Cady’s heart was galloping fast in her chest, feeling for all the world like it was going to tear right out of her. Officer Morland? Did she have to talk to a male cop? Couldn’t she just hide in her house and pretend for the rest of her life that there were no men in existence?
Except for Gage, of course, but he didn’t count.
Hmmmm…I should probably not tell him that I don’t count him as a male. He may not take that in the right spirit…
It was this thought that had her smiling slightly as Officer Morland entered the room, Gage right on his heels, but as soon as she spotted the bulk of the officer, the smile disappeared. He wasn’t quite as muscular as Gage – honestly, no one was, so that wasn’t saying much, but still, she could see his bulging biceps straining against the sleeves of his uniform as though threatening her, promising that if she didn’t do what he wanted, he’d hold her down and…
Her breath was coming in short, choppy gasps now and the edges of her vision darkened, sound warping and distorting, like everyone was suddenly at the other end of a very long tunnel.
Gage’s hand, calloused and large, slipped into hers, and she heard him talking even as her eyes clung to the curve of Morland’s bicep. So much power right there. He could hurt—
“No one’s gonna hurt you,” Gage whispered, stroking his fingers through her hair.
Could he hear me? Was I talking out loud?
Shit, shit, shit.
This realization, finally, was the reason she could pull her eyes away from the unwanted male in the room and up to Gage. “You’ll stay?” she whispered. He’d already told her yes but she needed to hear it again. She needed to know that he wouldn’t abandon her.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Gage whispered, and then pressed a kiss to the tip of her nose. “I’m just going to sit here quietly while you chat with Morland. He’ll be extra nice to you because he knows that if he isn’t, he won’t get any more of those bear claws that he just loves.”
Cady nodded. Withholding bakery treats from someone was a pretty big threat. Morland was a cop, ergo the main staple of his diet was donuts, ergo he’d hate to lose access to the only bakery in town that sold them.
Satisfied with the severity of this threat, she turned back to the police officer and found that he’d pulled up a chair and was sitting beside the bed, a notepad and pen in hand, no longer looming menacingly over her. Cady instantly liked him about 10 times better. Gray-green eyes, a curl to his dark brown hair, and a square jaw…Cady supposed that women probably thought he was handsome, although he was certainly no Gage Dyer.
Still, she clung to Gage’s hand, as if scared he was going to pull it away at any moment. She knew he wouldn’t, but…
It felt good to hold it tight anyway.
“Hi, Cady,” the officer said with a small smile that reached his eyes. “I heard that you’ve had a run-in with Richard Schmidt previously. Why don’t we start with that encounter, and then move to last night’s activities?”
“I call him Rat Bastard,” Cady said, figuring that she should start with the important information.
She heard Gage choking on his laughter as the gray-green eyes of the officer went round.
“An applicable nickname if I’ve ever heard one,” the officer finally said in a strangled voice that sounded suspiciously like he was trying to choke back his own laughter.
Cady decided he might be all right after all.
“So,” Cady continued, “Rat Bastard showed up to Emma and Sugar’s big birthday party they hold every year. Have you gone to it?”
“Not personally, but I’ve heard it’s fun.”
“Well, Rat Bastard decided to take Sugar hostage because he was pissed that she had Jaxson’s baby, which is honestly ridiculous. This sounds like a plot line from Days of Our Lives, but I swear it’s true. Like she’s really going to say,” and Cady intentionally pitched her voice in a high falsetto that sounded nothing like Sugar, “‘Oh gosh, Rat Bastard, I thought you were a real asshole before, but now that you’ve attacked me and held a gun to my head, I’ll love you forever!’ Said no woman ever.”
This time, the choking laughter spilled out as Morland let out a roar of laughter.
Cady grinned up at him, pleased with herself. She’d been so damn terrified before this hulk of a man came into the room, sure that she’d be attacked again but Gage’s presence by her side had made her feel relaxed. Protected. If something bad happened, he’d stand between her and the bad guy every step of the way.
