Rescue Me: A Bad Boy Military Romance (19 page)

I sigh, pulling off sticky pink strands. I check my watch. Only five more hours to go. Considering it’s only been five minutes since I stepped out of my truck, this isn’t exactly comforting. I wander the aisles of the boots, waving at people and stopping to chat here and there.

High school kids holding hands walk past me, girls with varsity jackets draped over their shoulders, guys with arms wrapped casually around girls’ waists.

“Oh, to be young and in love,” Tanya says, sidling up to me. She gives me a hug. “Where’s your better half?”

“At the clinic catching up on some paperwork, but she should be here in a few minutes,” I reply. “How are things running?”

Tanya exhales deeply. “Well, so far we’ve had two little kids throw up from excitement and the line for the bumper cars is so long people are already complaining. But I think once people get sufficiently drunk, that won’t matter.”

Carnival sounds fill my ears: electronic music blaring out of tinny speakers, the sound of happy screams from the Ferris wheel, the dinging of people winning one game or another. I spot an enormous teddy bear at a shooting game and immediately know how I’ll be spending the next five minutes. “Gotta run. Just call me if you need anything, Tanya.”

“I always do!” she calls back. “Oh, and Tim was looking for you earlier. Stop by the ice cream booth, will ya?”

I wave in recognition and trot over to the ticket booth. “Five tickets,” I say to a cheerleader who is the spitting image of Amy ten years ago. I recognize her as a girl who cried in my office a month ago when she didn’t make the varsity squad. “You holding up okay, Sarah?”

She pops her gum and smiles at me. “I am. I did what you told me to do.”

“You burned an effigy of the varsity squad captain?”

She laughs. “Haven’t gotten around to that, but I did apply for the robotics team. And I made it.”

“Well fucking done!” I say, giving her a high five. “I knew you would. Make sure to keep the power cord short for when your robot goes rogue.”

She rolls her eyes. “Here ya go, Mr. Davis.” She pulls off a roll of tickets.

“I only paid for five,” I protest.

She insists, shoving them toward me. “Just take the tickets and don’t question it, alright?”

I take them with a thank you and wander over to the shooting booth. I slam down the five requisite tickets to play, and the bored-looking attendant hands me a pellet gun. “Shoot the moving targets,” he says, pointing behind him.

There are pop-up bullseyes coming and going from the stage behind him. I look at the enormous bear that is as tall as Ella is and see it requires five hundred points to redeem. I squint at the bullseyes, watching them for a full sixty seconds to get the pattern down. I spot the tiny pink five hundred mark that is the size of a quarter. It’s in the center of the biggest bullseye with concentric circles of all different point values surrounding it.

The target moves from right to left.

I take my aim and fire. The pink circle I was aiming for pops out of place and falls back. “Damn,” says the attendant, his jaw dropped. “Nobody’s ever gotten that on one try.”

“Yeah, I
told
Sarah I only needed five tickets,” I say to him.

“Who’s Sarah?”

I shake my head and smile. “Just give me the bear, please.”

A few minutes later, I’m walking through the makeshift fairgrounds holding a bear that’s three-quarters the size of me. “Hey, is that for Ms. Hanover?” shout a few different kids.

I nod and wave. “It is indeed.”

“Somebody’s in love,” Dean says from the pie-throwing booth he’s manning.

“Shut your mouth, jackass,” I reply with a smile. I set the bear onto a folding chair and go over to talk to him for a few minutes. My phone buzzes in my pocket. It’s a text from Ella.

Running about an hour late. Man my booth for me, okay? Michael’s bringing Amy flowers. Go sit with her.

Perplexed over the third line of this message, I respond.
You okay?

I see the typing bubble appear and disappear a few times.
Yes.

Parting with Dean, I hoist up the bear and wander over to the dunk tank. Amy is standing there twirling her hair and handing bean bags to people to toss at the target. Michael is sitting on the collapsible bench in the tank, already soaking wet from several apparent dunks.

“That’s where he belongs,” I whisper to Amy.

She looks up at me and laughs. I realize for the first time in years I don’t smell alcohol on her breath and wonder how much of that can be attributed to Ella the day before. “Yeah, Tanya roped him into it. I think she did it to avenge me, to be honest.”

