Pursuit: Blood Bandits MC (18 page)

His rage was deep and terrible. Why did he hate me so much? It was all I could think of, even more than the possible danger. I could only wonder what I had done to make him hate me the way he did.

I opened my mouth to answer him—what I was about to say, I didn’t know—when, once again, a pair of hands wrenched him away from me. Just like they had back in the kitchen. That first time, Dom had only looked concerned. Weeks later, he looked murderous.

“Oh, it’s you!” Eric laughed, sounding hysterical. “I should have known. Your slut’s ready to go home, biker trash.”

Dom didn’t say a word. He only pulled back his right fist, slamming it into Eric’s nose. Blood immediately spurted from it. Eric crumpled to the ground.

“Don’t! No more!” I pulled Dom away, hoping he would come to his senses before he murdered my ex-husband in the parking lot.

Dom turned to me, his eyes blazing. I’d never been so turned on by something so brutal. “Are you okay?”

I nodded. “He never touched me. I’m fine.”

He jerked his arm out of my grasp, then turned back to Eric. Leaning over him, he said, “The only reason I’m leaving you alive is because she’s here, and you didn’t touch her. If you had, I’d kill you right now. Tell that to your buddies at the police station, you piece of shit.” He spat on the ground to punctuate his statement.

“I’ll…sue…you.” Eric could hardly speak through the blood flowing down his face and into his mouth. I watched with a sort of detached fascination as his smart tan trench coat got spattered.

“Yeah, you can try. I bet I have a bunch of witnesses right inside who could tell what you did to her before I got her off you. If you tripped and fell after that, nothing I could do about it.”

Eric looked stunned. He opened his mouth as though to speak but clearly thought better of it.

“If you ever go near her again, I’ll kill you,” Dom said. Every word struck fear in my heart, even as the rest of me responded lustily at the thought of a man saying that about me. He would kill Eric. I believed he would. And for me. It was sick, and I knew it, but I couldn’t help the way I felt.

Dom stepped back when Eric tried to get up. He stumbled back to his car, still holding his spurting nose. “I’ll make you pay for this,” he said before getting into his car and peeling out of the parking lot.

Dom didn’t seem to care. He turned, gathering me in his arms. “I’m sorry I had to do that,” he said. “I couldn’t stand seeing him in front of you like that. I had to do something.”

“I’m glad you did,” I assured him, resting my head against his chest. In my heart, though, I was anything but glad after Eric’s threat. His words echoed in my head long after his taillights faded in the distance.

“I’m here to file a restraining order against my ex-husband.”

The cop behind the desk looked at me with an expression severely lacking in sympathy. In fact, if he had said, “You, too?” I wouldn’t have been surprised.

“Okay, well, it’s not as easy as they say it is on TV,” he informed me, sounding as though he were reading from a script.

“I’m sure it isn’t,” I said. “Still, I want to file one.” It took everything in me to stand there and say that. Every good girl instinct in me said to stand down, let the officer do his job, believe what he says, go along with him. I’d been raised that way. Listen to them, trust them, obey them. In most cases, that was a fine attitude to have. Not in this one. I had to stand strong, though my knees shook.

At least he didn’t roll his eyes. “Okay. Have a seat, and somebody will call you.”

“Um…don’t you want to know my name?”

He scowled. I did everything in my power to stay calm, but the panic in my chest started to swell.

“Sir, I’m sorry to take up your time, and I realize there’s a lot of violent crime out there, but this is important to me. My husband laid hands on me two weeks ago, stalked me via phone and text message since then, and last night tried to attack me as I left my place of employment. I need a restraining order to protect myself, and hopefully my little girl. I need your help.”

I said it with all the dignity I could muster, and it seemed to get through to the sour old desk cop. He frowned with at least a little sympathy, then did a little typing on his keyboard.

“All right. What’s your ex-husband’s name?” He glanced at me, waiting.

I took a deep, shaky breath. “Eric Cantrell.”

His eyes widened. I knew it wouldn’t be easy.

***

“It only took three hours, but I finally filed it.”

Mom sat across from me at her kitchen table, worry creasing her forehead. “They didn’t want to believe you?”

