Easy Target (11 page)

Bryan glanced at Sassy’s blood-­spattered sweater. They would both need to change so as not to walk around looking like extras in a zombie apocalypse movie.

“We’ll be fine. Thank you, sir,” he said.

Otis left them standing at the bottom of the stairs, his sense of welcome obviously complete. They watched him walk into his house, hobbling a bit. Sassy’d been very quiet up till now. Bryan looked down at her, expecting tears or anger.

Instead, she just shook her head and muttered, “Jesus, what a day. And it’s not even ten o’clock.”

She didn’t wait for his reply; instead she started up the steps attached to the garage. He huffed a laugh. Not because the situation was funny, but because she sounded just like the old woman who’d lived next door to his Gran.

Indeed.
He walked up the stairs behind her and found the key just where Otis said it would be.

The garage apartment smelled musty, like it hadn’t been aired out in a while. But that was to be expected with all the humidity in the area. Still, the place was ruthlessly neat, with a queen bed, full bath, small sitting area, kitchenette, washer/dryer, and a large walk-­in closet.

There was no food in the tiny fridge, but in the freezer he found a can of coffee, along with two boxes of Hot Pockets. At this point, Bryan could eat his boot, he was so hungry.

“I still can’t believe Tilly offered this to us. She doesn’t know us from Adam’s house cat,” murmured Sassy.

Bryan smiled at the expression. “Me either, but I’m glad she did. Get cleaned up, okay? I’ll make us something to eat.”

She opened the closet and disappeared inside. “Why don’t you go first? I’m going to grab something to change into and throw my clothes in the washing machine. Leave your shirt, I’ll wash it, too.”

“You sure?”

She stuck her head back around the closet door. “Promise not to use all the hot water?”

He snorted a laugh, slid off his shirt, and stepped into the bathroom. She had no idea how fast he could shower. Six minutes later he was done.

He’d have to wear the same jeans unless there was something of Otis’s in the closet that fit. But it was good to have the stink of burning fuel off his skin and out of his hair. For now his jeans would do.

While he’d taken a speed shower, Sassy had hauled out a sack of clothes from the closet and found a long terry robe reminiscent of the one she’d worn in the hotel in Africa. She’d also located an XXL hoodie sweatshirt for him sporting a Dallas Cowboys logo.

“I realize they’re not your team but . . . in a pinch?”

He smiled. “This is great. Thanks.”

“There’s one for me, too.” She held up a smaller logoed sweatshirt from the bag before heading into the bathroom, only to squeal in delight as she walked inside. “I’ve died and gone to heaven. There’s a massaging showerhead in here.”

“The Four Seasons has nothing on Tilly and Otis. Take your time in the ‘spa.’ ”

“Oh, I intend to. I plan to be one wrinkled prune before I get out of here.” She shut the door on Bryan’s laughter.

He turned to the frozen ham-­and-­cheese croissant-­like sandwiches and was trying to determine the most appetizing way to reheat them when his phone dinged with an incoming message. It was Bear.

Got your message. Been a long time. What do you need?

Bryan replied:
A ride and a safe place to stay.

Just you?

Me plus one.

Bear’s response was immediate.
Trouble with the law?

Bryan texted back.
Not what it sounds like.

You know I don’t care. Where do you need to be picked up?

Kingstree.
Bryan heard the shower kick on. With a response like Pavlov’s dog, he immediately had a picture of Sassy undressing in his head. Even more disconcerting, his heart rate kicked up.

Bear texted back.
Can’t be there till almost 4:00
PM
. You okay till then?

Bryan looked around the apartment. This was as safe as it got for now. Tilly and Otis were the only ones who knew they were here, and they thought Bryan and Sassy were the Albertsons.

Yes,
he typed back.

Send me the address around 2:00
PM
.

Bryan sighed in relief. He hadn’t wanted to disclose their location until absolutely necessary. It would have been difficult to say no if Bear had asked for it up front.

