Red Ochre Falls (10 page)

Garrett laughed.
“Mattie, I’m not trying to turn you into a commando. I’m just trying to teach
you some techniques for defending an attack. This kind of defense is helpful
for anyone who needs to get out of a bad situation. The military and police use
it. Heck, some war-torn regions even teach these moves to little kids. I think
you can handle this.”

Great, kids do
this, now I felt like a total wimp. It’s sad any child has to become skilled at
fighting to survive. I figured I should give it a try and learn some moves to
fend off my one, silly, crazed lunatic. “Okay, I’m ready.” I swallowed hard
enough you could hear it.

“Good. Now, I want
you to stand here.” Garrett came in close, really close, and positioned me
across from him. I inhaled his warm scent and drifted off. He said something
else, but I was way too lost in thought to hear what it was.

I wondered what he
was thinking. I wondered if he thought about me. Was he as lost as I felt? Did
he know my heart raced being in the same room as him? Was love supposed to be
like this? Did he have any clue how much I wanted him to kiss me? I really
wanted to know what it felt like to kiss him.

Wait…

Slam!

What happened? How
did I end up on the floor? Was this part of the lesson? Why did my back hurt?

Garrett stood over
me and breathed as hard as I did. It felt warm and a little muggy in the room.
I wondered if that’s why we’re both breathing so hard. My heart wanted to jump
from my chest. He loosened his hold on my arm, but lowered himself until his
face was close enough I felt his breath on my lips. He moved his arms around my
back, grasped my waist, and slowly lifted me. With his face still dangerously
close, I felt when his lips gently brushed by my ear. “Are you okay?”

“I…I’m fine. Just
not coordinated enough to handle your moves yet.” I was weak, but tried to make
light of the situation. He looked a little confused. “What I mean is I’m not
quite ready for the Ultimate Fighting Championship.”

Garrett cracked a
smile and pulled my hand to his chest. It felt like it belonged there. “I don’t
want to hurt you.” His expression was eager and intense. His muscles were
taught. I felt the hardness through his shirt. He looked ready to pounce. Did
it mean he was going to pounce on me? Oh, I hoped so. I looked into those big
blue eyes then got distracted by his mouth. Waiting felt like agony. But, I
wasn’t moving. I couldn’t. I stayed there, drawn to his heat. He kept his hand
around my waist and my breathing pattern matched his. I wanted to lean in, but
I was terrified he’d pull away. It would have devastated me. I just wanted to
be close to him right now. He looked at me as if he was figuring something out.
Like he wasn’t sure what to make of me. Was I sweating too much? Did I smell?
What was he thinking?

“Are you ready to
go again?” He helped me up and moved away.

Darn it!
I put my hand up to my hair and pushed back some loose
strands. Enough of all this, it was time to get serious. “Yes.” I brushed
myself off and asked him to repeat the instructions.

“Stand across from
me. I’m going to come straight at you. As soon as you see me move, take a step
forward.”

“Forward?”

“Yes. You want to
close the gap between us. Once you step forward, and I’m within arms-reach,
pretend to thrust the heel of your hand upward as hard as you can into my
nose.” Garrett put up his finger to say hold on. “Pretend like you mean it, but
you don’t actually want to do it. Okay? Otherwise, you’ll be driving me to the
hospital.”

I had serious
doubts about how things might go down. Hopefully, he had good reflexes just in
case my pretend thrust actually made some kind of contact.

When he came
forward, I let him get too close and couldn’t get my hand up in time. My timing
improved on the second and third tries.

“Good,” Garrett
said. “Let’s continue until you’re comfortable with it.” We practiced a few
more times then moved on to a new skill.

“The next one has
more steps, but it shouldn’t take you long to learn.” At least one of us was
confident in my abilities. “Stand over there. This time I’ll grab at your
shoulders. When I do, bring your arms up through the middle then back down over
mine and use them to break my hold. Like this.” He showed me what seemed like a
simple, but effective move and indicated he was ready. I nodded then Garrett
came toward me. He grabbed my shoulders so fast it shocked me. I got my arms tangled
up and he pinned me from there. We stopped while he showed me what he wanted me
to do and we tried it again.

Garrett came at me,
I put up my hands. He got my shoulders then I extended my arms up and over to
break his hold. It worked!

“I think you got
it.”

Learning these
defensive moves made me think I might have a chance if the bad guy came after
me.

“Thanks.”

“No problem. I’m
just trying to make sure bad things don’t happen to you.”

My energy and
enthusiasm surged. I had a thousand questions for him. I needed to learn more,
but I wanted to understand why he was doing me all these favors. It would be a
bonus to find out about the rivalry between the families, what exactly his deal
with Bianca was, and if there was any chance…

“Are you ready for
the next one?” Garrett’s voice brought me back out of my head.

“Sure.” The answers
would come, I told myself, and prepared for the next skill.

“This one takes a
little more coordination,” he paused and smiled to himself. “So it might take
some time.”

Ha! If it required
coordination, it might take weeks, or years. I gave Garrett the floor. He
planned to come after me from behind, like my attacker, and face me against a
wall. He continued by explaining how I was supposed to use my ninja skills (my
words, not his), to climb the wall—while being held from
behind—flip over him and escape.

“Seriously?”

“Let’s just try it
okay?” We moved over to a wall. He walked behind me and asked if I was ready. I
eyed him over my shoulder for a second and nodded for him to start, then turned
my attention to the wall ahead and waited.

Something strange
happened when he grabbed me. He had control, all I saw was wall—it was
panic, the same reaction I had to my assailant. This time I didn’t try to ask
him if he wanted my bag, I just started kicking and screaming. As loud as I
could. “No! Get off me! Let me go!” I cried.

