At Peace (2 page)

Until now.

He was using those eyes and that rugged
face to glower at a point beyond me. Actually
glower.
And he was doing this in a way that I felt
a chill glide down my spine. He scared me so deeply, being so dark,
so scarred, so huge, so obviously furious that I was rooted to the
spot. I couldn’t move even though I really wanted to.

Then he moved. He strode forward right by me
and automatically, as if compelled to do so by the sheer force of
his aura, I turned as he walked passed. I watched as he planted a
big hand in Kenzie Elise’s emaciated breastbone and he pushed her
off.

My mouth dropped open as she flew back on her
platform stripper shoes, her arms flying out to the sides to find
purchase as she wheeled backwards. There was nothing to grab onto
and she tripped gracelessly off the side of her shoe but righted
herself before going down.

I stared, unable to do anything else. It was
like watching a hideous accident caught on film and aired on
television. You didn’t want to see but you had no choice but to
watch because, no matter how your brain screamed at you to do it,
you couldn’t tear your eyes away.

Without stopping he stalked into the house
and disappeared. Then the music abruptly stopped.

“Cal –” Kenzie Elise started, her hands
lifted, placating.

“Shut the fuck up,” I heard his growl, his
voice low, deep, rumbling and as sinister as his appearance. I
heard it but I didn’t see him and Kenzie’s back was turned to me.
He was still out of eyesight but, wherever he was, she was watching
him.

All of a sudden I realized my goal had
been attained. The music had stopped. Therefore it was time to go
home and let this domestic situation play out without an
audience.

I turned to leave but heard his voice
again.

“You.”

Stupidly, I looked into the house to see his
eyes on me.

“
I –” I began to make my explanations that
I was going to go home but he came at me and I stared as he did.
His powerful body was moving in my direction and I was caught,
seeing the danger but somehow my limbs were useless even though my
brain screamed at them to
move
.

Faster than it seemed possible, he was right
in my space, his big hand was wrapped around my upper arm and he
pulled me into the house. This didn’t hurt, not his hand on me or
him dragging me into the house and it probably didn’t because I
didn’t struggle and I didn’t struggle because I knew this man could
break me like a twig.

So I found myself standing in my next door
neighbor’s house, me in hot pink daisy wellingtons, a nightie and
Tim’s robe; my neighbor in faded jeans, black motorcycle boots, a
black t-shirt and a black leather jacket; and Hollywood movie star
Kenzie Elise in a barely there, emerald green, lace teddy and
platform stripper shoes.

How did
this
happen?

It was like a dream, a weird, bad dream
that you woke up from and felt strange and unsettled and it left
you thinking,
What the fuck?

But, it was happening, I was there,
breathing, conscious and all I could think was,
God, I miss Tim.

“Stay,” my neighbor commanded to me in his
deep, scary voice and I tipped my head back to look into his clear
blue eyes and I could do nothing but nod.

Then he let my arm go and stalked into the
depths of the house.

“Cal, darling, I just wanted –” Kenzie Elise
started but he disappeared from sight so she stopped speaking.

I wondered why she didn’t go after him
instead of standing there with me in the room, the front door open,
wearing nothing but that teddy that left little if anything to the
imagination.

Then again, in his frame of mind, I probably
wouldn’t follow him either.

It was at this point I wondered why she
didn’t run to her Porsche and get gone.

I didn’t run because he’d told me to stay and
I didn’t think it was a good idea to defy him. He didn’t seem mad
at me, not at that juncture, and I wasn’t fired up to make him that
way.

She didn’t look at me and I eventually pried
my eyes away from her but I was able to do this because he
returned, carrying in his arms a bundle of clothes. He walked right
by her, right by me and right to the door where he threw the
clothes into the snow.

My mouth dropped open again.

“Cal!” she shouted. Rushing on her stripper
shoes to the door, she peered out at her clothes then whirled back
around again to look at him, her eyes never once hitting me. She
was avoiding me or ignoring me. I didn’t know which but I thought
both were good ways to play it.

