Shooting Starr

Chapter 10

Caitlyn 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 designed 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.

That night, for the first time since the shooting, Caitlyn dreamed of Ari Vasily. Or rather, she dreamed of being chased by cloaked, faceless men, and the sound of gunshots zipping past her, and all the people she loved in the world falling down around her, one by one, in pools of thick crimson blood.

She awoke drenched in sweat with her head pounding so fiercely she feared for a moment C.J. was right, and that she had after all contracted some awful flu bug as a penance for dumping them both in the pond. Her weakness frightened her. She was so recently out of the hospital and her customary confidence in her own good health so badly shaken that she wavered on the brink of rousing Jess.

But as she lay rigid, trying to work up the courage to get out of bed, her galloping pulse slowly receded and so did the throbbing in her head. She drew long, measured breaths and concentrated on relaxing every part of her body, but she knew it was no use trying to sleep again. Every time she closed her eyes she saw those puddles of blood…viscous and unimaginably red.

She got out of bed, taking the bedspread comforter with her, and felt her way to the rocking chair. She pulled it close to the open window and sat curled up in it with her feet under her, wrapped in little yellow butterflies dancing on a field of pink, until she heard the birds begin to chirp in the dawn.

She didn’t want to tell C.J. about the dream. She wouldn’t tell him. Damned if she would. It was a dream, and she wasn’t a child; she didn’t need anyone to soothe her nightmares away.

She didn’t need him.

But the feel of his arms around her, warming her wet, shivering body like a warm fire on a wintery Iowa evening…of his mouth, cold and hard on hers. The memory of those things was like a haunting and annoying phrase of music that had stuck in her brain and kept recurring when she least expected it, no matter how hard she tried to push it away…

It was Sunday. They were returning from their walk, strolling slowly along the grass and gravel lane, side by side but not touching, each occupying one of the low, graveled tracks where the tires ran, separated by the grassy hummock between. It had been scary for her the first time they’d done that, and she’d reached for him across the median, needing the touch of his hand to give her courage. Gradually, though, she’d stopped feeling as though she were about to fall off the edge of the world, and learned to judge her way by the feel of the gravel under her feet and the rise of the ground on either side of the path. She was learning to walk with her head up and the sun on her face and the morning breeze in her hair.

Normally, those things would have made her smile, drink deeply of the winey autumn air and quiver inside with that recurring and always unexpected happiness. This morning, she smiled, but the muscles of her face felt pinched and achy, and the restless emotion that vibrated through her wasn’t joy.

No, she ruthlessly told herself, I won’t tell him about the dream. I don’t need him to comfort me. I don’t need him to hold me. I don’t need- Oh, God…I can’t.

They were approaching the yard. She knew that because there was shade from the oaks and hickories that sheltered the house, and because the dogs had left them and gone off to their favorite nap spots in the flower beds. She veered onto the grass that grew along the sides of the lane, kept neatly mowed by Jess to the place where the ground rose to the pasture fences. There she knew, because C.J. had told her, began the riot of yellow sunflowers and black-eyed daisies and goldenrod and tall grasses headed out with waving plumes, the thickets of scarlet sumac and tangles of pink and purple and white morning glories, all laid out in a glorious harmony no human floral designer could ever hope to match.

“I want to pick some flowers to take back to the house,” she announced, breathless for no reason, holding her hands out in front of her and finding nothing. She’d taken several reckless, unsteady steps toward the fence when she felt C.J.’s body brush against her back. Her breath caught and her heart gave a scary lurch. I can’t let him touch me…I can’t let him hold me again. I can’t.

“Whoa, hold up,” he murmured, his voice a vibration near her ear. She felt his arms extend along the outsides of hers. “Okay, now…turn to your left, about…ten o’clock. Couple more steps…now you’ve got it…feel that?”

She nodded and gave an uneven cackle of laughter as she felt leaves prickle her hands and then the sturdy stalks of goldenrod…the spindlier stems of some sort of flower. A grass plume tickled her face and drifted into her mouth. She spat it out and waved it impatiently aside, focusing with all her concentration on what her hands were feeling. Seeing with my hands…is that what I’m doing? A strange, fierce excitement rushed through her, sanding her skin with goose bumps.

C.J. made a gruff sound, the beginnings of words, and she silenced him with a shake of her head and a sharp “No, don’t tell me. Let me do it…” as her fingers climbed as talk of goldenrod and found the feathery yellow plumes. She let them trail through her fingers. They felt silky soft, delicate as lace. She measured an elbow’s length down and broke one off, then two more. Her insides quivered, emotions as finely balanced as drops of dew on the edge of a leaf.

“I can hold those for you,” C.J. offered, but again she shook her head, forcing his nearness from her mind.

Her fingers were busy, following a slender, slightly furry stem to its terminal. Yes! There it was-a daisylike flower. She broke it off with her right hand and added it to the collection in her left. With a little burr of tension humming in her chest she picked daisies-sunflowers?-until she couldn’t find any more, then seined the air with her hands until they snagged the tickly plumes of grass that had teased her face at first.

