Shooting Starr (15 page)

“But,” Jess said briskly, to the accompaniment of a loud
creak from her rocking chair, “that's not what I came out here to talk to you about. I've been looking on the Internet at work—” there was a papery rustle “—and I found all sorts of stuff I think might be really helpful for you. You know—programs, services, gadgets. Technology is amazing, isn't it? Like, they have this little thingy you put in your coffee cup, so when you pour, it beeps to tell you you're close to the top. Cool, huh?”

Cool.
Caitlyn's smile had frozen on her face. If she moved, if she uttered a word, it would shatter into a million pieces.
She
would.

“You wouldn't believe the stuff they have to help blind people be more independent—gadgets, but more important, they teach you how to do for yourself. There are schools, counseling programs—you know, to help you cope…. They even have people who come and help you get set up, organize your clothes, teach you how to use everyday things like the stove, money, how to use a cane. There are Seeing Eye dog— Hon', where y'goin'? You okay?”

She wasn't okay, and she didn't know where she was going. Nowhere.
Nowhere.
She was standing up, driven to her feet by the desperate need to flee, to escape from the kind voice and well-meaning words, from the intolerable, unthinkable pictures they painted of the future…
her
future.

I'm not blind. I can't be blind. Not forever. My vision's going to come back. It has to come back. It has to.

Fear gripped her; fear such as she'd never known in her life. She felt cold to the center of her soul. She was shaking.

“Caitlyn, honey, what's wrong? Did you want to go inside?”

“What? Oh. No—I just…” She shook her head and put out a groping hand. Where could she go?
Nowhere.
She was trapped—trapped in a box of nothingness.

“I'm sorry, hon', I didn't mean to upset you.” Jess's hand was on her arm, guiding her back to the rocking chair,
and Bubba's nose nudged a question against her knee. Absently she gave his ears a reassuring fondle.

“You didn't upset me,” she said, and her voice was calm and even. “It was kind of you to go to so much trouble, but… It's just that…well, I can't very well do any of those things as long as I'm in…”
In what? In hiding…in limbo?

“In FBI custody?” Jess finished it for her in a wry tone, and Caitlyn gave a shaky laugh.

“Yeah, something like that. Nobody's supposed to know where I am. So I can't very well go to classes or see a counselor….”

“No, guess not.” There was a small sigh, lost in creaks and rustlings. “Well, okay, I'm gonna hang on to these—might come in handy later on. I just thought, you know…it might make you feel better to know there's help out there. That you're not alone.” A hand squeezed Caitlyn's shoulder, and Jess added in a soft-gruff voice that sounded a lot like her brother's, “You gonna be okay out here? You sure you don't want to go in?”

Caitlyn wanted to scream at her.
No, I'm not okay! I'm blind, you idiot! I can't see! I'm blind and I'm trapped and I'm terrified, can't you see that?
She wanted to scream and swear and punch and kick something. She wanted to crawl into someone's lap and cry.

“No, that's okay, I'm fine,” she said softly. “I think I'll just sit out here a little while longer.” Her hand moved in the warm silkiness of Bubba's fur.

“Sun's going down—you want me to bring you out a sweater?”

“No—I'm fine.”

“Okay, hon', if you're sure you're okay.” After a moment's hesitation the screen door creaked, then banged shut.

The sun's going down. I wonder where? I can't feel it
here. I must be facing the wrong way. Or maybe it's the trees. I wonder if it's a beautiful sunset….

Caitlyn sat and listened to the rhythmic creak of the rocking chair and the rustlings and scufflings of squirrels in the leaves on the lawn. As she rocked, her hand stroked gently over Bubba's head. And she shivered…and shivered…and shivered.

 

C.J. could see her as he came up the lane, sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch with Bubba alert and on guard beside her. Funny—he remembered he'd thought her being in his mother's house was like finding a fairy perched on a front porch rocker, and here she was. But right then what she looked like more than anything was a statue, lovely and graceful, yes, but lifeless and stone cold.

He slowed to a walk as he turned onto the grass, but didn't look at his watch to check his time. He knew it had to be one of his best, but the truth was he'd forgotten to set the stopwatch when he'd taken off out of the house after Jess's phone call. If his sister was worried enough to tell him to “get your butt over here,” well…

He knew Caitlyn had to have heard him coming, but she didn't call out to him or give any sign she knew he was there. So he called out, “Hey, how'y'doin'? Ready to go for a walk?” Careful not to let any sign of his concern show in his voice.

Not that he fooled her for a minute.

“I suppose Jess called you,” she snapped at him as he came up the steps, chin jutting. Her eyes, thundercloud gray, sparked a warning, and her hand moved restlessly in Bubba's neck fur.

