Chapter 15
Chuck turned out to be a bust. Although Chuck and the other men were old enough to be her father, they were not Brinkman.
Taryn was ready to crash by the time she extricated herself from the sweet and charming Chuck and paid her coffee bill. Ten partial cups of the brew had sent her to the bathroom three times and made her slightly manic.
“You’re twitching,” Rick said as he walked her out.
“I’ve had enough caffeine to rev up a sloth.” His hand went to her bare back as he held open the door for her. She liked his touch. She wanted to invite him back to her place to help bring her down from her coffee high, but thought better of it. Sex would only lead to heartache. She already liked Rick too much for her peace of mind.
Besides, Jess and Summer were waiting by the Olds. She couldn’t kiss him good night, even if she wanted to.
“Well, good night,” she said and headed to her car.
“Hey, Taryn.” She turned around and found him grinning. “You look damn sexy in that dress.”
* * *
With his compliment cemented in her mind, Taryn longed for the relaxation of a hot bath and a steamy romance novel. Whenever she needed to chill, she liked to read. If she couldn’t have Rick in her bed, a wicked duke or hunky FBI agent was the next best thing. Well, sort of.
Overdosed on caffeine and Rick, she had to do something to unwind or risk calling him up and inviting him over. A long, hot bath should do the trick.
Thankfully, there were no teenage suitors on her porch or calls from her ex, as she tromped up the stairs and put her key into the lock. Her fried brain took a full ten seconds to process the sounds of footsteps behind her, and another one or two to figure, wrongly, that one of the wolf cubs next door had indeed found her.
She spun to shoo him off, startled at the massive bulk of the man before her, and dragged her eyes up to his unshaven face; a face she knew well.
She took only a half second to complete a full and almost fatal heart failure.
“Hello, Taryn.”
Alvin the Ape.
She tried to scream but only a strangled squeak came out. However, she did manage through the panicked spinning of her mind to reach into the side pocket of her purse for the lipstick Mace. Closing a fist over the tube, she whipped it out and aimed. She shot him full in the right eye with enough noxious chemicals to take down a grizzly.
Nothing.
She shot him in the left eye.
Again. Nada. The third strike was a pitiful stream from the nearly empty can. It hit him midchest.
She was going to die.
He blinked, shook his head, but looked more annoyed than damaged. “I need to talk to you,” he said in his deep, deep, serial-killer voice.
She held up the can and sprayed, sputtering liquid back and forth across his wide face, like a hyped-up mom treating her pasty white kid with spray-on sunscreen at the beach.
Instead of dropping down in pain, Alvin sighed deeply and he reached out. Resigned to death, she slowly placed the empty lipstick can onto his ginormous hairy paw; the same hand that would soon choke the breath out of her.
Twenty-five was a long and successful life, right? She’d had some fun and made friends, and could have slept with Rick, the sexiest man on the planet. He’d wanted her and not Summer. That was enough. She was ready to go to God.
Closing her eyes, she waited.
A second sigh opened them back up.
He was staring at her like she was a moron.
“I’m not here to kill you, though I could if I wanted to. I could break you in half with one hand and not even sprain a finger.” He flexed said hand as proof.
“It is a big hand,” she agreed. What?
He shook his head like a dog. Clumps of drying chemical went flying. “Look, can we talk inside?”
“Sure.” She didn’t want to traumatize her next-door neighbors by letting them watch her be murdered. She wasn’t entirely convinced that wasn’t Alvin’s end game despite his assurance, and she couldn’t chance the boys taking the opportunity to upload the video to the web. Boys would be boys and all that.
She unlocked the door and led him in. He had to dip his head so as not to conk his forehead on the doorframe.
Taryn thought about her gun. It was in its case in her purse. But she suspected in the time it would take to retrieve it, he’d probably snap off her head. She thought about those many hours of self-defense training. But Alvin was a trained bodyguard, at least six foot seven, and probably had a good one hundred and fifty pounds on her. Why waste the energy trying to raise her foot up over her head to kick him in the groin? A peaceful murdering was preferable over blood and gore.
So she waited and covertly looked around for a weapon.
Alvin crossed his arms and leaned back on his heels. “Willard wants you dead.”
“I know. He said so in court.” Her stomach soured. “It’s on record.”
“No. I’m supposed to kill you and make it look like an accident.”