He’d proven that last night.
And now, Officer Morland had proven that he had a sense of humor. Cady decided to tell Sugar and Emma that he should hold a permanent spot on the guest list each year. Not that she was personally in charge of who they invited and who they didn’t, but she knew they’d be more than happy to add another guest to the list.
She told the cop about how Gage had saved Sugar, and then Abby had taken the rat bastard away in handcuffs. She hadn’t seen him since; had mostly forgotten about him, actually.
The truth was – although she didn’t share this insight with the cop – was that if she’d remembered him living there, lurking in the shadows, always ready to jump out at her and hurt her, she never would’ve relaxed as much as she had over the past seven months. It would’ve been a guillotine, always hanging over her, ready to fall at any moment.
“So you two didn’t interact at any point during that encounter?” the officer probed. “You didn’t yell at him to leave your friend alone, or take a swing at him?”
Cady shook her head. “I hardly knew Sugar and Emma at that point. I’d just met Sugar 30 minutes before Rat Bastard showed up, and Emma 15 minutes before that. I didn’t know their history; I hardly knew anyone in Long Valley at that point. I just stood in the crowd and watched. I didn’t know what to do, and he had a gun…Honestly, he was so drunk off his ass, even if we’d had an entire conversation, he wouldn’t have remembered it the next day. But he didn’t attack me last night because I’m me.” At the officer’s blank look, she plowed on. “He thought I was Sugar.”
She felt more than heard Gage’s sharp intake of breath next to her, and she realized that somehow, no one had figured out this piece of crucial information.
“Did he call you Sugar?” the officer asked, and Cady shook her head. “Then how do you know he thought he was attacking her?”
“He called me a bitch and a whore,” Cady said slowly, struggling to remember everything that had happened. It’d been dark and so surprising, and then the adrenaline rushing through her veins…it was a giant blur of fear and panic and anger. “Well, maybe he called me Sugar. Dammit. I’m sorry. It’s all a big mess up here.” She waved a hand next to her temple.
“Well, whether or not he actually used the name ‘Sugar,’ you seem really sure that he thought he was attacking her. Can you tell me why?”
“Oh. Right. Well, because he kept talking about Jaxson. How I had a baby with him, but I was still working for Gage,” she squeezed his hand but didn’t look at him, “and how someone needed to teach me manners. Or that wasn’t how a married woman was supposed to act. Something along those lines.” She waved her hand dismissively. “But I realized that in the dark, and the back doors for the bakery and my smoothie shop right next to each other…it’d be easy to get them mixed up. Plus, we’re about the same build, both have dark brown hair – mine is curly and hers is straight, but he might’ve thought that Sugar got a perm.” She shrugged. “I don’t know if y’all ran a blood alcohol test on him or not, but he was stinkin’ drunk. Literally. The smell rolling off him…I could hardly breathe. You guys are going to lock him up this time, right?” she demanded. It was ludicrous enough that he’d gotten off without punishment after bringing a gun to a birthday party. Surely he couldn’t get away with a second attempted kidnapping.
Gage and Officer Morland exchanged glances, as if they’d been discussing this exact point before Cady had come along. “What?” she asked sharply.
That look. It wasn’t good, that was for damn sure.
“You know who his father is, right?” the cop said after a moment’s pause.
“Yeah. The town’s judge. The only judge for the whole county, actually. But that shouldn’t matter. Justice is blind, and he should have to—”
“Justice is sometimes a little less blind than she should be,” Morland broke in. “We’ve tried to nail this guy’s ass to the wall before – this ain’t our first rodeo with him. But the county prosecutor says that making the son pay for what he’s doing will screw up every other case coming through the system as the judge takes his anger out about Richard’s case on everything else. We can’t get the prosecutor to prosecute any of Richard’s drunk driving arrests – of which he’s had plenty – and the birthday party incident was dropped for ‘lack of evidence.’”
