Just a Little (5-8) (20 page)

Conan’s body slowly drifted forward and then descended with a thud on the bathroom floor, spilling his blood all over the wet wood.

I stood perfectly still, tears spilling from my eyes as I stared straight forward. The door
had
opened, and he’d come to my rescue.

I let a few moments pass as I watched him stand at the threshold wielding a gun.

“Julie,” he whispered as he looked down to Conan’s lifeless body. He dropped the gun at his feet and stepped over the bloodied man next to him. He reached forward and wrapped my naked body in a towel, never noticing for a minute that I was anything but scared and shaken.

“He’s dead,” I cried, and I never tore my eyes away from the lifeless murderer beneath me. I’d never, not once in my eighteen years, watched a man’s life fade from his eyes and vanish into thin air. I’d heard horror stories; I’d seen plenty of movies. But I’d never…
never
seen it for myself.

Conan’s blood clung to my feet as I tried to step over him.

“He’s dead,” I said again, tasting my tears as they brushed my lips. No matter how many times I said it, or how hard I stared, Conan’s body didn’t move.

“It was you or him,” he said, and his voice didn’t waver in the slightest.

“If you hadn’t come back—”

“But I did,” Derek lifted my face to meet his stare. A huge wave of relief swept through his eyes, and he kept his grasp firmly on my arms.

“Is everybody okay?” I tried to push through the door.

“They’re fine,” he assured me, “just a little tied up. It was either save them or save you.”

I stared at his blue eyes for a few long seconds, and after I found the strength to move, I lifted myself up to my toes and pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek. He closed his eyes as if to savor the moment, and he held me even tighter.

It hadn’t seemed to faze him for a minute that he’d just killed a man; he’d just ended his father’s life with nothing more than a bullet to the back. All that seemed to matter was that he’d saved me, and I could feel his relief radiating from his hold.

“Thank you,” I dropped my head to cry against his chest.

“I’d say anytime,” he loosened his grip to look at me, “but let’s not do this again, okay?”

I nodded, and he did too.

“Let’s get the others,” he pulled my towel tighter. Before he turned out of the room, I reached forward and took his wrist.

“Derek,” I looked from his father to him. My tears spilled harder than they had all night. “You didn’t have a choice. He was reckless.” I lowered my head and closed my eyes. “You’re nothing like him—”

“I know,” he stepped back to face me again. He pushed a tuft of wet hair from my eyes and lowered his gaze. “Julie, I know.”

He pulled me to his chest and hugged me again.

“Come on,” he rubbed a hand across my back. “There are three people out there who are dying to see you alive.”

I nodded, and he loosened his hold.

Together we walked out of the bathroom, leaving Conan’s dead body to waste on the floor.

PROLOGUE

“This is the place?”

“This is it,” I gave Luke a playful nudge with my hip. We stood outside the two-story brick house on Maple Street, and I pointed up to a set of windows on the right side of the second floor. “That was my room.”

“Yeah?” he asked, and he tightened his hold on me as he leaned forward to kiss my cheek. 

His kiss lingered on my skin even after he pulled away, and I found myself breathless as I watched the corner of his lip curve upward.

Oh, that grin…

He’d worn that goofy grin all day.
 

“And that,” I said, tearing my gaze away from his alluring stare. I pointed to the tire swing hanging from the Japanese maple tree out front. “Dad and Charlie hung that one summer when we were kids.” Luke’s grin faded to a thin smile. “God, we spent hours swinging on that old thing. You know Mattie broke his arm trying to jump from one of the branches and land on the swing?” 

I laughed as I remembered the eight-year-old version of my cousin springing through the air, only to realize a few seconds too late that jumping had been a terrible idea.

Luke nodded as if it didn’t surprise him at all. His eyes drifted from the lush tree to the freshly cut grass. I watched as he looked over the yard, silently admiring the dozens of planted gazanias, daisies, and sweet alyssum. 

As he studied the landscape, I let my stare drift back to admire the perfect vision of the house I’d grown up in. 

Nothing had changed.

The brick was warm and welcoming, offset by the black shutters. The front porch still housed a small set of patio furniture, a place where Mom and I had spent many nights sitting, laughing, and talking. A homemade wreath hung from the top of the door. 

“You know what’s funny?” Luke asked, and his cheeks dimpled. 

“Hmm?” I watched him closely as his brown eyes swept across the perfectly manicured lawn. Dad had always been a little compulsive when it came to curb appeal.

“I’ve come over to West Bridge a thousand times before. I’ve driven by this house dozens of times, and I’ve never once paid it the slightest bit of attention.” 

