When the plane landed in Dallas, he'd managed to put the blonde with the blue eyes out of his mind. He never would have even remembered the woman's name if she hadn't somehow gotten his home telephone number. By the time he returned to Seattle, Stephanie Andrews had left more than two hundred messages on his answering machine. Rob didn't know which was more disturbing, the volatile messages themselves, or the sheer volume of them.
Although it was no secret, she'd discovered he was married, and she accused him of using her. "You can't use me and throw me away," she began each message. She screamed and raged, then cried hysterically, as she told him how much she loved him. Then she always begged him to call her back.
He never did. Instead, he changed his number. He destroyed the tapes and thanked God Louisa hadn't heard the messages and would never need to know about them.
He never would have remembered Stephanie's face if she hadn't found out where he lived and been waiting for him one night after he returned home from a Thanksgiving charity auction at the Space Needle. Like a lot of nights in Seattle, a thick misty rain clogged the black sky and smeared his windshield. He didn't see Stephanie as he drove his BMW into the garage, but when he stepped from his car, she walked inside and called out his name.
"I will not be used, Rob," she said, her voice raising above the sound of the door slowly closing behind her.
Rob turned and looked at her beneath the light of the garage. The smooth blonde hair he remembered hung in soggy chunks at her shoulder, as if she'd been standing outdoors for a while. Her eyes were a little too wide, and the soft line of her jaw was brittle, like she was about to shatter into a million pieces. Rob reached for his cell phone and dialed as he moved backward toward the door. "What are you doing here?"
"You can't use me and throw me away as if I am nothing. Men can't use women and get away with it. You have to be stopped. You have to pay."
Instead of boiling a rabbit or pouring acid on his car, she pulled out a.22 Beretta and emptied the clip. One round hit his right knee, two bullets hit his chest, the others lodged in the door by his head. He'd almost died on the way to the hospital from his injuries and blood loss. He spent four weeks in Northwest Hospital and another three months in physical therapy.
He had a scar that ran from his navel to his sternum and a titanium knee. But he'd survived. She hadn't killed him. She hadn't ended his life. Just his career.
Louisa didn't even come to see him in the hospital, and she refused to let Amelia visit. Instead, she served him with divorce papers. Not that he blamed her. By the time he was through with therapy, they'd hammered out visitation, and he was allowed to visit Amelia at the condo. He saw his baby on weekends, but after a short time it became clear to him that he had to get out of town.
He'd always been strong and healthy, ready to take names and kick ass, but suddenly finding himself weak and reliant on others had kicked his ass. He fell into a depression that he fought against and denied. Depression was for wussies and women, not Rob Sutter. He might not be able to walk without help, but he wasn't a weeny.
He moved to Gospel so his mother could help him with his rehabilitation. After a few months, he realized that he felt like a weight had been lifted. One he'd been refusing to acknowledge. Living in Seattle had been a constant reminder of everything he'd lost. In Gospel, he felt like he could breathe again.
He opened the sporting goods store to take his mind off his troubled past and because he needed something to do. He'd always loved camping and fly-fishing, and he'd figured it would make a good business move. What he discovered was that he really enjoyed selling camping and fishing equipment, bicycles and street hockey gear. He had a stock account that allowed him to take the winter off. He and Louisa were getting along once again. After he'd sold his house on Mercer Island, he'd bought a loft in Seattle. Once a month he flew to Washington and spent time with Amelia there. She'd just turned two and was always happy to see him.
The trial of Stephanie Andrews had ended within a few short weeks. She'd received twenty years, ten fixed. Rob hadn't been there at the sentencing. He'd been fishing in the Wood River, whipping his Chamois Nymph across the surface of the water. Feeling the rush and pull of the current.
Rob picked the mail off his desk and walked toward the door. He turned off the lights and headed down the stairs. He'd never been the kind of guy to overanalyze his life. If the answer didn't come easy, he forgot about the question and moved on. But getting shot forced a man to take a good hard look at himself. Waking up with tubes stuck in your chest and with your leg immobilized gave you plenty of time with nothing to do but think about how your life got so screwed up. The easy answer was that Rob had been stupid and had had sex with a crazy woman. The harder answer was the why.
With his mail in one hand, he locked the store behind him. He shoved his sunglasses on the bridge of his nose and headed for the HUMMER. Once inside, he tossed his mail on the passenger seat beside his groceries and fired up the vehicle. He still didn't know the answer to the last question, but he figured it didn't matter now. Whatever the answer, he'd learned the lesson the hard way. He was a poor judge of women, and when it came to relationships, he was a bad bet. His marriage had been painful, the divorce an inevitable slam to the ice. That's all he needed to know to avoid a repeat of his past.
He would like a girlfriend, though. A girlfriend in the sense of a girl who was a friend. A friend who came over to his house and had sex with him a couple of times a week. Someone who just wanted to have a good time and ride him like a hobbyhorse. Someone not crazy. But there was the rub. Stephanie Andrews hadn't looked crazy-not until she'd shown up in Seattle with a grudge and a gun.
Rob hadn't had sex since he'd been shot. Not that he wasn't able or had lost his desire. It was just that every time he saw a woman he was interested in, and who seemed interested in him, a little voice inside his head always put a stop to it before it even got started. Is she worth dying for? it asked. Is she worth your life?
The answer was always no.
As he pulled out of the parking lot, he glanced in the rearview mirror at the M &S Market. Not even with a gorgeous redhead with long legs and a nice ass.
Across the street, Rob stopped at the self-serve Chevron and pumped gas in the HUMMER. He leaned his hip into the side of the car and prepared for a long wait. Once again his gaze was pulled to the front of the grocery store. Whoever had come up with the maxim that the more you went without sex, the less you wanted it, was a moron. He might not think about sex all the time, but when he did, he still wanted it.
A Toyota pickup pulled in behind Rob, and a short blonde got out and made her way toward him. Her name was Rose Lake. She was twenty-eight and built like a little Barbie doll. In the summer she liked to wear tank tops without a bra. Yeah, he'd noticed. Just because he didn't have sex didn't mean he wasn't a guy. Today she wore tight Wranglers and a jean jacket with that fake white fur on the inside. Her cheeks were pink from the cold.
"Hey there," she greeted as she stopped in front of him.
"Hey, Rose. How're things?"
"Good. I heard you were back."
Rob pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head. "Yeah, I got back last night."
"Where'd you go?"
" skiing with friends."
Rose tilted her chin and looked up at him out of the corners of her light blue eyes. "What are you doing now?"
He recognized the invitation, and he shoved his fingers into the front pockets of his Levi's. "Pumping gas in the HUMMER."
Yeah, she was cute, and he'd been tempted more than once to take what she was offering. "What about when you leave here?" she asked.