love you, Abigail.”
That did it. “Okay.”
****
Saturday morning dawned crisp and sunny, a perfect day to trounce through pumpkin patches and paint gourds. Lola, Scott and I, along with two other chaperons, rode on a school bus with the elementary kids while Mr. Harvey and Paula, and another volunteer rode in the other bus with the older kids. It was a big group, the largest turnout we’d had since the fire. I think it was because funds had been cut at the school, so there hadn’t been any fieldtrips. The kids and their families knew this might be it for the year.
How sad.
I sat in the back of the bus thinking about Angel. I had kept my word since the Thursday night deal. But it pained me to do so. Had I caved because Scott had said the magic L word? Was that how much my integrity was worth, a declaration of love? How pathetic was I?
Creating dust clouds along a dirt road, the buses turned single file onto an open steel gate, tires rumbling over metal grates. After exiting the buses we met Henry and Lisa Fowler, owners of the pumpkin farm. They led us on a tour of the farm including a barn and a silo. In the field was a maize maze. It was the coolest thing.
The Fowlers organized the day very well. Mr. Harvey had told me they supplemented their farming income by hosting school and church groups. Apparently, a farmer could make more by plowing trails in his corn than by harvesting it and selling it at the grocery store.
Amazing.
Long tables stood in the yard with paint and brushes to decorate gourds. While one group decorated the gourds, another group went on the hay ride and yet another went through the maze. I was just settling onto the trailer among the hay for my ride when Yo-Yo did his head motion thing to me which meant ‘Come here. I want to talk to you, but I’m too cool to call your name.’ When I hopped off to approach him, he disappeared behind a pick-up truck.
I stepped around the bumper and found him waiting for me.
“Hey.” His eyes shifted, his hands fidgeted.
“Hey. What’s up?” Because I knew it was something. I had never seen Yo-Yo so nervous.
“Your boyfriend, Mr. Mac.”
“Yeah?”
“You like him?”
“I love him.”
Yo-Yo shook his head in sorrow. “Miss Abigail, he’s playing you. Big time.”
My heart stopped. What? “What are you talking about, Yo-Yo?”
“Mr. Mac is a cop. He’s Eli.”
I shook my head—not really in denial, but in shock. How could they know? “How do you know that?”
“Angel figured it out. He drew Eli one time in his notebook, and yesterday he erased the hair, and there was Mr. Mac. We think he’s jes’ getting close to you to spy on us, trying to get us in trouble. But, he’s bad news, Miss Abigail. He’s using you.”
“Yo-Yo, you are so sweet to tell me this. I’ll talk to him.”
“Oh, you don’t need to do that. Angel, Julio, and Rodney are going to take care of it.” Yo-Yo nodded earnestly at me.
“What do you mean ‘take care of it’?” I tried to keep the panic out of my voice. “Yo-Yo, tell me what they’re going to do?”
“They’re going to get them a filch, and make him sorry he ever got near you.”
“Yo-Yo, they can’t. He’s not a filch. He’s a good guy. I knew about Eli. He’s here for me. Only me.” I grabbed Yo-Yo’s shoulders and shook them. “You tell me right now what they’re doing.”
“They got him in the barn. They sent Dee-Ann to tell him you needed him. Angel’s sliding silver. I don’t think he’s gonna use it though, just in case the cop is packin’. For protection.”
I didn’t understand a lot of the lingo, but I did know sliding silver meant Angel had a gun. Angel had a gun. Oh, Lord, don’t let me be too late.
I took off running for the barn.
Chapter Seventeen
Scott
I never saw it coming.
Some little kid had told me Abigail was in the barn and needed help, so I went. I never suspected that it was an ambush.
When I walked in, I looked at the shadowed interior stacked here and there with bales of hay.
“Abigail?”
Whack.
The back of my head exploded in pain. The force of whatever it was that had hit me propelled me forward, face down onto the floor. I tried to turn over to defend myself, but I wasn’t quick enough. Weight pressed on me, hands grabbed my head and beat it against the concrete floor. At the same time, someone kicked me repeatedly in the ribs. I snaked my arm out, grabbed the foot, and tripped the guy. I bucked whoever was on top of me, but he was too heavy.
“Stop that. You stop that, and get off him right now.” Abigail snarled.
All movement ceased. The weight disappeared.
I tried to breathe but was finding it difficult. With one hand, I pushed myself over but almost passed out from the pain it caused in my chest.
“What do you mean ganging up on somebody? Mr. Mac is my guest and my boyfriend.”
I opened my eyes focusing on Abigail who stood wagging her finger in the faces of three teenage boys towering over her.
“Miss Abigail, he’s a liar, and he’s a cop.”
“You don’t beat up a cop. You don’t beat up anybody. Geez, I thought you guys were smarter than that.”
“I thought you was smarter than letting some guy hook up with you just so he could get to us.”
“You don’t use violence to solve your problems. When are you going to realize that?”
“We don’t want no narcs around here.”
