Rancher's Deadly Risk (23 page)

“Doesn’t matter,” he said finally in a muffled voice.

She hesitated. Then, firmly, she announced, “It matters.
You
matter. I’ve seen some real talent in you, and you probably have a lot of talents you haven’t even discovered yet. You have a lot to offer the world.”

“You wouldn’t know.”

“Actually, yes, I would. I’ve been bullied, you know. It made me doubt myself and feel ugly and utterly alone. But here I am, trying to make a difference by teaching. One thing I know for sure, sometimes the biggest contribution any of us makes is a smile and a kind word. You’re perfectly capable of that. Don’t take your smile away from someone who might need it.”

His eyes flickered toward her, then fell away. At least he was starting to hear.

“Your mom says you won’t be coming back to school. I’m sorry to hear that, but I understand. I told her I’d be happy to tutor you in math if you like.”

“I don’t know,” he said heavily.

“It’s early days,” she answered and looked at his mother. The woman was standing out of his line of sight, and right now she looked haggard as she stared at her son. Guilt. How much more guilt must she be feeling than even Cassie? How many times had she hoped her son was silent because the bullying had stopped? How many times had she told herself, and him, that it would stop eventually? And now this, the most desperate cry for help anyone could make, one of utter hopelessness.

She returned her attention to James and decided to take the bull by the horns. “Did the bullying get worse after I stepped in? Because if it did, I am so very sorry.”

Now he stared at her. “It never stopped. Never. Like you hadn’t done anything. They didn’t hit me again, but they didn’t leave me alone. They said they were going to get me when they were away from the school.”

“Did they?”

“Not really. But they started a page online to slam me. A bunch of people joined in.”

Cassie drew a sharp breath and wondered why she hadn’t thought about the potential impact of social networking. God, how could she have overlooked that? “How did you find out about it?”

“There was a note in my locker. I didn’t want to look, but I did.”

She nodded. “I wish I’d looked into that.”

“You wouldn’t have found it. They didn’t use my name or anything on the page. But everyone knew. Everyone was talking about it.” His voice, which had been growing stronger, began to fade again. “I’m tired.”

“Of course you are. You’ve been through hell.” She didn’t think this was a good time to pull punches. “I’ll leave you now. But I want you to know I’m very sorry if I made it worse for you, James. But I couldn’t ignore what I saw in that washroom.”

He turned his face away. “I know. I guess I’m okay with it. You at least tried to do something. You’re the first one.”

Cassie heard his mother gasp and found Mrs. Carney looked horrified, with a fist to her mouth as if she were trying to hold in a cry.

“I’ll come back in a few days,” she said, rising.

He didn’t answer.

Cassie grabbed her jacket in the foyer and stepped out onto the front porch. Without another word, Maureen closed the door behind her.

Determination grew in her all the way back home. Tomorrow she would address the matter of that social networking page with Les. It didn’t matter if it was all happening outside of school. There had to be some way to stop it. But she couldn’t imagine what. A sense of helplessness hit her as she pulled into her driveway and parked, a helplessness so strong she wanted to pound her steering wheel.

Frustrated but determined to at least bring up the issue, she gathered her purse and climbed out of the car. It wasn’t terribly late yet, still plenty of time to work on revising her lesson plans. She had to get that done before everything went off the rails.

She wondered how the game was going. She could hear sounds from the direction of the stadium, indicating that a lot of people had come out for the game, cold notwithstanding.

She was on her front step when she remembered she hadn’t gone grocery shopping. A glance at her watch told her she had just enough time to at least grab something for tonight and the morning.

She tried not to think about Linc as she climbed back in her car to make the short run. She didn’t want to imagine how he looked there on the sidelines coaching the team. She didn’t want to imagine that he looked at his cell frequently to see if she had called.

She didn’t want to imagine him at all, but there he was, popping up anyway. Maybe instead of working on her lesson plans, she ought to dally in the grocery until closing time. Linc would probably be wrapping up the game by then. Then she wouldn’t have to waste her planning time by mooning around the house wondering if he’d drop by. The wait would be short by then. If he came.

