He congratulated himself for being strong and not jumping her. It hadn’t been easy to resist her when he’d known she’d just as soon slit his throat as speak to him, but now that he had a sliver of doubt about her feelings toward him—a faint hope that she might feel even a tenth of the desire he did—it was going to be impossible.
CHAPTER FIVE
Lana’s landlord, Mr. Simmons, showed up just before Lana left for work. Caleb stayed behind to deal with her broken door rather than leave her apartment open and unguarded.
Mr. Simmons was a potbelied man in his sixties with a ring of white hair orbiting the back of his bald head. He greeted Caleb with a firm handshake and a smile. “Good to see Lana’s found herself a man.”
Caleb saw no point in correcting Mr. Simmons. “Been a long time for her, huh?”
Mr. Simmons went around to the back of his truck and began loosening the ropes that held Lana’s new door in place. “I’m not the kind to snoop, but I try to keep an eye on the little lady, seeing as how she’s al alone out here. I’ve never seen her with a man before you.”
A fierce little spurt of satisfaction made Caleb smile. He hopped up into the back of the truck and finished freeing the door. “It’s good to know someone’s been watching out for her.”
Mr. Simmons shook his white head. “She doesn’t make it easy, that’s for sure. I keep teling her she should move back home with her folks again until she’s wel enough to be on her own.”
Caleb lifted the pre-hung door out of the truck and eased it onto the ground. “What do you mean? She seems healthy enough to me.”
“Oh, her body is fine, I’m talking about the rest of her.” Mr. Simmons tapped his temple. “The poor girl needs therapy. I’ve seen the same kind of thing in a couple of my buddies who fought in ’Nam. I don’t know a lot about what happened to her, but I know it had to have been bad.”
Caleb turned away before Mr. Simmons could see the look of anger he felt on his face. The idea of Lana suffering the same way war veterans did made a lot of sense.
Too much for his peace of mind. “What makes you say that?”
“You’re the one who broke down the door trying to get to her. I figure you heard the screams.”
Helpless rage clenched his gut at the reminder of those screams. He picked up the heavy door by himself, needing a physical outlet to vent some of his anger. “I did.”
Mr. Simmons nodded and folowed Caleb with a toolbox in hand. “It’s why I had to move her out to this empty building. She was in one of the units I’d just renovated, but her neighbors kept complaining about the noise. We had the cops out here six times in three weeks. I tried to get her to go back home, or to get some help, but she refused, so I put her out here in this building that I’ve emptied so it can be renovated next. Once the renovation is done, though . . .”
“She’l have to leave.”
Mr. Simmons nodded. “I hate to kick the girl out, but I have to make a living. I’ve already put off the renovation longer than I should have, trying to give her some time to heal, but apparently it hasn’t helped.”
Caleb set the new door against the outside wal of Lana’s apartment and surveyed the old one lying in pieces. “No, it hasn’t.”
“You planning on moving in with her, maybe? Maybe it’s nosy of me to ask, but I figure that if she’s got someone there at night, maybe her nightmares wouldn’t be so bad.
”
The idea of being able to help Lana with something as simple as his presence was a strong lure, but Caleb knew it was just wishful thinking. Even if she did let him into her life in such an intimate way, chances were his presence would just make things worse by reminding her of what had happened.
Then again, she had quieted last night when he’d held her. Maybe the old man wasn’t completely wrong. “Lana’s a bit independent,” said Caleb.
Mr. Simmons let out a bark of laughter that made the shirt over his potbely gape open around the buttons. “That’s like saying the sun’s a bit bright.”
“I guess you do know her pretty wel, huh?”
Mr. Simmons puled out a crowbar and went to work puling the frame off the doorway. “About as wel as anyone, I suppose. She doesn’t have a lot of people in her life, from what I’ve seen. Her folks go to church with me, and her father worries about her something fierce. He’s told me a little bit about what she’s gone through, but I don’t think even he knows the whole story.”
“She’s trying to protect him from the truth,” said Caleb before he thought better. Instinctively, he knew it was true. Lana was not the type of woman to dump her problems onto her friends and family. She’d shoulder the burden herself rather than bring them down with her.
Caleb wondered if she’d even told them enough to alow them to help her.
“Hel of a thing for a father, though—to want to help your little girl, but not know how,” said Mr. Simmons.
Caleb needed to know how much Lana had shared with her family. Maybe that was the key to finding out if she was hiding something or if she was in danger. “How much do you know about what happened to her?”
Mr. Simmons lowered the crowbar and ripped off a section of molding with his rough hands. “Just what her father told me one night after a few beers. She went to Armenia with some do-good group that was hoping to help out there. She was supposed to teach art classes to kids or something. I’m not exactly sure. Something went wrong, and she was taken hostage by a terrorist group. They held her and a bunch of other Americans for three days, beat her up pretty bad, but she was the lucky one. The others al died.”