“Well, too bad,” Abigial snapped. “Because if you’d keep your snotty noses clean and start using your brains for something else other than getting into trouble, you wouldn’t have to worry about narcs.”
One of them mumbled something.
“What was that?”
Silence.
Abigail held out her hand. “Give me the gun.”
A gun! I tried to sit up, but moaned instead. Abigail glanced back at me. “Just lie still, honey,” she cooed at me. She turned back to the boys, all three of them at least a foot taller than she was. She glared at them until their gazes dropped to the floor. If I could have moved, I would have kissed her.
“Give me the gun now.” she spat.
Angel sighed, reached behind him, pulled the gun from his waistband and handed it to her. I must have sucked in a breath too quickly because I began coughing.
“Any more weapons?”
No sound or movement.
“In my hand right now, gentlemen,” she commanded.
The other two placed objects in her hand, but from where I was lying I couldn’t tell what they were.
“Now you get over there, apologize and help him.”
They stood there staring at the ground.
“Move it.”
And they did. Coming over and issuing apologies, Angel and another kid I didn’t know picked me up by my arms and set me on my feet. I swayed a bit, and Angel wrapped his arm around me for support.
“See what you did? Shame on you.”
Angel spoke in a low tone in my ear. “You pull any shit with Miss Abigail, we gonna finish what we started, and next time she may not be around to save your cop ass. That’s all I got to say.” He squeezed around my rib cage to e
mphasize his point.
I would have laughed if it hadn’t hurt so bad.
****
The next morning, I opened bleary eyes to find Abigail sitting in the rocking chair next to the bed and sniffling in a tissue. After a visit to the emergency room, we’d gotten back to her apartment about four o’clock in the morning. She’d settled me in the bed and had gone back out to fill my prescriptions at an all-night pharmacy over my protests. I’d fallen asleep before she had gotten back.
“What’s wrong?” I rasped.
“Nothing. I’m sorry. I can’t quit crying.”
I raised my hand to her. “Come here.”
“No. I’m afraid I’ll jar you or the bed.”
Though I didn’t have any broken bones, I did have some bruised ribs, and my face was all banged up. There was also a goose egg on the back of my head.
“Please. Pretty please?” I crooked my fingers back and forth toward me. Come here.
She laughed as she wiped her eyes but came over and sat on the edge of the bed.
“I love you, Abigail. I’ve never seen anyone so brave. How you handled those boys…I have to tell you, honey, you amaze me.”
More tears.
“Are you like that with them all the time?”
“When I need to be. They were messing with my man.”
I shook my head at the wonder of her. My head protested the motion. I closed my eyes against the pain. She wiped the side of my face.
“How about a pill?”
What she said registered through the throbbing in my head. “I’m your man?”
“You most definitely are.”
“Because you love me?”
“Yes. I do. I love you. I’ve loved you since you pulled me in that closet at the gang’s house.”
“That was Eli.”
“That was Scott posing as Eli.”
“I don’t think I need to worry about you anymore. You know how to handle those kids.”
“I took some pointers from Paula.”
“And if somebody messes with you, I believe Angel and his homeys will take care of them.”
“Isn’t it wonderful? Angel and Julio are rivals, from difference races, maybe even different gangs, and they united to beat you up.”
“Because of you. Because they think so much of you.”
As the boys had helped me toward the door of the barn, Abigail had threatened them against breathing a word of what had happened. She went on ahead of us to ask the Fowlers to bring their truck around to the back side of the barn so none of the other kids could see my condition. With serious, almost sad eyes, Mr. Harvey had arrived in the truck with Mr. Fowler. Abigail explained what had happened and asked that the police not get involved. In spite of my weakened state, I protested. They had broken the law. They had attacked me. Of course, the police needed to be involved.
In response, Abigail pulled her cell phone from her purse, opened it, and aimed it at me, taking several pictures.
“I think,” she said as she took several shots, “this is enough evidence to have these young men do some community service at the museum. What do you think, Mr. Harvey?”
Mr. Harvey shook his head. “Abigail, I agree with Scott.”
Abigail gazed at the large man, blinked her eyes like I had seen her do before. “If we call the police, they’ll take them to the juvenile detention center, maybe even to prison. Their families don’t have enough money to bail them out. They’ll stay in there and rot. I happen to know the museum is strapped for volunteers. I think Minnie Winthrow would love to have some strong young men helping her clean out the exhibit rooms at the museum.” She turned her eyes to Angel. “If you don’t cooperate, Scott will fill out a warrant against you, and you’ll go to jail. Is that what you want?”
“No.”
“No, what?”
He sighed. “No Ma’am.”
“That’s right. You be as gentle as you can, and put Scott in the truck. Oh.” She reached into her purse again and pulled out the gun by the barrel with thumb and forefinger. “Mr. Harvey, keep this for me, will you? It’s my insurance policy that these young men will put in their twelve months in at the museum.”
“Twelve months!” Julio spit.