He had her purse in his hand and he was
sauntering back into the room. He yanked out a set of keys as she
turned back to him.

“You threw my clothes in the snow!” she
shrieked then jumped to the side as he tossed her purse at her. It
was open and stuff flew out everywhere as it sailed through the air
and then more stuff flew out when it landed on the floor.

“Cal!” she screeched, bending, bony knees to
her chest, ass to the ground and scrambling to get her things.

I started to bend too, to help her but
stopped when his voice sounded.

“Don’t.”

My head snapped back to look at him and his
eyes were pinning me to the spot. He was so angry, visibly livid,
and so frightening, I forgot how to breathe.

I slowly straightened, forcing air into my
lungs as Kenzie scrambled on the floor, now on her hands and knees
in her teddy and stripper shoes, shoving stuff into her purse.

“
This is
insane,
” she snapped and she was definitely right.

He was taking a key off her keychain and had
this task accomplished by the time she made it to her feet with her
purse again intact which was lucky for her because he tossed her
keys to her without hesitating to make sure she was prepared. She
lunged to grab them, bobbled them but kept them in hand.

“Out,” he ordered tersely.

“Cal –” she started.

“Get the fuck out.”

“This scene is ridiculous,” she hissed,
leaning toward him which, I thought, was not a very good idea.

“You’re right,” he agreed.

She changed strategies so fast I wasn’t
keeping up.

Her voice was a purr again when she began,
“Darling, I thought –”

“
What, Kenzie?” he asked, his eyes moving
the length of her, his lip curled in disgust. “You thought what?
Fuck, woman, I had better head in junior high. You think I’d come
back for more from
your
mouth?
Sloppy. So sloppy, I was fuckin’ embarrassed for you.”

At his words I’d drawn in breath but Kenzie’s
face had gone paler than her signature flawlessly-pale-skinned
pale.

When Kenzie stood still as a statue and
didn’t speak, he noted. “You’re still here.”

“I –” she started.

“
Need to get a fuckin’ clue,” he finished
for her. “Christ, how many times do we need to do this? It was a
mistake, biggest fuckin’ mistake I’ve made in years. When I was
doin’ you,
I
faked it. I
had to jack off in the shower to get off after I was done with
you.”

I swallowed, wanting really badly to be
anywhere else,
anywhere
but
there.

“You faked it?” she whispered, sounding
horrified and beaten, her voice like a little girl who, way too
early in her young life, just found out there was no Santa
Claus.

“Yeah and if your head wasn’t so far up your
ass, you woulda noticed. Instead, you keep playin’ out this fuckin’
drama and, swear to Christ, it happens again, it’s not gonna make
me fuckin’ happy.”

He seemed to be pretty unhappy currently
but I’d just met him, maybe he could get
more
unhappy which meant I never wanted to be near him
again.

“Cal, I –” she started again but he leaned
forward and her mouth slammed shut.

“
Not gonna say it again. Get.
The
fuck
. Out.”

Thankfully, she’d had enough. She turned,
avoiding my eyes, and walked in her teddy and stripper shoes out
the open front door into the snow and bitter cold.

I stood unmoving as he stalked to the door,
slammed it and, to my extreme discomfort, locked it.

I swallowed again.

Then I said softly, “I’d like to go home
now.”

He turned to face me and his eyes leveled
on mine.

I pressed my lips together and my stomach
clenched.

He didn’t speak and I didn’t know what to
do.

Finally, his eyes dropped and I watched as
they slid, slowly, from my face down my body to my feet and, just
as slowly, starting back up to my face.

During this journey I realized that my
robe had fallen open and he could see my nightie. Pale lavender
satin, short, hitting me at the upper thighs but there was a
three-inch hem of smoky gray lace below that. The same lace was at
the bodice over the cups of material covering my breasts. The
nightie fit close at my chest and midriff but there was room to
move around my hips and thighs. It was nowhere near as risqué as
Kenzie’s teddy. It left something to the imagination and that was
good, unless you had an imagination.

