His Frozen Heart (38 page)

“
You don’t know that. He
shot at you before; if you’d have been there, he might have killed
you.”

He shook his head as if dismissing the
possibility. “Have you reported this to the police?”

“
No. Mark took care of it.
Both of them are leaving town. But a police report isn’t a bad idea
– it might keep the manager from firing me.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Fired? You
can’t go back there.”

“
I have to go back there.
Tips from the restaurant are how I keep gas in my car.”

Dave kissed my temple softly, “We’ll
talk about it later. For now, call the police. Hopefully I don’t
still have a warrant for my arrest.”

I smiled. “You don’t. I talked to
Officer Brown this morning.”

When the police arrived, I told them
everything that happened from the moment I tossed a package of
napkins to Grey in the storage room until I saw Mark on Windham
Street. Dave’s anger wasn’t masked as he listened to everything
that Grey had done to me. I left out the part about Mark telling
Grey to get out of town, but ended with a truthful statement about
Mark intervening and giving me a ride to Dave’s house. After my
statement was complete, the policeman who took it departed. Dave
had called to check in with Mr. Kravitz then offered to take me to
the hospital. I wanted to go see Libby, but I felt awful and looked
worse – I didn’t want her to see me before I got cleaned
up.

Dave was remarkably quiet as we slowly
climbed the steps to his apartment. Dave was massive and there
wasn’t room for both of us on the same step, but he gently guided
me up the steps from behind, at the ready to catch me if I lost my
footing.

As I started for the sofa, Dave walked
past me to a beautifully carved wooden box on his coffee table. He
opened it, then removed a handgun, sliding it into the waistband of
his jeans. He saw me staring in disbelief, as he walked up to me
and kissed my forehead, “I’ll be back soon.”

“
Where are you going? And
why are you taking a gun?”

“
I’ll find him. Get some
rest. I’ll be back in a couple hours.”

My scratched up hands gripped his
shirt before he could walk past me. “No. Dave. Don’t go.” I wanted
to shout at him and tell him he was being reckless. I wanted to
tell him I didn’t want a murderer for a boyfriend. But neither of
these things would stop the rage I saw in his eyes. Instead, I was
unable to pretend to be brave for one more second. I confessed,
“I’m scared to be alone.”

His eyes softened. Dave made a loose
fist and caressed my cheek with his knuckles. “I can’t let him get
away with this.”

“
Please. Don’t leave me.”
Tears streaked my cheeks. “I need you.”

Dave gathered me in his arms gently. I
turned my head, resting it against his chest as his arms completely
encircled me. My voice pleaded again, “Mark already took care of
both of them. Stay with me.”

Barely above a whisper, Dave answered,
“I’m here.” He kissed my forehead a second time, “I’m here. I won’t
leave.” Dave gestured for me to take a seat on the couch. He
removed the handgun from the waistband of his jeans, returning it
to the carved wooden box. Dave alternated pressing the ice to each
of my injuries. When I didn’t think I could take another second
with the ice, he took the bag to the sink and returned with a pan
of warm water. Dave cleaned each of the scrapes and cuts on my
skin, put Neosporin and Band-Aids on several of the bigger
scratches, then glued two gashes shut.

Neither of us spoke as he took care of
my injuries. His touch was feather light. When he was done, I
wrapped a hand around the back of his neck and whispered into his
ear. “Thanks.”

He spoke against the back of my neck,
“You’re welcome. Are you okay?”

“
As long as I’m with you,
yes. Promise you won’t leave?”

“
I promise.”

“
When I wake up tomorrow,
will you still be in bed?”

Dave grinned. “I’ll be wherever you
need me to be.”

“
I want to see you when I
wake up.”

His breath was minty and warm; I felt
his kiss resonate through my entire body. Not in a tingly sexual
way, but the warm glow like stepping into the sunshine from a dark
cave. Dave’s lips travelled down my neck and back to my ear. His
invitation, “Come to bed.”

I tried to stand, but when I did, my
legs were wobbly. Dave leaned down and gathered me in his arms. I
wrapped my arms around his neck as he carried me across the little
room and gently lowered me on to his bed.

Chapter 27

The next morning I woke up with Dave’s
enormous arms holding me against him as his fingers lightly
caressed my arm. He was warm, his touch inviting. We had survived,
to hell and back for sure. My body ached after the adrenalin from
last night had worn off completely. Without looking in a mirror, I
knew the horrific bruise around my neck would be there for a while,
and my temple was sore from Grey’s fist. The tiny cuts on my hand
from my escape weren’t that noticeable since Dave had taken care of
them last night.

None of those injuries concerned me
when Dave’s arms held me. The warmth of his body was intoxicating.
I looked at the tiny apartment: it was still so orderly. Dave’s
voice whispered, “What do you want to do today?”

I stretched against him, allowing my
whole body to press against his. “Libby should be awake by now.
Will you go with me?”

“
Yeah.” He pressed his lips
to the back of my head while he pulled me tighter to him.
“Shower?”

Neither of us moved. It could have
been an offer to let me go first, or it could have been an
invitation for me to join him. I decided I wanted for it to be the
latter. My hand slid up his arm to his shoulder, then all the way
back down to his fingertips. An audible sigh sounded behind me as I
asked, “You know I’m a conservationist?”

“
Mmmm,” his
response.

“
It would be a waste of
water for us to take separate showers.”

He kissed the back of my neck as he
chuckled. “You’re right. Let’s make a pact to stop wasting
water.”

I rolled over so I faced him. His eyes
were heavy and he had never looked sexier. I kissed the sensitive
skin under his chin as he sighed into me and murmured, “I could get
used to this.”

