by Lucy Lambert
“The suit will live,” I said. After my road trip, I didn’t really care about whether my suit stayed tidy. “Besides, I like holding it for you. Now, I thought you wanted me to tell you what happened.”
“Fine,” she said.
“I did a lot of soul searching. A lot of thinking. About me, about you. About us,” I said. I glanced down at the cracks in the sidewalk without seeing them. “I couldn’t run anymore. It was time for me to face myself, if that makes sense. And I couldn’t leave you with the sheriff.”
Ellie broke in, “as far as you knew, he let me go days ago.”
“Yeah, I’m getting to that part,” I said. I went quiet for a second, gathering my thoughts. “I went back to New York. I stored the bike, got a haircut, got my clothes, and went back to that life.”
“Just like that? The news says the FBI doesn’t know what to do with you.”
I smiled.
“There’s not much they can do. They’re annoyed, yeah. But they can’t exactly charge me with kidnapping myself. Plus the press is in love with me. They don’t want to be on the wrong side of the news. Also, I have an army of lawyers that even the Man doesn’t want to deal with.”
“The press is going to have to wait their turn…” Ellie mumbled.
“Hmm?” I said, pretending I didn’t understand.
“Nothing. Continue. You got back to New York.”
“I had to sort through a lot, but you were always on my mind. As soon as I could, I called Brutus…”
“I didn’t even know he had a phone!” Ellie said.
“He does, and I got the number. He told me that the sheriff locked you up and you hadn’t been seen since. Except by Bobby. Apparently he’s been gloating about having you cooped up in there. That you beg him to let you out every day.”
Ellie’s eyes flashed with sudden anger. “Not quite. I haven’t seen him yet today, I wonder if he knows that you come back with the cavalry. I wonder what he might do?”
“I figured,” I said, “You’re not exactly the begging type. And don’t worry about Bobby.”
I wondered at where Bobby and his buddies might be, too. I knew I couldn’t cow him with a piece of paper like with his father, but I chose not to think about that or him at that moment.
“Oh? So what type am I, then?”
I looked at her and smiled again. She smiled back at me. It was a smile that could stop or start your heart, depending on the situation. My whole body thrilled with it.
“My type, obviously,” I said.
“Cute,” she said, “So you shirked all your other responsibilities to come rescue me?”
“Something like that. I could have come without the press on my tail, but they’ll be a big help putting pressure on Robert. They’ll keep him honest. Hey… Stop.”
We stopped at an intersection. The wind rustled around us. I faced her and she faced me.
“What is it?” she asked, looking up into his face.
“I’ve been waiting to do this again,” I said.
“What?” she asked, even though I knew she knew.
I let the strap slip from my shoulder and let the bag fall to the ground. I circled her waist with my hands and pulled her body against mine.
She put her hands on his chest.
I kissed her. Kissed her so that my toes curled up against the soles of my shoes. I’d forgotten the heat of her mouth, the insistence of her lips. First she went rigid against me, then relaxed as though melting in my hands.
When we pulled away she wiped at her cheeks with the heels of her palms. I was concerned.
“Are you okay?” Did I hold her too hard? I wanted her so badly that it made me almost lose control. Maybe I had, for just a moment.
“Yeah, it’s just… I thought I wasn’t ever going to see you again. I saw you on the TV and thought that would be it. That you probably wanted to forget about me and get on with your life. And now you’re here. And I know this isn’t a dream because my back still hurts from sleeping on that stupid cot in that stupid cell.”
I took her face in my hands and ran my thumbs gently over her cheeks, collecting any residual wetness.
“I guess I wasn’t conveying the point of my story very well,” I said.
Her eyes kept searching mine, flicking from one to the other. “What point?”
“You’re the reason I stopped running, Ellie. You. I think maybe it was you I was searching for after I left. Something, someone, that I half-remembered at the back of my mind. Sometimes I stop and wonder about meeting you that day outside the laundromat. If you hadn't been there, I would have just passed on through to the next town. I’d still be out there searching. Looking for the right person in all the wrong places.”
“Stop! You’re making it worse!” she said, wiping at her cheeks again. Except this time she smiled. Smiled so hard I could see the muscles in her cheeks tremble with the effort.
Those lips relaxed readily enough when I kissed them again, once more eager for the taste of her.
I picked up her bag again and we got to her house. I couldn’t help taking a quick look around while we went inside, checking for the sheriff’s Crown Vic cruiser or Bobby’s Trans Am.
I forgot about all that when we got inside, though.
Chapter 26
ELLIE
“Bed! I missed you so much!” I exclaimed, after shouldering the door to my bedroom open.
I flopped down on the mattress. The springs clamored beneath me, jouncing me about for a moment.
I grabbed a pillow and hugged it to my chest. It smelled of my shampoo, light and flowery.
I think that feeling of relief was rivaled only by seeing Dash walk into the cell block.
“Glad you two can get reacquainted,” Dash said.
I rolled onto my back, pillow still clutched in my arms. The lights were out and the curtains were drawn. Dash was a tall, broad shadow leaning against the door frame
“Yeah, I was so worried about my bed,” I said, laughing.