Dang, she was a fool. Wasting all this time thinking about a man who didn’t deserve it if only because he wasn’t interested in the long term.

Let it be, she told herself. Let it be. Focus on work. Focus on the bullying program. Focus on the important stuff that she could actually do something about.

But why then did Linc seem as important as all the rest of it? That was the way to pain.

Memories from the past week, and most especially the weekend, insisted on distracting her from the routine chore of grocery shopping. She wasn’t apt to get much work done this way.

Sighing, she finally completed her shopping and headed home. She wondered if ever before in her life had her thinking been so scattered and ungovernable. Even to herself she didn’t seem to be making sense.

At home she grabbed her grocery bags and headed inside, wondering if a cup of coffee might help her gather the tattered ends of thought and focus.

But as she was emptying the bags, she heard a sound. In an instant her thoughts stopped hopping around and focused intently.

She was not alone.

* * *

The itch to get back to Cassie grew more and more overwhelming as time ticked by and Linc kept checking the game clock. At the final two-minute warning, he almost dumped everything on his assistant coach and took off.

All his resolutions not to get involved again, especially with a woman who might move on, had evaporated. And he knew just the moment they had evaporated. When she had pulled back from him, as if to place a distance between them.

He knew he was at least partially responsible for that, and as the evening passed, the need to talk to her increased until it became almost unbearable. He wanted to find out what exactly was causing this sense of distance. He wanted to clear the air, and unless she had discovered she wasn’t interested in him, he wanted to tell her that he was willing to take the risk.

Hell, as he tried to keep his focus on coaching, his thoughts kept running to her. Willing to take the risk? Damn, he’d already taken it. Leapt into the fire with both feet.

And now he couldn’t simply walk away.

He was troubled, too, by her being alone. Everything she had said about the person who had come after her made sense. The guy—at least he assumed it was guy—clearly was a coward and a bully, unlikely to go beyond anonymous threats.

Unfortunately, whether it was sensible or not, he didn’t quite believe it. In fact, the more he thought about all that had happened that day, the more uneasy he got. What if this guy was pushed by the groundswell of support for Cassie and James Carney? What if he felt he was the only one left who would take action in his cause, whatever it was?

Did it even matter why? The threats of violence had been implicit, and sometimes people moved beyond threats to action when they felt pushed.

He should never have left her alone. He should have insisted she come to the game with him. Instead of backing away because she had seemed to want him to, he should have pressed the issue, become a caveman if necessary.

The penalty whistle blew and stopped the game again. He ground his teeth. He was probably overreacting, but he felt strongly that he didn’t want Cassie to be alone until they could at least be certain this bully had quit. And he felt equally strongly that they needed to talk.

His insecurity combined with hers might be walking them both in entirely the wrong direction. Or not. What if she told him to get lost? Well, he’d survived it before.

What was killing him as much as anything was the distinct feeling that he shouldn’t have left her alone.

Damn it! He turned to the assistant coach, his mind made up.

* * *

Cassie stood frozen, facing the counter and grocery bags, listening intently, acutely aware that there was only one way out of this house because of the snow. The front door.

But perhaps she was mistaken. Straining her ears, she heard nothing. No sound, no movement. A faint rumble that she knew to be the forced-air heater in the basement.

Maybe she’d been mistaken. Maybe a temperature change had caused the house to settle a bit.

But she didn’t believe it. The hair on the back of her neck was standing on end with the certainty that she was
not
alone.

Okay, she thought. Okay. Whether she was right or not, the sensible thing to do would be to get out of here. Just grab her keys, her purse, her jacket, like she was going out to get something from the car, and get out of here. Maybe pick up her cell phone and call the cops as she did so?

She uttered a small oath as if she were frustrated, and reached for her keys lying next to her purse on the counter. Her cell phone was in her pocket and she stuffed her hand in to grab it. Just in case, she told herself. Forget the jacket. Just get out the door.