The facts were right, but only in the same way as it was a fact that the ocean was wet. It was a hel of a lot more than that, but Caleb didn’t feel the need to expand on what the man knew. “I’m not sure she’d agree about being the lucky one.”
Mr. Simmons gave a slow, grim nod. “That’s just what my buddy who survived ’Nam said.”
Lana saw Stacie’s car in the parking lot and knew she’d lost the race again. Man, but that woman got into work early. One of these days, Lana was going to win their contest to see who could show up first, but only if she didn’t sleep at al.
Lana parked her car and went into the office, expecting to smel coffee brewing and hear Stacie singing off tune along with her MP3 player. Instead, the office was silent.
The lights were al out. Papers littered the floor.
The place looked like it had been ransacked.
Lana stood there in shocked silence, trying to understand what she saw. Then she heard a low moan coming from the bathroom at the back of the office and her shock turned to terror. She raced back to the bathroom to find Stacie lying on the floor. Blood soaked her crisp yelow shirt and pooled under her slim body. More blood trickled from a smal wound on her head.
Lana cried out in anguish as she bent down to see if Stacie was stil alive. At Lana’s touch, she moaned again but didn’t move. Panic seized Lana’s heart, and a flood of fears and memories flickered through her mind until her brain was clogged with a jumble of horrible images of blood and pain. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she heard herself chanting, “No, no, no.”
“Lana?” whispered Stacie, puling Lana out of her frozen panic and spurring her into action.
“I’m here, sweetie. Don’t move. I’l be right back.” Lana sprinted for the cordless phone, ripped her T-shirt over her head, and dialed 911.
The emergency operator picked up while Lana was folding her shirt into a thick pad, her voice calm in the midst of the chaos. “Nine-one-one. Please state your emergency.”
“I need an ambulance. My friend’s been hurt. Shot, I think.” Her voice was tight with fear, but clear enough to make out, thank God. She repeated the address and threw the phone down despite the operator’s request that she stay on the line.
Lana pressed the folded T-shirt against the wound in Stacie’s side, making her hiss in pain.
“I know it hurts,” she told Stacie. “I’m sorry, sweetie, but I’ve got to stop the bleeding.”
Slowly, Stacie started to come around. Her skin was ghostly pale, her voice weak. “I told him he could take whatever he wanted. I wouldn’t have tried to stop him. He didn’t have to shoot me.”
Lana’s heart broke open, bleeding tears of guilt. “Shhh. Try not to talk.”
“There wasn’t anything here worth stealing,” said Stacie in a pained voice.
“I know, sweetie. I know. Just lie stil.”
It seemed to take an eternity for the ambulance to arrive. Sirens wailed in the distance, coming ever closer, but not close enough. Lana wiled them to hurry as she watched blood seep slowly through her T-shirt, turning it red.
A few moments later, the door swung open with a merry tinkle of bels. “Back here,” she shouted.
A pair of EMTs came hustling back, loaded down with gear. Lana backed out of the bathroom to give them room to work. She just stood there, her hands and clothes covered in blood, watching them work. She was helpless, trapped, out of control.
Her friend was dying, and there was nothing Lana could do.
Caleb saw the flashing lights in front of Lana’s office while he was stuck at a traffic light. There were several police cars. An ambulance.
Panic iced over his insides, and he felt himself slip into battle mode—that space where time slowed down and emotions were put on hold. He couldn’t let himself feel anything right now. Not until he knew Lana was safe.
The light turned green, but al the entrances to Lana’s office building were blocked by patrol cars. Caleb drove his car over the curb and parked in the grass on a steep incline. He had just jumped out of his car when he saw them wheel a gurney out of Lana’s office. A woman’s slim body was on it. She was wheeled out feet first, and for a moment, al Caleb could see was blood.
That cold inside him hardened and began to splinter.
A swarm of cops had gathered, and the sound of radio communication buzzed in the air. A policeman stepped in his path, but Caleb just shoved him out of his way without a thought. “Lana!” he roared.
Nearly every head turned, but Caleb didn’t care. He raced toward the gurney. “Lana!”
He was close enough now to see them loading Stacie onto the ambulance. Not Lana. Stacie. A second later, Lana came out of the office. She was shirtless, wearing only a modest bra, and blood soaked her jeans from the knees down, but her walk was smooth, and Caleb knew then that it wasn’t her blood.
That ice inside him shattered. He hadn’t failed Lana again. She was alive.
She stood there, brittle with tension and deathly pale, smeared with blood. He saw her try to straighten her spine and lift her chin—saw her try to regain her composure
—but it wasn’t fooling him. Inside she was sobbing.
Caleb crossed the space between them, ignoring repeated questions about his business here from the surrounding officers. None of them dared to stop him physicaly. He reached Lana and, without asking permission, took her into his arms.