***
Ridley
I followed her home.
I didn’t know why.
Maybe it was because I saw a little bit of me in her.
Maybe it was because I knew what to look for.
Whatever the reason, I followed her.
It was easy, too.
She didn’t have a precautionary bone in her body, and it wasn’t like I even tried to prevent her from seeing me tailing her. She was just that unobservant.
She looked completely oblivious to the world around her.
She was also the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life.
Her blonde hair was piled up high on her head in a messy bun that looked almost purposeful. I knew it wasn’t, though, since I’d seen her haphazardly put it up when she got out of her car.
She was sitting at the table, occupied by something I couldn’t see in front of her.
It was only when she shifted that I saw exactly what it was.
My body moved forward in my haste to get to her, and my legs bumped into a clear box with a red lid on it labeled ‘Christmas Lights’ across the top on brown packing tape.
The sudden noise caused Freya to turn and look out the window in concern, giving me a good look at her face.
She was crying.
My heart faltered.
She sat there looking out the window as her fingers absently brushed the large, spinning plate-like object on the table in front of her. As it continued to turn with each of her touches, I saw the barrel of the gun rotating in the center of it.
Not knowing what I was going to do, I looked down at the box and sudden inspiration hit me.
“Yes,” I said to no one, picking up the box and walking to the front door.
Placing it down at the entrance, I rang the doorbell then backed away into the shadows of the huge shade tree in her front yard.
The door opened, a yellow halo of light seeping out around her.
“Hello?” she called out loudly.
I didn’t answer in hopes that she would take the bait.
She looked down, frowning, and her body shivered.
“Shit,” she said softly. “Shit.”
I watched her open the box. I heard her breath hitch, and I saw her tears as they starting pouring furiously down her cheeks.
“You were supposed to put these up with me yesterday,” she whispered brokenly.
I wouldn’t have heard it had the wind not carried her words to me, and I contemplated going to her the moment I heard them.
However, I didn’t want to spook her.
My gut instincts told me that if I wasn’t careful, I could turn this in the opposite direction from where I wanted it to go.
Freya dropped to her knees and started to pull stuff out of the box.
Roll after roll of lights emerged from the box, and she placed them carefully down amongst the other balls of lights that littered the ground around her.
“Ohh,” she whispered, pulling out what looked like some sort of inflatable decoration.
I couldn’t tell what it was.
From here it just looked like a ball of white.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Okay. I’ll do it. I see it now, Corey. I see it.”
My heart stuttered in my chest when I heard her say ‘Corey.’
Then I looked at her more closely, and things started clicking into place.
We were in Kilgore, where Corey had told me his sister lived.
I’d looked up her address, fully intending to stop by to make my condolences, but I’d never found the time in between working overtime and helping with my sister and niece.
I waited a long time while she stared into the box blankly, and when she finally stood up, I decided it was time to leave.
My arm was throbbing from the lacerations I’d received in the wreck, and I was already filled with dread at the thought of having to drive all the way home, some forty-five minutes, on the back of my bike in the middle of winter.
They’d cut my leather jacket off in the ambulance, and it was by sheer force of will that they didn’t use the scissors on my cut.
If it wasn’t for the fireman who was there while they were strapping me in, they would have, and I’d have had to kill them. There was a female EMT who was only doing her job, but she should have known not to destroy my cut.
Injured or not, a cut was sacred.
I really was going to leave, too, when I saw her start plugging lights in, but then a dog ran out of her house and directly to me.
He started barking and carrying on, and I backed away until I was on the street, making it look like I was just out for a walk.
She followed her dog into the road, completely unaware that I was even there.
My eyes caught on the ‘For Sale’ sign on the house next door to hers, and I had my excuse when she asked why I was outside her house.
“Oh! It’s you!” Freya cried. “You scared me! What are you doing out here?”
I blinked, looking over at her.
“What?” I asked, feigning confusion.
“Wow, you’ve had a busy day!” she said, sounding like the cheer in her voice was forced.
“Yeah, real busy,” I confirmed, studying her. “What are you doing?”
She smiled sadly at me.
“I’m going to put up my Christmas lights,” she replied softly. “Do you like the house?”
She didn’t ask, only assumed that I was looking at it.
Good.
So I wouldn’t have to lie.
“Yeah,” I said honestly. “It’s a nice house.”
She cleared her throat.
“That was my brother’s house,” her voice cracked. “I know for a fact that it’s in good condition. He fully remodeled it a year ago, then he got hired on at the Sheriff’s department in Harrison County and moved over there, leaving this one as a rental property. The renters just moved out of it last week. I haven’t even had a chance to clean it out yet.”
