Molly

The EMTs check me out and assure Jamie my injuries aren’t serious. But it looks like I’ll need to go to the ER for treatment.

Shane gets the okay for Jake to drive us to the hospital, rather than having me ride in the ambulance. We all get in Jake’s SUV, which is parked a block down the street, and head to the Cook County Hospital ER. Shane and Jake are in the front seat, and Jamie and I sit in the back. I’m absolutely exhausted, dead on my feet, and I find myself falling asleep in the backseat leaning against Jamie. His arm’s around my shoulders, warm and solid, and I feel safe.

It still hasn’t sunk in that Todd’s dead. I suppose I should grieve that my former husband met a violent end, but the man he’d become lately bore little resemblance to the young man I married in college. I don’t know what happened to him over the years. I guess he changed so gradually that I didn’t realize that monster he’d become until after the divorce, when he insisted that I come back to him.

I sigh heavily, feeling a little overwhelmed by the evening’s events. Jamie tightens his hold on me and leans over to kiss my forehead.

“How’s your cheek?” he murmurs, his lips pressed against my brow.

“It stings. And it feels hot.”

“It needs to be cleaned. God knows where that knife has been.”

When we arrive at the hospital, Jake pulls up to the entrance to the emergency room. Shane gets out of the vehicle, and Jamie helps me out.

“You two go sit down,” Shane says. “I’ll sign Molly in.”

Jamie and I find seats in the waiting room. Jake joins us before long and offers to go get us coffee.

Lia and Jonah arrive at the ER not long afterward and spot us across the room.

“Are you all right, Molly?” Lia says. She gets a good look at my cheek. “Damn. And your throat, too.  Did that fucker choke you?”

“Yes.”

Lia shakes her head in disgust then looks at Jamie. “Please tell me you took care of that.”

Jamie nods. “I did.”

“Good,” Lia says. “Beth sends her love. She wanted to come, too, but Shane put his foot down and said she needed to stay home and rest.”

Troy Spencer arrives wearing jeans and a University of Chicago sweatshirt, and carrying a slim black briefcase. “Jamie, when you get a chance, we need to talk.”

For the first time, I wonder if Jamie could get into trouble for what happened. Todd was the intruder. Jamie was my rescuer. Surely he’s not in legal trouble because of what happened. Todd stabbed himself.

When the receptionist calls my name, Jamie accompanies me to the registration desk. I check in, and then an attendee takes me back to the treatment area where a nurse cleans and sterilizes the cut on my face.

I’m seen shortly afterward by a doctor, who applies some type of adhesive to the cut, to hold the edges together while it heals. Jake was right. I was lucky. Very lucky. It could have been so much worse. And I’m not just talking about the cut on my face. If Jamie hadn’t arrived when he did, Todd would have raped me. And worse yet, Jamie might have gotten hurt. He grappled bare-handed with a man holding a knife.

The ER doctor sends me home with a prescription for pain medication and ointment to put on my cut, to help minimize scarring while it heals. My throat is badly bruised, but he doesn’t think any lasting damage was done to my vocal chords.

“Your throat will be sore for a few days, and your voice will be a little hoarse until the swelling goes down. Just get lots of rest and drink plenty of water. You’ll be good as new in no time.”

* * *

I was dead on my feet by the time I was finally discharged.

“Do you guys want to come back to our place tonight?” Shane says. “We’ve got plenty of room. Or, if you’d rather, I can let you use one of the guest apartments in my building.” Shane pauses for a moment, as if delivering bad news. “Molly can’t go back to her apartment. It’s an active crime scene, and it’s off limits until the police complete their investigation. And once they’re done, her bedroom will need to be professionally cleaned before she can enter that room.”

“What do you want to do?” Jamie asks me. “We could go to my apartment. Or, sleep in one of Shane’s guest apartments. What would you prefer?”

“Charlie. I don’t want to leave him in the apartment alone tonight.”

“We could take him with us to my apartment, and sleep there tonight. Then, in the morning, we’ll decide what to do next.”

I nod. “Let’s do that. I don’t like leaving him alone in that apartment.  He’s probably traumatized.”

“Are you sure, Molly?” Shane says. “I’ve got an apartment you can use for as long as you need it. I can send someone to retrieve your cat and bring him to you.”

“I’m sure. Thank you, Shane. I just want to go home, and Jamie’s apartment is the closest thing I have to home.”

Jamie smiles and reaches for my hand, lacing our fingers. “Let’s go.”

Jamie and I practically carry each other out to Jake’s SUV, which is waiting for us outside the automatic doors. Jamie helps me stay upright, and I do the navigating, steering us clear of any pedestrians and other obstructions.

“We make a good team,” I say.

“Yes, we do.”

