COWBOY ROMANCE: Justin (Western Contemporary Alpha Male Bride Romance) (The Steele Brothers Book 1) (35 page)

Chapter One

The streets were cold and dark. The lamplights flickered eerily as Callie made her way home from her shift at the bar. Her new town had been welcoming enough, but the cold nights were definitely not. She clutched her cardigan tighter around her as she made her way through the streets toward the small one-bedroom house she’d rented from an old friend. 
          As she walked, she began to feel like she was being followed. The feeling of eyes on the back of her head sent a shiver down her spine. Yet every time she glanced around, there seemed to be no one around. The chill breeze whipped autumn leaves up from the gutter and into her path. They crunched under her feet as she continued on, wrapping her arms around herself, feeling colder at the thought of being followed.
          When she reached the end of her driveway, she pulled her keys from her pocket and made for the door. He hand shook as she tried to place the key in the lock and it took her a few moments to get inside.
           As she finally locked the door behind her, she realized how fast her heart was beating. It thudded against her chest so hard that it felt like she was going to cough it up. Her breath came in short gasps as though she had been running, and she closed her eyes to try and calm herself.
           That’s when she heard something move in the back of the house. Everything was in darkness. She flicked on the hall light and slowly sauntered down the room toward the kitchen. Her heart stopped as she heard the movement again. Holding her breath, she stepped forward and flicked on the kitchen light. The room was instantly enveloped in light. Her heart fluttered with fear for a moment as she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. When she turned, she sighed with relief.
            It was only Sammy, the neighbor’s ginger tabby who liked to let himself in through the cat flap on occasion. Dropping her bag on the kitchen work top, Callie went forward and picked him up off the table. He meowed and began to purr as soon as she rubbed behind his ears.
           “You had me scared Sammy.” She giggled feeling stupid that she had been so scared. She kissed the cat on the top of the head between his ears before placing him on the floor. “You know you’re not allowed on the kitchen table.” She gave him a playful tap with the end of her boot, and he purred all the louder, wrapping his body around her leg and rubbing himself against her with his tail in the air.
            “Are you hungry?” She smiled as she grabbed a pack of ham from the fridge and pulled a few pieces apart for him. He meowed as she threw them onto the floor and then began to guzzle them down.
            She flicked on the kettle, ready for a nice hot cup of tea to warm her up and shake away her nerves. Then she heard the footsteps. They were coming from above her head, where her bedroom was. Her heart stopped, and her breath caught in her throat. She knew then that she definitely wasn’t hearing things. The floor boards creaked overhead. Fear pulsed through her so hard that her fingers went numb and her toes curled.
          Sammy had gone quiet too, looking up at the ceiling as though he had heard it. She took her phone from her pocket and dialed for the police. Her heart pounded, and her hand shook so violently that was sure she would drop the phone if she didn’t hurry.
         As soon as they answered, she whispered into the phone, “I think there’s someone in my house.”
         All of a sudden, she was grabbed from behind. Her phone dropped from her hand as she was pulled backward, and she screamed right from her gut. Something hard and heavy hit her on the back of the head, and her vision grew blurry. She dropped to the floor just as everything went black around her. The last thing she heard was Sammy hissing in defiance.