Will do. Thanks.

There was no reply, but Bryan didn’t expect there to be. The last time Bryan had seen him in Germany, Bear had become a man of few words. It seemed that extended to his text communications as well.

The burner for the hot water heater kicked on with a swoosh. He flipped the switch to preheat the oven, searched for a baking sheet for the sandwiches, and thought about Sassy, wondering how she was doing keeping her stitches dry in the shower. Did she need any help in there?

He huffed a laugh at himself.
Not likely
.

But that didn’t stop him from imagining the water beading up on her wet body and running down all the slopes and crevices he’d tasted last night. Places he hadn’t gotten near enough of.

The baking sheet slipped from his fingers onto the counter with a clatter, and he mentally slammed the door of his imagination shut on those distracting thoughts.

What the hell was he doing? Thinking about sex with Sassy was the surest way to get them both killed. And despite what had happened on the train before the derailment, sleeping with her was still the mother of bad ideas. Even so, he wondered if she was okay in the shower, particularly when it continued to run for the next twenty minutes.

He was pulling the sandwiches out of the oven when it occurred to him that with her head injury, she might have tripped. Leaving the oven door open, he rushed into the postage-­stamp-­sized bathroom, calling her name.

She didn’t answer. His stomach tightened when he ripped the shower curtain aside to find her asleep on the tub’s porcelain floor with her head leaning back against the tile. Her position didn’t look very comfortable, but as exhausted as she was, it wouldn’t have taken much. Steam floated around her, and the shower spray was hitting the wall two feet above her head.

“Sassy?” He kept his voice low, not wanting to startle her.

She never stirred, but she’d been crying earlier. That much was obvious from the red splotches around her eyes. And if the sight of her wet body in the shower hadn’t brought him to his knees, her tear-­splotched face did.

God, please
. Let him face another man with a gun and a grenade any day. He had no idea what to do with this woman’s tears.

“Sassy?” He spoke a little louder this time.

Was this just the shock of everything catching up to her?

Praying she’d just sat down for a moment and dozed off and that this wasn’t some residual effect of the concussion, he reached to turn off the still warm water.
Otis must have a monster hot water heater in this place.

Ignoring the torque in his back, he grabbed the threadbare towel and borrowed robe from the countertop and reached to pull her up and out of the tub.

When he leaned down over her, her blue eyes flew open. Only then did she react. But not like he would have expected. She went wild.

“No, dammit. No. Don’t touch me . . . don’t ever touch me. Just stop! Stop!”

“Sassy? Sassy, it’s me.” He dropped the robe on her shoulder and leaned back in a squat beside the tub.

Her eyes were glassy and unfocused. She jumped to her feet and covered her breasts with one hand protectively across her chest. He sat on his haunches, taking in the sight of a naked, wet Sassy standing over him. Momentarily stunned, he never saw it coming.

When her other fist connected with his jaw, the cracking sound reverberated around the bathroom. Still in a squat, he tipped backward. His shoulder bounced off the countertop and he landed on his ass directly on the wet linoleum. He felt the jolt all the way up his back again.

Jesus.
He’d forgotten she definitely didn’t hit like a girl.
Damn.

The slap of his butt hitting the wet floor seemed to pull her from wherever she’d been. Her eyes widened and her mouth opened in a wide O.

“Bryan. Ohmigod. I’m so sorry. I . . . sat down to shave my legs and . . . I must have dozed off.”

The shock on her face no doubt mirrored his own as he rubbed his jaw. “Just glad you weren’t holding the razor,” he mumbled.

She started to reach for him, then stopped. He saw the moment she remembered she was stark naked.

And instead of reaching for him, she pulled her arms into the oversized robe that he’d tried to drape around her earlier. Exiting the tub, she was struggling to get herself covered and put her foot directly into a puddle of water. Off balance and still trying to drag the robe on, she fell and landed in a heap on top of him.

