WingSpan (Taken on the Wing Book 1) (46 page)

“You want a beer or something?”

I thought briefly about Paul and the lifestyle change I had coming. “I don’t drink much these days.”

“You’re a good kid, Anna.”

“So are you, Dad.”

He and Mom were eighteen when Alina came along. Me less than a year later. She ran a daycare to make ends meet while he got his electrician’s ticket. He was a smart hard working man and within a few years had a crew of a dozen and Mom stopped replacing kids as they left. He was forty-four now; a year closer to Paul in age than me.

“I thought this would be harder you know,” he said as he pushed his flat bottomed spoon around the fat wontons and singled out a piece of pork. “We spent as much here as the whole rest of the food bill. I’m glad you and Alina got her good looks. My Allison was such a pretty little thing. You were already taller than her when she passed... never expected you two to shoot up like weeds.”

I nodded and wiped my cheek.

“Nearly caught up to you,” I laughed. He was six foot one.

“In town long this time?”

“Mm mm,” I shook my head. My mouth held a whole wonton. “Ride out tomorrow. A month, maybe six weeks. Got a couple of big magazine shoots booked in California. Then I’m going east through to Florida for another job.”

“Still single?”

“Yeah, Dad,” I dropped my eyes as I felt my cheeks warm. “Boys can’t catch me when all they see is my tailpipe disappearing into the sunset.”

“Suppose not. Sorry to pry.”

“You’re not,” I sighed. “Some days I really need her. If I ever have kids I want to be just like her.”

“I think we both know exactly how much that would please her, Sweetie.”

Dad refolded his paper napkin and wiped his eyes.

I held his elbow all the way to my house. He didn’t seem to mind and hugged me a little less awkwardly at my door. I locked up then watched the headlines run past until exhaustion took hold.

Sleep found me with my legs shoved under the laundry pile that shared my bed.

I expected to have my eyes closed until well past noon. Instead I found myself looking at the dark ceiling just as tired as when I turned in. There was nothing but the steady sound of my breathing for a minute as I drifted off.

A loud thump drove out any sleepiness I had left.

“Damn it... bitch!”

The rattle of my uncooperative door knob accentuated his swearing.

I grabbed for a blanket then went for my dresser since the blanket would only wrap around my legs and trip me. Top drawer. Gun. Bottom drawer. Rounds.

The next crash was dishes accompanying the heavy thud of my table going over. Fighting the urge to bolt to the bathroom and do something about the looseness in my stomach I neared the kitchen to see the open window, table toppled over pinning a chair to the wall and broken glass on the floor.

“What the hell?” the angry voice said.

Another step and I could see a man struggling with the door. He was half a foot taller, dirty blonde hair down to his shoulders. The dent in his forehead matched the edge of the counter and blood ran freely from the wound to my floor.

The gun went up; elbows locked. My instructor’s words echoed in my ears as his phantom hand rested on my hip. “I’m not letting you leave until you hit
something
.”

The intruder froze for a second as he took in the gun then with a low growl he charged. I fumbled, unable to find the trigger, as he grabbed my wrists in one hand and pushed me into the hall. He was rough and I was too off balance to fight. Crushing my wrist he got me against the arm of the couch and it only took a second to force the gun from my hand.

Then I was face down on the sofa with nothing but my panties between me and his zipper. With the cushions muffling my cries I felt him grab for his belt.

“Why you do that?” he growled. My empty gun hand twisted up between my shoulders. The other was trapped uselessly under my stomach. Then his knees came up sinking into the couch and knocking mine apart. “Why, bitch? Why you pull a gun on me?”

East coast? Not Canada east coast either. His breath stunk of booze and stale tobacco and I watched a lazy drop of his blood hit the back of my sofa. With his full weight on my shoulders I heard his buckle open.

“Hey!”

Thank God, help.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Get out of there, man,” a second voice insisted. “We got what we need.”

From the kitchen window they had a good view of at least half of what was happening on my sofa.

And his damn buddies were better than no help at all.

“Take it easy,” the would-be rapist muttered as his weight came off.

The ceiling spun past as I landed on the floor and crawled into the end table just in time to see him get to my door. In a short second he had it open and was gone.

I pulled in a few weak breaths as I picked up the phone and pushed in Paul’s number. Just past the area code I broke down. Next to me my gun was unusable; the trigger guard still in place.

Paul wouldn’t be coming to my rescue. Maybe a couple of months ago he’d be my first call but not tonight. A few one night stands didn’t make him responsible for running to my rescue. Not even maybe getting me pregnant. Until I was sure about that I wouldn’t be calling him from three states and a whole other country away.

I pressed my palms together to make them stop shaking and decided there was nobody I trusted to look after Anna Creed but Anna Creed.

“Just like old times,” I whispered as I called nine-one-one.

Sun exposed the burglar’s blood on my kitchen floor. My upstairs tenant Mrs. Desmond had been moving around for over an hour. As the coffee machine started to grumble and spit I took the little box from the drugstore to the bathroom.