She turned and had taken two steps toward the hallway when the man appeared. Aghast, she instinctively stepped back. He was big, very tall and massive. He wore winter outerwear and a black balaclava completely concealed his face and nose. She wouldn’t have known who he was even if she had met him before. He stood between her and her only exit.

“Who are you? What do you want?” The questions escaped her instinctively, even as she backed up another step and her mind ran frantically around wondering what she could use to protect herself. Little enough. Her knives were in a drawer, her heavy pans were in a cupboard. Defend herself with a cloth grocery sack?

“I told you to leave.”

It was the voice from the phone call. Maybe. She couldn’t be sure of that, and she didn’t recognize it otherwise. Her heart hammered so hard that breathing had become nearly impossible. Her mouth grew so dry she could barely speak. “Why?” It was a bare whisper. “I haven’t done anything to you.”

“You’re messing with things you shouldn’t oughtta. Upsetting folks. Hurting kids.”

“But... Was your son one of those on detention?” A little strength was coming back when he didn’t outright attack.

“No.”

“Then what?” Desperation filled her, even as a voice kept telling her to remain calm, that he hadn’t attacked her yet, that maybe he only intended to frighten her. He was certainly succeeding.
Try to talk him down.
“What have I done?”

When he didn’t answer, her fear ratcheted up even more, something she wouldn’t have believed possible only a little while ago.

She spread her hands along the counter, trying to look casual, but feeling slowly for the drawer where she kept her knives, never taking her eyes off of him.

He stepped toward her and she froze. “You don’t get it,” he said. “You had a chance to leave and you didn’t.”

“But what did I do?”

“You know.”

“I don’t!” Her fingers closed on the drawer pull. “Did you put that rat on my desk?”

An ugly laugh escaped him. “Bet that shook you.”

“It did,” she admitted, hoping that agreeing with him would calm him. “It made me sick.”

“Good. You shoulda quit then.”

Bully, she reminded herself. He was a bully. Even now he wouldn’t reveal his face. That must mean all he wanted to do was scare her.

She gauged the distance to the door and his bulk between her and it. If she could get him to move just a little more to the side...

She shifted toward the back door. He instinctively sidestepped that way but shook his head. “You can’t get out that way.”

So he’d checked it all out. He knew she had only one way to go.

“I’ll leave,” she said. “Just let me go and I’ll get in my car and never come back.”

“That chance is gone.”

Gone? What did he mean? Then she knew. He wasn’t here just to scare her. He meant to hurt her.

As that certainty filled her, extreme clarity settled over her. She could either stand here and take whatever he dished out, or she could do everything in her power to fight him.

Should she grab a knife or try to dart by him? She couldn’t tell if he had a weapon, although that probably didn’t matter as big as he was. Wrenching the drawer pull, she yanked it open and felt for her big chef’s knife. She gripped it tightly and held it high. “Let me go or I’ll stab you.”

He just stared at her. Then one of his big gloved hands gave a quick twist and he snapped open a switchblade of his own. “You’re getting it now.”

With no choice left, Cassie charged him.

* * *

Linc pulled up in front of Cassie’s house, switched off his ignition and hesitated. What if she simply told him to go home, that she was busy, that she didn’t have time?

Then he would be a coward for refusing to face it, he decided. A damned coward. Besides, the niggling feeling that the outpouring of support might have infuriated the guy who was trying to frighten her wouldn’t leave him alone, either. He’d seen bullies react that way, as if to justify their bad acts by making an even stronger statement.

A strange dynamic, but one with which he was all too familiar.

He climbed out of the truck. At once, though he couldn’t say exactly what alerted him, he knew something wasn’t right. He scanned the street but it looked normal except for an old pickup parked at the curb a few houses down.

But then he saw the shadows of two figures against the front kitchen curtains. She wasn’t alone, and one shadow looked huge. Then he heard an unmistakable, muffled cry.

* * *

The clarity persisted. Get out or possibly die. Cassie, deprived of safe options, had no trouble taking action. She charged the man with her knife at the ready.