When she bounced into his bare chest, he went flat, and one of her knees bumped his belly. The other would have had him singing soprano if he hadn’t caught her knee with one hand and her naked hip with the other. As it was, she covered him like a blanket in the ridiculously crowded space.

Umph.
Bryan felt the impact of her body against him. It should have hurt, and part of it probably did, but at the same time his body was also registering just how good it felt to have all that soft skin against his again.

He lay there for a minute, trying to catch his breath and figure out what the fuck had just happened. But his hands were still splayed across her. She immediately started scrambling, which brought its own set of issues. His body reacted as it normally would with a wet, naked woman lying on top of him. He clamped an arm around her waist as his body tightened further.

“Stop that.” His tone was harsher than he’d intended, but he was desperate.

She quit scrambling, which didn’t really help the situation at all. The silent drip, drip of the faucet was the only sound as he fought the natural response of his body, a losing battle. Sassy, for the first time he could recall in his entire acquaintance with her, kept her mouth shut.

He felt her body start to shake.

Jesus, she was crying again.
And that made him want to howl. Her tears were his kryptonite. He was forming the words of an apology when he heard her gasp for air and a distinct giggle.

She wasn’t crying. The woman was laughing? Not exactly the response a man longed for when he had a raging erection. But under the circumstances, it was better than her tears.

He moved a hand to her face, which was presently buried in his chest, and lifted her chin. The mirth in her eyes was still tinged with tears, but both dimples were out in full force. She was definitely laughing.

Right now, he’d take it.

“Sassy? What the hell are you doing?” He’d completely thrown in the towel on the language issue. At this point, he couldn’t control either that or his response to her.

She giggled again and tried to catch her breath but ended up belly-­laughing instead. He felt the vibration all the way to his toes.

“God, I am such a mess and this is such a mess. I . . .” She stopped when she saw the expression on his face. She stared into his eyes, and he felt something between them shift. All the sexual sparring, all the verbal clashes of the past six months, seemed to slip away.

“Everyone’s a mess, Sassy. Some folks just hide it better than others. That’s all.”

Her dimples disappeared. “What happened to you, Bryan?”

“More than you want to know.” He shook his head slightly and felt the moisture beneath his scalp.

“What makes you think that?” She tried to sit up.

“Hey,” he grabbed for her knee again so she didn’t cripple him, gently placing it beside his hip versus in his crotch. And this time he did let himself look at her body. He let her see the longing in his eyes, then let her see him shut it down.

The expression on her face changed as she pulled the robe around herself and stood up. “I haven’t been fair to you. Will you tell me about what happened in Afghanistan?”

He watched her standing over him. His back was soaked. She was soaked.

“Please. I know something bad happened. You were going to be a Marine for life. Then suddenly you weren’t.”

“Will you tell me what happened to you?” he asked.

A guarded look came into her eyes.

He nodded. “Yeah, well. I kinda feel the same way.”

He didn’t want to talk about his past. It hurt too much, and he’d closed the door on what had happened over there. He didn’t wake up in a cold sweat anymore from dreams that felt so real, he could taste the grit in his mouth and hear screams in his head. At least not as often as he used to. He retrieved the towel from the floor as he sat up, then stood beside her in the impossibly cramped space and turned to leave.

“Wait,” said Sassy. “I’ll talk, but let me get dressed first.”

He hung the towel over the shower curtain rod.
Good. Clothes would be a very good start.
Maybe between her being dressed and talking about the past, he could keep his hands to himself. But he wasn’t going to count on it.

“I’ll check on the food.”

Chapter Eleven

F
IFTEEN MINUTES LATER,
Sassy emerged from the bathroom. She’d had to fight to keep herself from stalling in the bathroom, but she’d been grateful when she’d found a hair dryer. She was still in the damp oversized robe, but with dry hair, she didn’t feel quite so vulnerable.

