Authors: Tamara Larson
She burst out onto the street with a joyful cry when large hands grabbed her shoulders from behind. She fought them--kicking out and punching blindly at her assailant.
“No,” she screeched, attempting to rake her pathetic excuse for nails down his face.
“Whoa, Jessie,”
Duncan
said, turning her around to face him. “I know I’m a jerk, but I had no idea you were this angry.”
Jessie couldn’t believe he was here. She looked up at his face, nearly sobbing in relief. He’d never looked more beautiful to her. “Oh,
Duncan
. I’m so happy you’re here,” she cried, reaching up and flinging her arms around his neck. Her knees gave way and she found herself nearly sliding down his body until
Duncan
wrapped his arms around her to keep her steady.
“Lady, you are mercurial, aren’t you?”
Duncan
said, smiling into her neck. “One second you’re trying to take my head off and the next you’re clinging to me like you never want to let go.”
Jessie pulled back to stare up at him. “
Duncan
. Diego is upstairs in my apartment. I think I hurt him, but--.” She touched the shoulder of her dress and her fingers came back bloody. She held them up for
Duncan
to see and then shook her head in confusion. She had no idea what the procedure was in a situation like this. What did you do when you had an injured psycho bleeding all over your apartment?
“Oh my God, are you alright? That’s his blood, isn’t it?” He asked, pulling her tightly against him again. Jessie breathed in his comforting scent for a moment and then nodded. She couldn’t speak. She was afraid she would start babbling uncontrollably if she started talking about what had happened.
“Jessie, think carefully.”
Duncan
said, easing back to stare deeply into her eyes, trying to get her to focus. “Did he have a gun?” Jessie shook her head again.
Duncan
didn’t need to hear anymore, he gently placed her away from him. “Stay here, Jessie. I mean it. Don’t go anywhere. And let the cops in when they arrive, okay?” Not bothering to wait for a response he gave her a stern look, pulled out his cell phone and opened the door to the side stairs that had never closed properly. He touched her face for one second and then slid into the stairwell and away from her.
Jessie stood motionless, her back against the warm red brick of her building. Not wanting to be alone, she was tempted to follow
Duncan
, but her legs wouldn’t quite hold her. Looking down, she noticed that her bra was visible, so she tried to button up her blouse, but her hands were shaking too much, so she just held the flaps together tightly. A nearby homeless man stared at her, but she just smiled at him weakly and tried to wipe her tears away with the other trembling hand.
Duncan
hadn’t wanted to leave Jessie alone, but he couldn’t take a chance on Diego getting his hands on her again. She would be safe if she stayed out in public. Diego was a coward, and wouldn’t try to grab her with a bunch of witnesses around who might intervene.
Duncan
had called for back up, but it would be several minutes before the police arrived. It would be up to him to subdue Diego, and in his current frame of mind, he wasn’t sure if he trusted himself not to hurt the man. It was probably a good thing that he hadn’t thought to bring his gun over to Jessie’s apartment.
Jessie had been nearly crazed with fear. He couldn’t stand seeing her like that. He felt like a complete failure. The way he saw it, his job was to protect her and he’d been unsuccessful twice. He’d had two plainclothes police officers watching her for a week after the other incident with Diego, but when nothing happened, he’d been forced to call them off. He’d really thought Diego was gone—back to
Calgary
or wherever it was scumbags like him went when the heat was on. He should have known better.
Moving quickly up the stairs and toward Jessie’s apartment,
Duncan
looked for any sign of Diego.
Duncan
didn’t know exactly what Jessie had done to the man, but judging from the amount of blood on her shoulders, he suspected that Diego would leave a trail.
The door to Jessie’s apartment was still wide open.
Duncan
saw bright red droplets of blood on the light hardwood floors, and smiled grimly at the thought of Jessie doing that kind of damage to Diego.
Entering the apartment,
Duncan
heard a soft groan coming from the kitchen. His body coiled tightly in expectation of a confrontation with this man—the one who had tried to exploit his sister and then assaulted his woman. Diego would not get off this time. He would see to it, and inflict some damage of his own in the process—he only hoped he could stop once he started.
“Chad Taylor?” he said softly, when he entered the kitchen to find Diego slumped over the kitchen sink holding his nose. The countertops and porcelain were both pink with smeared blood.
Diego turned slowly, his eyes narrowed at the use of his Christian name. “Sorry
Man.
You go the wrong guy. Me and my old lady just had a fight. She gave me a pretty good shot. Nothing to worry about. Thanks for checking in though.” He turned back to the sink, apparently unmindful of
Duncan
’s towering presence behind him.
Was he insane?
Duncan
asked himself. Had the pressure of being on the run gotten to him and pushed him over the edge?
Duncan
didn’t know and he didn’t particularly care. He moved into the room and placed his hand on Diego’s shoulder. “Chad Taylor, you are under arrest for breaking and entering—.”
Diego turned to
Duncan
with an evil grin and flashed the small paring knife he’d gone back to the sink to retrieve. “Think again, asshole,” he said, flicking the buttons of
Duncan
’s plaid shirt with the blade. There was a maniacal look in his eyes as he said, “Did you really think it would be that easy? I’ve been avoiding the cops for the past eleven days. They can’t catch me. Nobody can catch me. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
Duncan
could have cheerfully kicked his own ass. How had he been so stupid? Of course Diego had a knife. The man might be insane, but he wasn’t stupid.
Despite his anger with himself,
Duncan
stared at Diego coolly. “So, you’ve got me. What are you going to do now,
Chad
? Kill me with that?” He glanced at the tiny knife contemptuously.
