Running Blind (34 page)

C
ARLIN WAS PLEASED
with the meal, but damn, it had been a lot of work! Exactly as she remembered from her home life when she was younger, the food had disappeared quickly. They didn’t have a huge bunch of people to celebrate with, but Walt and Spencer were there. Kat, too, and she kept the conversation going. Spencer’s family had a big to-do planned for the weekend, and by then Kenneth and Micah would be back at work. Life on a ranch didn’t stop for any holiday. The animals had to be taken care of, if nothing else. And as Walt had pointed out, anything that didn’t get done today would just have to be done tomorrow.

She tried not to let her lingering horror show, as she accepted compliments on the meal, but when Zeke had mentioned taking her to meet his family, her heart had jumped into her throat and had stayed there for a while.

Maybe she was crazy about him, maybe the sex was stellar, maybe she even sometimes thought she loved him. None of that changed anything. She had to deal with reality, and while her current reality was pretty damn perfect, the bigger reality of Brad loomed out there like a huge storm.

This would be her only Thanksgiving with Zeke. Christmas was coming and it would be her only Christmas with him. She wanted to savor every moment, to make every day between now and then as perfect as it could possibly be. Spring would be here all too soon.

When she stood and reached for Walt’s empty plate, Zeke reached over and covered her hand with his. “You sit. We’ll get the dishes.”

Kat’s eyebrows shot up, but she immediately leaned back in her chair and relaxed, smiling.

Carlin’s first thought was that the men couldn’t possibly do the job of cleanup properly, but then she sat and
relaxed. Who cared if they didn’t do it the way she would have? Her feet hurt from standing all day, and she was exhausted. Without a word every man at the table had gotten busy gathering dishes and leftovers. This had been planned, and she loved them for it. Even I-don’t-do-dishes Zeke had grabbed his dirty plate and taken it out. Presumably Spencer knew how to run the dishwasher, so everything would be taken care of.

Carlin stretched her legs out, watched the men scramble, and said—in a very sweet voice, “Thanks, guys. I think Kat and I will head into the den and plop ourselves down in those nice, fat recliners, and watch some football.”

“I love me some football,” Kat said, smiling widely, then she made big questioning eyes at Carlin and shrugged her shoulders, from which Carlin gathered that Kat
might
, just might, know the difference between baseball and football.

“We’ll be right there,” Walt called from the kitchen. “This won’t take long.”

Carlin laughed at that. She’d used every bowl and utensil in the kitchen, as well as almost every casserole dish and baking pan.

Kat leaned onto the table and lowered her voice. “Oh my God, you have got these men eating out of the palm of your hand. Way to go, girl.”

For a moment Carlin listened to the men’s voices, to the rattle and clank of dishes, to the occasional laughter.

Thanksgiving wasn’t about food, it was about family. And for now, for today, this was hers.

Z
EKE LEANED HIS
shoulder against the frame of the kitchen door, watching Carlin as she folded a mound of towels. “You have any sweatpants, something loose and comfortable?”

She didn’t look up. “Yeah, but they’re too little for you. You’ll have to buy your own.”

“Smart ass. Go change. We’re going to fight.”

“Well, hell, I can do that without changing clothes,” she shot back, finally shifting her attention from the towel to him. The towel dropped to the floor. She felt as if her mouth had followed the towel.

Zeke was hot enough in jeans and boots and hat. God save her, despite Kat’s opinion and warning, she thought this particular cowboy was testosterone on two feet. Her resistance to him was practically zero as it was. But now he was wearing a pair of ragged sweatpants with a hole in one knee, socks, and a T-shirt that clung to his muscled torso, and she found that this scruffy look was even worse—or better, she couldn’t decide which. She just knew she liked it. It was the T-shirt’s fault. All too vividly she remembered every ridge of muscle, the crisp dark hair on his chest, the thick muscle padding his shoulders and rippling down his back.

Of course, the way she liked him best was stark naked, covered in nothing except maybe sweat.

The thought almost made her drool.

“Are you going to change, or not?” he asked impatiently, making her wonder how long she’d been staring at him. Probably not long; Zeke’s default setting was impatience.

