Dangerous Curves Ahead: A Perfect Fit Novel (33 page)

Ellis clapped her hands over her mouth as soon as she heard the final word come out. She was supposed to be getting closer to her sister, not saying mean things, no matter how true they were.

“I’m sorry, Dina. I didn’t mean that.”

“Yes, you did.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I can’t believe you’re such a nasty bitch.”

Her sister’s words were like a slap in the face and for a moment Ellis was torn between anger and guilt. “I’m so sorry, honey.” She rushed to her sister’s side and gripped her hands. Guilt as usual won out. “Please, forgive me.”

“I don’t know if I can, Ellis.” She tore her hands away and stood. “I need some time to think about it.”

She stomped out of the room, reminding Ellis of the times she’d done so as a teenager. She had been too hard on Dina. Dina’s father never loved her like a father should, like Walter loved Ellis. Maybe she was entitled to act a little selfishly. And maybe Ellis was once again making excuses for her big sister.

Chapter Twenty-four

Mike scratched at the new growth on his chin. He’d neglected to shave that morning, as he had for the past two days. He looked like shit. His eye was still black from Walter’s punch. His head throbbed, and he hadn’t felt like himself. He was missing Ellis and part of him wanted to kick down her front door and force her to realize they belonged together. But the rational side of his brain held him back. She probably needed time to cool down. Or, the thought he hated to think, she didn’t love him. Not as much as he loved her. So he held off, biding his time, hoping that the shitty feeling would magically dissipate or that some other woman would come along and make him forget all about Ellis.

Fat chance. Other women didn’t exist for him.

“You okay, Mike?” Lester asked as they walked down Barnum Street. They were on their way to interview a suspect in a breaking and entering. The item stolen was a twenty-gallon fish tank filled with pricey saltwater fish. The suspect was the woman’s ex-husband. The case should be easy to solve.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You having woman problems?”

Mike shrugged, not wanting to talk about it with his partner.

“Me and my wife got into a huge fight before I proposed to her. It was about her loudmouth mother. I can’t stand that old bat. I was so glad when she moved to Boca Raton two years ago I nearly got down on my knees and kissed the ground.”

Mike tuned out as Lester went on in detail about his mother-in-law. Normally Mike found Lester’s stories amusing, but he couldn’t focus today. Instead he took in the scenery of Barnum Street. He hadn’t spent a lot of time in this part of town. It wasn’t as clean and shiny as the rest of Durant. It was nowhere near seedy, but the town’s one and only pawnshop was located on this block as well as some of the older shops.

His eyes fixed on a fat bald guy in a tracksuit walking out of a convenience store. The man looked familiar and Mike racked his brain trying to figure out where he knew him from.

And then it hit him like a MackTruck. He was the man who’d robbed Ellis’s store, the same man whose face he’d studied every morning for weeks.

“Motherfucker.” He took off toward the man, who was so startled that he didn’t even bother to run.

“What the fuck’s your problem, man?”

Mike punched the bastard in the face. “That woman you hit and robbed is my girlfriend.” He backhanded him. “How do you like being slapped around? Make you feel powerful, big man?”

“Mike!” Lester grabbed his arm before he could knock the guy out. “What the hell are you doing?”

“This is the guy who hurt Ellis. You saw her face. I’m going to kill him.”

“No! Wait!” The man put his hands up in defense. “He paid me to do it.”

“Who?”

“Her ex.”

*   *   *

Mike flew out of the police station as fast as humanly possible. He barely heard Lester’s warning for him to wait for him … or for backup. Probably both. Mike needed to get to Jack. He needed to find that weaselly smug punk ass.

The first place he thought to go was Agatha Toomey’s. Normally he would look the guy up in the database but he didn’t know Jack’s last name. The Jack Toomeys that came up didn’t fit the description and Mike didn’t have time to investigate. Jack’s aunt would know where he was.

He spotted a green VW Bug in the driveway and knew he was in the right place. He was going to have to play it cool with Mrs. Toomey. He couldn’t let his emotions rule him or else the woman would give him nothing. Maybe he should have waited for Lester or another officer to question her but his mind wasn’t functioning correctly. Jack had hurt Ellis for the last time.