Well, this was a turn. She’d thought Willard’s threats were as empty as his morality. The bastard. “That’s why you’re here? I thought you said you wouldn’t kill me. Just a minute ago, I heard it. You promised.”
“I’m not . . .” He blinked and sucked in and released a deep breath. It took a moment before he spoke again. “My therapist says that I have anger issues. I’m trying to change.” He scratched his scruffy black beard. “I can’t be a better person and murder you, too. So I told Willard no.”
There were moments in life when it felt as if Candid Camera was about to pounce. While she waited for Peter Funt to jump out and shout, “Smile, you’re on Candid Camera,” she wobbled backward into the living room and perched on the arm of the couch.
“I knew Willard was angry.” She met his eyes. “I can’t believe this.”
“Believe it.”
Murder. “All this trouble over a rejection and a lawsuit?”
“He thinks you’ll be awarded his team. He’s seriously pissed. He loves being a team owner. He’s been to the White House. He bags groupies. Without the team, he’ll have to go back to Utah and raise chickens with his wife, and hang out with the Mormons. His words.”
Wow. Willard was a bigger lunatic than she’d thought. “Do you have evidence of this murder plot?”
“Nope. Just my word.”
Darn. Knowing how close she’d been to real death left her unsettled and ticked off. She took a moment to think it all over. At least she’d been warned. And if Alvin agreed to testify about the murder plot, Willard would be sunk. But first, she wanted him out of her house. After all, who could take the word of a hired assassin that she was safe?
“Well, thank you for the warning.” She pushed off the couch arm and headed for the front door. “My lawyer will be in touch.”
He frowned. “I can’t leave.”
“Why not?”
“I have nowhere to go.”
She waited for him to explain. He obliged.
“When we stopped for gas in Atlanta, I took a pee break. When I came out, the bus was gone.” He dug in his pocket, pulled out a business card, and handed it over. Gold embossing gave Willard’s name and information. “The clerk gave me that.”
Taryn turned it over.
YOU’RE FIRED!
Willard did have a flair for the dramatic. “Okay. I’m sorry you lost your job, but what does that have to do with me? If you’ve forgotten, you ejected me and my friends from his bus and left us stranded in the boonies. We could have died of exposure or starvation. That wasn’t nice.”
That may have been a bit of an exaggeration, but it had been a hot day and they’d had no water. Death by dehydration had been a real threat.
“I apologize for that.” He managed to look sheepish. “I was much crankier then.”
Taryn’s brain hurt. She was chatting up her assassin, in her living room, like they were old friends. She wanted him gone. She wanted a bath. And Heather and Brandon were awaiting their first kiss on her nightstand. She was just getting to the sexy part of the book.
“Alvin. Let’s cut to the chase. What do you want?”
“I want to stay here.”
“Are you crazy? No!” She paused. “Was that you I saw the other night, running for the bushes across the street?”
“Maybe. Look, I have nowhere to go and no money.” Despite his size and scary face, he looked sort of pitiful standing there. Still, it wasn’t happening. She shook her head.
He made a pinched face, sort of like a baby filling its diaper, and his bottom lip trembled.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to show emotion. My therapist says it’s healthy.” He tried to summon up a tear, failed, and gave up. “I walked a long way to get here.”
“You walked from Atlanta?” At his nod, her eyes widened. “That’s, like, six hundred miles.”
“Seven hundred and nine. Give or take. I slept in woods and culverts. Do you know there are black bears in Kentucky?”
Shocked, Taryn ran her eyes over him. For the first time she noticed how disheveled he was and that his left big toe poked out of one black dress shoe. Bits of plants and dust stuck to his black suit and an old (and new) sweat stain circled his dress shirt’s collar.
His jacket looked a bit chewed.
Pressing a palm to her forehead, she knew Heather and Brandon’s love story would have to wait.
Seven hundred and nine miles.
“Just for a few days.”
He smiled. One front tooth was missing.
Alvin was a melting pot of species and cultures and hair. Black tufts of fur stuck up from beneath his shirt collar and on the backs of his hands. And after who knows how many weeks of walking, he was sporting some serious black beard growth, and the last time he’d taken a shower was a mystery. In a squabble with a Kentucky black bear, she was sure he’d be the victor. The bear was probably still licking his wounds.
And now, Alvin was all hers.