“Don’t call me that,” Diego hissed, bringing the knife up to touch
Duncan
’s cheek.
Duncan
didn’t flinch as the cold blade touched him. It enraged him that Diego would think to intimidate him with such an insignificant weapon. They were almost the same height, but
Duncan
was much broader. In a fair fight,
Duncan
knew he could easily pound the living daylights out of Diego. Even with the knife,
Duncan
was pretty sure he would prevail, but he couldn’t take a chance. Even a tiny knife to the jugular would still kill him, and then Jessie would be vulnerable to this maniac—at least until the police came. All he had to do was keep Diego talking until they arrived.
“What? You don’t like
Chad
?”
Duncan
asked mockingly. “That’s right. You actually changed your name to Diego, didn’t you? Not to mention learning Spanish, so you could seem more butch. Theresa says you dye your hair black too. Is that right?”
Duncan
asked, making it sound like Diego might as well be wearing a dress.
“Shut up,” Diego gritted out between clenched teeth. “That bitch lies.”
“Hey, man,”
Duncan
said, holding up his hands and shrugging his shoulders to indicate his disregard. “No skin off my nose. Might be difficult to maintain in prison though.”His accent completely gone, Diego said in a slightly nasal voice, “I told you. I’m not going to prison. First, I’m going to find your little slut of a sister, and make her pay, then I’m going on a little vacation.” He jabbed the small knife into
Duncan
cheek for emphasis—not deep, but enough to create a small bead of blood to pool and then trail down
Duncan
’s tanned face.
Duncan
had had enough. He wanted to do the right thing and wait for back up, but he didn’t trust this man in front of him not to do something crazy. He raised his arm again slowly, and wiped the blood from his cheek, and stared at his red fingertip for a second, making his decision. While Diego was looking at the blood on
Duncan
’s right hand,
Duncan
brought his left up in a cruel uppercut to the Diego’s weak chin.
After a brief struggle for the knife,
Duncan
found himself standing over Diego’s unconscious body several minutes later, breathing heavily with blood on his knuckles and tan hiking boots. Looking down at Diego’s prone form and bloodied face, it was clear to
Duncan
that he’d completely lost control. He reached down and touched Diego’s neck, and sighed with relief. He hadn’t killed him. Shaking slightly,
Duncan
grabbed the nearby phone chord and jerked it out of the socket. He deftly tied the chord around the wrists and ankles of the man he’d just about beaten to a pulp. When Diego was finally secured, he slid down to the cool, black and white tiles, and lowered his head. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so much like an animal.
Chapter
30
Two hours later, Jessie and Duncan were alone in Jessie’s apartment, sitting on the purple chenille couch in her surprisingly roomy living room. The cops had come and gone, after questioning them both, and the ambulance had taken Diego away. According to the paramedics, his injuries were mostly superficial—the worst being a badly broken nose, and two cracked ribs. He would be transferred to a holding cell the next day.
Jessie and Duncan sat close together, not touching, but taking comfort in one another. Jessie had taken a shower immediately after the police left. The sensation of Diego’s blood drying on her skin had made her flesh crawl. She’d tried to remain as strong as possible while the police interrogated her about what had happened, but standing in her shower, she had finally let the tears flow freely down her cheeks to mingle with the warm spray from the showerhead. When she came out, she felt strangely calm, like nothing could faze her now.
After her shower, she’d entered her newly creepy bedroom and forced herself to look at the bed.
Duncan
had removed the soiled counterpane and the lingerie Diego had been fingering when she’d walked in on him, leaving her bed looking oddly unfinished with it’s flowered sheets and rumpled pillows. She had dreaded touching the items Diego had handled, so it was a relief
Duncan
had thought to remove them. He’d also cleaned away the blood in the kitchen and the entranceway. It was almost like Diego had never been there.
She quickly changed into white, denim shorts and a matching ribbed T-shirt that left her pale legs and pale pink polished toenails bare. She couldn’t stand the thought of wearing much more in this heat, and didn’t think
Duncan
was in any mood to notice her wardrobe. He was so remote; he’d barely looked at her throughout the entire interrogation process. He’d just stood nearby and offered his silent support as she’d told her story. With his strength behind her, she was able to tell the police officers exactly what happened without losing her composure. But now that they were alone, Jessie didn’t know how to bridge the gap between them. It took all her courage to place her hand on his where it rested on his thigh.
“
Duncan
,” she asked, softly. “Are you alright?”
He gave out a joyless bark of laughter. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that? You’re the one that he got to—again. Are you alright?”
Duncan
felt unclean, like he was unfit to touch her with the same hands he’d so enthusiastically driven into Diego’s belly. He couldn’t even look at her for more than a second at a time.
She smiled at him and squeezed his hand. “I’m alright, as long as you’re here. I’m just fine.”
Duncan
’s voice broke and he cleared his throat. “How can you say that? I’ve done a completely shitty job of protecting you. Not to mention the fact that I totally unjustly accused you of something rotten a few hours ago. How can you even want me here?” He said, looking around at her pretty, colorful living room with the hand-braided rugs on the floor and multitude of black and white photos on every surface.
“Hey,” she said giving his hand a shake. “I appreciate the concern, but I don’t need you to protect me. I did pretty well on my own, didn’t I?”
The side of his mouth lifted in an attempt at a rueful grin. “Yeah, you did, but he never should have been here in the first place. I should have kept you safe.”
Jessie rolled her eyes and tried to tease him out of his intense mood. “What? You’re going to follow me around from now on to make sure no more demented psychos sneak into my apartment?”