I look at Amy. She looks different. Happy. “You look good, Waters,” I say to her.

She blushes a little. “I’m not divorced yet, Davis. Keep it in your pants.”

I laugh and she joins in with me. “Ella said Michael was bringing you flowers?”

Amy looks confused. “Why would she say that?”

“I’m not sure,” I reply. Something is nagging at the back of my brain but I can’t put my finger on it. “You ever feel like you’ve forgotten something?”

Amy slaps her hand to her forehead. “Yeah, just now! Tim’s been looking for you.”

That’s it. Tanya reminded me to go talk to him and I didn’t. “Thanks. You good here for a few minutes?”

Someone hits the target squarely in the center and the bench collapses, Michael splashing spectacularly as he gets dunked in the water. Amy lets out a shriek of delight and claps her hands together. She wipes a tear of mirth from her eye. “Oh, I’m definitely good here.”

“Watch the bear for me, will you?”

I have to grab a paper map from a passing student to find where the ice cream booth is. It’s in the far corner of the fair. I weave my way through the crowds toward Tim who has a long line of customers. I know that fifty percent of the proceeds will go to the school, but the other fifty goes to him. He needs it for his fledgling business. I stand in the back of the line and wait my turn.

I keep checking my phone and watch but I’m not entirely sure why. Fifteen minutes pass and I finally make it up to the front. “I’d like peach and pecan, please,” I say, pulling a twenty-dollar bill out of my pocket. I’m paying extra for the sake of the school.

Tim grins. “Coming right up.” He digs into a bucket of freshly-made ice cream and scoops it into a cone. “You having fun tonight?”

I nod. “I won a bear for Ella.”

Tim hands me the cone. “Sounds like a productive evening.”

“I’m guessing business is booming? I thought I might have to sign up for a waiting list just to inch my way up here to talk to my best friend.”

Tim laughs and wipes his forehead with his sleeve. “It’s been nonstop. I think people are coming back here two and three times instead of eating actual food.”

I lick some of the peach ice cream and groan. “That’s because you’re a fucking ice cream savant. This is the best I’ve ever had.”

“Save the superlatives for the tip jar,” Tim says. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to tell you. There was some guy looking for Ella this morning.”

My vision blurs and my ears ring. “Who?”

He shrugs. “Tall, muscular. He was wearing a ton of foundation on his face, which was kind of weird, but hey. Who am I to judge, right? Whatever makes a person happy – what is it, Luke?”

I hand my cone to the person behind me and I start running.

Tim screams. “Luke! Need me to call the sheriff?”

“Yes!” I yell, jogging backwards. “Send him to the clinic!”

But I know it’s pointless. The sheriff is somewhere at the fair, probably neck-deep in funnel cake and booze.

I’m the only one that can get to Ella in time.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

ELLA

I yawn and stretch, looking at the clock. I’ve got thirty minutes or so before I need to be at the fair, and I’m still in my sweatpants. “Dammit,” I mutter to no one.

I’m lost in a sea of patient charts, forms, and paperwork that I’ve piled in a maze around my living room. I’ve been sitting in my sweatpants and t-shirt all day, poring over notes and getting things in order.

Half of my day has been filled with finding and applying for extra grants for the clinic. We need all the resources that I can possibly gather to keep the place running.

I let my hair down and slide my glasses off of my face, stretching my legs. My foot fills up with pins and needles and I shake it out. Ten minutes later, I’m steaming in the shower, letting the stiffness of my day on the couch leave my body.

I wrap myself up in a bathrobe that Luke bought for me, enjoying the plush feel of it against my skin. I dry my hair quickly. I check my phone. Only fifteen minutes to get to the fair.

Part of me wants to be late. As much as Amy and I bonded yesterday, I’m still not looking forward to spending over five hours of my time standing there making small talk. I’m still not even sure what we’d be saying to each other. I pick up my phone and head upstairs to get dressed. I open the low-to-the-floor drawers and reach in for my good red bra.

It’s not in here.

“That’s weird,” I say to no one. Something is tapping at the back of my brain. Something that’s been nagging at me, something that I’ve forgotten. I snap my fingers.

