Page 39 of Stella's Christmas Rescue
“You don’t want me to go to work, because you’ll be alone, I get that.”
“I don’t?—"
“It’s okay, Stella. And if you want, I can take a leave of absence.”
“I can’t ask that.” She shakes her head. Her voice sounds different now. “Let’s talk about something else, okay?”
“Whatever you want.”
She cuddles up onto me again. “Do you ever think about the future?”
“Sure. Like next week is Michael’s birthday. I work with him at the firehouse. He’s a good guy, you’d like him. I still need to figure out what to get him.”
“I mean, the future, like years from now. You ever think about that?”
“Not usually,” I admit. “In the Marines, I got in the habit of staying focused on the moment and what might happen in the very next moment. My work, not that I can get into too much detail, was usually about taking care of temporarily bad situations. I didn’t have much of a chance to think about the long game. Now that I’m out, I still haven’t had much practice on the matter.”
“Well,” she glances out the window, “what would you like for supper. I have?—"
“Let me take you out.”
“No need for that.”
I need to breach the topic. I don’t want to, because she’s been cagey about it. But I need to know what’s up with her. “Stella, we’ve known each other for a little while, and we haven’t gone anywhere together. Seems strange.”
She quietly says, “That’s because going out is a risk for me and for anyone else who might be there. I go to the grocery store once a week at most, I go for a run here and there, but that’s it. I keep to myself, because it keeps everyone out of harm’s way. What would happen if I go to a restaurant, halfway through apile of corned beef hash, when one of Riker’s men shows up? That’s why I stopped going to the diner. What if they’re not as shy as the guys who broke in here? What if they’re worse?”
“Danger is everywhere, Stella. You can’t let it run your life.”
“Says the man whose feet are bandaged up because he ran through glass to attack the men who came to kidnap me.”
I chuckle. “Point taken, but that’s also exactly why you should try to have a life. You don’t know when it could be your last day. None of us do. So, you have to enjoy yourself while you can.”
“I do,” she smiles up at me. “And part of my enjoyment comes from knowing I’m not endangering anyone else. You, you lunatic, you’re here by choice, so that’s fine, but I can’t put other people at risk. Innocent bystanders who have nothing to do with any of this. Not people who don’t have a choice in the matter. It wouldn’t be right. I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to someone because I had a hankering for corned beef hash.”
“I have an idea. How about I run into town and pick up supper? We’ll leave our cell phones on, so we’re in constant contact, and now that you’ve got your Sig, you can practice on anyone who comes by that you don’t know.”
She clutches her stomach. “I don’t know that I could actually shoot a person. I mean, I’d like to believe I could save myself, but the idea of actually doing it…that’s a lot.”
I sigh. “Then, would you like to ride in the car with me?”
“No. You’re not going to be here all the time. I need to deal with that. And the corned beef hash sounds like heaven right now.”
14
In the morning, he checks in with me again, “You’re sure this is what you want?”
“More than anything.”
“We’re gonna go hard this time.”
“That’s what I want.” My voice is tense, “Give it to me, Jordan. Now!”
We lunge in the same breath, but I still miss. This time, he flips me onto my back before I can even move. But it doesn’t knock the wind out of me this time. He asks, “You good?”
“Yeah,” I grunt. Then, I roll onto my side and stand again. “Could I do something like that to someone your size?”
“Absolutely. It’ll take practice, but the principle is the same for anyone. You use their energy as your leverage. They move, and you use their movement to get them where you want them.”
