Big Sky Eyes (26 page)

“This is not your baby!” she
yelled. “It belongs to my husband, and only he has the right to put his hands
on me.”

Rick’s face looked surprised at
first, but then it twisted into a humorless laugh with cold, menacing eyes. He
reached down and grabbed a backpack near the bed. From it he withdrew a roll of
duct tape and she panicked.

 
“Rick, listen to me,” she begged. “I’m sorry
that I hurt you, but this isn’t you. This sneaking into other people’s homes,
stalking them…it’s not you. Please, let me help you get through this. I’ll find
the best doctors to help you work this out.”

“Doctors!” he shouted, nearly
shaking the roof with his rage. “What’s a doctor going to do to make you love
me again?! If there’s a doctor in the world who can help me with that, I’ll go
to him.” Rick sat on the bed and buried his head in his hands, sobbing
hysterically. Mackenna inched her way to the nightstand, where her loaded
pistol was kept. When she was within arm’s reach of it, his voice halted her
where she stood.

“Stop,” he called and she looked
up to find a raised pistol aimed right at her. “I don’t want to have to shoot you.
Not after all we’ve been through.
Especially over a gun
that’s not loaded anymore.”

He reached into his pocket and
pulled out a handful of bullets he’d taken from her handgun and let them fall
onto the floor. Mackenna crumbled inside and leaned back against the wall.
After a long moment, he lowered the gun and tucked it into the back of his
pants. He pulled a strip free of the tape and Mackenna bolted for the door. He
was too close and had an arm around her middle before she could reach it.

She screamed for help as he threw
her down on the bed. His hand instantly covered her mouth. She thrashed at him,
fighting with everything she had, but he was still stronger. He pinned her body
to the mattress with his own and used his free hand and teeth to pull another
strip of tape and strap it over her mouth. Once her screams were silenced, he
turned her onto her side and bound her hands together at the wrists behind her
back. Next, he taped her ankles together. Hot tears ran down her cheeks as she
breathed quietly through her nose. Rick held her face in his hands, brushing
away the tears with his thumbs.

“Don’t cry, baby,” he said softly.
“I’m just putting things back to right, making things the way they should be.”

He pressed a kiss to the tape
covering her mouth and Mackenna closed her eyes, racking her brain for a way
out of the situation. Rick opened his mouth to speak again, but the muted thud
of footsteps coming up the stairs called out to them. His eyes brightened and
Mackenna’s breath caught in her throat. She and Brent usually arrived home
around the same time.

“So, what should I do about this
trespasser who’s
come
sampling goods that belong to
me?” he whispered, pulling out the gun again. Mackenna began screaming into the
tape, hoping that at least some of the sound would reach Brent. Rick silenced
her with a fist to her temple. She remained conscious but her senses were
blurred and reeling. She heard his voice as it breathed into her ear.

 
“Quiet now,” he whispered. “We don’t want
lover boy to know what’s up.”

Mackenna peered through the
bedroom doorway as her vision sharpened. Rick crept to the window that Brent
had spent all night in front of. As she heard the jingle of keys, she prayed
for Brent’s safety, and just as Rick was raising the gun to eye level, she
closed her eyes.

Brent was pleased to find her
truck in the parking lot. He was worried that she’d stay the night at her
parents’ house as mad as she was when he’d left her. He knew that there was no
more time to waste finding a job. He’d soon have a family to support. He
abandoned his fruitless search for Rick and went straight to task looking for
work. To his surprise, he’d been hired by the Nevada Fish and Wildlife Division
almost on the spot.

He’d stopped by a department store
on his way home and bought a pair of tiny yellow baby booties as a gift for the
new mother-to-be. As he stood in front of his door, shuffling through his keys,
he pulled the socks out of his pocket. They were so tiny and soft, like he knew
the baby’s feet would be, like Mackenna’s body was against his. Everything
would be all right. He just knew it.

As he slid the key into the lock,
one of the booties fell from his hand and landed in the snow.
 
He turned and bent to retrieve it. The sound
came before he saw the flash, and he saw the flash before he felt the pain.
Fire and white light blinded him as he fell backward and tumbled down the
entire flight of stairs.

Chapter 42

Mackenna sobbed into her pinched lips. She heard his body
thudding down the steps. In her mind’s eye she saw him at the bottom of the
stairs, bleeding the ground red, dying before his time. Her heart clenched in
her chest, trapped in a vice of deep despair as she thought of living without
him, if she even survived. She grieved for their child who would either never
take his first breath or never know his wonderful father.

“Man, I really thought he would be harder to take out,” Rick
said bemusedly as he returned to the bedroom. “Guess he’s not as tough as he
thought he was.”

He picked up his backpack and went to the dresser, tossing
some of her clothes in the bag. She watched him through her tears. He stopped
to look at her.