Carefully, I pulled the edges of my robe
together and his eyes speeded up to hit mine and I knew the instant
they did, without any doubt, he had an imagination.

My mouth went dry.

“I’m Joe Callahan,” he stated.

“Hello Joe,” I said quietly.

“Cal,” he corrected me and I nodded but
remained silent.

When this stretched the length of the Porsche
firing up and reversing out of the drive, Joe Callahan prompted,
“You are?”

“Your neighbor.”

His heavy, dark brows went up. “Does my
neighbor have a name?”

I shook my head and his heavy, dark brows
drew together.

“You don’t have a name?” he asked.

“I think I want to leave,” I told him.

His face got hard but his voice got soft when
he said, “Listen, buddy –”

“No, please, Joe, I want to leave.”

“Cal.”

“Whatever, I’d like to leave,” I
repeated.

He started toward me and I backed up, lifting
a shaking hand and he stopped, his eyes dropping to my hand before
cutting back to my face.

“I live next door, that’s it,” I said softly.
“I wanted the music to stop. It’s stopped. Now I’d like to
leave.”

His eyes held mine and something was
happening in them, I just didn’t know what and, after witnessing
that scene, listening to the way he spoke to her, what he said, how
he said it and the utter humiliation he inflicted, I didn’t care.
Then his gaze dropped to my body again, he closed his eyes and
stepped to the side.

I wasted not even a second. I ran to the
door, unlocked it, threw it open, ran out and across the snow to my
house. I threw myself through the side door, closed it, locked it,
threw the chain and then armed the alarm.

Then, quaking head to foot, I slid off the
wellies, made my shaky way to my bedroom and got in bed with Tim’s
robe on, pulling up the covers to my neck.

I turned my head to the frame sitting on my
nightstand. I could barely see it in the dark but I didn’t need to
see it, I had the picture it held memorized. Tim and me, close up,
he was behind me, both his arms around my shoulders, wrapped across
my upper chest, his jaw pressed to the side of my head, my head
slightly turned into him. He was looking at the camera. I had my
eyes closed.

We were both laughing.

“Miss you, baby,” I whispered to the frame,
my voice shaking as hard as my body still was.

The frame had no reply, it fucking never
did.

* * * * *

The next morning, Joe Callahan’s house was
quiet and the shiny, black, new model Ford pickup was gone.

It wouldn’t come back for three weeks.

* * * * *

It was four o’clock in the afternoon, I’d
been at the garden shop all day and during the day it had
snowed.

I was sick of snow and I wished I’d picked
Florida or Arizona or somewhere that didn’t have snow when I’d
packed up my girls and fled Chicago.

Furthermore, Kate was driving now. She’d
turned sixteen and she got her license and I bought her a car. Tim
would have been pissed I bought her a car. Then again, he’d have
been pissed I bought myself a Mustang. As a cop, he’d seen too many
accidents so he was all for staid, sturdy cars that were built so
tough you could drive them through a building and only have to buff
out a few scratches. He might have driven like a lunatic (which he
did), but he wasn’t a big fan of me doing it (which I didn’t unless
I was in, say, a Mustang) and he wasn’t a big fan of spoiling the
girls.

Then again, with a dead Dad, spoiling them
had become something of a habit.

And anyway, I didn’t have Tim anymore to
help me take them places and pick them up. I also didn’t live in a
household with two cars unless I bought one for Kate.

So I did.

She was a good driver, responsible, my
Kate. Keira, now, Keira would probably be picked up joyriding when
she had her learner’s permit with
me
in the car. Keira was a magnet for trouble. Kate would
rather die a thousand bloody, painful deaths than break a rule or
get into trouble. Keira would make a deal with the devil for a
killer pair of shoes and not even blink.

Even if Kate was responsible and a good
driver, I still hated it when she drove in snow.

This was what I was thinking as I drove home
from the Bobbie’s Garden Shoppe, my now full-time job. I found out
that morning that I was now full-time since Sabrina had her twins a
week ago. She’d called Bobbie the night before and told Bobbie that
her maternity leave was indefinite.