Dash started forward. He moved into the light. “We should get reacquainted, too.”
My whole body went hot and trembly at the thought. I rolled off the bed and he took me in his arms again.
We kissed. I grabbed his open jacket and started pushing it back off his shoulders.
Then I remembered being in a dusty holding cell for more than a week. A dusty holding cell that smelled of mothballs, cheap air freshener, and whatever food they brought me.
I thought I probably smelled quite similar by now.
“Not here,” I breathed.
“Where?” Dash asked, his voice insistent.
We went to the bathroom, where my shower waited. It was an old, claw-footed bathtub with a wraparound curtain. But the water was warm and the pressure was good.
We stripped each other, my cheap shirt falling in the same tangled pile as his custom fitted one.
I leaned over the tub, putting one hand on the cool porcelain lip, and started the shower. Dash put his hand on the small of my back and traced the curve of my spine.
I broke out in goosebumps everywhere. “How dare you!” I said, grinning back at him.
“Easily and with great pleasure, that’s how,” he answered.
He grabbed my wrist and pulled me away from the tub. Our bare bodies pressed together. He was warm and solid against me. We both trembled with shared need and excitement.
I tested the water, adjusted the knobs, and we stepped in.
The water sluiced over us, and I leaned my head back so that it soaked my hair, which darkened from the wetness.
“I love when you do that,” Dash said. “You have such a long, sexy neck.”
“Oh? You mean this?” I said, doing it again.
His mouth found my throat while his hands found the rest of me.
I somehow managed to grab the bar of soap, but he took it away. He spun me so that my back pressed against him. Then he soaped me up.
I didn’t think washing could be so sensual, but i
t was. Every inch of me that he cleaned, he kissed.
And the way his fingers moved, sliding and gripping, when he lathered my hair left me covered in gooseflesh again.
Then we were both clean.
He picked me up so that I straddled his waist. We loved like that until we were both breathless.
Then we did it again. By the time we found our way back to my bedroom it was truly dark, inside and out.
I dressed while thinking of the sweet ache deep inside of me.
“I wished we’d done it in the shower sooner,” I said.
“I just wished for you again,” Dash said. He came up behind me and circled me with his arms. I leaned my head back against his shoulder. He was dressed again, too. He wore his shirt but not his jacket.
“You got your wish,” I said.
The drapes in my room fluttered a little, and I saw a scrap of dark, cloudless sky.
“I want to see the stars!” I said, remembering how much I missed them during my recent, involuntary stay in the drunk tank.
We went outside, to my backyard. There were the old plastic chairs on my patio, but we ignored them. Instead we went onto the grass and he held me against while we looked up.
It was a cooler night, but pressed against Dash I didn’t need a jacket. The coldness lent clarity to the air, and the stars were a multitude of sharp points of white light against the blackness.
“What now?” I said, after we stargazed for a while.
“Well…” Dash started, “we wait for Chase to give you the all-clear, then—“
“Yeah, what now?”
We both recognized that voice. My breath caught, and Dash’s arms stiffened around me before letting me go.
We both turned towards the source of the voice.
Bobby came in from the shadows of the backyard of the house behind mine, stepping on an old, untended flower bed as he did.
Something glinted in his hand. My heart picked up. Is that a knife?
“You shouldn’t be here, Bobby,” I said.
“Don’t call me ‘Bobby!’” He shouted.
Then he threw the shiny thing in his hand. I flinched.
It wasn’t a knife but a small glass flask. It shattered against the brickwork.
Will this ever end? I thought. But I knew that it couldn’t be so easy as Dash getting me out of that cell, his lawyer handing over paper.
Things didn’t work that way around here. Not with the likes of Robert and Bobby.
“Robert…” I started, holding up my hands. I didn’t know if he had anything else on him. Something more dangerous.
“Shut up!” Bobby said, pointing at me with his arm so stiff it trembled. Then he turned that finger on Dash. “And you! I’ll be damned for not recognizing you. Half a million dollar reward! Boy how I wish I’d seen you for the rich little snake slumming it like you were.”
He stepped closer. Into some of the light coming in off the street. His hair was in disarray, like he’d been running his hands through it nervously all day. He kept his eyes with and unblinking and they glistened.
Dash stepped between the two of us. “You need to get a grip. You want someone to blame? Find your father.”
“Funny,” Bobby said, grimacing. “He told me something like that about you. Now get out of the way so I can have what’s mine. Move before I make you move.”
Dash stood his ground.
“I’m not yours, Bobby. I never was,” I said.
“I’m so sick of this,” Bobby said.
Then he slugged Dash. Dash saw at the last second and jerked back from the blow. Bobby’s fist glanced off his chin.
Dash staggered a step back and regained his balance. Bobby lurched past him, both hands reaching for me.
I shrank away, shocked by the way his eyes shone with whatever temporary insanity came over him.
Dash grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him to the ground. Bobby hit the grass with a thud and a groan.
“Stay down!” Dash shouted. He stood over Bobby, both hands balled into fists.
Bobby rolled onto his back, pushing himself up by the elbows. He looked off into another dark yard.
“Get him!” Bobby shouted.
Of course, I thought, he never goes anywhere without his boys.
