Moving once again but not in the direction of the noise, he skimmed around it coming up behind whatever or whomever hid out there. Risking a peek around a tree, he spotted a bear munching on something on the ground. He smiled and slowly backed away. Some sixth sense warned him, and he glanced over his shoulder to see something dark coming fast toward his head, he shifted but not quickly enough. He took the blow to the shoulder on his injured side. Already frayed, his nerve endings kicked up into full throttle at the pain traveling from his shoulder all the way to his fingertips. He tightened the grip on his knife still managing to bring it up in a slicing arch. But his twisted body easily fell off balance. His attacker shoved him down, and the side of his head hit the ground—hard. The impact jarred his brain down into an abyss.
***
When the door closed behind Simon, Eboni got up and dropped the small bar across it locking herself inside. She went over to one of the shelves. She remembered seeing some candles and matches. Finding a short fat one, she struck a match to it then turned off the overhead fixture. The room beyond the small flame of light the candle provided became jet black. No illumination filtered in from the windows. Keeping the candle low, she walked over to one of the side windows and looked outside. The front of the cabin faced the water, but this side faced the woods where they’d come from.
She looked up at the sky. She’d never seen the stars like that back in LA. They did look like points of flicking lights. Going over to one of the chairs, she dragged it near the window so she could keep an eye out for Simon. Nothing seemed to move outside but then again, all she could see with the half-moon providing the only light were shadows of the trees.
Placing the candle on the floor, she sat back farther from the window to make sure she couldn’t readily be seen from outside. Movement in her peripheral vision caused her to shift forward in an attempt to pierce the veil of darkness. A giant lump moved between the trees. Suddenly, a bear lumbered out into the open and jogged past her window. She followed its movement until it ran out of sight. She hoped it kept going and wouldn’t hang around. She couldn’t tell a black bear from a brown in the dark or which one the more aggressive of the two. Bear was bear, and for all she knew, it could be a grizzly out there. Montana had them, that much she did know. She stood up not knowing what to do and not wanting Simon to walk back to the cabin only to run into the bear.
She went to look out the other windows but couldn’t see it. “Damn.” Going back over to the chair, she glanced outside as she heard a shuffling noise at the door. She got up and quietly went to the table to grab the gun, waiting for Simon’s signal. When none came, she took the safety off and crouched down. Trying not to make herself a standing target. After a moment, the sound stopped and a shadow stalked past one of the windows.
Breathing a sigh of relief, she relaxed when she saw the shadow walked on fours. Then the door rattled again, and she swung to it. “It’s me.” The words were whispered but she rushed over to the door. The bear continued to hover nearby, and she didn’t want Simon left outside with the bear so close. Not until she raised the bar did she realize Simon said he’d knock three times.
Chapter Eighteen
As soon as the bar cleared, the door pushed open and she leapt back. Bennis stepped across the threshold and shut the door. Eboni backed up around to the other side of the table. Most of the room lay in darkness except for the area near the candle on the floor illuminating a small spot on the other side of the room. For the moment, Bennis might not be able to see her, and she still held the gun in her hand. She could see him, including the pistol he held.
“You have no idea the aggravation you caused me.” His voice was rough, and his head shifted slightly like he searched the shadows for her.
She didn’t reply, instead she took another step until her back touched a wall of the cabin. She must have made some sound when she moved because he turned in her direction and took a step toward her.
The door crashed open, and Simon lunged for Bennis, taking him down onto the table, Simon on top of him. Bennis’s bucked and rolled them both off the table. The weapon still under his control, he tried to turn it on Simon, but Simon grabbed his wrist in an attempt to get it away from him. Eboni looked on in horror. Not daring to try to shoot Bennis, she’d never shot a gun in her life and couldn’t risk it. “Run.” Simon grunted as he and Bennis rolled around on the floor. Each trying to get control.
She looked up at the door but the bear stood there blocking the way. “B…bear,” she stammered. The fight moved closer to her, and she kicked Bennis’s pistol away from him. Unfortunately, he grabbed her ankle taking her down to the ground. She lost her grip on the gun, and it fell on the floor.
The bear reared up on its hind legs and roared. She froze at the sound of two shots. Both she and Bennis momentarily stunned. Recovering first, Bennis tried to reach the weapon she kicked out of his hand, but she grasped the butt of the gun. Her finger found the trigger, and the explosion ricocheted up her arm.
***
When the bear stood poised in the doorway, Simon had only one choice. He reached the firearm near him. He didn’t have a clear shot of Bennis, Eboni lay in the way. He turned quickly and aimed the pistol at the angry and scared bear. Two shots, each had to count. One through the mouth as it roared, the other right between the eyes. The brown bear paused, and blood weld up between its eyes, and it fell over onto its side. Simon whipped around at the sound of another gunshot. “Eboni!”
“I…I’m fine…I shot him.”
He went over to her and moved Bennis away from her. “You sure you’re okay?”
She sat up and moved into his arms, crying and trembling. Still clutching the revolver, he took it away from her. “Is he dead?” she cried.
He turned around to look at the sonofabitch, and the only reason he even cared was because he didn’t want Eboni thinking she took a life, even if a worthless one.