Chapter Two
 

When Callie woke up, the light was so bright that she had to blink several times to adjust her vision. Her memories came back to her in a flood, and she flew into a sitting position. The back of her head screamed in protest, and she pressed her hand to where she had been hit.
          To her astonishment, she was not in some dingy basement, kidnapped by whoever had hit her. She was in what seemed to be a hospital room. Everything was white and blue, and the smell was so clean that it almost stung her nostrils.
          She looked around to see a man in the doorway. He walked slowly toward the bed as though he was trying not to startle her.
          “Miss Langley, I am Officer Darren Lowe,” he told her as he pulled his badge from his pocket and showed it to her. She nodded. He was a handsome man with sandy blond hair and an afternoon shadow on his jawline.
          “What happened?” she asked as she rubbed the back of her head, still feeling the pain smart through her skull.
          “You called the station and told one of our operators that you thought someone was in your house,” the officer explained. “When she heard you scream, she knew something had happened to you. We were able to track the GPS on your phone. I was the first on the scene.”
           “Did you get whoever was in my house?” she asked. She still remembered the fear of being grabbed from behind. It made her heart pound, and the machine she was hooked up to began to go crazy. Officer Lowe moved forward and sat down on the chair beside the bed.
           “Miss Langley, you have no need to worry,” he told her gently. “You are safe here.”
           “Did you catch him?” she asked again. The man shook his head. Callie’s heart sunk.
            “Then I am not safe anywhere,” she told him. Lowe looked confused at that. He took out his notepad from his breast pocket and removed the pen from the holder on the side.
            “Something tells me you know who attacked you.” He looked at her intently as though he was watching for some kind of tell. The truth was that Callie had no trouble with telling him what was going on.
            “I think he is someone from the town I used to live in,” she explained. “I had some trouble over there with people breaking into my house, moving things around, but things were never stolen, so the police could never do anything because there were no signs of forced entry either.”
          “And is that why you moved?” the officer asked. Callie nodded. The thought that whoever it was wanted her so badly that they had followed her across state lines made her entire body cold with fear.
           “I won’t be safe until he is caught,” she whispered almost to herself, but the officer looked just as worried as she felt.
           “Miss Langley, I assure you I am going to find whoever did this to you, and I will put them behind bars.” He promised her. Callie was taken aback by his personal way of speaking as though it was his mission to make her safe.
            “Thank you, Officer Lowe, and please call me Callie,” she told him.
            “Only if you will call me Darren.” He smiled, and she found herself smiling back. His face was warm and welcoming as he stood up and picked out a card from his pocket. He handed it to her and added, “If you need anything just give me a call. I’m going to have a guard posted outside your room until this man is caught.”
             “Do you know when I can go home?” she asked. She longed for her own bed. Already the hospital bed was making her back ache, and the smell was making her feel lightheaded and sick. She hated hospitals ever since she had watched her mother die in a hospital bed. It always brought back the painful memories of watching her mother fight against the cancer that was sure to take her life.
           “I’m afraid I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I will ask your doctor to come and have a word with you.”
           “Thank you.” Callie watched him go and felt as though she wanted to call him back. She didn’t want to be alone. She didn’t want the chance to close her eyes and see her attacker in her dreams. She didn’t want to feel that fear again, to have him watching her, his eyes on her back as he’d clearly followed her home.

