Somewhere in His Arms (20 page)

             
The bad dye job approached Lucy with horror etched on her face. “Did
he
do that to you?” she demanded in outrage.

             
“This...?”  Lucy muttered, gingerly touching her nose. She must look like she got the worst end of a truck. “No, he didn’t---”

             
“Don’t defend him, honey!” the Mohawk interjected viciously. “They’re nothing but rabid dogs who deserve to be put down!”

             
“Yeah!” agreed her companion, who was eyeing Alec like she’d be more than happy to pull the switch on the electric chair as he came huffing up the sidewalk. “Did
you
do this?” she demanded, pointing toward Lucy’s face.

             
“He didn’t---” Lucy blurted in a feeble attempt to defend her husband.

             
“There’s nothing to be ashamed of, honey,” the Mohawk said consolingly. “We’ve all been there one time or another.” She dismounted her bike to put some distance between Lucy and Alec. “Get out of here, you monster!” She hurled at him. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”

             
“W-What...?” Alec sputtered in outrage. “I didn’t touch her! She has nosebleeds!”

             
“Tell it to the judge, asswipe!” Bad dye job yelled. “Like to hit little girls do ya?”

             
“Now, see here!” he squawked in his defense. “I would never lay a hand on my wife!”

             
“Your wife...?”
Mohawk repeated incredulously and turned to Lucy. “Is that true?”

             
Lucy shrugged. “Not for long. He wants an annulment.”

             
“Typical,” the Bleach job muttered in disgust. “Maybe it’s for the best,” she added as she sized the creep up. He wasn’t so tough. The pretty ones were usually the first to go down. She said to Lucy, “Hop on little lady, we’ll get you to a hospital.”

             
Alec was watching the whole thing unfold like a detached victim in a horror movie. She wasn’t actually considering mounting that beast in her condition?
Over his dead body
! “Lucy,” he warned menacingly, “don’t you dare!”

             
“Don’t tell me what to do!” she hurled back at him. “You’re not my husband anymore,
remember
?”

             
“I’m your husband until
I
say I’m not!” he growled.

             
“Is that so?” Lucy demanded.

             
“Yes, that’s so!”

             
Bad dye job and Mohawk were getting worried that the confrontation would escalate and wanted to get Lucy as far away from the bastard a possible. “You want us to call the police?”

             
Lucy shook her head. “Nah,” she told them. “Let me deal with him, then get me out of here.” They nodded and stepped back as she waltzed right up to Alec and kneed him in the groin. He crumpled like a sack of potatoes, clutching his privates in a desperate bid to save his unborn children. “W-What…did...you... do that for?” he gasped in agony.

             
“Why’d you think?” she snapped, and began tugging at her wedding ring. Up till now it had refused to budge. But now it was loose. She suspected she had lost some weight with the morning sickness, and she yanked it off in an excess of skin and blood. She winced as it finally relinquished its grip and held it up for her husband to see. His eyes widened. “You were right, Alec,” Lucy said softly as she tossed it into the street, “it certainly kept away the riffraff.” 

             
She whirled on her heel and joined Bad dye job on her motorcycle. The woman handed her a helmet and just as she was putting it on, Alec shouted at them to stop. “She can’t ride, she’s pregnant!”

             
“Are ya?” the woman asked as Mohawk handed her a helmet.

             
Lucy nodded. “Is that a problem?”

             
“Nah,” Bad dye job scoffed. “I rode with all three of mine and ain’t nothing wrong with their skulls. Hold on tight, she’s a kicker!”

             
Alec by now had risen to his feet and rushed towards them, “Stop!” he shouted to no avail.

             
“Ugh,” Lucy grimaced. “He’s really starting to bug me.”

             
“I’ll take care of him,” Mohawk offered with a knowing wink at Lucy. “Hey, Angie!” she called out to a woman who roared up in a Harley. “Jeeves here said something about your mother!”             

             
“
Who
said something about my mother?” a deep female voice growled.

             
Mohawk stood aside and pointed at Alec who was fast discovering this just wasn’t his day. “
He
did.”

             
Alec stood rooted to the spot as the female equivalent of Arnold Schwarzenegger stomped towards him. He was six-feet-two in socks, but this she-male made him feel like Danny Devito. She must have been six-foot-six at the most, or maybe she just looked that way since she was wearing heeled boots. He didn’t really pay attention to anything else she might have been wearing or what she looked like, because she was barreling towards him like an angry bull on a red shirt. Maybe he should grovel. “P-Please, madam,” he cajoled sweetly as he backed away slowly. “Can’t we talk about this like adults?”

             
“
No one
says anything about my mama!” she snarled as she reached down and snatched him up over her shoulders.

             
Lucy watched the whole thing transpire with something akin to horrified fascination.
He
was the father of her child after all. “Is she going to hurt him?” she asked fretfully.

             
Bad dye job laughed heartily and revved the engine. She snapped her helmet’s visor down in place. “Nah,” she chortled. “She’s just gonna bend him a little!” With that pronouncement, she took off in a whirl of dust and fumes as Lucy wrapped her arms around the woman’s waist and held on for dear life. She squeezed her eyes shut and left Alec to his fate.

             
Alec’s life passed before his eyes as the she-male carried him into the night. She stopped suddenly to his relief, but that relief was short lived when she lifted him high above her head before hurling him into an open dumpster.