Mentally she shook herself and said, “I’ll be right back,” picking up the towel and tossing it on top of the dryer, then running for her room.

The days had rapidly grown shorter, which drastically changed Carlin’s schedule. Instead of rolling out of bed, swearing beneath her breath, at four-thirty in the morning, she could sleep until the decadent-feeling hour of five-thirty. And instead of serving dinner at nine-thirty, even ten o’clock at night, to men exhausted from fourteen- to sixteen-hour days, she was putting food on the table at five-thirty, had the kitchen cleaned up and the dishwasher running by seven at the very latest, which gave her the opportunity to—gasp!—actually read or watch TV, or take a long soak in the tub, paint her toenails, and other things generally associated with Having a Life.

Cold weather and shorter days brought their own hardships, but generally life on the ranch had slowed considerably, giving everyone, including herself, time to catch a much-needed breath.

The downside was that Zeke was spending much more time in the house. Or maybe that was the upside. She knew what she
should
do, which was avoid him, and she knew what she wanted to do, what she
was
doing, which was falling into bed with him every chance she got.

She got up every morning with her heartbeat racing in anticipation of seeing him, being with him, and spent the rest of the day mentally at war with herself. It was just sex. She couldn’t let it be anything more. She had to be on constant guard, not to let it get to her when he was
watching her with that intent gaze that said more than he’d ever said with words. She couldn’t let the domesticity of living in the same house with him, cooking his meals, and washing his clothes undermine the wall she’d been forced to build around herself. Who would ever have thought of laundry as seduction? And yet the familiarity of it all was exactly that, almost as if they were married, a family, though without the benefits. She had become so enmeshed in the day-to-day fabric of his life, and he in hers, that the ranch had come to feel like home.

She couldn’t think of anything, short of a face-to-face confrontation with Brad, that was more dangerous to her safety. Her life might depend on being ready and willing to drop everything and leave at a split second’s notice, and because of Zeke, she didn’t know if she still had that decisiveness.

She was in trouble—big, big trouble.

She met him in the living room within five minutes, dressed pretty much the same as he was, in a T-shirt, sweatpants, and socks. He’d shoved the living room furniture against the walls to give them as much space as possible.

Zeke was a man who made good on his promises. He’d said he’d teach her how to shoot and fight, and by damn he’d do it. She might never win any marksmanship awards, but she tried to practice with the pistol at least a couple of times a week and she was becoming a fairly decent shot. Knowing how to load and shoot an automatic pistol didn’t make her feel like Superwoman, but she did like knowing she had options that she hadn’t had before, and perhaps the means of catching Brad by surprise if her nightmare came true and he caught up with her again. Now, it seemed, Zeke was going to teach her how to kick a man’s balls into his chest cavity.

And she was going to be practicing on him.

She skidded to a stop, frowning at him.

He caught the look, frowned in return. “What?”

“I’m fond of your balls,” she said abruptly.

A wary look came into his eyes. “So am I.”

“I don’t
love
them, but they’re endearing in a cute, wrinkly kind of way. I don’t want to hurt them—you.”

“Let me give you a tip, buttercup: you don’t tell a man his balls are
cute
.”

“You’re tough enough to take it. I’d be lying if I said they were pretty.”

“That’s good. Balls are supposed to be manly, not pretty.”

“Manly,”
she scoffed. “That’s safe to say. After all, how many women have them? Barring hermaphrodites, of course, but that’s a special category.”

He paused, then said in a slightly baffled tone, “Why are we having this conversation?”

“You’re going to teach me how to kick a man’s balls up into his chest cavity, right?”

For a split second he seemed dumbfounded, then he began laughing. Zeke wasn’t a man who laughed a lot, and the sound pleased her more than she liked. She was losing her own internal fight not to love him, had maybe lost it weeks ago and just hadn’t admitted it to herself yet. Was this the same as admitting it? She didn’t know, and didn’t want to think about it. Later, maybe, she’d deal with the fact that hearing him laugh made her feel … 
tender
. Then again—maybe not.

