Shifting Gears: The Complete Series (Sports Bad Boy Romance) (76 page)

When we got ready to leave, Mom hugged me
and thanked me for coming and for “everything,” she said. Then she whispered,
but not in the least bit quietly, “He’s hot baby and I like him. He’s a keeper,
I think.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“Paul Delport, give me a hug,” she said.
Paul obliged and when he pulled back she said, “Thank you for coming to meet me
today. I hope it’s not too weird for you to meet Jessie’s mother in a place
like this.”

“No ma’am. It wasn’t weird at all. It was
really nice to meet you. I wish you the best of luck.”

“It was wonderful to meet you. In case you
wondered, I approve Jessie’s choice of a boyfriend. I think you just might be
what the doctor ordered for my girl. Take care of her for me, will you?”

“I will do that,” he said. He looked a
little sad then and I suspected he was thinking about Mitch. I didn’t think of
what that creep did to me as his fault, but I think Paul was carrying around a
lot of guilt over it. I hoped that Mitch didn’t get out for a long time mostly
because I was so afraid of what Paul was going to do to him when he did. I
wouldn’t care what he did if I wasn’t worried about what the consequences would
be for Paul. The last thing I wanted was for him to ruin his life defending me.

When we finally broke away from Mom and I
left this week’s payment at the front desk, we stepped out into the sunlight
and I said, “Thank you for today. Thank you for being so good to her. She
doesn’t experience men who treat her with respect very often.”

“She’s nice,” he said. “I can see that she
really loves you. It was what always “saved” my mother in my eyes, I think. I
didn’t understand why she lived the way she did, or let my dad treat us the way
she did, but I knew she loved us. I used to try and tell her that she needed to
have more respect for herself and then Dad wouldn’t find it so easy to
disrespect her. Anyways, I think that’s probably your mother’s only problem.
She needs to learn how to like herself and then more people will like her in
return.”

“Wow, you should have been a…” We were
walking across the small parking area. I stopped talking and stood completely
still listening. I didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary. I had a strange
feeling though…”

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah. I just got a weird feeling,” I told
him, honestly.

“Weird how?”

“Like someone was watching me,” I said. I
shuddered. It was probably just my PTSD.

Paul was so used to looking over his
shoulder that he didn’t just shrug it off though. He looked around and walked
with his hand on my arm until we got to the car. I saw him glance in the
backseat of the car before he opened the door and even into the car next to
his. Neither of us saw anyone. I was sure now that it had been my imagination,
but I still appreciated that he didn’t just shrug me off. Mitch was in jail,
who else would it be?

We were a few blocks from the rehab when
Paul said, “I need to stop for gas and then if you want we can grab some
lunch.”

“Lunch sounds good,” I told him. “How
about that new Thai place by the gym? I’ve wanted to try it.”

“Sounds good.” There was a Chevron on the
corner near the stoplight and he pulled into it and stopped at the pump.

“I’m going inside to get a water,” I told
him. “You need anything?”

“Nope, I’m good.” He got out and put his
card in the pump and I headed into the store. I found the water I was looking
for and took it to the counter. I was about to set it down when I saw the stuff
my nightmares were made of outside the window. Mitch was here. At first my
brain didn’t really process it because he wasn’t supposed to be here. I could
only see him from behind, but I was sure it was him and that was when I
realized that he had something in his hands and he was just about to swing it
on Paul who had his back to him. I dropped the water bottle to the floor and
ran out screaming Paul’s name. I think I even shoved an older lady out of my
way. I didn’t care. I had to get to him. He turned at the sound of my voice,
just in time for the tire iron to connect with the side of his face. Paul flew
back about a foot and landed on his back on the ground.

I screamed again. My phone was in the car
so I started screaming for someone to call the cops. I wanted to go help him
but I knew it would be pointless. Mitch would just turn that tire iron in his
hands on me. I found out the hard way that he wasn’t gender-specific when it
came to handing out his beatings. People around me got on their phones right
away but I had to stand there and watch in horror as Mitch walked over to where
Paul had gone down and he raised the crowbar again. I saw Paul reach up as he
did and try to grab it out of his hands. He didn’t get ahold of it, but his
motions seemed to block some of the force of the blow. It still caught him on
the chin and when Mitch jerked it back out of his hands I saw Paul’s palms were
all bloody. I was horrified and I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath.