Oh, but the grass leaves were sharp and left her hands and forearms stinging with tiny cuts, and the stems were tough and resisted her efforts to break them. She straightened, brushing tickling leaves-or bugs? Flies? Bees?-away from her face and gave a small grunt of frustration.

“Let me get that for you.” C.J.’s warm shape brushed her back…her shoulder…her arm. His clean, familiar scent mingled with the dusty smell of weeds and grass in her nostrils. It took all her willpower to hold herself still. Trembling, she listened to the squeaky, popping sounds the grass stems made as he broke them, knowing that if she turned her face toward him, his would be right…there. In her mind a vision rose, indistinct and soft with lavender shadows-crinkly brown eyes, a lock of sandy hair falling over one, a sweetly smiling mouth. Dimples-yes, I remember now…he has dimples.

“Looks nice.” His voice was much too near as he added the stems of grass to her bouquet. “Think you’ve ’bout got enough?”

For some reason she couldn’t answer him. Gathering the sheaf of flowers and foliage close to her chest, bugs, prickles and all, she felt her lips part, then close again.

“Ready to go back to the house?” A hand was firm and warm on her elbow.

She nodded but didn’t move. A shudder rocked her. “I dreamed about Vasily last night.”

Her eyes burned and the shivers were sweeping through her in waves, deep inside where they wouldn’t show. And now she knew why the nightmare had upset her so and why she hadn’t wanted to tell him about it. Why she dreaded needing him so. They were shivers of shame.

She heard a breath taken and released, and C.J.’s arm came across her shoulders. She slipped away from that gentle promise of comfort and stepped carefully from the grass to the gravel…then across the center ridge of grass…more gravel, and then the leaf-strewn grass that began the broad sweep into the yard and under the trees. She felt him moving beside her, but he didn’t speak and didn’t touch her again. She tried to fool him with a soft, breathy laugh.

“It’s the first time, can you believe that? The first time since the shooting.”

“Can’t see how that’s a bad thing,” C.J. said. His hand on her arm as he guided her around a tree trunk had a diffident, tentative feel. “He wouldn’t be pleasant to dream about.”

She felt a solid, but giving, bump against her hip. Her searching hand caught at the rope attached to the old tire as if it were a life preserver rather than a child’s swing. She fingered the rope and leaned into it casually, swaying a little to disguise her relief at finding something to hold on to. Something to give her her bearings. From here it was exactly twenty-two steps to the front porch.

C.J. watched her sway slowly in the dappled light, one arm hooked around the rope of the swing, the other cradling sprays of grasses and sunflowers and goldenrod. But though pollen from the goldenrod spangled her hair and cheeks and the shoulders of her sweatshirt like pixie dust, it wasn’t fairies and fantasies he thought about when he looked at her now. And though the bottom edge of the sweatshirt played peekaboo with her slender and supple flesh when she lifted her arm, he didn’t think about how firm and soft it would feel…not then. There was something weighing her down-a misery, a sadness he could almost see, as if a heavy net had been thrown over her. He wondered, he hoped she’d tell him what it was, if he was patient enough not to rush her.

“I haven’t…” She hesitated, and he held his breath; her voice seemed to come from a great distance, from across a chasm he didn’t know how to cross. “I haven’t even thought about him, about…the shooting. Even when we’ve talked about it, I haven’t really thought about it. Felt it-” she let go of the rope and touched her chest “-in here.”

“That’s understandable.” He found himself moving toward her-toward that chasm-and made himself stop. “I guess you’ve had one or two other things on your mind.”

She tilted her head toward him and gave a brittle laugh. “Yeah? What’s the second one?” He stared at her, not understanding, and she made a disgusted sound and began walking away from him. Pacing, rather; he could hear her counting under her breath as he quickened his own pace to catch up with her.

“I’ve been thinking about me-that’s all. Myself. Being blind. Worrying about whether I’m going to see again. Oh, damn.” She halted and threw up her arms with a cry that was half a sob. “Where are they?”

Ignoring the question, which made even less sense than the rest of what she’d said, C.J. said in bewilderment, “Jeez, Caitlyn, why shouldn’t you? That’s a hell of a lot for anyone-”

“Yeah?” A look-silver daggers-slashed past his shoulder. “So I’m blind-big deal. At least I’m alive. What about Mary Kelly? Where is she? She’s dead.” Her eyes darkened, and without their silvery flash her face became a mask. She turned away from him, thickly muttering, “Where are the damn steps? I counted-they should’ve been here. Dammit, where-”

“Your vector’s a little off,” C.J. said with dazed relief. This, at least, was something he could deal with. “You missed by about ten feet. If you come around to…oh, say two o’clock-”

She came around, all right, but not toward the house. She kept right on coming until the sheaf of wildflowers whacked him in the chest, and her face, uplifted to his, was a mask of grief. “Mary Kelly’s dead,” she whispered through lips that barely moved. “I had her blood all over me. I didn’t-I never-”

Her face crumpled. With an anguished cry she turned and stumbled away from him, fleeing blindly across the lawn, leaving wildflowers scattered like jackstraws at his feet.