He knocked on the door of the white Colonial and waited. When the door didn’t immediately open he knocked again, then he banged. This time the door opened, the skinny little hag’s face twisted with distaste as soon as she spotted him.

Calm down
, he warned himself.
Don’t let on
.

“What do you want?”

Good question.
Blood
didn’t seem like the appropriate answer. He pulled out his badge. “I’m Detective Michael Edwards and I have a few questions for you.”

“Who is it, Aunt Aggie?”

Mike’s blood boiled. Jack stood behind his aunt in a three-piece suit. His face lost all signs of color.

“You fucking bastard.” He pushed past the lady, entering her home uninvited. Jack fled toward the back. “Coward,” Mike yelled. “You can’t even act like a man now.”

He caught up with Jack quickly in the den, grabbing him by the collar and slamming him into the wall so hard the plaster cracked. “You hurt her, you son of a bitch.” Mike smashed his fist into Jack’s face, hearing a satisfying
thunk
when his knuckles met Jack’s jawbone. “What kind of man does that to a woman? She didn’t deserve that.”

“She wasn’t supposed to get hurt. He was just supposed to scare her!”

“Jacky!” his aunt cried in the background.

“Scare her,” Mike roared. “He split her face open. She needed stitches. Now I’m going to do to you what he did to her.” He slapped Jack with the back of his hand, but this time Jack was prepared and delivered a punch of his own. Mike barely felt the impact. He was too pissed off.

“If she’d kept her mouth shut things would have been fine. I always told her that her big mouth was going to get her in trouble.”

Mike’s fist connected with his gut and Jack doubled over in pain.

“You leave him alone,” Agatha screamed. “My Jack was too good for that slut anyway.”

“Shut up, Aunt Aggie,” Jack cried. “You don’t get to talk about her like that. You know I love her.”

Love her? The words were like gasoline on a fire. Mike loved her. Jack had no idea what love was.

He body-checked Jack, sending the smaller man flying. He advanced on him, his heart pounding, his brain buzzing. No rational thought entered or left. Jack’s face twisted in fear.

Good
, Mike thought, wickedly.
Now he can feel what Ellis felt. Now he can know what it’s like to have his dignity robbed from him.

Jack staggered to his feet, grabbing a lamp off the nearest end table. “You stay away from me, you animal.” He threw it, and it exploded on the wall behind Mike, shards of it slapping Mike’s face. Warm blood trickled down his cheek but it didn’t stop him from moving toward Jack.

He picked up the antique table next. It struck Mike square in the chest but it didn’t stop him.

“Are you fucking RoboCop?”

He grabbed Jack again but not before the man delivered a quick punch to his eye. It started swelling immediately, making it hard for him to see. Mike rewarded that blow with two back-to-back punches, backing Jack up into the sofa. One of them tripped and they both went down. Jack tried to get in a few more punches as they landed, but Mike expected them and countered, knocking Jack’s head so hard on the floor that spit and blood flew from his mouth.

“You’re going to kill him,” he heard and then he felt a searing pain in his arm. The bitch did it. She stabbed him with a ballpoint pen.

*   *   *

“Mike’s been hurt. You need to get to the hospital.” It was the phone call every wife or girlfriend of a police officer dreaded.

Ellis said nothing to Lester’s statement. She just dropped her phone and left her store.

Lester was waiting for her at the emergency room, his face grim. She opened her mouth to speak but her heart was lodged in her throat. “How—what—Is he okay?”

“He looks like hell, but he’s a tough one. He’ll be fine.”

As soon as she heard those words a little bit of the pressure eased from her chest. “What happened?”

“Mike found the guy who robbed you. It turns out that your ex set up both of the robberies on St. Lucy Street as a scare tactic to get you back. When Mike found out, he found that sneaky bastard and beat the shit out of him.”

“Oh no.” Ellis grabbed her head. “Oh God.” She wasn’t really surprised that Jack had set her up. He was used to getting what he wanted no matter what he had to do to get it. But Mike … “He’s going to get into major trouble for this.”

“He’s going to prison.”

Ellis’s eyes shot up to Lester’s. “Mike’s going to prison?”

“No, sweetie. Your ex is, and so is the guy he hired to do the job. Toomey confessed. They are going to get some serious time for it. Mike’s just going to get his ass handed to him by our captain, but he ended up solving the case. Now folks around here won’t be so afraid anymore.”

