Page 3 of Just For Me
“Why is she limping?” I asked. That caveman urge doubled in strength when I saw her wonky canter through the cold rain.
“I think-a she fell. Her wrist, it look swollen to me.”
I frowned, the thought of Kat hurting extremely displeasing. “Why didn’t you getNonna Mariato help?”
“Bellano want it.”
I could see in my grandfather’s eyes he wasn’t any happier about the situation than I was, but there was only so much you could do for someone who didn’t want your help. I wanted to change that. Call me Og the Cave Dweller, but I wanted Kat to look to me for help when she needed it. Or hell, just comfort. I didn’t care. I just wanted her to look to me forsomething.
Yeah, I had it bad.
“Is she coming tomorrow?” I asked, suspecting I already knew the answer.
He shook his head. “She say she will try.”
Translation: No. My frown deepened. I really didn’t want to do this signing. It had been my grandfather’s idea, believing it to be the equivalent of shooting one of Cupid’s arrows straight into Kat’s heart.
I had my doubts, but my grandfather can be very persuasive (especially when he teams up with my grandmother, who also thinks Kat O’Shea is the perfect woman for me).
So I’d agreed under the duress of their meddling persistence (and some incredible homemade cannoli). Generally, I shied away from public appearances. I’m not a glory hound. I’m grateful for the success I’ve had thus far, and I really appreciate my readers, but I’d rather do my connection online. Face-to-face improvisation was not my forte; I preferred sitting in front of my screen, where I could take a few moments to formulate proper responses and engage in witty banter.
Being a male author in a female-dominated genre like romance was tough, but apparently, I had a knack for it. I wrote other stuff, too -—military suspense -—but under a different pen name, and while those titles did well, they didn’t do nearly as well as my romances.
Besides, crowds made me uncomfortable. As if on cue, phantom pain shot up through my leg -—or rather, where part of my leg used to be. It was a souvenir from my last tour overseas. My unit had been called in when violent protests against American involvement became deadly. Still, I considered myself fortunate. Some of our guys lost more than a limb that day.
Most people didn’t realize I wore a prosthetic; it wasn’t something I advertised. I was still me, with or without flesh and bone beneath my left knee, and if anyone looked at me differently because of it, well, then, that was their problem, not mine.
Not for the first time, I wondered if it would matter to Kat. I didn’t want to believe it would, but I knew it was a possibility. Some of my faith in humanity had been lost around the same time as my leg.
I watched as Kat’s soggy figure disappeared into the mass transit bus. I’d kind of been hoping the bus would have taken off before she got there, so I could have offered her a ride myself. Ah, hell, who was I kidding? She wouldn’t have accepted a ride with a stranger, and that’s exactly what I was to her: the weird guy who sat in the corner and made lame attempts at humor after inadvertently body slamming her.
That was twice in as many minutes that the wind was taken out of my sails.
“Well, damn,” I murmured.
Surprisingly enough, my grandfather didn’t seem at all disappointed by the turn of events. In fact, his dark eyes sparkled rather mischievously. I narrowed my eyes at him. “What are you up to,Nonno?”
His sudden feigned look of innocence didn’t fool anyone. “Me? Why you think I’m-a up to anything?”
“Because you usually are.”
His answering grin confirmed it. And despite myself, I felt a spark of hope.
Chapter 3: Kat
The cranky looking driver didn’t openly acknowledge my murmured ‘have a good weekend’ as I exited the bus, but I could have sworn I saw her features soften a little. That was progress. I might be socially awkward, but I was raised to be polite. Little things, like saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and ‘excuse me’, went a long way and required next to nothing in terms of personal investment. I couldn’t imagine having to drive that big vehicle around and deal with people all day. That would make me grouchy, too.
I barely felt the cold as I schlepped the two blocks to my apartment, excited by the prospect of what I held in my hands. I had my night all planned out. I was going to pop some comfort food in the microwave (potatoes and cheese would definitely be involved), grab a hot shower, snuggle into my fleecy PJ’s, then curl up withmy precious.
“Gimme your purse.” The hoarse, raspy voice and sudden shove startled me. I’d been so preoccupied with thoughts of my evening that I’d broken the number one rule of walking alone: I’d neglected to remain alert and aware of my surroundings. As a result I now found myself being pushed roughly into a dark alley and shoved up against a brick building.
Fingers curled painfully into my upper arm as he used his bigger body to bulldoze me away from the sidewalk. The combined scents of cigarettes, B.O., and desperation assaulted my nostrils and made me glad I hadn’t had dinner yet. I switched to shallow breaths and tried to keep my shaking legs beneath me as we moved further out of sight. Not a lot of people were out in this weather, and those that were, were moving too quickly to notice what was happening to me.
We stopped, and he gave me another shove until I was flush up against the building. He kept me pinned long enough to flash a blade in front of my face. “Scream, and I’ll gut you.”
His words sent paralyzing images into my mind, images of me bleeding out in an alley just a few hundred feet from my apartment. I shook my head and whispered, “I won’t.”
Don’t panic, I told myself firmly as I tried to push down the fear. I could be scared later, but right now I needed to focus on trying to memorize everything I could about my attacker so I could identify him later. Height, a few inches taller than me. Weight, no idea, but he wasn’t fat. Build, I’d put at the meaner side of lean. Skin, it was too dark in the alley to tell. Hair, not visible beneath the dark beanie (or was it called a skull cap?) he wore. Eyes, something dark that glistened in the low light.