“Isn’t it funny? I mean, I understand it isn’t easy to hear that somebody you know and respect isn’t everything they seem to be.” I took a sip of my coffee, remembering the disbelief on the faces around me. “But that doesn’t make the accusation any less true. You would think a bunch of cops would know what goes on in private life, behind closed doors. That they would have seen it all, that nothing could surprise them anymore.”

I took yet another deep breath—what felt like the millionth that day—and tried to let the simplicity and neatness of my mother’s kitchen calm me. There was something about a clean, sparkling kitchen that always soothed my soul. Even at its cleanest, my kitchen at the apartment would never really look nice thanks to its age and rundown condition.

“What did they say when they first heard his name?” Mom asked.

“They didn’t believe it. One of them even laughed a little before he could stop himself. It made me feel like such a fool, like a joke. Another one, I think he was a sergeant or something, he made it sound like I was just a pissed off ex-wife looking for revenge. Asking me if I had any witnesses to the alleged attempted attack last night. As though I need witnesses.”

“Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry.”

“They’ll never understand how it feels. The courage it takes to ask for help in the first place, and to have them make light of it.”

“I’m sure they didn’t mean to.”

“I know they didn’t mean to, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t. I wish they knew how it felt, I really do. They might be a little more compassionate.”

“It was a shame Dom couldn’t have gone with you,” Mom murmured.

“Mom…”

“I mean it. What? Why the attitude?”

“You’re trying to say it would have been better if he weren’t an outlaw who’s afraid to go near a police station. I get it.”

“I didn’t mean that.” Of course she did. “You’re the one putting words in my mouth.”

“You don’t hear your tone sometimes,” I argued. “You don’t know how you sound.”

“Fine. Make me the bad guy because you need a bad guy right now.” She got up and turned away from me, making a big deal about scrubbing the sink, though it was obvious she’d already scrubbed it.

I sighed, giving up. She had a way of making me do that, giving up though I knew I was in the right. It wasn’t worth fighting over. “I’m sorry,” I said, standing behind her. “I didn’t mean to lash out at you. You’re the one person I shouldn’t be lashing out at.”

“What about your boyfriend? You shouldn’t be lashing out at him either.”

Give me strength with this woman. “He isn’t my boyfriend, Mom, and you know it.”

“He seemed that way at the apartment.”

“Mom, why are you doing this?” I wanted to throw something. Maybe one of her precious porcelain teapots, which she’d collected since I was little. That might get through to her, or it might at least let me vent some of the extreme aggravation she made me feel.

She shut off the water, turning to me with red-rimmed eyes. “Wait until Emma gets a little older. Wait until you know how it feels to watch your daughter make poor decision after poor decision. See how that makes you act.” She ran the back of her hand over her eyes.

“Poor decisions.” I felt the way I had when I faced down the cop at the station. When would I be able to relax and stop playing on defense all the time? “I hate that you’re calling it that. The last time I checked, you wanted me to marry Eric. You were insane with excitement over it. You wanted me taken care of. You wanted me married to a man like him, who had such great prospects. Right?”

“I didn’t know…”

“No, you didn’t, but you sure commended my good choice back then. Didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did. Are you saying it’s my fault?”

“No. I’m saying it’s easy to sit back, years later, and say it was a poor decision. I hope you’re not saying it was a poor decision to leave him.”

“God, no.”

I nodded. “Good. Because it wasn’t, and I know it wasn’t. I made a strong decision for the first time in my life. I’m not paying for marrying him right now—all this struggle, working like a dog just to make ends meet. I’m paying for the decision to leave, but I would do it again.”

“I know. I know that.”

“So I guess you’re talking about Dom, then.” I sat again, all the fight leaking out of me. I was so very tired, down to my bones. “He’s not a decision so much as a necessity right now. I need him in my life. I need something good and strong.”

“Is he good, though? Tell me truthfully. Is he good?”

Was he? I didn’t know. “I think he has a good heart. I think he’s made poor choices. But he’s hurting, too, Mom. We’re all hurting.”

“Please.” She scoffed, turning her face to the window.

“You don’t think so? The man held his dying fiancée in his arms as she bled to death.”

She glanced at me. “And how did she bleed to death? Did she suddenly start bleeding? What caused it?”