To cover that disturbing softness, she said, “I don’t see what’s so funny.”

“You can’t see the bloodthirsty look on your own face. And just because I’m going to teach you the basic technique doesn’t mean I’ll actually let you
do
it.”

“I figured I’d line up like a field-goal kicker and pretend I was kicking your balls over the goal post.”

His mouth quirked again, and he reached out to give a strand of her hair a little tug. “That’d work only if your
target just stood there. He’d have to either be unconscious beforehand, or you took him by surprise from behind. What are the odds you’d be in either of those scenarios? And would that be the best action even if you were?”

He was using a generic “him,” but they both knew he meant Brad. She started to say she’d take any chance she had to kick Brad in the balls, then paused, thinking it over. Was that what Zeke wanted her to do, to think … what was the word … 
tactically
? Mentally put herself in those possible situations and figure out what would be the smartest thing to do?

She’d been on the defensive for so long, she longed to be the one in control of the situation. The danger was that she let that longing pull her into something she couldn’t handle. So … if somehow she’d knocked Brad out, what should she do then? Kicking him in the balls would be satisfying, but it wouldn’t be the smartest thing to do. What if he recovered faster than anticipated? What if he was only faking it, to lure her within arm’s reach so he could grab her?

“I could run while I had the chance,” she said, working through the possibilities. “Or I could kill him.”

The bottom dropped out of her stomach when she said those words, and she stared at him in dismay. For months she’d gone over and over nightmare scenarios, imagining what would happen if Brad found her again, wondering if he’d simply kill her as he had Jina, or if he’d kidnap her and take her to some isolated spot where he’d rape, torture, and
then
kill her. Of the two horrible choices, she’d much prefer being killed outright, but if Brad was in control there was no telling what he’d do. She couldn’t assume he’d simply go for the kill because that was what he’d done to Jina. He’d had time to think since then, to plan, to get more and more angry. He might want to work that anger out on her.

And yet—she didn’t think she had it in her to shoot an
unconscious man. From behind, maybe, depending on the circumstances, but she couldn’t come up with a situation that would fit. If she were free to move around, and had a weapon, why would Brad turn his back on her? If he didn’t know she was there and she came up behind him … but if he didn’t know she was there, then all she had to do was simply leave, sneak away. She wanted Brad to pay for what he’d done to Jina, but she wanted the
law
to work and put him away for the rest of his life. She didn’t see herself as an executioner, and that was what Zeke wanted her to work through. If she couldn’t do something, then she shouldn’t waste time planning how she would do it; she should move on to what she
could
do.

“I couldn’t shoot him from behind or if he was unconscious,” she said slowly, still feeling her way through her own thoughts. “Maybe I’m stupid, or weak, but I just couldn’t. I’m not saying I couldn’t shoot him if I had to, just that I couldn’t do it under those circumstances.”

Zeke didn’t argue with her, just nodded. “Knowing your own limits doesn’t make you stupid or weak, it makes you smart. He’s a cop, which means he’s done strength training, he had to pass firearms testing, and he’s been trained to fight. You aren’t going to get the better of him in a straight-up fight. But forget about him specifically; let’s work on some basic stuff so you won’t panic if you’re caught by surprise.”

Not panicking was a good start, as far as she was concerned. When Zeke had startled her that day in the bedroom, she’d been so frightened she’d actually disconnected from herself, and that hadn’t been a good feeling at all. If that had been Brad instead of Zeke, the ending would have been bad, because she’d been totally ineffective. Anything Zeke could teach her, no matter how small, could be enormously important.

“Have you had any training?” she asked as she hitched her sweatpants up on her hips. They were a little loose
in the waist because they were old and the elastic was weak, and they kept sliding down.

“You mean martial arts, stuff like that?” He shrugged. “No. I was a hell-raiser when I was a kid and got into a lot of fights, plus my dad taught me some things. And when we graduated from high school, one of my cousins went into law enforcement, so of course he had to show me all the stuff he learned. The main thing is to forget about fighting by the rules. You can’t hesitate. If you get cornered, you have to fight hard, and you have to fight dirty.”