“Yeah, she did.” He smiled gamely at her, panting a little. “But I was comin' over, anyway.”

“Well, you don't need to worry about me, I'm a grown woman, not a child. I don't need a baby-sitter. And I'm not a dog, either. I don't need to be walked twice a day.”

Her grumpiness amused him. Maybe because Jess had warned him, or he was getting used to her, but where her frosty tone might have intimidated him a few days ago, now he only thought how cute she looked with her hair lying on her forehead and cheekbones like petals of a pale yellow flower. She'd gotten the last of her bandages off this morning, after a consultation set up by Jake between Jess and the doctor, and his mother had trimmed her hair and shampooed it for her. It covered up most of what was left of her bruises and scalp wound so that she looked not so much like a convalescent, now, as a little child woken up from a nap too soon.

“I like your hair,” he said. “Looks good.”

Her hand flew up to touch it, a jerky, involuntary motion that reminded him of a drunken butterfly landing on a flower. Warring emotions flitted across her face: a uniquely feminine pleasure at odds with the darkness of her thoughts. Finally she made a throat-clearing sound and grudgingly muttered, “Thanks.”

He took her hand and drew her up and out of the rocking chair, but let go of it when she tugged, and let her find the railing and feel her own way down the steps. After a moment Bubba hauled himself up and lumbered after her, and C.J. followed, fighting the useless feeling that came over him so often when he was with her.

He moved up beside her as they walked across the leaf-littered grass. He could smell strawberries. He wondered if it was the shampoo his mother had used on her hair. “So, where do you want to go? Wanna go down to the creek? Probably just got time enough before it gets too dark.”

She gave a sharp, bitter laugh at that, and for a moment or two didn't answer. Then she lifted her head and paused, as if listening to a distant sound. “I want to
run,
” she said, and her voice was breathless and suspenseful, as if she were already in the starting blocks.

What the hell, he thought. Why not? “Okay,” he said, and was rewarded by her look of surprise.

He took her down to the hayfield, which the farmer had finally cleared of bales the day before. It hadn't rained in a while and the ground was hard and dry, the grass gone dormant until spring. It was quiet and empty out there, away from the stirrings of trees and the rustle of falling leaves. A little breeze lifted the feathers of her hair as he stood behind her in the lavender dusk, carrying the sweet strawberry scent of it to his nostrils. With his hands gentle on her arms he turned her to face the open field.

“Okay,” he murmured, “nothing in front of you but grass. Go for it. I'll be right beside—”

She was off before he'd finished, jogging tentatively at first while he stayed where he was and watched her, his soul lifting with purest pleasure at the sight. Then Bubba whined; he looked down and saw the big dog gazing up at him with reproach.

“Wha…at?” he said, grinning. “What's she gonna run into? She's got the whole—” Bubba gave a sharp yip and took off. C.J. looked up, and what he saw was Caitlyn running as if the hounds of hell were after her.

“Holy sm—” He took off after her, swearing under his breath.

She was faster than he'd expected, a whole lot faster than anybody who'd almost been shot to death a short time ago had any business being. Plus, the field had a downward slope—not too steep—but way down at the bottom of it, what he'd mistakenly considered to be a safe distance away, far beyond her reach, was the pond. And the direction she'd picked, she was headed right for it, with Bubba loping along at her heels.

C.J. yelled at her to stop, but that only made her run faster, damn her, and ol' Bubba wasn't doing anything to stop her, either. Come to think of it, why would he? Bubba
was a water dog—a dip in the pond probably seemed like a great idea to him.

C.J. hadn't ever been much of a sprinter, but adrenaline gave him the push he needed, and he caught up with her a yard or two from the edge of the pond. She was gasping, her breath coming in sobs, while Bubba sat on his haunches and watched her with his tongue hanging out. C.J. had hold of her arm—he was well ticked off at her and prepared to bawl her out good for scaring him like that—but she whirled and struck out at him, catching him in the chest with her fist.

Even with twilight coming on he could see she was crying.

“Leave…me…alone,” she yelled, and her voice was a terrible, raspy sound, like cloth tearing. “Can't you just
leave me alone?
I said I wanted to
run,
damn you. You said— Why can't you—”

“Dammit, I'm trying.”

“
Don't
try! Don't
help
me. I just want you to let me
go!
”

Well, damn. He couldn't let her go, because if he did she was going to wind up in the pond for sure. And he couldn't get her to listen to him even long enough to tell her that; he had his hands full just trying to keep her flailing arms and hammering fists from doing either one of them damage.