* * *

My apartment’s not very big, but it takes us fifteen minutes to find Charlie. At first, the furry little orange guy is nowhere to be seen. When he doesn’t greet us at the door, I panic a little, fearing that he might have slipped out of the apartment during all the chaos tonight.

“Charlie?”

We step inside the apartment, and I turn on a light. “Charlie? It’s okay. You can come out.”

Nothing. My heart starts pounding at the thought that he’s lost.

I check everywhere… the kitchen, the pantry, the spare bedroom, the bathroom. I check all his favorite hiding places. Nothing.

I’m just about to break the police seal on my bedroom door to see if he got trapped in my room. Perhaps he was hiding under the bed or in my closet when the police sealed the room. I really don’t want to go in there to look for him because I know what I’ll see... a huge pool of blood on my wood floors, where Todd died.

I knock quietly on my bedroom door, putting my ear to the wood panel to listen for a meow. Nothing.

I’m really starting to panic now, thinking that he must have gotten out of the apartment.

I knock once more on my bedroom door and call him, but there’s no response from inside the room.

“Looking for this little guy?” Jamie says, coming down the hallway with Charlie cradled in his arms.

Jamie’s scratching Charlie’s ears, and Charlie is obviously in heaven, turning and twisting his head to soak in all that attention.

I burst into tears as I reach for Charlie, surprising even myself. It’s all just been too much. “Where did you find him?”

Jamie wraps one arm around me and pulls me close. “I found him hiding under the sofa. It took a bit of coaxing to get him to come out.”

“He must have been scared to death, with Todd coming into the apartment, and then all those strangers.”

While Jamie entertains my cat, I gather up what I’ll need tonight and tomorrow… my toiletries, a few cans of cat food, and the little package of cat treats. I dump the litter box and pour fresh litter into it. I can’t grab a change of clean clothes or any pajamas as I can’t go into my bedroom. I’ll just have to make do with what I have for now.

Jamie carries the cat litter box – which is heavy – and I carry Charlie and everything else. When Jamie opens the door to his apartment, Charlie jumps down and runs inside to be greeted by an exuberant Gus, who’s clearly very happy to see his little buddy.

“Where should I put this?” Jamie says, holding up the litter box.

“How about in the laundry room? That’s where I keep it.”

Jamie sets the cat litter box down in his laundry room – in the same spot where I keep it in my laundry room. We’re hoping the similarities will help Charlie settle in to the strange place easily. While I spoon Charlie’s food into a dish, Jamie refreshes the water in Gus’s bowl, then offers Charlie a few of the cat treats and gives him another scratching behind his ear.

As I watch Jamie going out of his way to make my cat feel comfortable, I’m reminded of the fact that in all my ten years of marriage, Todd refused to even once consider getting a pet, no matter how much I wanted one. And here’s Jamie going out of his way to make my cat feel welcome.

“You’re amazing,” I say.

Jamie looks up and grins. “Why is that?”

“Because you’re nice to my cat.” Once again, I burst into tears, absolutely mortified at how short my emotional fuse is tonight.

He rises to his feet and pulls me into his arms. “It’s late, and you’re tired. Let’s get you to bed.”

“That sounds wonderful.”

I head to the bathroom to get ready for bed while Jamie locks up the apartment and turns out the lights. Just as I’m wondering what I should wear to bed, he raps on the bathroom door.

“I’ve got a T-shirt for you to sleep in,” he says.

I open the door to see him standing there holding a T-shirt, looking a little sheepish, I might add. “Thank you.” I strip out of my clothes and remove my bra – and my breast forms along with it – and slip his big T-shirt over my head.

He follows me into the bedroom and pulls back the bed covers so I can crawl into bed.

It feels so good to be lying down. I stretch and moan. “I’m so tired I can barely think straight.”

Gus drops down on his dog bed in the corner of the room with a heavy sigh. Charlie jumps up onto the bed and curls up next to me.

“Aren’t you coming to bed?” I say.

“I need to wash up first. I’ll be back soon.”

Jamie switches off the bedside lamp and heads for the bathroom. I relax into the comfortable bed, snugging with Charlie, listening to the shower in the other room.

Just relax. Todd’s gone. He can’t hurt you or Jamie anymore.

I’m tired, and my energy wanes quickly. I’m half asleep when Jamie crawls into bed beside me, his skin warm and slightly damp from his shower. I roll to face him, and he draws my arm across his chest. One of my legs slips in between his and I press a kiss to his chest. He smells so tantalizingly good, so male. He runs the fingers of his free hand up and down my bare back, gently stroking me, setting off tingles wherever he touches me.

Part of my mind is focused on Jamie’s touch, but the other part is still fixated on what happened this evening. “He’s really gone?” I say, my voice little more than a whisper in the quiet darkness.

