Heidelberg Effect (2 page)

He was pawing at the open cash drawer with
one hand while pointing a large black gun directly at Ella.

Ella took a step backwards and the man
raised the gun to follow her.

“Don’t move!” he snarled. Ella looked at the
face of the poor cashier, a chubby high school girl who was crying
without making any noise.

Strong, rough hands grabbed Ella’s purse and
jerked it off her shoulder. Her instinct was to hold onto it and to
turn to face her assailant. She was surprised she hadn’t noticed
him before; the smell was overpowering at this close range. When
she turned, the man backhanded her and she felt the café begin to
melt away into darkness with the crash of pain but he held her
firmly so that she didn’t fall away from him. In the back of her
mind, she could hear the two men speaking to each other in Spanish.
Now she could hear the girl’s sobs, too.

The left side of her face was an explosion
of pain and fire and she thought she could taste blood in her
mouth. She had no idea how it could be that she was still standing.
She knew she was breathing rapidly, she could hear her own panicked
breath coming in jagged rasps. The desire to get away, to shrink
away was overwhelming. She heard herself gasping as if for breath
and realized the man holding her—an angry cartoon of facial hair
and broken teeth—was screaming at her. Ella closed her eyes as if
by blotting him out she could make him disappear.

“Lievar
su
!”

Ella’s rudimentary high
school Spanish came back to her as if from another world.
Bring her
. The man who
held her tightened his grip and pushed her in front of him. As she
stumbled toward the front door, she saw that the café was indeed
full of people—all of whom were crouching or cowering by their
tables.

Dear God, would she survive this day?

Ella clutched at her jacket lapels as the
thug with the bag full of cash brushed past her. The other robber
propelled her roughly forward from behind. The glimpse of the sunny
day outside the front doors seemed such a lie to Ella as she
staggered forward, her skin clammy with fear.

The moment the doors were kicked open, the
sunlight blinded Ella. She clenched her eyes closed but continued
moving, feeling the warmth of the late afternoon on her face. When
the man holding her slammed to a stop, her eyes flew open. There
was an incoming customer standing in front of them on the sidewalk
outside of the front door as if he’d just materialized. Ella wanted
to tell him to run. She wanted to tell him not to come near. She
wanted to beg him to help her.

The customer on the sidewalk spoke: “You
boys helping my wife home again tonight?”

“Fuck off,
chorra
,” the thug in
front snarled. He made what looked like a feigned lunge at the man,
but a second later, he was on his hands and knees retching up his
lunch on the sidewalk. Ella stared at the vomiting man and the bag
of money dumped on the curb at his feet. She looked up at the
customer who had put him there.

It was cute cowboy guy.

The cowboy
plucked the gun off the man on his knees and
aimed it at the man behind Ella. He instantly let her go. As she
slowly collapsed to the ground, she realized he had been supporting
her more than guiding her.

“Okay,” said the cowboy.
“Stand over there by the dickhead,
mouchouchou,
and put these
on.
Comprendo
?”

Ella didn’t know what the guy said or did
that prompted the cowboy to shoot in the air near his head. But
whatever the reason, within a minute, her rescuer was crouching
next to her and helping her to a sitting position. She could see
that the two thugs were plasti-cuffed to each other.

She looked into his eyes and her own eyes
filled with tears. Struck mute by how fast everything had happened,
she simply sat and stared at him stunned to find herself thinking
his was quite possibly the handsomest face she had ever laid eyes
on.

“It’s okay,” he said, pulling out his
cellphone. “You’re okay, now.” He spoke into the phone and she
watched him as he spoke. He smiled briefly, reassuringly, at
her.

“Anybody hurt inside?” he asked.

She shook her head slowly although she
didn’t really know.

“Okay, hold on,” he said. “Cops’ll be here
in a second.”

Ella found herself reaching out to touch the
sleeve of her rescuer as if to prove to herself that he was real.
He looked at her and grinned when she did.

Who was this guy?

Chapter Two

The handsome cowboy handed
her a large mug of coffee while the police were questioning
the
Starbucks
customers and employees. Ella was surprised that someone was
still brewing and serving coffee during all this. It occurred to
her that the cowboy seemed so capable, he could easily have whipped
it up himself. The two of them sat at an outdoor table. Ella didn’t
have the stomach to return to the inside of the café. She noticed
as she lifted the coffee to her lips that her hands were still
shaking.

She watched him as she
sipped her coffee. He had such a charismatic, commanding way about
him.
How had she not noticed that when
she’d met him the other day?

“No way. You’re a US Marshal?”

“Deputy US Marshal, yes ma’am.”

“How did you know what was happening? Were
you following me?”

“I can see how you might think that, but no.
Totally coincidental. In fact, the whole reason I was at this
Starbucks was to give you some space at our neighborhood one.”

“You totally saved me. When I think what
nearly—” She shivered and wrapped her fingers around her coffee cup
as if for warmth.

“Well, don’t think about it,” Rowan said.
“But if you won’t let me see you home, at least have dinner with me
tonight.”

For a moment, she entertained the idea of
saying no. She was going to be on an airplane heading to her new
life in Germany in exactly three days from now and she didn’t need
to begin anything complicated that would stall that.

But he looked so cute and
sexy with his crinkly blue eyes. And he
did
just save her life.

What could one dinner hurt?

Six hours later, Ella gave
her apartment a quick last look before locking the door and
stepping out into the hallway. Most of her furniture was in
storage, the bulk of her wardrobe already boxed and sent to her new
place in Heidelberg. So eager was she for the next exciting chapter
of her life to begin, she had been living out of her suitcase for
the last five days. Her father hadn’t been thrilled with the new
overseas job posting but he agreed that she should take advantage
of opportunities while she was young. Plenty of time for mortgages
and putting down roots when she was older. She hadn’t told her dad
that she was happy to think of this Germany gig as permanent. She
needed a change from the day-in-day-out rut she was in with her job
and figured there was nothing like struggling to order a coffee in
a foreign language to help with
that
.