Having lost her handbag and meager toiletries in the train crash, she’d had to make do with what was in the medicine cabinet. She’d rebandaged her stitches and even found some cosmetics that Tilly’s granddaughter must have left behind, including blush and a tube of lipstick, which Sassy had disinfected with alcohol before using. She desperately needed armor for the coming conversation, and makeup was the closest she’d ever come to a shield and sword. She couldn’t stand the thought of looking like the young girl who’d been so naïve twelve years ago.

Bryan had set the table with paper plates. There was coffee and sugar and some powdered creamer he must have found after she’d gone to shower. He’d also located a can of corn and heated it to go along with their eclectic lunch.

She sat down at the scarred oak dining table as he put two of the croissant sandwiches on each plate, served some of the corn, and handed it over. “This isn’t much, but hopefully it’ll stave off starvation.”

Sassy nodded. “I’m so hungry, I could eat anything.”

He grinned. “That’s what I’m counting on.”

They sat across from each other, eating in silence for a few moments. As odd as it was, Sassy felt almost guilty for wishing they could stay like this in suspended animation—­where there was no ticking clock on Trey’s court date, where no one was after them, where there were no strange men in her hotel room, no train wreck, no dead passengers, and where she didn’t have to tell Bryan anything about that summer he left Springwater.

“What happened to you, Sassy? What happened after I left home?”

She took a sip of the strong coffee that she’d oversweetened and swallowed. “I grew up.”

He smiled again. “I can see that. You grew up good. You’re beautiful.”

The words hung there, and she didn’t know what to say. As a young girl she’d been infatuated with Bryan. That he would say such a thing now should have thrilled her. But the words only served as a reminder of everything he didn’t know about her.

“Something is wrong besides the situation with Trey.” He nodded toward the bathroom. “What just went down in there? Did someone hurt you on that truck in Africa? Please tell me.”

“No, it’s not that. Nothing bad happened there.” What she really meant was that nothing bad had happened to
her
. Other women on the truck hadn’t been so lucky.

Sassy looked down. Bryan was gripping his fork so tightly that his knuckles were turning white. God, she didn’t want to do this. Didn’t want to share this. It was ugly, and so long ago. She’d been stupid, and part of her felt that she should have been over it by now.

But she wasn’t. That she’d never allowed herself to be vulnerable to a man proved she wasn’t. The incident in the bathroom just now confirmed it. She hadn’t freaked out like that since college. It had to be from everything else that had happened this week.

A culmination of circumstances had kept her firmly stuck for so long. But Bryan was turning himself inside out thinking the worst, and she wanted him to know the truth, or as much of it as she could tell.

She took a deep breath. “I wasn’t raped.”

He exhaled, but the intensity of his gaze didn’t let up. “But something happened,” he insisted.

“A long time ago. Yes, something happened.”

“What?” His voice was strained, even in that one word.

“I had a ‘scare.’ ”

“What do you mean ‘a scare’?” he asked.

“Exactly what it sounds like. A group of boys—­”

“A group?” he interrupted.

“Will you let me finish?” she snapped.

He nodded tightly and sat back.

“The summer after you left, right before school started, a group of boys from Trey’s class asked me to a party at the levee.”

She ignored Bryan’s groan. Parties at the levee weren’t exactly white-­tie affairs. “I was going into tenth grade, and I was fairly inexperienced, but Bobby Hughes asked me. You remember Bobby, right?”

Bryan nodded.

She knew he remembered, and that’s what made this story so hard to tell. Bryan was two years older than Bobby and Trey, but the boys had all hung out a lot, playing video games at the Hugheses’ house and partying together with all the local kids. While Sassy had liked Bobby well enough in ninth grade, by the middle of her sophomore year, she’d understood why the rich kid had “lowered himself” to hang with Bryan and Trey. Bryan was the cool older boy and Trey was the high school football star.

“When Bobby came to pick me up for the party, there were a ­couple of other guys in the car I didn’t know very well. They’d been drinking, but I didn’t think anything of it, ’cause Bobby was sober and driving. I felt safe. He was Trey’s friend. That was my mistake.”