“We need to get going,” he explained. “I’m sure a gunshot
and
a dead body on the stairs are
not common for this
complex. The cops are probably on the way, so we’d best get out of here before
they show up.”

Mackenna saw her chance for rescue in that sentence. She
needed to keep him there long enough for the police to arrive and take him out.
As he zipped up the bag, he neared the bed, preparing to pick her up and throw
her over his shoulder. She rolled onto her back and kicked up her bound feet,
both shoes landing squarely on his chest. He stumbled backwards until he hit
the wall. He glared at her with shock and outrage.

“Now, that wasn’t very nice,” he said as he rubbed the spot on
his chest. “If you try anything like that again, I’m going to have to hurt
you.”

He walked toward the bed again, this time more cautiously,
and Mackenna kept her feet cocked back, ready to strike.
 
He stopped and stared down at the
determination in her eyes, then sighed. He sprang from his feet toward her and
she kicked out again, her feet hitting him in the face. He fell on the bed and
she pounded his back with her heels. He crawled through the assault until he was
too near her waist for her to reach him effectively with her feet.

He looped his arms around her waist and lifted her as he
stood, throwing her over his shoulder. Blood was already trickling from his lip
and his eyes were burning with rage. She didn’t care. This was a fight for her
life. She knew that if he were to take her from the apartment she would never
be seen again. She kicked and writhed in his arms as he fought to control her.

“Stop it!” he yelled, squeezing her midsection painfully
tight, but she didn’t stop. He carried her toward the bedroom doorway and she
kicked off of the doorjamb sending them stumbling back into the room. Angrily,
he threw her onto the ground. She landed hard and painfully, not having control
of her arms to break her fall.

She tasted blood in her mouth and realized that her teeth
had cut into her bottom lip when she hit the ground. Before she could assess
the rest of her pains, she felt the hard toe of his thick boot bury deep into
her back. She cried out into the tape covering her mouth.

“You like being kicked?!” he shouted as he swung his foot
out to kick her again.

Mackenna felt the full force of it jostle her spine and she
gritted her teeth against the pain. Suddenly, there was a heavy thud and a blend
of grunts from behind her. She turned her neck enough to see Rick wrestling
with someone on the ground. The bodies rolled from side to side until Brent’s
face came into view. Her heart soared and it gave her renewed strength.

She sat up, fighting through the agony in her back, and
began working her behind and legs through the loop of her arms at her back.
Fists were flying from both men and Mackenna wondered why Brent hadn’t bested
Rick yet, but then she saw the blood. It was obvious that Brent was injured.
So, Rick had shot him after all, but she just didn’t know where. He was wounded
enough that it evened the physical fight between them.

Her arms were finally in front of her and she shimmied to
the nightstand, using its corner to saw through the tape around her wrists. She
kept her eyes on the men as she ground and ground her wrists against the corner
of the stand. Brent was using only his right arm to punch and pin Rick. He had
to have been shot in his left.

Brent finally won the advantage and moved atop Rick,
reaching down with his right hand to clasp it around Rick’s throat. As he
watched the man’s face grow redder and redder from the lack of oxygen, he
missed his hand moving toward his lower back. Soon, Rick pulled the gun free
and brought it around toward Brent’s face. Before he could take full aim Brent
grabbed his wrist, forcing the gun away from them.

Mackenna’s wrists sprang free of the tape and she reached up
to pull the strip off of her mouth. She threw open the top drawer of the stand
and grabbed her empty handgun. She scanned the floor for the bullets that Rick
had dropped there. In all of the scuffling, they had been scattered and she
looked beneath the bed where they’d rolled, reaching for the one closest to
her.

Rick was sensing his own defeat as Brent’s fingers tightened
around his wrist. He was losing his grip on the gun. He knew that once he lost
that, it was over. He brought his free hand up and found the source of pouring
blood in Brent’s left shoulder and he stuck his thumb in it. Brent screamed and
fell over onto the floor. As Rick rolled over to catch his breath, he caught
Mackenna sitting beside the bed, loading her gun with shaky fingers.

Desperately, he crawled toward her and reached her just as
she snapped the clip up into the gun. He smacked the weapon out of her hand as
she made to raise it. It slid across the floor to the other side of the room as
he brought his arm around again to strike her across the cheek. Her head hit
the side of the mattress, but was quickly yanked back when he pulled her hair
back until her cheek was beside his mouth.

“How can you shoot the man you love?” he hissed through
angry pants.

“I can’t,” she winced against his grip on her hair and the
pain she felt all over. “That’s why I was aiming for you.”

“Stop it!” he yelled, yanking on her hair again. “You love
me!”