Abigail crossed the couple of feet and stood toe to toe to him. “You got something to say about it?”
“No. No, Ma’am.”
“Good.”
Mr. Fowler drove us to the hospital, and during those twelve hours she had convinced me to let the Abigail Benton juvenile rehabilitation system have first shot at knocking those boys into shape.
I squeezed her hand and pulled her closer to me on the bed. I loved her. How could I love her this much?
Tears welled up in her eyes again. One fell and trailed down her cheek.
“You are doing good here. You’re good for the center and those kids. I won’t ask you to give it up again.”
“Okay.”
“What would you think about me moving down here, seeing if I could get a transfer, and getting married?”
She shook her head.
My gut wrenched. How could I convince her? I didn’t want to let her go. I couldn’t.
“We should live in Stone Rand close to your family. I bet I could find some at-risk kids to whip into shape. I really like doing that. You think there are any programs like the community center up there?”
I sat up and put my arms around her and kissed her. Drawing back, I searched her face. “You mean it? You’ll marry me?”
She smiled prettily. “Yes, I mean it. Do you mean it?”
“Yesterday, I thought if I ever got up off that floor I wasn’t going to let you go.”
“How’s it feel to let somebody finish your race?”
“Babe, the way you were wiping the floors with those teenagers, you can finish my race anytime.”
Epilogue
In a completely unexpected turn of events, Abigail insisted I go ask her dad for her hand in marriage. Her hand in marriage. I couldn’t believe it. This woman who had stared down gang members and had balked at any little gesture of mine to protect her had now decided to be Victorian? I didn’t get it.
When we’d arrived at her parents’ house, we’d sat in the parlor to get acquainted. Larry Benton had studied me like I was a bull on the auction block. I didn’t think I’d had made the cut. When Abigail’s mother had shown us to our separate bedrooms, Abigail had protested.
“Mom, you’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Humor us, dear. Your father declared in no uncertain terms that there would be no shacking up under his roof.”
“Yeah. How terrible to think someone might actually have sex here,” she grumbled.
The older woman swatted her daughter on the butt. “I raised you better than that.”
I excused myself from this exchange between mother and daughter by hanging back in the hallway. They went into what was obviously Abigail’s room, talking in low tones, and Stella came back into the hall and shut the door behind her. She led me to the guest bedroom at the end of the hall.
“Here’s your bedroom, Scott.” The older woman stood aside and motioned for me to enter. I did so, noting the antique furnishings. “Do you need anything else?”
“No Ma’am.”
“We’ll see you downstairs, then.” She smiled at me and closed the door leaving me alone.
I paced the floor in the guest bedroom trying to screw up my courage to go downstairs. A soft knock sounded on the door, and I turned to see Abigail slip inside. She grinned at me as she sprinted across the room and grabbed me around the waist. She lifted her head and kissed me on the lips.
“I love you. You know that, right?”
“Yes.”
“This is just a formality. I’m still going to marry you whether they agree or not.”
I sighed. If it was just a formality, then what were we doing here? “You shouldn’t be in here. Your dad is just looking for an excuse to castrate me. I know it.”
&nbs
p; “Appearances matter to my parents. That’s why the separate bedrooms. For appearances. They like you though. I can tell.” Her hands moved down to my butt and squeezed. She pressed her body into mine and gyrated her hips. “I can come in here tonight after everybody settles down.”
I snorted. I had sat down on the bed when I first came in here. The springs had to be a hundred years old and in dire need of some WD 40. Any action on that bed would alert the whole neighborhood.
“You should stay in your own room. I wouldn’t want to insult your dad by hooking up with his daughter under his own roof. At least, not until after I’ve married her.”
She patted me and drew away, but took my hand in hers. “Well, come on then. Let’s go do it.”
By it she meant asking their permission for me to marry her. As she led me downstairs, my chest tightened. Whew. I was glad I only had to do this once in my life.
We found them on the back porch. Stella was pouring tea in two glasses as we joined them. Larry stood next to the rail, his face unreadable. Without a word, Stella handed us the tea and invited us to sit down. When I sat on the wicker loveseat, Abigail settled close to me and tucked her hand in mine. Her dad’s eyes narrowed. I moved away from her a couple of safe inches, and she followed. When I glared at her, she glanced at her dad then back to me.
Do it.
That was her message.
I cleared my throat. “Mr. Benton—”
“Larry,” he barked.
“Larry….” I turned back to her in desperation. She squeezed my hand and nodded.
Yes, you can do it.
“Larry.” I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Abigail. “I love your daughter, and I’ve asked her to marry me.” She broke eye contact, and I followed her lead finally turning to Larry. “We’d like your blessing. Yours and Stella’s.”
The man’s eyes rounded. “You’d like…?”
“This seems so sudden. Didn’t you two just meet last month?” Stella’s hand fluttered at her throat.
“No, Mom. We’ve known each other since I started working at the center in Clavania. Scott was on a case there.”
“How dangerous is your work with the ATF?” Larry wanted to know.
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