             
She walked away swiping her hands on her skirt as she joined Mohawk who stood nearby. "Had to take out the trash,” she grunted to her friend. They both laughed and hopped back on their bikes, content knowing that another one had gotten what he deserved. They roared off, leaving Alec sitting in a pile of rubbish and nursing his wounded pride. He’d deserved every bit of that ass whooping he decided and winced, shifting in the pile and trying to sit up. His hand slid into something wet and slimy, and the stench made him want to puke. But that was the least of his worries.
The ring!

             
He hauled himself painfully out of the dumpster and climbed down. The sun was just beginning to reveal itself through the smoggy haze, and Alec grimaced at the feel of his grimy sweats plastered against his body. He managed to take a few steps, wincing as he did so, and frantically searched for the ring.

             
It was here somewhere.

             
It was
his
fault; Lucy would never forgive him. Alec limped a little towards the spot where she had tossed the ring. There, in the early morning sun, it winked at him from where it lay in the middle of the street. He rushed to beat the traffic and just as he was about to reach for it, a large Hummer shot down the lane and flattened the small circle of gold.

             
He stared at it in a daze and sank down on the curb, defeated. Alec buried his face in his hands and wept.

Chapter Thirteen

It was a well-known fact of life that cruelly interrupting a pregnant woman’s sleep was liable to get you whacked. So it was with that in mind that Lucy tried to ignore the incessant pounding on her door. After the terrible blow-up with Alec, Bad dye job---her name was Josie by the way--- had insisted on taking her to the hospital, but Lucy had convinced her she was a nurse, and that it was nothing but a harmless nosebleed.

             
After Josie dropped her off, Lucy had showered and literally washed that man out of her hair. She never thought Alec would desert her like a rat on a sinking ship. But that was the way the world worked. Men got women pregnant every day and left them holding the proverbial diaper bag. She couldn’t afford to dwell on his cowardice; she had to be strong for the baby. She’d feel sorry for herself later and buried her head under the pillows only to fall into a listless sleep.

             
Who
was that pounding on her door?

             
“Go away!” she moaned sleepily and hugged her pillow. But the pounding wouldn’t stop. In fact, whoever was on the other end was damn determined to get her up.
“What is it?”
she snapped angrily. It couldn’t be housekeeping. The lady usually came late in the afternoon.

             
A familiar voice called to her through the thin particleboard,
“Chica,
it’s me...Eddie.”

             
“Eddie...?” she called out, confused. They weren’t supposed to pick her up till Saturday.

             
“Yeah,” he replied in his deep booming voice. “Open up, girl!”

             
Her curiosity piqued, Lucy forced herself out of bed and unlocked the door. There was Di’s Eddie, standing sheepishly with his hands in his pockets. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “What time is it?” she asked, yawning.

             
He glanced at his watch. “Twelve-thirty,” he smiled. “Why aren’t you dressed?” He frowned at her swollen eyes.

             
Lucy looked down at her Hello Kitty pajamas with some embarrassment. “You weren’t supposed to pick me up until Saturday,” she told him dryly. “What’s up?”

             
Eddie offered her a toothy grin. “Di was worried about you and insisted I come get you right away,” he explained with a little shrug of his sturdy shoulders. “She can be
very
persuasive!” He shifted uneasily in his boots.

             
Lucy smiled to herself. Was the strapping Eddie afraid of his petite wife? “Umm...have you had lunch yet?”

             
“Lunch...?” he repeated in disgust. “I haven’t had breakfast!” he told her, describing the foul grass-clipping shake he’d been force-fed this morning. “It was awful!”

             
She laughed with a humor she didn’t feel. Wait here,” Lucy told him, and went to fetch her purse. She handed him ten dollars. “Here,” she said. “Give me thirty minutes to put myself together.”

             
“I can’t---“ he protested.

             
“Yes, you can!” Lucy insisted, forcing the money into his weathered paw. “Go eat some real food!”

             
“Di will kill me!” Eddie said, clutching the bill in his hand. Oh, what he wouldn’t give for
Huevos Rancheros
smothered in cheese. But if he betrayed his wife, he might end up eating
Huevos Divorciados.
He began to hand over the ten reluctantly.

             
Lucy wouldn’t hear of it and pushed the money back into his hand. “I owe you for the gas anyway!”

             
Eddie was still unsure. “You won’t tell Di?” he pleaded like a little boy about to do something very naughty.

             
She laughed, this time for real. “Cross my heart,” she promised. “Thirty minutes,” she reminded him

             
He nodded eagerly and turned to leave. But something wasn’t right. “Are you okay,
chica?”

             
“Me?” Lucy rushed to assure him that all was well. “I’m perfectly fine!”

     Eddie
didn’t look entirely convinced but his stomach was calling, so he hurried to his truck in case she changed her mind. He’d deal with the consequences later.

             
Lucy breathed a sigh of relief and hurried to pack her things. Most of her stuff was in storage, and the goldfish Dean had given her she’d gifted to a boy in Pediatrics. So there really wasn’t much to do since she was living out of her backpack anyway. But she wanted some time by herself to think.

             
She changed into a blue scoop-necked tee and some overalls that she’d purchased online.
My first purchase as an expectant mother,
Lucy thought sadly. She’d had foolish notions of shopping for baby clothes with Alec. Tears filled her eyes and she angrily brushed them away. No more! She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of crying over his sorry ass! Diane would say he wasn’t worth it. And she’d be right. She bent over to pull on her socks and a pair of lug sole ankle boots and wondered how the hell she was going to do that when she couldn’t see her feet anymore. Guess she’d better get used to going barefoot!