Not wanting to deceive her about knowing who she was, who her brother was to me, and why I was there, I was about to explain everything when the dog started barking again. This time it was at a car down the street, idling on the side of the road with its lights off.
The dog’s bark was different, though – more of a growl instead of a bark – telling me that whomever was in the car down the street, the dog didn’t like.
“That’s our neighbor, Aaron. He owns almost all the houses on this street except for this one and my brother’s…well, mine now, I guess,” she whispered softly.
My heart hurt for her and the pain I heard in her voice at the mention of her brother.
I was just about to tell her who I was when the dog chose that moment to take off down the road, barking ferociously, in the direction of the car.
Well, as ferociously as a Shar Pei could, anyway.
He barked loudly, stopping a few scant feet from the front bumper, hunching his wrinkly self down into the attack position as if he were going to bark whomever was inside the car to death.
“Sharpy!” Freya yelled loudly. “Come!”
‘Sharpy,’ might I add, was a pretty funny name for this particular the breed of dog. Fitting.
But Sharpy didn’t come, he stayed right where he was, barking his fool head off.
The car’s headlights flipped on, and the engine roared to life.
And I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that the driver of that car was about to take that dog out.
I also knew that if that happened, Freya would’ve lost more than just the dog.
The look of pure horror on her face told me everything I needed to know.
She would lose what was left of her heart, as well.
That look on her face was enough to spur me into action, and I started to run towards the car as soon as I heard the engine turn over.
I heard the car shift into drive, and I pulled my gun, pointing it right at the motherfucker because I knew I wasn’t going to make it there in time.
The car inched forward, but at the sound of my voice, it lurched to a stop, rocking back and forth with the momentum of the driver applying the brakes.
“Motherfucker,” I growled. “Sharpy!” I commanded forcefully. “Come!”
Sharpy, startled by the demand in my tone, stopped barking and came to my side, but I didn’t take my eyes off the man in the car.
When I was sure he understood that I would not hesitate to shoot, I dropped my arms and started to back away.
The man, though, proved himself to be a dumbass when he revved his engine, rocking the old, restored Pontiac sideways with the force of the motor’s revolutions.
That’s when I smiled.
There are a few things you should know about me.
I’m a cop.
I’m always armed.
And I have a hell of a temper once it gets going.
It takes a lot for me to get pissed off, but threatening a woman is on the top of the list of things that’ll get me right out of that zone of understanding.
The zone of understanding where I was in control, being diplomatic and respectful.
Now? I was way out of the zone of understanding. Now I was in what I called the ‘red zone.’
My sister called it my asshole territory zone, but whatever.
I was pissed off enough to shoot the motherfucker, but I instead did the diplomatic thing and shot the man’s car.
One shot went to the radiator. The next went to his left front tire. The third to his front right tire.
The car started to smoke as liquid started to pour out of his radiator, hitting the ground in splashes of green slime.
Then the little bastard, and by little, I mean really little, jumped out of his car, swinging his fists and screaming.
“I called the cops!” he screamed.
I laughed, which obviously wasn’t the smart thing to do.
Freya’s soft hands touched my unbandaged arm, and I looked down at her out of my peripheral vision, keeping most of my attention on the short, fiery bastard in front of me.
I stored my firearm in my jeans waistband where I knew I could get to it easily if the bastard tried to do anything shady, and Freya’s grip loosened.
Her soft sigh got me in the heart, though, and I worried that I’d scared her.
The next comment out of her mouth, however, disproved that theory.
“You stupid mother humper!” she screamed at the man. “You were going to run over my dog!”
Mother. Humper.
Yep, I heard that right.
“Bitch,” the stupid guy hissed. “I was going to take care of your infestation problem which keeps leaking to my properties.”
“I don’t have an infestation problem, Mr. Craddock,” she informed him viciously. “You, however, have a rat problem that is affecting my property. I’ve done all that I can to prevent them from coming on to my properties, but the pest control company I hired said that there isn’t much more we can do on our end, other than pray that you get your problem under control.” I looked back and forth between the two of them, listening to each of them hurling accusation after accusation at the other until the cops pulled up.
By then, there was a crowd outside, and I hooked my arm around Freya’s hips and pulled her, with the dog wedged in between us, in the direction of the cops.
There were lights everywhere, so it wasn’t surprising that the men knew me even before I got within fifteen feet.