Garrett put me down
and turned me toward him. “Mattie, it’s okay.” He spoke, but I couldn’t hear
him because I was louder.

“Leave me alone!” I
yelled some more.

“Mattie! It’s me!”
This time loud enough I could hear him over my own voice.

“Please! Leave me
alone.” I collapsed onto the floor and started to hyperventilate. Garrett got
down next to me and held me gently. I looked at him, clutched his arms, and
buried my face in his chest. Recognition and relief overcame me. We stayed
there until I calmed down.
 

When I started to
move, he stood and helped me get up on my feet. “It’s me,” he said softly. “Are
you feeling okay?”

I looked at Garrett
then smiled as I nodded to let him know everything was normal. At least as
normal as it could be at this point. “I don’t know what happened.”

“You finally let go
of the emotions you held back from the attack—fear, anger,
pain—they all just came to the surface. It’s actually a good thing.”

“How can it be
good? I just freaked out and collapsed onto the floor.” I didn’t mean to sound
defensive, but might have.

“You needed to deal
with your feelings. The longer you bottle it up, the worse it gets. I speak
from experience.”

It caught me
off-guard. He seemed like a guy who had things pretty much in order. What would
he know about bottled up feelings?

“I’ve had my share
of setbacks, and it’s okay to shrug most of them off and keep going. Something
as big as a threat to your life, though, you can’t ignore. You have to admit
how it made you feel then move forward.” What he said sounded smart. But, it
still took me a minute to figure out what really bothered me.

“Okay, it made me
feel really scared and vulnerable.” There, I’d said it. “What can I do about it
now?”

“You can start by
leaving any feelings of guilt behind. You are not responsible for what
happened, the bad guy is. Next, you can let me help you move past it.” I
believed he meant it.

“How do we do
that?”

“We practice some
more, and head home to discuss what I found out from Cal today.”

“Why didn’t you
tell me sooner?”

“I needed you
focused on training, for your own good.”

“My own good?”

“Your body may have
felt better after Millie’s magic serum and a good night’s rest, but you needed
to deal with the emotional pain that guy caused you. I thought bringing you
here would make you feel safe and strong enough to let go.”

“You brought me
here to break down?” I got mad and backed away.

“No, I brought you
here to help you feel strong and in control again.”

“Did you just see
me in a puddle on the floor? I don’t think it worked. Besides, what does it
matter to you?” I was still deciding how mad I wanted to be at Garrett.

“What does it
matter?” He looked at me in disbelief. “I care,” he stopped and blew out a
breath. I wondered what he meant by care, and why he actually said it. Were we
about to get into full-on confessional mode here? “Can’t you tell?” Now he
sounded mad.

“I guess. I mean,
yes. I appreciate all you’ve done to help mom and me since we moved in, and
maybe I should have thanked you sooner.”

“I’m not fishing
for a thank you, although, it’s nice to hear. I care about what happens to
you.” He moved close enough I wondered if he was going to kiss me. But, he
hesitated. It confused me. “It’s important you understand how much I care.”
Maybe he cared, or maybe he just liked me as a friend, I was too drained to
think about it.

“It’s nice to know
someone cares.” It felt weird when I said it.

“Look, you don’t
sound like you want to talk about this right now. Let’s just get out of here
and head back to the parlor. I can explain what Cal told me, and you can decide
what you want to do.” Garrett picked up a gym bag, and signaled for me to head
out. What didn’t I want to talk about; being attacked, being friends, or just
being confused? Was this all in my head?

We left without
incident, except I jumped because we heard gunfire on our way out. It sounded
like the bullets would come through the walls, so we moved faster.

When we got to the
car, he opened the door for me, even if there was still some tension between
us. We drove through the rough streets in silence and headed back to the
funeral home.

“I’m sorry, Mattie.”

“You don’t need to
apologize. I know you were just trying to help.” I’d softened up a little bit,
too. Maybe it had something to do with putting distance between us and fight
club. If he meant to help me regain some control by going there, it worked. Although,
it wasn’t much, it was a start. “What happened back there?” I asked.

“I don’t know,”
Garrett admitted. “There are some things we need to discuss before things go
any further.” His serious tone startled me.

“Did I do
something?”

“No, why do you say
that?”

“I don’t know. I’m
confused about all this.”

“Me too. Look, my
car may not be the best place to talk about this, but it’s private.”

“Is this about
Chloe?”

“Some of it.”
Garrett’s eyes were forward, but he glanced at me briefly then told me everything.
“When I examined Chloe, I found a couple things.”

“Besides the needle
mark?”

“Yes. It looked
like a hasty job determining cause of death. She had some bruising, faint
scratches, and the needle mark didn’t have a bulls-eye on it, but it shouldn’t
have been missed in the exam.”

“Why didn’t you
tell me this yesterday?”

“I wasn’t sure it
was relevant.”

“Relevant?” I had
anger on my lips. “Why didn’t you think it was relevant? I’d say anything that
has to do with the murder of a friend should be considered relevant!”

“I guess it was
just hard for me to believe there could have been any wrongdoing.” Garrett
sounded hurt. “I wanted to ask some questions on my own before I started
pointing fingers.”

“And what did you
find out?”

“Something big is going
on, Mattie.”

“Bigger than a fake
suicide?”

“Yes.”

“Like what?”

“Like the cover-up
of a fake suicide.” He stopped at a traffic light and looked at me intently.

“What? Why?” I
couldn’t believe it. “Who would do that? I’m having a hard enough time understanding
why someone would want Chloe dead, much less kill her, and now, you’re telling
me someone is trying to hide the murder?”