Bryan’s eyes bored into hers, and he continued to grip his fork in such a way that it would never be the same when this conversation was over. She shredded the napkin in her own lap as she kept talking. If she stopped, she’d never get through this. She’d been so damn naïve, then compounded the issue by being a coward.

“There was no party at the levee that night, at least not the kind that I’d been expecting.” She closed her eyes.

She could still feel the sharp stones biting into her back as Bobby held her down on the ground and the other two boys pulled at her shorts, trying to unbutton them and drag them down her legs. She shook her head to clear the images and took a sip of water before continuing.

She swallowed hard. “Growing up . . . you and Trey taught me a lot about defending myself. But there were three of them. Two were football players.”

Bryan was staring at her. The look in his eyes was pure agony. She wasn’t giving him all the details, but she knew his imagination was more than filling in the blanks.

“Sassy, please tell me what happened. I’m dying here. I want to go back home and kill Bobby Hughes with my bare hands . . .”

She stared back at him and took another breath. “They didn’t rape me, but they got my shorts and T-­shirt off. I gave Bobby a black eye in the process. And yeah, I think he would have assaulted me himself if one of the farmers hadn’t driven through, checking on some kind of equipment in the fields between the levee and the river. The boys had parked right by the man’s tractor, assuming everything was shut down for the night. Old man Foster found me and got me home.”

“What happened when you reported it and pressed charges?”

“What makes you think I reported anything?” She’d meant for the comment to sound sarcastic, but her breath caught, and it sounded more like a sob.

“I was from the wrong side of the tracks with a mother who was the town drunk and rumored to sleep with any man who’d bring her a fifth of whiskey. I’d willingly gotten in the car with three older boys. I’d just turned fifteen, but I was old enough to know how that would play.”

Bryan shook his head in disbelief as she kept talking. “I didn’t report anything. I showed up when school started the next week and acted like nothing had happened.”

“Did you ever tell Trey?” Bryan asked, bringing her back to the present.

She raised an eyebrow. “Right. Tell my brother his friend tried to rape me, so he could shoot him or at best beat up the richest boy in town and wind up in jail?” This time her voice dripped with biting sarcasm, and she didn’t try to hide it.

“ ’Course maybe if Trey’d been in a U.S. prison, he might not have wound up in a Mexican jail.” She sighed. “God, that’s just depressing as hell.”

“So you never pressed charges or reported this to anyone?”

She frowned at him in confusion. He was repeating himself, and she wasn’t sure why. “No, I never told anyone. You are the first.” She sneered at the joke that only she got. “But I learned not to be so damn trusting. It was the most valuable part of my education.” And destroyed her own reputation in the process.

The three boys had left her alone all that first week until after school on Friday. Then they’d surrounded her in the very crowded parking lot when they’d known Trey had been on the practice field. There they’d started to insult and harass her, calling her the most horrific names.

They’d drawn quite the crowd. But she’d stood on the tarry asphalt and taken the biggest chance of her life. When Bobby had tried to pull at her clothes again, she’d forced herself to laugh and ask loudly enough for their audience to hear if he thought he could get it up this time as opposed to last week, when he’d just run away.

Every student in the parking lot heard her taunt, and she would have found the look on Bobby’s face comical if she hadn’t been so scared her gamble would backfire. But it didn’t. When they saw she wasn’t intimidated, Bobby and his buddies backed down so fast, it made her head spin—­especially when she started talking about their lack of “equipment.” She’d been stunned at the effect her words had had, and she’d been adopting the same type of self-­defense mechanism ever since.

After the levee incident, Sassy became known as the trash-­talking daughter of the town whore at Springwater High School.