He draped his arm around my waist and pulled me closer, and the sides of our bodies clung like magnets. He dropped his head, and his lips brushed my ear. 

“Who would’ve known,” he whispered, tickling my lobe with his lips, “all along—all that time—I’d driven right by my future wife and I didn’t even know it.”

I turned my head to hide my flushing cheeks. 

“What?”

“You can’t say that yet,” I tried to hide my smile as I dropped my forehead against his shoulder. 

“Are you blushing?” he teased, leaning to meet my gaze. “My God, you’re blushing.”

“And 
you’re
 stalling,” I giggled. “You said you wanted to come here first. You wanted permission, remember?”

Luke took a deep breath and licked his lips.

“Okay,” his smile stretched a little bigger, “let’s do this.”

He took my hand as we walked up the sidewalk, matching each other’s stride. With each step we took, it only occurred to me more and more how lucky I was. 

We were finally together and soon—I took a deep breath and smiled—we’d be together forever.  

As we stepped up on the porch, Luke reached forward to ring the doorbell, but his finger hovered for a moment. 

He dropped his hand, turned back to me, and sucked in his bottom lip.

“What?”

“Are you sure he’ll say yes?”  

“Now stop,” I said. “You have no reason to be nervous.” I reached forward and adjusted one of the buttons on his shirt. “Daddy loves you. He knows 
I 
love you. He’s—going—to—say—yes.”

“You’re right,” Luke let go of a sigh. “You’re right.” He smiled again and nodded. “He loves me.”

“
He loves you
,” I gave him one last vote of confidence.

Still wearing his smile, he turned back to ring the bell, but his finger barely found the button before the front door creaked open. We stood frozen on the porch, momentarily paralyzed as we shared a mutual look of concern.

“That’s weird,” I looked from him to the door. “They never leave that unlocked.” 

Luke pushed the door a little further and took a step into the foyer.

“Hello?” he called into the house, and his voice echoed through the first floor.  “Mr. and Mrs. Little?”

I brushed by him and stepped into the house. 

“Mom, Dad!” I yelled, searching the first floor. “
Helloooo?
” I turned back to Luke, now standing in the center of the entryway, and shrugged. I headed for the bottom of the staircase. “Guys!” I yelled upstairs. “We’re here! Where are you?”

I dropped my head and listened for a response, but I couldn’t hear a thing. When I didn’t get an answer, not even the slightest sound, I turned back to Luke, but he was gone.

“Luke?” I asked, looking side to side, and suddenly everything drained of color. 

The cathedral ceilings seemed to drift lower as the sunshine faded from the room. The paint on the walls gradually lost its luster. The floors cracked, fractured along the seams. The plants were no longer green and thriving, but dead and wilted… all in the matter of seconds. 

“Mom?” My voice bounced off the barren walls. I glanced around the room and waited for another sign of life, but emptiness in my gut told me I wouldn’t get a response. Something was wrong… something was seriously wrong… “Dad? Luke?” I asked, and my eyes filled with tears. “What’s going on, guys? Where are you?”

I dropped my head and wiped away a single tear that had fallen to my cheek. As I opened my eyes again and stared down at my feet, I suddenly realized that I’d been standing in a dark pool of liquid.

“Blood,” I said under my breath, and then I heard my mother’s shrill scream. 

“Mom!”

I tried to move, but something stopped me. I couldn’t budge a single muscle in my body. My hands, like my legs and feet, were completely immobile. I stood and listened, praying that I would be able to get to her and help. Before I had time to come up with a plan, a single gunshot filled the air. 

I gasped for breath.

I tried to scream, but I found myself choking. 

My throat grew tighter as I struggled to breathe, and I suddenly became too disoriented to stand. I fell to the floor, gasping… convulsing… 
dying
…

And then I heard another shot.

CHAPTER ONE

Tuesday, May 28 | 4:55 p.m.

“And when did you have this dream?”

I rested my head against the arm of the couch in Dr. Norwood’s office. As much as I knew she wanted me to look her straight in the eyes, I kept diverting my stare. 

“Last night,” I said quietly, “and the night before.”

Dr. Norwood sat straighter in her chair and crossed her legs—why she’d chosen to go into psychiatrics I’d never understand; she had the body of a supermodel and the God-given face of an angel.

She adjusted the notepad in her hand and tilted her head to the right. She kept her skinny fingers clenched around an ink pen and poised above the paper. She rarely wrote anything as I talked; I assumed her tools were merely there for comfort.

It was the sixth time I’d met with Dr. Norwood since returning home from Piqua seven weeks ago.

Therapy…

I scoffed.

I’d hit a new low.

Luke and Charlie had both suggested that Matt, Kara, Derek, and I seek some type of counseling after everything that had happened at the cabin.