“Yes.” Jamie’s hand slides up to massage the nape of my neck. “Are you okay?”

I swallow hard. It’s difficult to answer that question when my mind is reeling with all the what-ifs. “He cut me. On purpose.”

“I know. I’m sorry, Molly.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about.”

“If I’d gotten back from walking Gus sooner, I might have prevented him from getting into the building.”

“Jamie, you saved me.”

“Yes, but he still managed to hurt you.” Jamie’s hand tightens on my neck. “It makes me nuts to think what he might have done to you.”

The only thing I’m worried about now is Jamie. “What happened with Todd – that was self-defense, right? You couldn’t be charged with anything, could you?”

“You don’t need to worry. Troy says he’s already reviewed the police reports, and he says there are no charges pending against me. It truly was self-defense, Molly. I never even touched the knife. He stabbed himself.”

My cheek is throbbing, both from the cut and from where Todd backhanded me. I’m sure I’ll have a lovely bruise for quite a while. I gently examine the area around the cut. “What’s one more scar, right? I already have so many.”

Jamie rolls me to my other side so he can press up against me from behind. His arm comes over me, lying protectively across my chest. “You’re beautiful, Molly. One tiny scar on your cheek won’t change that. It will just add to your allure.”

I laugh. “How do you know I’m beautiful? You can’t even see me.”

He presses his lips to the back of my head. “I can see you just fine. Now go to sleep while you still can.”

I’m pretty sure his comment is in reference to the growing erection I feel pressing against my lower back. “I can’t sleep,” I murmur. “My mind is racing.”

“Mine too,” he admits. “If I’d been even a couple of minutes later…”

“Don’t,” I say. “You did get there, and you stopped him.”

Jamie’s hand slips up beneath my T-shirt and he begins stroking my chest, his gentle fingers following the path of my scars, traveling across my sternum to the other side. When I stiffen self-consciously, he kisses the side of my neck. “It’s okay. Relax.”

“I can’t. That makes me nervous.”

“What? Me touching your chest?”

“Yes.”

“Why? Don’t you like to touch my chest?”

“Yes, of course I do, but that’s different.”

“I’ll stop if you really want me to, but I think you should let me touch your chest.”

“Why?”

“Because you need to learn that every inch of your body is beautiful to me, whether it’s perfect or not.”

I feel hot tears leaking out of the corners of my eyes. “Here I go again,” I say, sniffling. “I just can’t seem to stop crying tonight.”

Jamie turns me to face him, my face against his chest. “That’s okay. You go ahead and cry. I don’t mind.”

* * *

I must have fallen asleep with my face pressed against Jamie’s chest. When I awoke, it was daylight outside. I was facing away from Jamie, and he was spooned tightly against my back.

“Good morning,” he murmurs into my hair when I begin to stir. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yes.” Once I fell asleep, I slept deeply all night. I reach for my phone on the nightstand to check the time. “It’s nine-thirty. I should be at work already.”

“I figured you needed as much sleep as possible.”

“I need my clothes from my bedroom, but I can’t get in there.”

“Troy texted me this morning. He said the police would be done with their investigation by noon, and that you could have access to the room at that time. I don’t want you to go in there until after the room’s been cleaned. That should happen later this afternoon – Shane’s already made arrangements. In the meanwhile, you can either hang out here and wait, or you can go to work wearing what you had on yesterday.”

“I want to go to work, at least for a little while. And I need to see Chloe. I need to tell her what happened before she finds out some other way.”

Jamie kisses the spot behind my ear, making me shiver. “All right. I’ll get dressed and take Gus out for a walk while you get ready. I’ll make you some breakfast, and then I’ll walk you to Chloe’s shop, and then on to your studio. While you’re at the studio, I’ll come back here and work.”

When I wash up in the bathroom and put my clothes on, I find Jamie in the kitchen at the stove, scrambling eggs and frying bacon.

“Bacon, eggs, and toast?” he says.

“Yes, please.”

“Coming right up. You can make yourself a cup of coffee with the Keurig machine there, if you’d like to.”

“Thank you.” I see his own cup of black coffee sitting on the counter.

One delicious caramel latte later, I’m standing in the kitchen sipping my coffee as I watch Jamie prepare breakfast. He’s very methodical and precise, and everything’s laid out carefully on the counter top.

“Are these eggs done enough for you?” he asks, pointing at the skillet with the spatula.

“Yes, they’re perfect.”

“Salt and pepper?”

“Yes, please.” I can’t help chuckling.

“What’s so funny?” he says.

“No guy has ever made me breakfast before, other than you.”

“Oh. Well, they’re idiots then. Don’t they know how to impress a woman?”