When Trey heard about the altercation in the parking lot, he completely misunderstood the reason behind it and assumed she really had fooled around with Bobby and his friends. It hurt like hell that her brother jumped to that conclusion, but she never set him straight. After one very uncomfortable confrontation where Sassy told him in no uncertain terms to mind his own damn business, Trey stayed out of it. Only then did she breathe a sigh of relief that her brother and his future out of Springwater were safe.

Throughout the next three years in school, Sassy adopted an over-­the-­top sexual persona to combat the whispered rumors and gossip. She learned when not to pull the tiger’s tail with predator-­like bullies, and she developed a radar for who could and couldn’t be shut down with some well-­timed, cock-­shriveling sarcasm.

To say the experience had made her skittish around men was putting it mildly. She didn’t let men get close, period. The easiest way to keep them at arm’s length was to shut them down with her ego-­obliterating disdain when they got too close. That had come with its own downside over the years, but she kept that to herself.

Boys and men alike assumed she was easy and a tease because she talked like she was, but most stayed away from her because she was a ballbuster when it came to the things she’d say in front of anyone. She didn’t date in college, and her prickly personality kept colleagues at bay after graduation, too. Her verbal skills served her particularly well in the male-­dominated newsroom.

She’d honed her self-­defense weapon to a fine point. But there was no doubt that Bryan had her playing with fire where that was concerned, and there was that one little detail she hadn’t shared.

In the past six months, she’d shocked herself with some of the outrageous things she’d said to him, and with Bryan she didn’t always follow up her big talk with scoffing remarks. He threw her so off-­kilter that instead of turning on the usual sexual scorn, she played over-­the-­top Sassy closer and closer to the edge and its logical end.

She didn’t have to be experienced to know that was a dangerous game. Even as she worried about protecting herself from her own insanity, she knew Bryan wouldn’t purposely hurt her. But he could still break her heart without meaning to.

B
RYAN STARED AT
Sassy over their meal of Hot Pockets and canned corn, processing everything she’d just told him. Some stuff that had been happening between the two of them made sense now, but there were still a few things that didn’t.

How Trey hadn’t figured out what was up with Bobby Hughes, he’d never know. But Bryan hadn’t been there to stop it from happening. So he sure as hell couldn’t blame anyone but himself.

When Bryan left Springwater after graduation, he left both Trey and their friendship in the dust, along with Sassy. He’d been so scared he was going to cross some line with her, Bryan hadn’t recognized the potential difficulties he was leaving Sassy to wade through without him.

When he’d come back home from Afghanistan in such a mental funk, Trey hadn’t said anything about his abrupt departure years before. No blame, no questions. He’d just stepped up and been Bryan’s friend again.

As much resistance as he’d had to the idea before, now there was a whole new list of reasons Bryan couldn’t be the guy who slept with Trey’s little sister. That had some awful implications, especially since Bryan wasn’t open to anything permanent.

Was he?

He wasn’t so sure anymore and was swallowing a sip of coffee when Sassy said, “Okay, Hollywood, I showed you mine. Now you show me yours.”

Her voice was light and teasing. The image was so vivid and unexpected after the story she’d just told, he choked on the coffee and practically inhaled the liquid straight up his nose.

Sassy raised an eyebrow. “So why do they call you Hollywood? You never told me.”

He shook his head, still sputtering and coughing.

“It can’t be that bad.”

He swallowed hard, trying to clear the coffee from his lungs and nasal cavities. If he hadn’t caught the expression in her eyes as he was having his coughing fit, the lilt in her voice might have had him thinking she was over the incident she’d just shared from her past. As it was, he was just grateful he’d seen her words for the diversion attempt they were. They’d certainly had the desired effect.

As such, he decided to let it go. She deserved a diversion after this.

She was staring at him now with her usual frank curiosity. “Now, you tell me. What happened to you in Afghanistan? I know something did. You didn’t come back for your grandmother’s funeral, but two months later you were home for good.”

He closed his eyes. He didn’t want to talk about this, but he supposed it was only fair. He’d much rather dwell on the
I showed you mine, now you show me yours
part of the conversation.