Paul rolled away and started to get to his
feet. Mitch brought the metal bar down and caught him on his left side. He hit
with such force and right against Paul’s ribs that I was sure Paul wouldn’t be
able to walk away without at least one of them being broken. When the bar
connected, Paul fell back to the ground and I could tell he was trying to catch
his breath. There were people everywhere…just watching. Why didn’t someone do
something? I couldn’t stand it any longer and I started going towards them. An
older man in a business suit grabbed me and said, “The police are on their way.
Don’t go over there, honey. You’ll get hurt too.”

“I can’t stand it. Why were the police
taking so long?” As the man held me back, I saw Paul stumbling up to his feet
again, reaching out to grab one of the pumps to steady himself. Mitch pulled
back the bar again to get ready to swing and this time Paul got ahold of it. I
watched as he wrenched it from his hands. I could see his chest moving rapidly
and I was suddenly afraid that he was going to use that iron bar to finally,
once and for all put an end to Mitch. It wasn’t that I wouldn’t have loved
watching it but I was so worried for Paul.

He proved me wrong by tossing the tire
iron aside and going at Mitch with his fists. He landed a right cross and when
Mitch came at him with a punch of his own I couldn’t help but be a little bit
proud at the way Paul moved his feet and got out of the way. The punch missed,
so Mitch threw another. Paul caught his arm and used Mitch’s own momentum to
swing around and land a round kick to Mitch’s side. Then as Mitch went down he
grabbed his arm to bring it up and pin it behind his back. Mitch probably could
have wrenched free, but he was struggling too hard and that was his mistake. He
lost his footing at last and they both went down to the hot pavement. Thank
God, Paul landed on top. In an instant he had his muscular arm wrapped across
the other man’s fat throat. He got him in a choke hold and within seconds Mitch
looked ready to pass out. I could hear the sirens and I knew that help was
coming. I finally let myself breathe.

Paul didn’t release his hold on Mitch
until he passed out. Then, it looked like he just relaxed it a little bit. But
that was good, he wasn’t set on killing him…today at least. The police cars
came screeching in and as I was thanking God I suddenly heard them screaming at
Paul…

“Let go of him and put your hands in the
air.” He suddenly had three guns trained right at him. All I could do was pray
that none of these guys knew or liked Mitch and that Paul wouldn’t make any
sudden movements.

Paul was too smart to screw with the
police. He released his hold on Mitch and put his hands in the air. Once again
I was horrified. I watched two of the officers each grab one of his arms and
pull him off of Mitch. The third officer still had his gun trained on Paul as
the put him face down onto the black pavement and handcuffed him behind his
back.

“Stop it! Stop it!” I was screaming at
them, still trying to pull free of the business man’s grasp. “It’s not him!
It’s the other one. That man is supposed to be in jail. He assaulted Paul with
a crow bar.”

While one of the officers checked Mitch
for a pulse, the other one came over where I was standing and still screaming,
“It’s not him!”

“Miss, listen to me,” he said. “It’s
procedure. If he didn’t start the fight and his friend over there is okay…he’ll
be let go. We have to talk to the bystanders first and get the story straight.
You need to find a place to sit down and calm down. I wouldn’t want you to end
up in trouble too. Someone will be talking to you soon though, so do not
leave.”

I nodded and licked my dry lips. Here we
go again. The cop started to walk away and I said, “Hey, don’t let him tell you
he’s one of you. He may have a badge, but he’s scum. He beat me so badly that I
was in the hospital with a punctured lung a broken arm and a dislocated one just
a few weeks ago. He’s supposed to be in jail. Please take him back there.”

The cop looked like he wasn’t sure if he
should believe me or not, but with a neutral expression he said, “We’ll figure
it all out, Miss.”