We all took their advice a little differently.

Matt refused help. He swore he didn’t need it; he said his main concern was making sure that Kara and I were okay, and I somehow believed he truly meant it. Not that being kidnapped, tied up, and psychologically tortured for hours hadn’t had some kind of impact on my cousin, but Matt seemed to take everything in stride. He always managed to stay strong, even through the hardest times. I envied that.

Kara wasn’t as easy as her boyfriend. Since we’d come home, she hadn’t spoken to anyone. She got up every morning, went to school, and kept to herself. She wanted nothing to do with Matt; she wouldn’t even look at me. She just wanted to ignore the rest of the world.

And Derek…

“You’ve been taking your medication for a month,” Dr. Norwood interrupted my thoughts, “and you’re still doing the exercises we discussed?”

“Daily.”

“Do you believe you’re seeing any progress with that?” she asked, and her silky brown hair fell over her shoulder. 

“I do.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“The dreams have changed,” I swallowed hard. Tears filled my eyes, so I pushed myself up and sat straight to avoid crying against the sofa for the millionth time that day. “I’m not in the cabin anymore. I’m somewhere else. I’m back home, in West Bridge, with Luke.”

Dr. Norwood’s lips tightened, and I sensed she was going to ask another question. But before she had the chance to pry a little further, I sat forward and shook my head. 

“I want these dreams to stop,” I bit back tears. “I want to fall asleep, Dr. Norwood, and not have to feel this pain.” I clutched my tight chest, and my tears finally broke loose. “I can’t keep hearing the gunshots. I can’t turn around one more time and watch Luke disappear. I can’t hear my mother’s scream again; I can’t. Losing them once was enough; I can’t keep losing them every time I close my eyes.”

Dr. Norwood shifted uncomfortably, but after a few minutes, she leaned forward and nodded once. 

“Okay,” she slid her chair forward, “then there’s something else I want you to try.”

“Anything,” I said desperately. 

I would’ve agreed to anything if it meant falling asleep for more than two hours at a time. I would’ve gladly taken more medication. I would’ve volunteered for sleep studies. I would’ve done 
anything
; all I wanted was to make the nightmares stop.

There had to be a solution…

There had to be.

Wednesday, June 05

“Can you hear anything?”

“Not with your incessant yapping,” I snapped at Charlie, and we both pressed our ears closer to the front door.

It was hard to say that things had started off like any normal day. Ever since summer vacation started two days ago—
thank God for graduation!
—each day had been as surprising as the one before it. Even when school was in session, things were just a little ‘off.’

Over the past seven weeks, it’d become hard to identify exactly what
normal
was. Considering the way life had gone in the Little household as of late, it seemed fair to say that the day hadn’t necessarily been a bad one.

Matt started the morning by making each of us a stack of blueberry pancakes, bacon, and eggs. Charlie, for the tenth time in a month, delegated his responsibilities down at the station to other members on the force; he seemed to think it was more important to stay home and spend time with me and Matt. I guess, considering everything that had happened back in Piqua, Charlie had come to realize just how close he’d come to losing both of us. He wasn’t about to squander any of our precious family time.

I’d spent the hour after breakfast writing in my dream log; it’d been eight days since I’d last gone to therapy, and nothing—and I mean
nothing
—had gotten better. I should’ve been brave enough to consider the benefits of Dr. Norwood’s latest exercise, but when I said I’d do
anything
to make the nightmares go away, I didn’t know she’d follow-up with the most bizarre advice known to man.

I guess there were some things I just wasn’t willing to try.

So that was that.

Life was chugging along at a steady pace. Things weren’t great, but they were comfortable (as long as I stayed awake). For once, no one really had any complaints.

That dynamic changed at exactly 11:00 a.m.—the moment Kara made her triumphant return.

And boy, believe me when I say it wasn’t a good one.

She’d marched up the front steps, banged on the door with a closed fist, and demanded Matt come outside and talk. She didn’t even bother answering when I’d asked her how she’d been. She simply ignored my question, turned her nose in the air, and told me she’d wait for my cousin outside.

I called up for Matt. The moment he heard the words ‘
Kara’s here to see you
,’ he flew down the steps and went outside.

That was an hour ago.

They’d been arguing ever since.

“What is she saying?”

“Will—you—just—”

“
Sorry
,” Charlie threw his hands in the air. No doubt he knew I was about to tell him to shut his pie hole.

I shoved my uncle a foot to the left. Leaning closer to the door, I pressed my ear against the wood only to hear Kara’s muffled argument.

“Something about
shoe tongue
,” I whispered, listening again, “and
disparage
.”

