A Daughter's Trust

It was the last thought Rick had before something blunt and hard came down against his left collarbone, followed by excruciating pain.

Instinctively, he swung his movable arm, his right arm. The hand with the candlestick. And heard a grunt as he felt a connection.

Still reacting without thinking, Rick threw himself toward the noise, toward a shadow just inside the door of the empty nursery. He landed on top of a wiry, obviously male body that was shorter than his, but just as strong.

“Give it up, you son of a bitch,” he said, hardly aware of the pain searing his left shoulder as he realized that Sue had been in very real danger. Sue and her babies.

“Not…without…my…sssson,” the man hissed, his breath laced with the smell of liquor. “He’s mine. I want him.”

With a shove against Rick’s left shoulder, the man rolled the two of them, until he was on top. But using the momentum the other man had started, Rick managed to get the guy back underneath him.

Dropping the candlestick to get ahold of one of the man’s arms, he brought his knee up for a quick slice to the groin and, bracing against the pain in his shoulder, grabbed for the intruder’s other hand.

That hand held a gun.

“Hold it right there.”

The light flashed on and Rick briefly registered Sue standing in the doorway, alone, with her own gun pointed straight at the head of the man beneath him. Keeping hold of the man’s wrists, Rick shifted so that he was out of range of her shot. And held on.

“Drop the gun.”

The man fought, kicking and pushing against Rick, who fought right back. He had babies at stake. And a woman he cared about a great deal. This son of a bitch was not getting away from him.

“I’d do as she says,” he told the man, able to hold him so that the gun pointed to a back wall. The weapon went off.

Rick banged the man’s wrist against the floor. And the gun went off again.

He saw the black shoes on the floor beside him before he realized that they had guests. Welcome guests.

Not sure how he ended up standing next to Sue while two uniformed officers handcuffed the man he’d been wrestling with, Rick was only thankful that no one had been hurt.

“Oh, my God, Rick, your arm. What happened?”

“Nothing, it’s fine.” He could hardly feel it.

“Not the way it’s hanging, it isn’t. Officer, can you call an ambulance?”

“There’s already one here.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

SUE DIDN’T EXPECT TO SEE Rick again that night. She’d listened carefully to the officer’s instructions to make sure to lock her door behind them, but, while still shaken by what had happened, she wasn’t afraid of any further danger. Jake’s father, who’d found a way to post a $50,000 bond earlier that day and had broken into Social Services to get his son’s record, was now locked up again. Without bail.

She hoped for a good long time.

No longer scared, she’d still rolled the babies’ bassinets into her room. And figured she’d probably be awake the rest of the night. There was something daunting about giving up consciousness when it was still dark outside and you’d just had an intruder.

Maybe that was why she was lying under the covers, still dressed in the jeans she’d put on after the officers left, with her cell phone in her hand.

She answered on the first ring, because it was Rick calling.

“I’m coming up the street. Will you let me in?”

“Of course. I…how’d you get here?” His SUV was still in her drive.

“A cab.”

He’d phoned from the hospital. Told her he had a broken collarbone and that, other than wrap his arm in a sling, there was little they could do about it. He’d said he was fine. But nothing about coming over. She’d thought he was staying there for the rest of the night.