I had to watch as Paul was shoved, still bleeding
into the back of a patrol car. I almost thought it might be worth getting
arrested myself to go help him. Mitch was waking up and I could hear him
moaning. I was s tempted to run over and kick him in the throat myself. I was
itching to do something. I felt so helpless. Two ambulances eventually showed
up as one of the police officer’s was interviewing the witnesses. They loaded
Mitch into one immediately. I answered the officer’s questions, the whole time
keeping an eye on the ambulance where they were checking out Paul. Mitch was
taken to the hospital right away. I did my best to convince the officer that he
was supposed to be in jail. What the hell was he doing out already? The officer
went to his car and made a phone call. When he came back I could see the frown
lines in his face as he said, “Mitch was released on bond today. The judge gave
him a low bail amount. He didn’t think he was a danger or a flight risk since
he had no history of anything violent before the attack on you. I would suggest
a restraining order….”

“Right, that will help. I can fight him
off with a piece of paper.” Rationally I knew none of this was this officer’s
fault. He was only trying to help. But I was pissed and he was the one standing
in front of me at the moment. “He has history,” I told him. “He was just smart
enough not to get caught. Being a cop gets him out of it too. He doesn’t
deserve that badge. He’s a disgusting excuse for a human being.” The officer
neither agreed nor disagreed with me on that point.
 

PULSE
#5

CHAPTER
ONE

Over an hour after Mitch had attacked and
beaten Paul with a tire iron, and the police had shoved Paul’s face into the
pavement like he was a common criminal, I was still pacing the parking lot of
the Chevron station and Paul was still in the back of the squad car in
handcuffs. The police were interviewing people, but they didn’t seem to be in
any kind of hurry about it. They spent a lot of time on their phones too. I
wondered if it was about the incident or if they were tracking down their ex-girlfriends
like Mitch always was.

I could see Paul every once in a while
looking out the window of the car. He looked pissed and scared. He was probably
wondering what would happen to his sister and his nephew if they believed Mitch
over him and hauled him off to jail. It was killing me that I couldn’t go over
to him. It was killing me that just because Mitch had a badge like these other
guys that he was automatically assumed to be the victim here. For the first
time I wished that I still had the bruises on my face that Mitch had put there
so I could show them what kind of a “victim” the son of a bitch really was.

My patience was really growing thin.
“Hey!” I called out to one of the officers. “Are they going to let us get out
of here any time soon?”

The cop looked down at his notepad. “What
was your name again?”

“Jessie Cooper,” I said. I had spoken to
this guy at least three times. What the hell?

“Yeah, we got your statement here. You’re
free to go. We have all of your information if we need to contact you…”

“No! I came with Paul. I’m leaving with
him.” I was so frustrated that my voice was shaking and I was on the verge of
tears.

The cop looked annoyed with me and said,
“Well then, you might be in for a bit of a wait. We might have to take him into
the station…”

“For what? Why would you need to do that?
Look at him and look at Mitch, that’s all it will take to see which one was
wielding a weapon. Paul was defending himself. We came here to get gas and that
creep followed us. I’m sure none of the witnesses you interviewed have told you
anything different. That maniac Mitch came at him with a tire iron. Thank God
Paul knows how to fight or you might be working a homicide right now.” The cop
stood there with his neutral cop expression and when I finished my rant, he
calmly walked inside the store.
“Damn
it!”
I had to let my inner voice yell and cuss to keep my outer one from
getting me arrested.

“I told them I saw the big ugly guy come
at the other one with a pipe or something.” A young guy wearing dirty army
fatigues was sitting on the sidewalk a few feet from me. I hadn’t even noticed
him until he spoke. He had a three or four day’s growth of beard and his hair
was dirty and hung down across his shoulders. His teeth looked like he hadn’t
seen a dentist in a while and his fingernails were black. I assumed he was a
homeless man.

“Thank you,” I told him.