“Rick!” Brent’s voice called out to him. He released
Mackenna and they both turned to find him standing shakily on the other side of
the room, aiming his gun at Rick. His left arm hung limp at his side while tiny
rivulets of blood dripped from his fingers onto the floor. Sweat dampened his
brow as heavy and painful breaths made his shoulders rise and fall. “Enough.
It’s over.”

Rick slowly stood, his own gun still clutched in his hand.

“Mackenna,” Brent said, his eyes never leaving Rick’s. “Get
behind me.”

She tore the tape from her ankles and went to stand behind
Brent. Rick stood alone beside the bed. Slowly, he raised his hands by his
ears, the gun still in his hand.

“What are you going to do?” he sneered. “Kill me?”

“No,” Brent answered. “I’m going to make sure you stay put
until the police get here.”

Mackenna felt weak and lightheaded. She leaned against Brent
for support and relished the sound of his beating heart. She heard her name
being called by Rick, and his voice was strained with emotion. She didn’t look
at him. She tried not to hear him as he spoke.

“I just can’t be without you,” Rick said as tears streamed
down his face. “There’s no life for me unless you’re in it. I just wanted to
love you.”

At that, she peered around Brent’s raised arm.

“You don’t hurt the people you love, Rick,” she said gently.
“What you did here tonight is not love. You need help.”

His eyes drooped on the outside corners and filled with
fresh tears that she would deny his love again. Three loud bangs on the front
door announced the arrival of the police. The officers on the other side shouted
for the door to be opened to them. Nobody moved. Rick’s eyes bore into
Mackenna’s with a deep sadness and regret.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered painfully and swiftly put the gun
to his temple and pulled the trigger.

Mackenna eyes went wide as she watched his body crumble to
the floor in slow-motion. She froze. She did not look or hear as the police
knocked down her front door and ordered Brent to his knees and disarmed. She
did not hear as she was asked if she was all right. She no longer tasted the
blood in her mouth. She almost forgot to breathe. Only Brent’s calm voice
eventually broke through her trance and she finally turned only to fall faint in
his arms.

Sirens wailed at a distance so far that it sounded like a
chorus of mewling cats. Mackenna’s eyelids felt as if they were pinned down by
weighty stones even though bright light was piercing them. She tried to turn away
from the glare but her entire head felt too heavy to move. Voices flew around
her, at first scuttling like windborne whispers, but growing louder until she
recognized Brent’s voice.

“Please,” he begged. “She’s pregnant.”

The words echoed through her head in a fading ripple until
she once again descended into blackness.

Her first thought upon waking was that her fingers felt warm
and sweaty and that her head throbbed at her left temple like some angry
creature was trying to pound its way out. Her lower back felt like a red-hot
porcupine had burrowed down into it. She winced and felt the warmth tighten
around her fingers. Her eyes opened to the flushed and fearful face of Brent.
He leaned anxiously forward and brought her hand to his lips in a kiss.

“Are you okay?” he asked, desperately. “How are you feeling?”

“My head…” was all she could manage.

“You have a mild
concussion,
and a
couple of slipped discs in your back.”

 
Her eyes went wide at
his declaration but before she could respond she saw his left arm bound in a
sling and she gasped.
“Your arm!”

“
It’s
fine,” he reassured quickly.
“The bullet went clean through my shoulder. It should heal with no problem.”

She sagged in relief against the pillows of the hospital bed
while her free hand went to her belly. She stared down at it, trying to feel
whether there was still a heartbeat there. Fear crowded her throat, but she
needed to know. Her eyes were heavy and full of tears as she looked at Brent,
hoping he would reassure her. He moved his hand to cover hers on her belly, his
own eyes filling in response. Hope died inside of her.

“I don’t know, Mackenna,” he said in a choked whisper. “The
doctor should be in any minute to check. They were more worried about you
first.”

She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and nodded
solemnly, ushering her tears back. She would not grieve until she was told she
needed to. Her fingers began softly stroking her belly as if she could will
life to thrive there with her love.

Brent watched her caress her belly and prayed that their
child still lived. Mackenna’s head was wrapped with a bandage to stem the flow
of blood opened by Rick’s fists. Even still, half of her face was already
purple. Her lips were scabbed and swollen red. He felt like a failure. His
nostrils flared and he pinched his lips together to stifle the slight trembling
that had begun.

“I’m so sorry, Mackenna,” he breathed and her eyes shot to
his. “Forgive me, please.”

“What’s this?” she rushed, cupping his face in her hands. “You’ve
done nothing that needs forgiving.” He pressed his forehead gently to hers as
she quietly shushed him. “You saved us,” she whispered.

“But what if I didn’t save both of you?” his face twisted in
torturous fear and her eyes creased in sadness. She couldn’t allow herself to
think that way.

“I love you,” she said softly, running her thumbs over his
cheeks in comfort.
“No matter what.”

The door opened behind Brent and they both turned as the
doctor entered.