“Let me check.” He placed his fingers to the side of Bennis’s neck and felt a pulse at the same time he heard a boat on the river. “Yeah, he’s alive, and I think the rangers are finally here.”
***
The authorities took Bennis away to the hospital. They flew him out in a helicopter, and they wanted to take Simon, too, but he wouldn’t go.
“You need a doctor to look at your wound and that knot at the back of your head,” Eboni stated as he rubbed the side of his head. “Your arm is bleeding again.” The fight opened it up.
“I’ll be fine, and we need to stop at the house first, it’s on the way.”
Simon explained the situation to the rangers about Bennis being a suspect in a murder investigation and Eboni’s involvement. But he kept insisting he needed to check on his home before he went to the hospital.
It took some convincing but finally one of the two remaining rangers agreed. “Okay,” the ranger said. “Let’s go.”
“I just want to check on Gunner first,” he said to Eboni.
Two of the rangers took them to the house and walked inside with them. The sight greeting them was not one Eboni ever wanted to see again in her life. Little Gunner lay in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor.
“Oh no. Oh no!” Eboni wailed going to the little dog and picking up his lifeless body. Simon crouched over her and hugged them both while tears fell unheeded down her cheeks.
***
Simon would be fine. The doctors stitched him up, but he had to stay a day in the hospital, and Bennis after four hours remained in surgery. She’d shot him in the chest. The sheriff took Eboni’s statement in the hospital cafeteria. He’d already spoken to Detective Jackson back in LA, so she and Simon were cleared of the shooting. When she walked into Simon’s room, he straightened up so his back rested against the pillow, yet barely glanced in her direction. Frank sat at his bedside but stood up when she entered to give her a hug.
“How you holding up, doll?” Frank asked.
“I’m fine.” She looked at the bed. The lights were off in the roo
m only a lamp in the corner remained on, but Simon still wore his wraparounds on his eyes. And didn’t glance her way.
“I…I just gave the sheriff my statement. He’ll be back later to talk to you, and there shouldn’t be a problem. Detective Jackson already spoke to him.”
“Yeah that’s another thing I’ve been checking on,” Frank said. “Someone followed you from the condo that day you left, had to. No way would Bennis have been able to guess this is where you were headed on his own. Since I caught a flight out here from our pilot friend, I spoke to the pilots and service personnel at the airfield and found out a few things. A cop was around the day after you all took off asking questions.”
“Do we know who yet?”
“Oh yeah, one gave me his description. Jackson’s partner, Calvin Smith.”
“What? This is terrible,” Eboni said disheartened that not one, but two, cops would want her dead.
“At least it wasn’t Jackson,” Simon said. “I like him. Have you let him know?”
“Not yet. Wasn’t sure how you wanted to play this. As far as we know, Jackson may or may not have known about it. Haven’t been able to do any more checking. Whoever Bennis is working for is connected. Enough they have at least a couple of cops working for them among LA’s finest. By the way, the female cop is talking, looks like she’s going to make a deal with the FBI.”
“Let whoever is in charge of the FBI investigation know what you’ve found out.”
“Yeah, they should be here in a few hours to take Bennis into custody.”
“So is it all over?” Eboni asked.
“Yes,” Simon said. And for the first time since she walked into his room, he turned to look at her. “Frank will fly back with you in a few hours. But first, he’ll take you out to the house to get your things.”
The air in her lungs got sucked inward. She couldn’t believe he would dismiss her so casually. “Are you sure? I can stay and wait for you.”
“I’ll be out in a couple of days, no need for you to wait around here. I’m good.”
She wanted to smack him, but what did she expect. He’d never promised her anything. She just read promises in his touch, the way he looked at her, made love to her. Yet, not once in all the time they’d spent together, did he ever open up to her. My God, she’d been living in his childhood home for almost a week and still didn’t know if his parents were alive or if he had siblings. She’d been a fool. But the ache in her heart forced her to still try.
“What…what about Gunner? I’d like to pay for his burial. He saved my life.” The rangers wrapped Gunner’s body, and one of them stored it in an old ice chest, and then they’d dropped the body off at the local vet.
“Don’t worry. I’ve already spoken to the vet, and they’re going to cremate him for me. I’ll bury his ashes on the property.”
“By the flower garden?” she asked. That made her both happy and sad. “He loved to chase the butterflies around there.”
“Perhaps.”
“Ah, if you’re ready, I can take you back to the cabin now,” Frank offered.
Having no more reason to remain at the hospital since Simon dismissed her, she turned to Frank and forced a smile. “Yeah.” She glanced back toward Simon and maintained a smile on her face even as her heart was ripped apart, she squeezed his hand. She’d be damned if she asked him if she’d see him when he returned to LA.
“Thank you for everything,” she said.
Empty inside from the loss of what they could have shared, without looking at him again she walked out of the room. Not even bothering to reply to his “You’re welcome.” Why bother? There was nothing else to say.