It wasn’t until today when she got a good
look at her cowboy cop that she had faltered in her excitement to
leave. And she didn’t like faltering. As pleasant as it was to meet
someone new, it was positively annoying to have her plans dimmed.
Heidelberg and all the promises of an exciting new life that it
guaranteed had been nothing but one hundred percent thrilling for
her—before she met Rowan.

As she slid into the
driver’s seat of her car and adjusted the rear view mirror, she
caught a glimpse of herself and frowned. What was the point of
this? She was
leaving
.

Well, one thing was for
sure,
Rowan thought as he rinsed his razor
in the sink,
this would go down in history
as the most incredible beginning to any first date, anywhere,
ever
.

Drawing a weapon to get the
attention of the girl of your dreams was, to say the least, an
inauspicious beginning
. He squinted at his
reflection in the bathroom mirror. Did he really think she was the
girl of his dreams?

This is why love
sucks
, he thought.
It makes you sound like a damn idiot.
But when he looked in the bathroom mirror, he had a goofy
smile plastered across his face.

When the cops showed up to remove Heckle and
Jeckle, Rowan knew he had bought himself a long afternoon of
paperwork—not just in Atlanta but back in Dothan, too. While it was
true he hadn’t pulled his piece, everything still had to be
laboriously documented even though, technically, he was still on
leave. In his opinion, Ella hadn’t seemed in any condition to be
driving herself home but she insisted she was fine. Like a lot of
people, she registered the shock of being attacked as worse than
the actual attack. At least she had agreed to have dinner with him.
Even if she did insist on meeting him at the restaurant.

Why was he always meeting women with trust
issues?

“I like the hat.”

Ella tucked her feet up under her on the
outdoor sofa and reached for her water goblet.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Rowan said, tossing it
onto the spare chair at the table. “All part of the brand.”

“I can see that.”

The night air felt like a light layer of
velvet on her skin. By day, the Atlanta summer was oppressive. But
tonight was proof that, under the right circumstances, a summer
evening could be pretty magical. She looked around the outdoor
restaurant.

“How is it I didn’t even know this place
existed?” she asked, relaxing into the cushions of the couch.

“My folks told me about it,” he said.
“They’re retired. Plenty of time to read the reviews of every
restaurant in town.”

“You’re staying with them until your medical
leave is over?”

“That’s the plan.”

“How’s that going?”

“The healing or the living with the
folks?”

Ella laughed.

“I’m a little sore,” Rowan said patting his
side, “but I can still kick down the door to Starbucks to rescue
distressed damsels when called upon. How about you? Any effects
from being bounced against a sidewalk today?”

Ella shook her head. “I’m good.”

“You are that,” Rowan said, looking at her
with what Ella could only describe as hunger in his eyes.

He didn’t dress or look
like anyone she had ever known. Athletic, tall, rugged good looks.
Check. Individualistic…she glanced at the cowboy hat on the chair.
Check. And a US Marshal. Triple quadruple
Check
. She smiled at him, hoping she
didn’t look as obvious that she wanted to eat him up
too.

“There’s no way I’m going to be able to eat
all this food,” she said. “And I have a world class sweet tooth so
dessert is a given.”

“Not to worry. Go ahead and eat the dessert
first and we’ll save the main course for our next date, how’s
that?”

“You’re awfully sure there’ll be a next
date.”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Yeah, me, too,” she said. “And probably
breakfast.”

“What?”

“What?”

Dear God, did she just say that out
loud?

“Did you just say…?”

“Oh, hi, there,” she said to the approaching
waiter. “I’ll have a very large glass of your house Pinot Grigio.
Thank you.”

Rowan laughed heartily to her complete
embarrassment and the waiter’s confusion.

God, even his laugh is sexy.

“Okay, tell me everything,” he said, leaning
back in his chair with a glass of beer. “You know who I am. What do
you do?”

“I work for a business intelligence firm
doing background investigations,” she said.

He frowned. “Sounds…fun?”

She laughed. “No, it’s pretty much as boring
as it sounds, but I’m good at it and the benefits are really great.
My parents were both CIA operatives,” she said. “So I really wanted
something nonexciting.”

“Wow. Your folks
were
both
spies?”

“It’s not as exciting as it sounds. My dad
always called it the most boring job on earth—interrupted by brief
moments of sheer terror.”

“Your dad sounds like he’s got a sense of
humor. They retired now?”

“My dad is,” Ella said. “My mom died when I
was five.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Rowan said.
“Growing up without a mother must have been tough.”

“It was,” Ella said.

“You an only child?”

“I am. How could you tell?”

Rowan laughed. “Only children tend to
act…differently,” he said.

“More selfish? More independent?”

“Something like that.”

“I guess you had hoards of siblings to make
you so well grounded as an adult?”

“I’m the eldest of four,” he said, nodding.
“My folks are pretty dull compared to yours. My dad just retired
from AT&T here in Atlanta. My mom was a homemaker.”

“What made you want to be a US Marshal?”

“
No one thing, really,” he
said. He unbuttoned his top shirt button and pulled out a pair of
dog tags. “My uncle’s,” he said. “He died in the Gulf
War.”

“You were close?”

“I was only ten,” Rowan said, stuffing the
dog tags back in his shirt. “But he made an indelible impression.
On all us kids, really.”

After dinner, they drove in separate cars to
Ella’s apartment. Ella knew the questions would start as soon as he
saw her unfurnished apartment.

“How’d you get shot?” Ella said, opening the
apartment door and letting them both in.