Truth was, she was starting to scare him. Having grown up with sisters, he was no stranger to feminine tears and histrionics, but this was clearly beyond his experience. If she kept on like this, he thought, she was liable to hurt herself.

“Come on, calm down, dammit!” he yelled at her. “Can't you see I'm tryin' to help—”

“Don't…help.” She bit off the words like a snapping turtle, spitting fury.

And tears! He'd never seen tears like that in his life. It
was eerie, seeing all those tears pouring out of sightless eyes, seeing the emotions—silvery flare of passion and darkness of pain—knowing the windows of her soul were only one-way glass. It was almost too much for him. Dammit, it
was
too much. He could feel his eyes burning, his own emotions heavy in his chest.

“Don't help me. You can't
help
me,” she choked out, “don't you
get it?
You can't fix
this—
” she jabbed a finger toward her streaming eyes “—can you? You can't make me
see!
What are you going to do, lead me around like a puppy on a leash for the rest of my life? You want to
help
me? Well, I'll tell you something—it's too late. It's too
late.
I asked you for help and you wouldn't give it to me. And now Mary Kelly's dead and I'm blind and you…can't…fix it.” The thumping of her fists against his chest grew weaker. She sagged against him.
“You can't fix it! Damn you…”

He didn't blame her for saying that. How could he, when he'd said the same thing to himself so many times over?

When he went to put his arms around her, he was meaning only to give her comfort. That was his honest intention. He had no idea what happened next. He sure as hell never saw it coming. Just, one minute he was reaching out for her, his heart warm and aching with sympathy—and all of a sudden he felt a completely different kind of pain in his midsection, and where his next breath should have been there was…
nothing.

He was looking desperately for it, doubled over and clutching his belly, when the next thing he knew he was flying through the air, and the cold, murky waters of the farm pond were rising up and hitting him in the face.

C
aitlyn heard the splash and then some hoarse, honking sounds, followed immediately by a smaller splash and a canine yip, though that didn't fully register in her consciousness until a little later. The rage that had enveloped her cracked like an egg's shell. The anger drained out of her, leaving her hollow…cold…shocked to her core.

“C.J.!” she screamed. She
thought
she'd screamed; all she heard was a raspy whimper. She tried it again, then again, and she was staggering, stumbling toward the gasping, whooping sounds, hands thrust out before her like Frankenstein's monster.

The ground squelched under her feet. Razor-leaved grasses slashed at her clothes. She heard smaller splashes inside the larger ones, which seemed to be of the magnitude of those produced by frolicking whales. Cold water seeped into her shoes; it rose with each step she took until it had engulfed her to the knees. The terror that engulfed her heart was far colder.

“C.J.!”
she shrieked. “Oh, God, C.J., I'm coming. Where are you? Answer me, damn you! C.J.—”

The whoops changed to swearing—some really remarkable swearing, she considered, to be coming from someone raised by a Southern Baptist schoolteacher. Then, “Stay there! Don't—”

A wave caught Caitlyn in midstep. Knocked off balance and with her feet rooted firmly in mud, she sank gracefully into the frigid water like an empress lowering herself onto a throne. Water that smelled of mud and moss and wet dog and other things she didn't want to think about rushed into her mouth. She spat it out with a bellow of disgust, coughing and clawing wildly at the unknown things she imagined must be crawling over her face. Hitting out as well at the hands that were reaching to help her.

“Cut it out!” C.J. yelled. “You're all right, dammit, I've got you.
I've got you.
”

She gave a squeak of sheer relief and launched herself toward him. Sobbing, “Oh, God, C.J. Oh, God.” She hauled herself along the lifelines of his arms until she'd reached the safe harbor of his chest.

Safe? She'd thought so, believed so, until she heard him grunt, felt him sway backward, pulling her with him. She gasped, then held her breath and clutched at the arms that were wrapped around her, and for a few suspenseful seconds they teetered together, swaying back and forth like dancers in the midst of some complicated step—a tango, maybe.

“Hold…still,” C.J. ground out savagely, and he was so close she could feel his lips move against her temple.

Her heart jumped like a frightened rabbit. Afraid to utter a sound, she felt his arms tighten around her and the muscles beneath her hands bunch and harden. It flashed through her mind—just one incredibly crazy thought—that he was about to kiss her, but of course he was only turning her
around, shifting her position so he could maneuver them both to shallower water.

Moments later, streaming water and pond weeds and hanging on to each other, they were struggling uphill over slippery, squelchy mud with Bubba bumping unhelpfully against their legs, and shortly after that Caitlyn knew that she was standing once again on dry, solid ground.