“Sure,” he said with a shrug. “It’s what
happened. They should check the tape though…”

“Shit!”
I looked up where the guy was pointing behind us. There was a surveillance
camera mounted up there and it was pointing at the gas pumps. “I didn’t even
think of that.” If the guy hadn’t been so dirty…or smelled so bad, I may have
kissed him.

He grinned through his broken teeth and
said, “I spend a lot of time around here and most of the time I try and avoid
the camera…if you know what I mean.”

I acted like I knew what he meant and I
thanked him again and went into the store. The cop I had just talked to was at
the counter talking to the clerk and looking at a laptop screen. I waited until
there was a pause in the conversation and they looked up at me. Then, I said,
“Excuse me…did you know that there’s a camera out there? It’s pointed right at
the pumps.”

The cop looked like he had a sarcastic
retort on the tip of his tongue. He recovered quickly however and said, “Yes,
we know.”

Trying to resort to his humanism I said,
“I know you’re getting irritated with me, but I don’t understand why you
haven’t just watched it then and let Paul go home.”

With a sigh he said, “Because it’s not
quite that simple. The tapes aren’t stored here. They use a security company.
We’re waiting for them to stream over the video. It really is okay if you go
home. If he gets released, we’ll let him call you…”

He was trying to get rid of me. Too bad.
“I’m not leaving until he can go with me.” The officer looked overjoyed at the
prospect of me leaving.

I started to head back out to the parking
lot when I heard the clerk say, “Here you go.” I turned and watched the annoyed
cop’s face as he watched the tape. He rewound it a few times and then he used
his radio to ask his partners to come inside. They brushed past me, giving me
the same looks that the other officer did. They all seemed to wonder why I was
still here. Is it unheard of to wait and see if your boyfriend was going to get
arrested or not? The only one who seemed to believe me about Mitch was the
first one who took my statement. He may have had a history of his own with
Mitch, because he’d acted like he didn’t like him right off the bat. He’d
gotten called away and left us in the hands of these guys who seemed more
intent on protecting the thin blue line than us.

They all watched the video, a couple of
them pointing at it here and there. Then the clerk burned them a copy and when
the one who had been so short with me turned around he said, “We’re going to
let your boyfriend go now.”

I literally bit the tip of my tongue.
Telling him that was a brilliant deduction after shoving Paul’s face into the
hot pavement and making him sit in handcuffs in the back of a police car for an
hour and a half for nothing probably wasn’t a good idea. It was hard to stop
myself though. I took a deep breath and instead, I smiled as sweetly as I could
and said, “Thanks.”

I watched as they pulled Paul out of the
back of the car. One of the officers was talking to him as the other one took
off his cuffs. I saw Paul shake his head “No” more than once. I wondered what
they were asking him. I could see from six feet away that he looked like he was
in pain. As soon as they released him, we needed to get him to the hospital.

Finally they let him go and when he came
towards me I finally lost my hold on the tears. I wrapped my arms around him
and let them flow. I was so relieved that they’d let him go I forgot for a
second how much pain he had to be in. I suddenly realized how stiff he felt in
my arms and I let him go.

“Shit! I’m sorry, Paul. I’m just so happy
they let you go. Let’s get you to the hospital…”

“No. Let’s go home,” he said.

“Paul, you just got beat with a tire
iron…”

He grinned, “Yeah, I was there. It’s not
something I’d ever like to do again, but I’m okay. I want to go home.”

I followed him over to the car and tried
to get in the driver’s seat. He pulled the keys out of his pocket and said,
“Huh uh. I don’t trust you. I’m driving.”

“What do you mean you don’t trust me?”

“You’ll drive to the hospital. I’m fine
Jessie, really.”

That was exactly what I had planned, but I
wasn’t going to tell him that. For his benefit, I rolled my eyes. “Okay. No
hospital. But let me drive please. You could have a concussion or something.”
He finally relented and handed me the keys. I got in the driver’s seat and when
Paul climbed in on the passenger side I watched him wince and suck in a breath.
I bit my tongue again and started the car. When we pulled out onto the main
road he said, “If you drive to the hospital, I’m not getting out of the car.”