Cady sputtered in shock but the cop just held up his hand wearily. “There were probably a hundred people there who could’ve testified to what Richard did. If my other cases had half that amount of evidence, I could die a happy man. But us cops can’t force a prosecutor to take on a case, no matter how much we wish we could. Which,” he said with a quiet pride, “is why we’re going to move jurisdictions. The county prosecutor is pissed at us for taking this out of his hands, but as soon as this got called in, we started working on getting everything moved to the state level. Usually the state won’t take on cases like this – they have enough on their hands without taking over county cases, too – but we made it clear what’s happening, and convinced the state that they needed to step in. It’s obviously a conflict of interest but since none of the prior cases actually went to court, the judge could claim that he hasn’t had any say in any of it. It’d been working pretty slick for him, but now…”
The cop trailed off meaningfully, and Cady grinned at him, feeling happy for the first time since the attack. Finally, Rat Bastard was going to get what was coming to him. Turns out, justice was a little more blind than some people wanted her to be after all. Oh, what a glorious day!
“I’ve already talked to Sugar and Gage,” Officer Morland said with a jerk of his head towards Gage, “but your cooperation will be most important of all. Otherwise, we won’t be able to connect the two attacks together, and the defense lawyers might argue that these have been nothing more than a couple of fistfights between two guys. Certainly not something to lock a man away for; otherwise, half our county would be in jail.” He laughed at his own little joke and then stopped, looking Cady straight in the eye. He could see the panic building up inside of her, she could tell, and she tore her gaze away. She didn’t want him to see the vulnerability. He couldn’t. She didn’t want him to know. No one should know.
“Cooperation?” she asked, her voice cracking partway through with fear. “What kind?” She wetted her lips and then to give herself something to do, picked up the cup with the straw and tried to take a sip. It made a faint gurgling sound – she’d already drained the cup dry. Gage took the cup and filled it from the sink in the corner.
Without something to hold and hide behind, Cady twisted the pendant around her neck instead, sliding it back and forth along the chain. Maybe the cop just meant she’d have to give her statement and that’d be it. That was fine. She could do that. As long as—
“You have to be willing to testify in court,” Officer Morland said bluntly as Gage handed the cup back to her. “Maybe Richard will take a plea deal and it won’t come to that, but you have to be willing to do so, or the whole thing falls apart. The state prosecutor was very clear on that.”
Her hands were shaking so hard, she was suddenly glad that the hospital had felt like she needed a sippy cup to drink from, like a small child would use. The lid kept the water from sloshing over its sides.
“Gage and Sugar both…” she said desperately, hoping that the answer would be no. She couldn’t look her boyfriend in the face. He was sitting right there next to her, but the implied question was directed at the cop.
Say no, say no, say no—
“We both agreed to testify in court,” Gage answered softly, squeezing her hand. “It’s the only way—”
“But then he’ll come after me,” she broke in, the panic breaking and washing over its banks. “This last time, he attacked me on accident. If he’d known who I was, he wouldn’t have touched me. I become a marked woman if I testify against him. Next time, he’s attacking me because I am me.” Her breath was coming in short, shallow pants now, her voice far away, belonging to someone else.
“Well, I’m going to leave you to think it over,” the police officer said tactfully, rising to his feet. “For now, we have enough to go on – we’re at least pointed in the right direction. I know the last 24 hours has been a lot – try to think over the attack and remember every word he said. Courts aren’t kind to people who say vague statements. We will want to get this nailed down. Come down to the station tomorrow and we can do an official statement then.” He nodded to Cady and Gage in turn, and then left, closing the door behind him.
Before Cady could figure out what to say in the strained silence, though, the door swung back open. An older woman with iron gray hair swept up into a bun came striding into the room. “You are awake,” she said. “Good. I’m Nurse Knutsen. I helped set the break and cast your arm while you were out. Do you have any questions?”