“That can’t be right,” Charlie combed his fingers through his mustache. “I’m pretty sure she said
blue dung
and
carriage
.”

“
How does that make sense?
”

“I never said it did!” Charlie argued.

The screen door squeaked outside, and Charlie and I immediately dashed from the door and ran to the living room. Charlie flung himself on the couch, grabbed the newspaper, and opened it to the middle section. Had he not knocked the wind out of himself, his quick cover-up would’ve been believable, but his heavy breathing gave him away.

I, unlike Charlie, made a successful getaway; I turned a somersault across the living room floor and landed softly on my stomach. Folding my arms in front of me, I rested my head and closed my eyes. I was just tired enough that I might’ve been able to fall asleep. If nothing else, I could pretend like nobody’s business.

Matt busted through the door, not taking any time to recognize how much effort Charlie and I had put into pretending we’d been in those same spots all along, slammed it behind him, and stomped up the stairs.

“Matt,” Charlie said in his most unsuspecting voice, and he lowered the paper, “everything alright?”

Matt didn’t answer; he just took each step a little harder than the one before it. Charlie and I glanced at one another.

“I’ll go talk to him,” Charlie said as Matt’s bedroom door slammed upstairs.

“I’ll catch up with Kara,” I pushed myself off the floor and ran for the door.

I darted outside just in time to watch Kara peel out of the driveway. I waved my hands to grab her attention, but she was gone without a single glance in my direction.

Charlie was already walking back down the steps by the time I got back in the house. I didn’t even have to ask if he’d talked to Matt; his simple shrug told me that he hadn’t.

“Do you want me to try?” I asked. “Maybe he’ll talk to me.”

“Give him some time to cool off,” he patted my back as he passed by me at the foot of the stairs.

I looked down at my watch and then back up the stairs.

I didn’t necessarily have time to coddle Matt; you know, places to be, people to see….

I looked at my watch again.

I’d promised to meet Luke for lunch, and I didn’t want to miss it.

But what kind of cousin would I have been to walk away when Matt needed me the most? He’d put so much time and effort into making my life as easy as possible; he carried me through a lot of hard times. I knew I owed him the same.

I climbed the stairs two at a time, and when I got to the second-floor landing, I turned to Matt’s door.

Something slammed against the backside of the door after I knocked two times. I jumped back and grabbed my chest, but only because I hadn’t expected him to react to my knock by hurling something across the room.

“Matt?”

“Go away, Julie,” he grumbled, and at his angriest, he sounded just like his father.

Great.
One Charlie was enough, thank you very much.

“I just wanted to make sure you were—”

“Dammit, Julie, go away!”

I took a step forward and leaned my head closer to his door; as hard as I tried, I couldn’t hear a thing.

No deep breaths… no sobs… no cries… nothing.

Like always, Matt buried his pain.

He’d done it when my parents died.

He’d done it when he lost Hannah.

He’d even done it after we left Piqua.

Now he was doing it again with Kara.

“I’ll go,” I said, only talking loud enough for him to hear me. I didn’t want to be loud and risk sounding hurt or offended, but I wanted to make sure he could hear me. “I know that you wouldn’t let me sit across the hall hurting. If I needed someone, you’d be there. And I just want you to know you can talk to me. I’m here for you, Mattie.”

Matt threw open his door, and I took a quick step backward. His blond hair was mussed, and his lips were twisted to match his red face.

He pointed a single finger at me, started to stammer something, and then he dropped his hand.

He’d considered yelling at me, but something had stopped him.

“I’ll go,” I said, and he threw his hands up in the air.

He’d already slammed his door again by the time I turned away.

I walked slowly down the stairs and found Charlie sitting right back on the couch as he read the paper.

“That went well,” I rolled my eyes.

If Matt didn’t want to talk to me, fine.

It’s not like I didn’t have other things to do.

I pulled my purse off the coat rack and tucked my dream journal inside. As I headed for the front door, I half-waved to Charlie, and he set the paper aside on the coffee table.

“I’ll be home in an hour or so.”

“Julie,” he lowered his reading glasses, “where do you think you’re going?”

Ha! Like he didn’t know.

I took a few deep breaths and counted.

1…2…3…4…5…6…7…8…9…10….

And then I met Charlie’s stare.

His voice trailed off as he watched me with saddened eyes. “Where will you be?”

“At the café,” I dropped my shoulders. “Okay?”

His eyes softened with each heavy blink.

“Yeah,” he pinched the top of his nose as if he couldn’t believe he was going to let me walk out the door alone, “tell Trigger I said hi.”

“Yeah,” I managed a faint smile and nodded once, “I’ll do that.”