Dave and John rushed from the darkness.
“We have to go,” Dash said. He grabbed my hand and we ran.
I wished that I’d grabbed the keys to the Ranger while we ran past the old blue pickup. I wished Dash still had his bike.
“Get them!” Bobby shrieked again, his voice echoing down the silent street.
We kept running, and I glanced down a side street. Bobby’s Trans Am sat there. I didn’t think Bobby had the brain cells to lay a trap or be subtle, but he did, apparently.
Unless it was Robert telling him how to do it.
“Where?” I gasped. Despite the coolness of the evening, sweat stood out on my face and neck and stuck my shirt to my back. I breathed heavily as we ran.
“Just keep up with me,” Dash said.
After a few more minutes, I saw his plan. We made it to the bar, Dash wrenching the door open and then slamming it shut behind us.
The few patrons there, mostly old men, glanced back at us before returning to their cups. Brutus himself stood behind the bar proper, drawing a pint off the tap.
He finished, closing the tap and putting the glass down on the bar top.
“I thought I’d be seeing the two of you again,” he said. He looked us up and down. “You clean up nice,” he said to Dash.
“So I’ve been told,” Dash said. He went to the window and peered out, squinting against the brightness cast by the neon Bud Light sign.
I wasn’t sure, but I thought I could hear the roar of an engine approaching. I also couldn’t be sure, but I thought said engine belonged beneath the hood of Bobby’s Trans Am.
“More trouble?” Brutus asked. He seemed so calm, leaning against the bar like he did.
“Bobby’s gone crazy,” I said. “He’s after us.”
Brutus grunted. “Boy’s always been a few glasses short of a full cupboard. You two are welcome to hole-up here.”
“…Okay, we’ll see you there,” I heard Dash say.
I turned to him in time to see him lock a cell phone and slide it back into his pants pocket. I looked a question at him.
He glanced at the two of us. “Thanks for the offer, but we have to go. My chopper is waiting for us. Outside of town, in that lot for that old mill. It’s the closest they can get. Apparently there are already a number of news helicopters and whatnot taking up the airspace.”
I swallowed. “It would take us twenty minutes to run there from here… How many helicopters are out there?” The old mill sat on the opposite side of town.
Dash shrugged. “Quite a few, I imagine. Pleasant’s in the spotlight now. Because of me.”
An old guy at the bar piped up, “True. Been nothin’ on the news but shots of the town from in the sky and shots of you in New York and then shots of the sheriff makin’ a fool of hisself, stammering in front of the cameras. Don’t think he’s gettin’ re-elected.”
I kind of wanted Brutus to turn on the set so I could see Robert make a fool of himself. It warmed my heart to think about. But we didn’t have the time.
Dash turned to Brutus. “Can we borrow your truck? I promise I’m good for it if it gets scratched.” He smiled.
“Glad to see you can still joke at a time like this,” I said.
Brutus considered us both, crossing massive arms across a huge chest. “No.”
My heart skipped. It took a second to register. Part of me took it as given that Brutus would help.
“Oh?” Dash said, equally perplexed.
I heard another sound. A police siren. Dash and I shared a look and we both knew what happened.
Bobby called in the cavalry.
“Yeah, I’d much rather you take the bike,” Brutus said. He fished some keys out of a pocket on his vest
and tossed them to Dash, who snatched them from the air. Brutus nodded at the back door. “She’s parked out back.”
I looked back and forth between them, getting some sense of some sort of manly moment happening.
Then Bobby’s Trans Am pulled into the lot, the engine growling and the suspension squeaking as he eased it over the uneven curb.
“Can you guys save it for later?” I said. I jerked a thumb at the window when they looked at me. Then they looked out the window.
“Good luck,” Brutus said.
We headed for the exit.
“Hey,” the old guy who spoke before said. “Turn on the tube. I wanna see this.”
Dash put his shoulder to the door and we found ourselves in the back lot. There was a dumpster, a pile of wooden pallets, and under the single light back there a shiny old Harley.
“What did he mean?” I asked.
Dash pointed up at the sky, and I both saw and heard. The spotlights of news helicopters poked down from the sky, approaching us. Following the sheriff.
Dash went over to the bike. He put the key in and then started it. The bike growled to life and its singular headlight glared into the darkness.
I came close, then stopped. “No helmets?”
Dash shook his head. “No time. Come on.”
So I climbed on, mounting the saddle behind him. This time he didn’t need to tell me to put my feet on the pegs. The bike rumbled between my thighs like an anxious horse waiting to be let loose.
I held on tight.
Dash spun us around quickly and we peeled out of the lot just as Bobby slammed through the back door. I saw him turn around right away, going back to get his car.
We sped through town. The wind pulled at me like cold, sharp fingers. Yet I was still hot, somehow.
Then blinding light surrounded us.
I looked up. The helicopters had found us. Two of them. They both shone their spotlights down at us. Their rotors tore at the air and their engines screamed loud enough I could hear them over the bike.
They acted like beacons.
We sped past a side street and a moment later the sheriff’s Crown Vic skidded onto the road behind us, lights strobing. The night air was full of screaming sound and bright light.