Cady shook her head slightly in an attempt to clear the swirling thoughts all fighting for attention, but before she could marshall her thoughts into some semblance of order, the nurse continued on, clearly taking Cady’s shake of the head as an answer. “Good. We’ll go over your discharge instructions orally, but I will also give you a paper with them summarized on it. Are you going to be the one taking care of her once she gets home?” she asked Gage.
“No!” Cady yelped at the same time that Gage firmly said, “Yes.”
The nurse looked back and forth between them, clearly unsure whose answer to go with, but Gage was faster on the draw and spoke before Cady could. “I’ll be watching over her for the next few days,” he said smoothly. “What’s the best way to take care of her arm while it’s in that cast? Can she get it wet in the shower? And will she be having physical therapy for that arm once the cast is off?”
Cady wanted ever so dearly to tell him to go jump off a cliff – this was her arm, not his, and she should be the one asking the questions – but just then, waves of pain began washing over her, obliterating any coherent thought. She felt a sheen of cold sweat sweep over her body as she struggled not to throw up.
It was as if her mind had forgotten about the break in her arm but now that it’d been reminded it was there, everything was now focused on the pain radiating up and down her arm.
I was just fine two minutes ago. Obviously, it can’t be hurting that bad, right? This is all in my mind.
But still, when two white pills were placed in her hand and the cup of water held out by the ever efficient nurse, Cady took them gratefully. Anything to cut the pain. She’d never broken a bone in her life, and she was starting to think that it wasn’t an experience she was especially keen to repeat.
Faintly, she heard the nurse talk to Gage, giving him instructions on how to care for her while also helping Cady out of her hospital gown and back into her ragged clothes. Gage tactfully looked the other direction as the nurse efficiently stripped Cady and then redressed her like a giant mannequin.
A mannequin with hobo taste in clothing, that was. Cady vowed to throw her clothes in the trash as soon as she got home. She never wanted to see these jeans or this t-shirt again.
The checkout procedure passed in a blur of pain and then the fogginess of drugs invaded and Cady found herself just nodding at people no matter what they asked or said, hoping that they’d take the hint and just let her go home. Zara wished her luck on the way out the front door, and Cady awkwardly waved at her with her left hand when she realized that her right hurt too much to lift up in the air.
This, she decided with an inward groan, was going to be a massive pain in the ass. How long was she going to have this thing on her? She realized that they’d probably told her while she was doing her best wobbly head doll imitation, her head bobbing in time with the flow of their words, but she’d had no comprehension of what was being said.
She’d just have to ask Gage. Later. When her brain wasn’t so…mushy.
Mush. Muuuussshhh. Mushy.
She rolled the word around in her head, suddenly weirded out by it. Was that a real word? Or had she just made it up?
“It’s a real word,” Gage said in her ear as he scooped her up in his arms and carried her to his front door.
She wanted to ask him how he knew what she was thinking when her brain finally caught up to the situation and she realized that they were at his house. She couldn’t even remember getting into his truck, let alone the drive over here.
“This is your house,” she said weakly, pushing against his chest with her free left hand, her right trapped between her and his muscular chest.
“It is, and a good thing, too. Otherwise, the last couple of years would’ve been pretty awkward,” Gage said lightly. “Turns out, people don’t want you to live in places that aren’t yours.”
They were going up the stairs to the second floor, Cream Puffs dancing around Gage’s feet, barking with excitement, her toenails clicking on the hardwood floors. Cady couldn’t see her from her vantage point in Gage’s arms, but she could practically feel the intense pleasure rolling off the dog in waves at having her there.
“But I was shupposed to go home,” she said, her mouth not forming words right. “Supposed to,” she said again, forcing her mouth to cooperate.
“We’ll discuss this when you wake up,” Gage said firmly, pulling her shoes and belt off and sliding her under the covers. “For now, you need to keep these pillows from floating away. They were looking a little light-footed just a minute or two ago.”
Cady wanted to argue but the world was already sliding into darkness around her and she knew no more.