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All right. Her love life was a disaster, or as Carol frequently said with a sad shake of her head, “Girl, you sure know how to pick ’em.”
Yeah, she thought with a resigned sigh as Jason Collins came to mind, she sure did. On the upside—and despite the lack of love and romance in her life, she was always determined to find an upside—she did know how to find parking spots.
“Maybe you ought to play on that talent if you ever get another date,” she told herself with a sarcastic little smile as the scene played out before her.
“Well, you’re not exactly calendar material, are you, Ms. Richards?” the man of her dreams stated bluntly as he squinted at the clipboard containing his detailed list of marriage requirements. “So what, exactly, would you consider your most stellar attribute? And don’t say intelligence, because frankly, I find that’s a real turnoff.”
“Well, I have an uncanny knack for finding fantastic parking spots,” she replied, dimpling hopefully.
His eyes widened. And then he smiled. Sunlight glinted off his perfect white teeth. Tossing his clipboard over his shoulder, he opened his arms as violins played in the background. “Darling, that’s perfect. Let’s get married.”
“That proves it. You’re definitely warped,” she muttered with a shake of her head. “But darn, girl, you do know how to find a parking spot.”
The one she’d found tonight was only three blocks from the marketplace. Closer to a streetlight would have been nice though, she thought on a sudden shift of mood. A sense of unease sent a quick and clammy shiver eddying along her nape and dampened her good humor.
“Okay, Pheebs,” she admonished herself and started rummaging around in her purse for her car keys. “Time to switch genres. You’ve been reading too much romantic suspense lately.”
She was not afraid to be out at night on her own. Well, not too afraid, she conceded, pulling out her keys. She’d lived in Boston all her life and was cautious, that was all. Generally though, she didn’t jump at shadows or look for bogeymen under her bed unless Carol and the gang roped her into going to a spooky movie. At least she hadn’t jumped at shadows until she’d broken up with Jason two months ago and he’d started calling her in the middle of the night and hassling her at work.
Just thinking of him sent another shiver slithering down her spine. Fighting what she knew was a false but growing sense of urgency, she told herself to let it go. Jason had been a mistake. She’d corrected it—or thought she had until she heard his voice.
“Out trying to scare up a little action, are ya, Mouse?”
She jumped and spun around so fast that she fumbled with her keys and dropped them.
“Jason.” His name rushed out on a high, thready breath as her coward’s heart threatened to beat its way out of her chest through her throat.
“‘Jason,’” he mimicked with a nasty smirk before he bent to snag her keys from the curb where they’d landed with a loud clatter. “That’s it? ‘Jason.’ You could at least pretend you’re glad to see me. After all, I spent half the night trying to catch up with you.”
Phoebe forced herself to look into his bloodshot brown eyes and hated it when she couldn’t hold his gaze. Hated it more when she realized she was shaking.
He needed a haircut; his shirt was dirty. He was also drunk—mean drunk. The alcohol stench of his breath fanned her face as he moved in on her, turning her stomach, triggering a hundred childhood moments and one very recent one of the first and only time he’d hit her. Her ears had rung for a day afterward. The bruise on her cheek had taken much longer to fade. The memory never would, even though she’d written him out of her life at that exact moment.
He glared at her through an ugly smile.
How had she ever thought his smile was beautiful?
More important, how was she going to get out of this?
“Give me my keys, Jason,” she said, shooting for reasonable and hoping he’d comply. Unfortunately, her demand sounded more like a plea.
He gave a pitying shake of his head and held them out of her reach. “You know, your problem always was that you didn’t know how to show a man proper respect. You should be thanking me, not giving me orders.”
She closed her eyes, swallowed. “Thank you…for picking up my keys,” she said meekly as he crowded her backward until she bumped into the driver’s-side door of her car. “Could…could I have them, please?”
Triumph turned his mouth into a sneer. “Better. Not good enough, though. Just like I was never good enough for you, was I? Was I?”
She willed herself not to panic as he pressed his face close to hers.
“How’s that happen? I wonder,” he demanded with the angry slur of a big man about to teach a small woman a lesson. “How’s it happen that a mousy, old-maid librarian thinks she’s better than me? Where do you get off dumping me? Huh?”
He wiped spittle from the side of his mouth with the back of his hand. “You think you’re some prize?” He snorted out an ugly laugh. “News flash! You’re not. What you are is leftovers. Leftovers!” He dug his fingers painfully into her upper arm, making her wince. “I was good to you. I was great to you! What’s your problem, anyway?”
Like an animal could sense a coming earthquake even before sensitive scientific equipment could pick it up, Phoebe anticipated the coming blow. With a hard jerk, she pulled free and whirled away before it landed.
His fist slammed into her car door with a loud crack. His vicious curse sliced through the night as she half walked, half ran, praying that he’d curl up to nurse his pain and forget about her.
The sound of heavy footsteps pounding the sidewalk behind her told her that wasn’t going to happen.
Her heart sank. Nausea rolled through her stomach as she stepped up her pace and, not for the first time in her life, wished she had the backbone and the skill to strike back.
The crowd had thinned to a handful of people when Daniel spotted his ice cream lady about a half a block ahead. Pleasure, unexpected and uncontested, had him forgetting about sleep and unnecessary distractions and heading in her direction.
He was within a few yards of her when he realized she wasn’t alone—whether by choice or by accident, he couldn’t tell. A big man, over six feet and roughly two hundred ten, two hundred twenty pounds, was dogging her like a jet trail.
Daniel sized him up with a practiced eye. He didn’t like what he saw. Bully came immediately to mind. A real bruiser with a nasty attitude. He could only hear snippets of their conversation as they stopped by an older-model gray compact car. He heard enough to grasp that the guy was obnoxious and ugly, though, and about as welcome as a wad of gum on the bottom of her shoe. He picked up on something else, too. She was afraid of him.
Daniel’s stomach bunched into tight knots when the creep grabbed her arm and squeezed hard enough to make her wince. That was as far as he was willing to let this go.
Two
Daniel picked up his pace, then momentarily lost track of her when he got tangled up in a group of rowdy, laughing teenage girls. When he finally broke free of them and spotted her again, she was heading away at a fast walk. The guy was hot on her heels.
Daniel caught up with her at a fast jog.
“Hey, babe.” Moving in close beside her, he physically cut off the other man with his body. “Slow down, would you? I lost you for a while there,” he added, slinging an arm over her shoulders with the easy familiarity of a man claiming his woman.
She stopped so fast he had to steady her to keep her from toppling over. When she looked up at him, the eyes behind her glasses were huge and round and scared. It took a moment but eventually she recognized him from the concession line.