Guilt pounded in her chest. “All of this happened because of me. I—I should move to Russia.”

“Don’t go blaming yourself. Seems to me like you’re the type of girl men lose their minds over.”

“Which is exactly why I should be single.”

Lester shook his head. “Go see your boyfriend and do us all a favor. Take him back. He’s been a mopey shithead all week.”

She nodded once before she turned away.

“Mike.” Tears flooded her eyes when she saw him.
Horrible
wasn’t a strong enough word to describe how he looked. His face was nearly unrecognizable. Both his beautiful eyes were blackened. His cheek had long red scrapes. His perfect lower lip was swollen.

He was surprised to see her, and her heart broke. He looked so alone sitting on that hospital bed, bare-chested and bruised, his arm bandaged and in a sling. “Elle.”

“What did you do?” she cried.

“Don’t cry, honey. It’s really not that bad. You should see what I did to him.” He looked helpless for a moment. “Come here.”

She hadn’t realized she’d frozen in the entrance to the tiny room. She almost didn’t want to move closer, because if she did she knew she wasn’t going to be able to leave with her heart.

“Please.” He grabbed her with his good arm as soon as she got close enough. The tears ran faster as she viewed him up close. His face looked more damaged at this angle.

“Why did you come?” he questioned.

“Why do you think?”

“Because you love me.”

“No.” She shook her head. “It’s not true.” She wouldn’t admit that to him, even if he already knew.

“No?” He wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Not even a little bit?”

“Not at all,” she choked. She lightly ran her hands over his face, careful not to further hurt him. She needed to touch him, to make sure he was really with her and alive, and okay. “You shouldn’t have gone after him. He’s not worth it.”

“I had to and I’m fine. I promise. Please stop crying.” He put his arm around her waist and brought her closer. She looped her arms around him, smelling his familiar scent mixed with blood and sweat. Damn, she’d missed him. She didn’t realize how heavy the ache was in her chest until she saw him again. It was as if she had been suffocating for days.

“Shh.” He rubbed her back, trying to soothe her. “It’s okay.”

“You look like shit.”

“That’s my girl. Insult me again.”

“You’re an asshole.” She smoothed kisses across his forehead. “Don’t ever scare me like that again.”

“Ellis, I’m sorry.”

She slapped his chest, causing him to wince. “You’re right. You are sorry.”

He cupped her face, lightly bringing her mouth to his. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered before he kissed her. “I want to come home.”

“No, Mike. Don’t do this to me.”

“Yes.” He kissed her again, held her tighter. “I miss you. I need you.”

That did it. Her heart cracked open. It had been too hard without him. He was right: She loved him too much to push him away. And after what he did for her, risking his body to go after Jack, she couldn’t deny him. She didn’t want to let him out of her sight. What if Agatha had been crazier? What if the pen had been a knife? What if it had been his chest instead of his arm? The thought of never seeing him again made her knees buckle and her heart skip beats.

“I hate you.”

“Sometimes I hate you, too. That’s why we belong together.”

She laughed through her tears. “You planned this, didn’t you? You made it so I couldn’t stay mad at you for very long.”

“Yeah, and I also planned to have your father punch me in the face.”

“What!”

“This black eye.” He pointed to the left side of his face. “Came from your father the day you dumped me.”

“He punched you?”

“Yeah and then he took me out and bought me whiskey and told me all about your family.”

“Is that why he was gone for so long?” She blinked. “I thought I saw a truck pull up in front of the house.”

“That was Colin.” He grinned at her and then winced. “I got good and drunk with your father. He’s actually really fucking funny when he’s had a few.”

“What?
My father?
He drinks?”

“Only whiskey. He wouldn’t even let me buy a beer.”

Ellis couldn’t wrap her head around what Mike was telling her. “And he punched you?”

“He loves you, honey. He would do anything to stop somebody from hurting you.” He locked eyes with her. “And so would I.”

“Fine,” she sighed. “You win. Just don’t make me regret it.”

“You won’t.” He kissed her, and at first it started off gently but then he increased the pressure and the heat, opening his mouth and letting the desire flow. It was all need, that kiss. A sign of how much they had missed each other.