Shock—the mind-numbing kind that protects people and enables them to function during times of disaster—was ebbing, but for Caitlyn, shock of another kind had taken its place. Shaking so hard she could barely speak, she clung to C.J.'s arm and felt with her other hand for his chest, patting at the soppy sweatshirt material as if to reassure herself that a heart still beat beneath it. “Oh, C.J.—I can't believe I did that. I'm so—”

“Yeah, well, believe me, I can't, either,” he muttered bitterly. “Come on—you're freezing. Let's get you—”

“No, I mean it. I can't believe I could do such a thing. C.J., I am so sorry—”

“Forget it. Let's just get you home before you catch pneu—”

Impulsively she slipped her hand upward and covered his mouth with fingertips that trembled. “No—please. I'm really,
really
sorry. I don't
do
things like that. I
don't.
I don't know what came over me. I
hate
violence. I mean, my whole life is one big fight
against
violence. To think that I could—that I—” Her next word was muffled, swallowed up by a hard, cold mouth.

He'd had no idea in the world he was going to kiss her. One minute he was standing there shivering and shaking and grinding his teeth, wishing to God she'd shut up, and so cold and ego battered he could barely think straight. Then the next second her lips were slippery and cool under his, and the shape and feel of them was well on the way to becoming a permanent imprint on his senses, and his
brain was filled with light and music like a Biblical revelation.

That
shocked him so much he stopped what he was doing, letting go of a short sharp breath as he lifted his head.

She did the same, and followed it with a squeaky and airless, “What'd you do that for?”

His thoughts were murky as that pond they'd just climbed out of. Gazing down at her in the near darkness, all he could think was that she looked like a half-drowned puppy.

“I was tryin' to shut you up,” he heard himself say in a voice he didn't recognize.

“Oh.”

Then for a long, tense moment neither of them said anything. The only sounds came from Bubba, patiently panting somewhere nearby, and the sharp chirp of bats hunting in the twilight.

C.J. realized he was shaking all over but not from the cold. Somewhere along the line
that
had ceased to be a problem, because now there seemed to be molten lava flowing through his veins. He decided the shakes must be from the strain of keeping himself from kissing her again—for real, this time, with her mouth hot and open and her body growing eager and trembly pressed up against him. It occurred to him that that effort would be a whole lot easier if he could just bring himself to let go of her. Her body was still enfolded in his arms, shaking nearly as badly as he was, and her hand, trapped between them, was making little stroking motions on the upper part of his chest.

He cleared his throat. She whispered, “What?”

And he said, “Nothing. I didn't say anything.”

“Then what did you want me to shut up for?”

Damned if he could remember. He scowled up at the flitting bats and after a moment began to laugh silently.

“What?” It was quick and suspicious now.

“Nothing. Not a damn thing.” A distinct clicking noise
distracted him and he growled angrily, “Listen to you—your teeth are rattling. I've got to get you home before you catch your death of cold. And just so you know, it's
dark,
dammit. That may not matter much to you, but it would be nice if
one
of us could see where we're going.”

She pushed abruptly away from him, and he had to shift his arm to her waist and get a grip on her belt to keep her from slipping out of his grasp.

“No problem,” she said, and her voice was artificially light and frosty and carefully restrained. “Bubba can lead us home—can't you, Bubba? Where are you, boy?” She paused, and then a dark shape separated itself from the grasses and thumped wetly against her legs. “Oh, there you are. Yes, you're a good dog. Let's go home, Bubba. That's a good boy….”

The dog took off walking and so did she. C.J. didn't have much choice but to do the same, so he did. “I was kidding,” he muttered after he'd wrapped his arm around her shoulders and gotten her tucked up securely again against his side. “Dammit, I can see well enough to get us home.”

In that same annoyingly prissy—and obviously ticked-off—voice she said, “Then you were probably kidding when you said that about catching cold, as well. You do know you don't get colds from being wet? You get colds from germs.”

“Huh. Is that right, Dr. Brown?”

“Yes, it is—and don't be sarcastic.”

“Well,” he said after a moment, “I'm not about to argue with a woman who just threw me into a pond.”

He was caught by surprise when she jerked and then tried to turn within the circle of his arm. “Oh, God. C.J., I'm so sorry about that. Really. I don't know—”

“Don't start that again,” he growled, reeling her back against him. And after a moment, he said, “I just want to know one thing. How did you do it? I mean, where did
somebody who looks like—” He squelched the fairy-tale images in his mind and began again. “Where did you learn a move like that, anyway?”