My red bra is still in the clinic room on the floor where Luke tore it off of me. I haven’t been back in that room in almost two days because I’ve been so busy. I check the clock again and know I don’t have time to go get it. But that works for me, because anything I do to prolong the moment where I have to go volunteer is one less second I have to spend with Amy.

I slide on my high heels for tonight and leave on my bathrobe, stepping out into the humid night and prancing over the flagstone path toward the clinic. I slip my key into the back door when I realize I left it unlocked. Luke will kill me.

I open the door and walk into the clinic hallway, flipping on lights. I pause, my breath catching in my chest. Something is wrong. I don’t know what, but something is different.

I gaze down the hallway and open the first patient room door, my heart thudding in my chest. Everything is fine.

I open the door to the bathroom.

Nothing.

I get to the front patient room and flip the light on.

My blood runs cold.

Laid out on the patient table are my bra and panties. Not tossed. Not carelessly thrown.

The bra has been buckled back together, the panties laid out beneath them. It’s like a person was laying there and their body disappeared. I hear the floor creak behind me and I scramble for my phone.

“Hello, Ella.”

I scream and know that way out here on the outskirts of Buxwell, nobody can hear me.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

LUKE

It’s like the fair’s layout has tripled in size in the last sixty seconds. I’m almost lost trying to get back to my truck. I nearly trip six different people, who all yell at me in alarm. But I don’t have time for apologies.

I have to get to Ella.

I pull out my phone and scream into the operating system so I can text while I run. It’s not picking up my voice. “FUCK!” I yell. The sound of my voice garners scandalized stares from the moms and dads around me. One of them scoops up her toddler and presses her hands over his ears like this will somehow remove the expletive from his memory.

I make it to my truck, dropping my keys twice on the pavement from my shaking hands. I finally get inside it and dial Ella’s number. It goes to voicemail three times in a row. I put the truck in reverse and peel out of the parking lot, nearly running over a family of three who dive out of my way. “Sorry!” I scream out of my rolled-down truck window.

Thankfully, the streets are empty. Everyone in a hundred-mile radius of here is attending the fair at the school. I know that. It still chills me to see empty streets and know that the only thing standing between Ella and a psychopath is my ability to get to her as fast as possible.

I run stoplights and stop signs. I accelerate down forty-mile-an-hour roads at sixty-five miles per hour. I don’t care. I know these streets like the back of my own hand. I think I could make this drive blindfolded.

The sun is setting all around me, and I feel like every sunbeam that disappears under the horizon is another second taken from Ella.

“I just got you back!” I scream at the top of my lungs, pounding on the steering wheel and pressing the accelerator to the floor. The truck engine purrs along like it’s nothing, but I’m breaking apart into a million little pieces with every mile.

I finally get to her dirt road and take a hard right. The truck skids on the gravel and recovers. I race to the clinic and pull the emergency brake to put the truck in park. I leave it running. I have to make a split decision.

House or clinic.

Clinic or house.

I break open the front door and step inside the darkened space, screaming Ella’s name at the top of my lungs.

“ELLA!”

I chose the clinic.

I chose wrong.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

ELLA

“What the hell are you doing here?” I yell.

I know he’s Jason by his ridiculously preppy polo shirt and khaki pants and his gelled-back hair. But his face is almost unrecognizable.

Jason is grinning at me, but his smile is twisted. His lips are cracked and split from where Luke beat him up, and his face is still swollen. He’s inexpertly caked on foundation to cover up the severe discoloration, and his nose is puffy under two supportive bandage strips.

He looks grotesque.

But it is the wild gleam in his eyes that really terrifies me, sending shockwaves of horror through my body. This is the Jason I always knew was lurking under the picture-perfect exterior.

“My boyfriend is on his way,” I say quickly.

This is a lie.

Jason laughs. “Right. Your boyfriend is with the other country bumpkins you call friends at that ridiculous little festival. Looks like your little drunk blonde friend will have to run the dunk tank by herself.”

My blood runs cold. I scan back to the day before to see if there was something, anything at all that I could have possibly missed. A strange vehicle. Someone’s eyes on me in the distance. But there’s nothing. And why should there be? I was thoroughly distracted by Amy.