Chapter Nineteen
For a while, Simon forgot bad things always happened to black cats. No. He didn’t forget, but had chosen to ignore it and look what occurred. Eboni could have been killed because he got careless, and Gunner died as a result. He wouldn’t make the mistake again of ever thinking he could ever have a normal relationship with someone, with her. There was absolutely nothing normal about him, not his past and not—well his future. Best she understood sooner rather than later. There would be no them once he returned to LA. At least Eboni had nothing to fear from Bennis. He’d be going away for a good long time, and the cops who helped him were talking their asses off. So he didn’t have any excuse to see her again or even think about her.
Six weeks, six damn weeks later and he could still taste her in his mouth. “Oh, fuck!” Ross and his new wife had returned from their honeymoon, and Ross walked into the office every day with a frigging smile on his face. The one time Ross mentioned Eboni to Simon, he yelled at his best friend to mind his own business. All the man had done was asked him if he’s spoken to Eboni lately.
“That’s it,” Ross barked back. “You need to chill. I’m sending you on an out of town assignment for a few days.”
So he packed his bags and went. No sense sitting around waiting on a phone call. What he’d told no one not even Ross or Noah, off on tour with his fiancée, he’d heard from one of his contacts about his twin brothers, Jason and Joshua. Ross gave him the idea once he’d confided that he still searched for them. The problem was he knew their last names had been changed, but they’d at least been kept together. He suspected their first names could have been changed also. Over the years, he’d narrowed his search in different ways. One of the reasons he knew so much about computers, learning how to use them made his searches easier, but he’d not had not much luck, until now.
He’d been searching the records for twin boys and their birth dates and thus far of the hundreds he’d hunted down, none were his brothers. Ross suggested perhaps they joined the military. If they had and were involved in any black ops, he might not be able to find either one of them through normal channels. Ross might have well as smacked a two by four against the side of his head. He’d made a call to a buddy who could get into some of those files or get him access.
Meanwhile, he still treated everyone like a bear with a splinter in its paw. No one wanted to be around him at the office, and Ross sent him away. As it happened, the out of town assignment that should have taken a few days took a few weeks, but he returned home finally. However, his surly disposition remained unchanged. He was still a sonofabitch. He missed her. Eboni. Her name. Even that hurt to think it.
The only positive thing that happened in his life since he drove Eboni away was he’d received an email from a friend in the military. Simon had been searching for his brothers for years and his friend might have found them. The names were right so he sent an email through channels to the addresses he’d been given. He told the recipients his name and explained who he might be to them and also gave them his phone number, it would not be the first such email he’d sent or call he’d take but this time, hope filled him like never before.
“Home sweet home.” He dropped his suitcase on the floor in the bedroom when his doorbell rang. Leaving the bedroom, he made his way over to his front door and checked the view port in the door. The top of steel gray hair appeared in his line of vision. Mrs. Hannah, the unit’s resident grandmother, who lived on the first floor, stood in the hall. The condo unit housed three floors and only six condos. Mrs. Hannah owned both condos on the first floor, and two years ago, knocked out the wall so she had one large condo unit.
He opened the door for the widow. It was because of her, he’d decided to keep Gunner. She told him he needed a friend. The day he returned from Montana, she’d asked about Gunner, and he had a hard time telling her what had happened. It helped the little guy had died a hero. Simon hadn’t seen her since then.
“Hello, Simon,” she said smiling at him.
Mrs. Hannah held a covered basket in her arms. “Hello, Ma’am, sorry I haven’t been by much, been out of town.”
“I thought as much.”
“Here let me help….” He’d reached forward to take the basket away from her but she moved her arm and whatever lay under the cover moved.
“Ah, in a seco
nd. May I come in?”
He stepped aside and waved his hand toward his living room. “Sure. Come on. How’s Rosie?” Gunner and her little dog Rosie were great friends.
“Ah, she’s fine. I’m not sure how to do this.”
He raised an eyebrow, curious. “Just start at the beginning.”
The lady smiled, a full out toothed smile, and she looked ten years younger. She still had all her own teeth, and once she told him she used Bright White on them. He grinned at her.
“I have a little surprise for you, and I don’t want to shock you. Perhaps we should sit down.”
“Ah, all right sure.” He led her and her moving basket over to the couch and waited for her to sit down while he perched on the other end. She removed the cover from the basket, revealing a black and white dog, a miniature version of Gunner. The little guy perked right up and stared at him. “What!” he said, rearing back.
At the sound of his voice, the little dog cocked its head to the side as though he tried to figure out what he’d said. “Mrs. H, what’s this?” By the way his gut tightened, he knew.
She smiled again. He wasn’t sure she’d stopped. “Isn’t it obvious? I wanted to tell you when you first got back weeks ago, but well and then you were gone. But the pups had to be weaned anyway. It seems your little Gunner and my Rosie…well as you can see. She had a litter of three.” She patted the dog’s head. “This one took after his papa, so I kept him for you.”
“Oh wow, oh wow.” Further words escaped him, and the little guy kept trying to climb out of the basket but his legs were too small, and he didn’t really seem strong enough to climb out. Big dark brown puppy eyes looked up at Simon and the dog wimped. Alpha, Simon might be, but even he couldn’t resist the appeal of the puppy. He took it out of the basket. It fit in the palm of his hand.
Wine and Roses Page 11