“Oh…it's no big deal.” He felt her shrug. “I've had some self-defense training—quite a bit, actually. In my line of work it's pretty much a necessity. And then, after I got involved with the organization…well, we deal with some very violent people, after all. And since I don't like guns—”

Yeah, right. After the calm and efficient way she'd pointed a loaded one at him? He snorted and muttered, “You sure coulda fooled me.”

He felt her flinch again. “Oh, C.J., believe me—”

“You pointed a damn gun straight at me! Hijacked me!” The anger bubbled up like an unexpected burp and was out of him before he could stop it. “A loaded gun. Aimed right at me. Do you have any idea what that feels like? Lady, I coulda gone my whole life without having something like that happen to me!”

She paced beside him in silence while he thought over what he'd said to see if he regretted any of it. He'd about decided he didn't when she heaved a sigh and said unsteadily, “You have every right to be mad at me.”

Mad at her?
It astonished him to realize that he was and probably had been mad at her all along, deep down, telling himself he wasn't because he didn't think he ought to be angry with someone who was in such trouble, and wounded and blind and vulnerable. It astonished him, too, to realize that as soon as she said that, all the anger seemed to leak right out of him.

“I'd never have shot you, you know.” She paused, then went on in a grave, shivery voice, “I only decided to carry a weapon that one time because of Vasily—because I knew how dangerous he was. Now I'm sorry and I wish I hadn't, but…all I can say is, it seemed like the best thing to do at the time.”

The best thing to do at the time.
Images flashed through his mind: Mary Kelly's eyes and her sad little smile when she said, “You just don't know what it is you're doin'.” Two women and a little girl walking away from him across a deserted parking lot toward the lights of a police station….

He took a breath. “Yeah, I guess I know how
that
is.” She tilted her head toward him in an inquiring way, and he gave a huff of laughter that hurt him inside. “That's what I keep tellin' myself about turnin' you guys in. It seemed like the right thing at the time. Looks like we were both wrong.”

She didn't reply, and they walked on together, just the two of them now. With the house lights visible through the trees, Bubba had evidently figured his job was done. Chills still racked her from time to time, and him, too, but it seemed to him there was something sort of companionable about it now—shared shivers in a friendly darkness.

Maybe it was that cloak of darkness, making her a faceless, warm and vibrant presence, but he didn't think about how otherworldly beautiful she was, or how bruised and battered, but only how real…how human.

Somewhere along the line her arm had crept around him, and her fingers were hooked into the waistband of his jeans. He thought how nicely she fit there against his side, and how much more comfortable she seemed to be with him now. And how comfortable he was not. That was when it hit him. That was when he knew that he wanted her. It felt to him now that he had done so for quite a long time.

When had it happened? It couldn't have been from the first moment he saw her. He'd thought her barely a girl then, in punky spiked hair and hooded sweatshirt, with a cell phone stuck in her ear. A girl with silver eyes, it was true, but since when had he lusted after a woman because of the color of her eyes? Shortly after that she'd pulled a gun on him and hijacked his truck, not exactly actions de
signed to excite a man's libido. And yet…and yet. He
had
found her exciting. He had. In some strange way she'd fascinated him…troubled him. And he definitely recalled the way her body had felt, pinned under him while he'd wrested the gun away from her, every slender, well-muscled writhing inch of it. But then, he was only human…wasn't he?

He'd thought of her for weeks after that, second-guessing his decision to turn her in to the law, anguishing over mental images of her in a jail cell, and while he distinctly remembered her voice and her eyes and the reproachful looks she'd given him, he hadn't once pictured her naked in his arms…had he?

Then had come the shooting, and the terrible images on the television screen, and the hospital. He didn't like to think about the hospital, especially those first hours—the way she'd looked, lying there, bruised, bandaged and blind. The way he'd felt. The pain, the awfulness of it, was too recent and far too vivid still; his mind shied away from it with a shudder.

So, when had it happened? Was it when he'd carried her up the stairs to his old bedroom, showing off a little bit because she'd taunted him, and her body thinner and lighter than he remembered, and a strange and unfamiliar tenderness filling up his insides? Or later, those embarrassing moments when she'd gotten tangled up with him in his mother's kitchen, and he'd lost his breath and his composure because she'd touched his naked chest? Oh, yeah. But by then the lust that had lit up his insides had already seemed familiar to him.

So, in the long run, he supposed,
when
it had happened didn't really matter. The fact was that it had. He wanted Caitlyn. He wanted her in his bed. He wanted her in his arms. He wanted her body warm and naked and trembling, tangled and intertwined with his in all the ways two bodies could be. The fibers of his being had known these things
for a long, long time, and now his mind did, too. The only thing he didn't know was what he was going to do about it.