“What the fuck, Walker. I thought you were long gone,” Luke, the chief of KPD, called to me once he realized who I was.
I offered him my bad hand, only letting my eyes hood slightly at the pain I felt from his grip as he shook it.
He took my hand, shook it, and then dropped it before turning his eyes to the little shithead who followed us.
“Craddock,” Luke drawled. “Why the hell am I not surprised to find you in the middle of this?”
I ground my teeth as Craddock started to hurl even more accusations, which caused Freya to curl into herself further.
She was like a beaten dog, only moving out of sheer reflex.
It seemed that the more people talked down to her, the less likely it was that she’d stand up straight ever again.
An hour later, with a warning from Luke not to discharge my weapon inside the city limits ‘accidentally’ again, I was standing with Freya on her front walk, looking down at the big box of lights at our feet.
“Christmas was really important to me and my brother,” she murmured softly. “My mom died when I was three, and my dad raised us until he died when I was fifteen. He had cancer.”
Those were the first words she’d spoken since I’d shot the prick’s car up two hours ago, so I didn’t say anything, knowing she had more to get off her chest.
She pulled on a strand of lights, tugging it to the front stoop where she started to clip them onto the pre-set hooks that must’ve been there from the year before.
My hope was if I continued to hang the lights with her, that she would continue to talk and get the things off her chest that she needed to, leaving me with the ability to sleep tonight rather than sit and worry about her.
“When our dad died, my brother put college on hold to stay home and raise me,” she laughed. “Not that I had very long to go. He was with me for six months before I followed him down to the tech school in Marshall,” she smiled, putting another strand of lights onto the strand we were hanging up before she continued. “He graduated and I started at East Texas Baptist University that next semester. When we were both finally graduated, we came back home and lived near each other ever since. He let me have our old house while he found a rental that he was able to buy next door.”
She pointed at the house.
“I’m just not ready to go over there.” She shook her head. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”
“I need to tell you something,” I reached up to hang a strand in a particular spot that she couldn’t get to without her asking me to.
Her breath sighed out.
Breathing in deeply, I turned to look at her.
“I know your sister was the one with my brother,” she blurted before I could find the words.
My breath left me in a whoosh.
“I’m so sorry,” I apologized. “I was the one who asked him to go with her.”
“You were also the one who let him have rides on your old motorcycle,” she smiled, mirth starting to swim in her eyes.
I barked out a laugh.
“He was so sure that you didn’t know,” I informed her once I caught my breath. “He told me that you’d freak out if you knew he was riding it.”
She shrugged.
“My dad killed himself on his bike,” she murmured. “When the cancer got really bad, he took off for ‘one last ride’ and the next thing we knew the police officers were at the door to tell us he’d died in an accident.”
I swallowed.
“I’m sorry,” I licked my lips. “I didn’t realize.”
She waved away the apology.
“I was just explaining why it hurt to know he was riding the bike, not that I would have ever told him he couldn’t do it or used his sympathy against him,” she explained. “He was happy, and I would’ve done anything to see him smile.”
We worked in companionable silence from then on, occasionally saying ‘here’ or ‘hold that.’
Otherwise, though, not a word was spoken and I found that I liked it.
My mind, however, was reeling as I thought about what I was going to say to her about earlier when she’d gotten home from work.
But my courage escaped me as I finished off the last of the lights.
She saved me the effort as she said, “I’m okay.”
I blinked, turning to her as I nervously brushed my hands off on my pants.
“Okay,” I replied. “Are you sure?”
She nodded. “I wasn’t, but I’m okay now.”
I was appeased, and I offered her my hand, not knowing what else to do.
“You can call me anytime you want,” I offered her my card.
She took it and shoved it into her pocket, smiling up at me.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Are you leaving?”
I pointed at my arm.
“It hurts,” I admitted.
Her mouth dropped open.
“I forgot!” She gasped. “Why didn’t you leave already?”
She was looking at my arm, which was covered by the sleeve of the jacket Apple had brought me earlier out of his truck.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I know my limits.”
She snorted. “I’m sure you do, don’t you?”
I nodded and bent down, scratching Sharpy’s head in farewell.
His jowls scrunched and lengthened as I scratched him, and I laughed long and loud at the sight before I stood back up and started walking to my bike.
“Don’t hesitate to use that number, Freya,” I told her as I walked away.
“I won’t,” was the last thing I heard before the roar of my bike started up, drowning out everything else.
I could still feel my hammering heart, though, and I knew this wouldn’t be the last time I saw the woman.
I would guaran-damn-tee it.