My eyes roved to his chest where the
happy heart smiled back at me, holding the red and white striped
candy cane. My index finger traced the lines as I considered what
all had happened in the last five days. I had nearly lost my best
friend, several years were likely shaved off an elderly neighbor’s
life, but I had found Dave.

It wasn’t a reconnection, because the
Dave I thought I knew was nothing like the man who I now knew. It
was difficult to reconcile in my mind that had all the awful things
that had happened to me this week not happened, I would likely
never have known the real Dave. I wouldn’t have known he had
feelings for me or how deep they ran. I wouldn’t have understood
why he was so unwilling to let people into his life.

Had that creepy Teddy not have set
everything in motion, not only would I not be wrapped up with Dave,
he would still not have seen a brother he had been looking for for
over a decade, and that brother would still think Dave had died.
Some amazingly cool things had happened as a result of actions
which made no sense.

Is this how life was supposed to be?
Good things could come from bad things if you looked for the good
hard enough? I thought of Libby’s body in the hospital, clinging to
life this week. She wouldn’t have wished for one moment of the
brutality and neither would Larry, but the result of the action
brought two people together who had sort of given up on each
other.

I tried to think of something positive
that had come from Grey’s home invasion on Mrs. Bavcock. She was
old and set in her ways, but thank goodness for her concern. I’d
always been friendly to her, but I now owed her my life – a debt I
would never fully repay. If I had to find something good that had
happened as a result, I would have to say that I would never again
think of her as just a crazy old cat lady; she was brave. I hoped
to live as long as she has, and I hoped to be just as strong as she
was when I got there.

I hadn’t asked Dave much about his
reunion with Mark. One thing still didn’t make sense to me, “Did
Mark tell you why he thought you were dead?”

Dave stiffened. I didn’t think he
intended to answer at first, but just as I was about to sit up in
bed and cover my awkward comment with something funny, he answered,
“When my foster parents petitioned Missouri for me to move with
them to Nebraska, a notification was made to my next-of-kin that I
was no longer under the care of the State of Missouri. When he got
the notification, he called his case worker to ask her what was
going on. She must have gotten her signals crossed because she told
him I had been in an accident.”

“
An accident? What kind of
an accident?”

“
He could never get a
straight answer. She showed up with a grief counselor and told him
I was in a better place.”

“
His case worker told him
you were dead?”

Dave shook his head, “She never came
out and said the words, but Mark said he sort of shut down after
that. He had been in a group home at the time and stayed there
until he was fifteen.”

“
A group home? So he didn’t
stay with Margaret and Dewey after you left?”

“
No, that’s the jacked-up
part. When I was placed with another foster family, I did
everything I could to be good and be placed back with him. He did
the opposite. He turned into a hellion trying to get moved to
wherever the state had put me.”

“
Why wouldn’t your case
worker have seen that and put the two of you together
again?”

“
I don’t know. It wasn’t
long after I moved from Margaret and Dewey’s house that a new case
worker was assigned to me. I’d like to think that she just didn’t
know, rather than she purposely tried to keep us apart.”

I hugged Dave again, “I really am
sorry for everything the two of you went through.”

“
We both made it through.
If it weren’t for you, I’d still be looking for him, and he would
still think I was dead.” I guess I wasn’t the only one trying to
find the bright side. Dave eased off the bed and held out both of
his hands for me to get up, too. As he helped pull me to my feet,
his eyes looked toward the little bathroom door off in the
corner.

I took his hand leading him toward the
door. The room was barely large enough for one person. I qualified
as one person, and Dave was easily the size of two. He reached
behind the vinyl shower curtain and turned on the water. Not
looking the least bit tense about sharing a shower with me, he slid
off the short nylon shorts he had been wearing and stepped behind
the curtain.

My eye muscles flexed at the brief
glimpse they had seen. My heart raced so fast it could have kept
time with Jeff Gordon’s Chevrolet. I looked at myself in the
mirror, the ugly purple just under my chin, the scrapes that
peppered my hands, and my hair all but knotted. I didn’t feel very
attractive, and I wasn’t sure this was the image I wanted burned
into his memory of our first time together.

Just as I was beginning to lose my
nerve, the shower curtain gapped and Dave warned, “I’m giving you
to the count of three, then I’m reporting you to the Water
Company.” His enormous arm jetted through the opening between the
wall and the curtain, as his finger beckoned me to join
him.

“
Be
brave
,” I thought to myself. Dave had
opened himself up to me: it was time for me to do the same. My
exterior wasn’t as formidable as Dave’s, but before him, there had
never been another man I let into my heart. For the first time, I
would let a man see my darkest secrets, the insecurities I hid from
everyone, and the flaws I hoped nobody noticed. Beyond sharing my
body, Dave was the first guy I had ever wanted to share my
heart.

I slid the shower curtain to the side
and stepped into the welcoming arms of the man who not only
displayed his heart for the world to see, but as of this moment,
owned mine.

*****

We left his place and decided to stop
at a little diner on our way to the hospital. I was conflicted, my
emotions were on overload and running in different directions. One
minute I was excited and full of joy over Dave, the next I was
nervous and scared to find out what Libby’s condition was. Dave
must have sensed the conflict because he was driving and he chose a
detour. When I tried to argue that I needed to get to the hospital,
his response was, “An hour’s delay won’t make a difference to
Libby, but you need to eat.”

I hadn’t told Dave that my fit over
food was what had set all of these events in motion. As much as I
wanted to argue with him, I remembered I had eaten almost nothing
Saturday and it was now approaching lunch time on
Sunday.

He pulled into the parking lot of a
diner close to his garage. I had never been there before, but the
waitress who took our order was friendly. As I looked across the
table at Dave, he was still all smiles. He reached over and took
both my hands in his, “You are beautiful.”