Chapter Three
 

The doctor arrived less than half an hour later. She was a tall woman with long blonde hair that was tied in a heavy bun at the back of her head and glasses that kept slipping down her nose as she spoke. “Miss Langley, it’s good to see you awake.” The woman smiled as she looked over Callie’s files and then placed them on the bed.
          “Would you mind if I give you a quick examination?” she asked as she took a small pen-like torch from the breast pocket of her white lab coat. Callie shook her head and instantly regretted it. The pain intensified in the back of her head. She squinted her eyes and gritted her teeth against the pain.
            “Are you in pain?” the doctor asked, clearly having seen her reaction. Callie was about to nod when she realized she was only going to hurt herself again.
           “My head hurts,” she admitted, trying to keep her neck as still as possible. The doctor nodded in acknowledgement.
           “While you were out, we did a full scan of your head and checked for any damage, but there was nothing significant, just bruising and laceration at the back of your skull,” the doctor explained. “I imagine you will be concussed for a little while. Now that you’re awake, you must do your best not to fall asleep for at least twenty-four hours.”
            Callie hated that thought even more than dreaming. She was exhausted. Her head hurt, and she wanted to get away from the hospital so badly that sleep was looking better every minute.
           The doctor checked Callie’s eyes with the torch for several minutes before she finally nodded and turned it off. “You are showing all the signs of concussion, but there doesn’t seem to be any lasting damage. You are one lucky girl.” Callie didn’t feel so lucky. She felt as though she had been dashed against a brick wall, and nausea was beginning to creep up on her.
           “I am going to have a nurse come and sit with you to make sure that you don’t fall asleep,” the doctor explained as she wrote something in Callie’s files and then placed them back in the holder at the end of the bed.
          “When will I be able to go home?” Callie asked. She was desperate to see what had happened back at her house. Suddenly, she thought of Sammy and how he had been hissing when she had blacked out. Her heart beat fast with fear for the little creature as she wondered if the attacker had gone for him as well. She shook herself mentally telling herself,
Nobody would be so cruel.
Yet, she knew that was a lie. People harmed animals all the time for no good reason, which meant that, for all she knew, Sammy could be lying dead in her kitchen. The thought turned her stomach. She longed to get up out of bed and head home to check that he was all right. She prayed that he had run for the cat flap and was now safe at home, curled up on his owner’s lap beside the roaring fire.
           “In the morning, I think,” the doctor said, “I will sort out the discharge papers for the morning doctor to go through with you.”
           “Thank you,” Callie replied. She was relieved that she wouldn’t have to stay too much longer. She imagined that the night was already wearing it. It had already been late when she arrived home before the attack.

Chapter Four
 

The nurse sat with her until the morning doctor came. He was as tall as the female had been though his shoulders were broad and his hair was jet black. He had a hard jawline, and he was definitely muscular under his scrubs. He went through Callie’s discharge forms with her before signing them and leaving her to get changed into the clothes the police officer had taken from her house. She was relieved to switch the paper-thin hospital gown for underwear and sweats.
          Just as she was slipping her feet into her pumps, she felt as though someone was watching her again. A shadow fell across the floor beside her, and her heart stopped beating. She held her breath, not wanting to turn around for fear that she might see his face.
          She felt his hands grab her shoulders, and he pushed her down onto the bed. She was about to scream when his hand came up over her mouth. Her heart pounded so fast that she felt like it was going to explode from her chest. She kicked and pushed at him with her arms, but he was too strong. Thinking quickly, she bit his hand, and he shrank back with a yell of pain.
         “Help! Help me!” she screamed as loudly as she could before he was on top of her again. She was sure that he growled in her ear as he pinned her back down to the bed and pressed his whole weight into her.
          Suddenly, the door to the room swung open, and the man released her. He ran for the door, barging past Darren as he entered the room. Startled, the officer was slammed back against the door, and the man was gone before he even had a chance to react.
          “After him!” he yelled to the other officer, who looked just as startled as he had been. The officer ran as Darren turned to Callie and helped her up from the bed. His hand was gentle as he pulled her to her feet and held her close to him as she began to weep against his shoulder.
          “It’s all right,” he whispered softly. “You’re safe now.” 
          “That’s what you said last night.” She wept. “But he got in here.” She felt his heart beating fast against her cheek as though he was as distressed as she was by the fact.
          “I’m here now,” he told her. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” He spoke as though he was speaking to a frightened child though Callie didn’t mind it. She liked the fact that she was no longer alone.
           She pulled away from him, realizing what was happening. She had been discharged, and she was going to have to go home to an empty house and wait for him to attack again. Her heart skipped a beat at the realization, and the tears came even harder.
          “What’s wrong?” Darren asked as though he could read her thoughts.
          “I’ve been discharged. I can go home.” She was shaking now. Obviously she didn’t need to say anything else because an expression of understanding fell across his face.
          “I’m going to take you home, and I’ll stay with you until all this is over,” he told her. Callie raised an eyebrow at him. She had not expected him to be so caring. After all, he was only a police officer. He didn’t know her personally, yet he seemed to be taking this to heart.

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