I had the rest of the night to think about exactly how late I was and figured I was the last time I saw Paul. Just like me to lose track of time. I picked up the test stick and looked at the two blue lines.

Then I double checked the instructions.

They said think about finding Paul because he never did anything to hurt you. Then figure out how you’re going to pack a baby on a motorcycle as you float around photographing one rally after another until you have nowhere to go and have to come home. Think about getting a car and a real job and how you’re going to do it alone because you won’t let anyone close enough to help. Think about it Anna.

The instructions were right.

Mrs. Desmond let herself in as I returned to the kitchen. She was armed with a plate of cookies and the Nanaimo newspaper as she stepped over the blood spots on my floor.

“Good morning, Mrs. Desmond,” I told her as I kissed her cheek. “I’m so sorry you were disturbed last night.”

“If he’d gotten into my house he’d have been just as sorry,” she shook her head as she looked at the blood.

“Yes,” I remembered her choice of words with the policeman who insisted on checking her.

I put the kettle on for her tea as I started on a cookie and she scrubbed up the mess at my front door. Something was missing from the sill; a small picture of my sister Alina and me in a little frog shaped frame, our heads centred in his spotted back. I couldn’t imagine the bastard taking it but there it was.

Gone.

We chatted as I ate and she read the paper then I made a few phone calls to cancel the work I had booked. Every time I went in the bathroom the test was there on the counter reminding me I wasn’t alone any more.

As night grew close the urge to run from my intruder and the stick on the counter became too much so I packed for a couple of days and hit the road.

Chapter 2

There’s nothing like a full tank of gas and nowhere to go.

When I wandered my destination was anywhere beyond the submerged Discovery Tunnel and its thirty-six kilometre long plunge through the cold waters of the Strait of Georgia. Its completion two years ago simplified my ability to get around. Rather than use my secret travel to jump to somewhere near Vancouver and a ferry ride home the completed roadway let me jump all the way there.

My disoriented arrival would occur precisely when I left so I used to think it was like teleportation. But as I became bolder with jumping and the distances grew it was clear a lot more was going on. My motorcycle showed every single kilometre and my back and wrists complained about riding the whole distance. I figured it wasn’t teleportation after all. I rode, arrived and travelled back in time with a blackout thrown in for good measure since I didn’t remember a damn thing between the start of the trip and my arrival.

And then an unavoidable eighteen hour coma.

‘Jumping’ was my first secret. I never told a soul, even my sister. Alina never believed in any of the usual childhood things I loved: Santa, the Easter Bunny and Ichabod Crane. For me there were real monsters under the bed, recurring dreams of my neighbourhood in flames and dialogue with my bossy reflection in the mirror. Alina had
Nova, Untold Stories of the E. R.
and a shelf full of second hand textbooks she bought at the Salvation Army.

That was until our mother died. I was left with burning dreams and my bitter reflection and Alina lost herself in the physical stability of the real world.

The woman in the mirror was my second secret; showing up irregularly in the bathroom mirror to give me some distasteful way of avoiding a future fuckup. And now my third secret, one I couldn’t avoid or keep quiet, occupied my thoughts.

I was pregnant by a man I barely knew and was less certain how to find.

Northern California was the closest Paul ever came to saying where he lived and Vancouver Island was all I told him about my home. I mustered the nerve to call him once after he broke it off and a pleasant American voice told me his number was out of service.

But tonight’s trip wasn’t about wandering. No matter how hard I tried to soak in denial my life had direction and my first stop was Paul. He’d moved on, his message said, but from me and not from his child.

I knew Paul was done with me. My middle of the night ‘episode’ our last night had wrapped things up better than anything I could have done on purpose. I needed to tell him about the baby and give him some time to decide where he wanted to fit. I didn’t expect to set up house with him. I’d tell him that. I also didn’t want him to hold back with his kid because another man was hanging around. I’d tell him that too. Not that there’d ever been anyone but Paul Richards.

I paid the toll and three other motorcycles pulled in behind, their headlights filling my mirrors. The tunnel was busy even at night and the steep twenty-eight dollar cost didn’t stop riders from either the Island or the Lower Mainland from making the crossing to see some new stretches of highway.

Four toll lanes merged into two just before a sinking left into the artificially lit cavern. I pulled out as I nudged up my visor. In the tight confines of the tunnel a spill could put me into the cement walls if I got caught between two cars and had no place to go.

As I sped up the flash of yellow lighting was almost audible intensifying the roll of my tires on the road. Every reflective surface shone against the regularly spaced lights strobing with a tangible pressure as I changed lanes around dusty reefer truck. The riders who’d followed me through the toll booths changed as well taking station in my wake like we rode together. I didn’t like the idea of being obligated into small talk or politely putting up with their pickup lines at the next traffic stop but I liked the idea of weaving between the crowded lanes to get ahead of them even less.