I sighed, looking down at my hands. I shouldn’t have brought it up. “Somebody shot her.”

“And I guess he had nothing to do with that?” Oh, the superiority in her voice. It made me gag a little.

“His lifestyle did. All right? Is that what you want to hear? Fine.” I couldn’t win. “I’ll tell you this, though. If he weren’t there for me last night, I don’t know what Eric would have done. Nobody else came to help me except for Dom. If you think that’s no big deal, you’re entitled. But you weren’t there. You didn’t see how crazy Eric was. It was insane.”

“I just don’t want to see you hurt again. I want you to have a good life, with good friends and good people in it. I want you to be comfortable one day so you don’t have to work to make ends meet. I want you to be happy. Is that so wrong?” Mom’s chin quivered, and I felt sorry for arguing.

“It’s not wrong,” I muttered, putting my arms around her. “You know I don’t think it’s wrong, for heaven’s sake. This isn’t the way I thought my life would go, you know. Nobody plans for something like this or wants it. I’m doing the best I can from one minute to the next. I hope it dies down in time and I can feel a little more secure. For right now, I’m in panic mode. The house is burning and I can’t question the firefighter who wants to catch me when I jump. Does that make any sense? It’s the best way I can describe how I feel.”

Mom nodded, pulling away to splash her face with cool water. “Yes, that makes sense. I understand. I hate feeling so helpless, standing here, watching it happen when there’s nothing I can do.”

“I can only imagine,” I admitted. I waited until she calmed down, and the two of us sat at the table again. Emma, oblivious to just about everything, sat in the living room and watched some educational program. She counted to ten in Spanish, clearly proud of herself though I couldn’t see her. I grinned at Mom.

“She’s worth working for, by the way. I don’t work for me.”

“Oh, I know that. I know you’re a good mother. I would never question that. I just want to protect the two of you, and I feel powerless.”

I smiled grimly. “I know that feeling.”

I had decided that morning that it was too much to ask Emma to sit in the apartment all day. She was bored, antsy, and she needed sunshine. Mom had agreed to keep an eye on her while I worked. I needed to get out, too, so I spent the morning with the two of them before going to work.

“Honey?” I called Emma into the kitchen, and she obliged with a spring in her step. Where she got her energy, I had no idea. I wished I could bottle it. “Why don’t you go outside and play for a while? You need vitamin D.”

“What’s that mean? I take vitamins every day.”

I grinned. “Yeah, but sunshine gives you more of it.” I patted her behind, directing her to the back door. She wasn’t in a contrary mood that morning, which was a blessing. I didn’t feel like explaining every little request.

Mom waited until she was outside. We could both see her in the fenced-off yard, playing with a few toys Mom kept out there especially for her. “Does she understand anything about this?”

I watched my little girl, inspired and fearful at the same time. She had a way of shaking off all setbacks, ignoring the things that worried or upset her and focusing on the joy in life. I wished I could be more like her. I hoped she wouldn’t lose that quality too soon.

“I don’t think so,” I said, wishing I were more certain. “She’s so observant, isn’t she?”

“She is,” Mom agreed. “She sees and hears everything. You were the same way.”

“It’s funny. I don’t want her absorbing all of this and coming to her own conclusions. I want to straighten things out for her, to make her feel better. You know? But that means going to her, asking what she knows. What if she doesn’t know anything? What Pandora’s box will that open?”

Mom nodded, smirking. “I know that feeling. You don’t want to start trouble where there might not be any.”

“Right. What should I do?” I looked to my mother, thankful that she was still in my life. As much of a pain as she could be, she kept me centered.

“Let her go. Observe for a while. See how she acts when Dom is around. See if she asks about Eric. Then start asking questions about how she feels. Don’t go to her first. Make sure she knows she’s loved and protected no matter what. That way, if something comes up in her little head, she’ll remember you’re there to love and protect her.”

I sighed, feeling some measure of peace. “You’re right. I shouldn’t start trouble where there isn’t any. I have enough to worry about as it is.” Like whether Eric would press charges against Dom for the little love tap the night before. My heart pounded just a little harder at the memory of watching him reduce my ex-husband to a shrinking, shaking pile of mush. It was beautiful. Still, I knew it could result in big trouble for Dom.