“Ford, he really wanted to kill me.” Her eyes clung to his, and he saw the shadow of pain in them as she pushed herself up to sit. “It’s not like doing grand jetés through the woods while the reanimated psycho killer chases you. I’ve had people dislike me. My own mother from time to time. I’ve even had people try to hurt me. I dated this guy once who slapped me around good one night. One night,” she repeated. “He never got the chance to do it again. But even he didn’t hate me. He didn’t want me dead.
“I don’t know how to resolve that someone does. I don’t know how to fit that into my life and deal with it.”
“You don’t resolve it. You don’t resolve something that has no sanity or logic. And, Cilla, you are dealing with it. You did. You stopped him.”
“A really lucky kick into seventy-, maybe eighty-year-old balls. I was so pissed, Ford, that I didn’t think. Do I stay in the truck, lock the doors, call nine-one-one, or you, or the half a dozen guys a half mile away like a rational person? No, I jump out and confront this… this lunatic who’s just tried to run me off the road, like he’s going to fear the sharp lash of my tongue. And I’m still so pissed when he starts shoving me, I don’t take off. Like I couldn’t outrun a man old enough to be my grandfather?”
“You’re not a runner.” He laid his finger over her lips when she started to speak. “You’re not. Do I wish it had occurred to you to lock yourself in the truck and call me? Maybe. Because then I could’ve come speeding to the rescue. I could’ve kicked him in the balls. But the fact is, I feel some better knowing that when somebody tries to hurt you, you know how to take care of yourself.”
“I could go a long time without having to take care of myself like that again.”
“Me too.” He stroked her hair when she laid her head on his shoulder. “Me too.”
And maybe he could’ve gone a little while longer without realizing he was in love with her. He could’ve strolled into that, the way he strolled across the road to her house. Casual and easy. Instead, he’d had it slammed into him, clutched in the meaty fist of fear and rage, in one hard and painful punch when he’d seen her sitting on the side of the road.
Nothing to do about it now, he told himself. Bad, bad timing. What she needed now was a shoulder to lean on, somebody to get her a bag of frozen peas and offer a quiet place to… collect herself.
"How’s the head?”
“Strangely, it feels like I bashed it against a window.”
“Will you take some aspirin?”
“Yeah. And maybe a session in your hot tub. I’m a little stiff and sore. I got jostled around pretty good.”
He had to fight to keep his grip on her from tightening, to stop himself from squeezing her against him. “I’ll set you up.”
“Thanks.” She turned her head to brush her lips against his throat. “Thanks especially for helping me stay calm. You too,” she said, and kissed Spock.
“All part of our post-trauma service here at the House of Sawyer.”
He helped her downstairs. He flipped back the lid of the hot tub, hit the jets, while she took off her shirt. “Want the iPod?”
“No, thanks. Maybe I’ll give meditation another shot.” She winced as she reached back for the hook of her bra. “Definitely stiff and sore.”
“Let me. I have experience with these devices.”
She smiled, let her arms drop as he moved behind her.
Fresh fury gushed into him, one hot blast of blind, mindless rage. Bruises purpled across her back, along her shoulder blades, in angry storm clouds. More bruising mottled the skin high on her left biceps, and a raw, red line like a burn rode over her shoulder.
“Having trouble with the mechanics?” Cilla asked him.
“No.” Amazing, he thought, how calm his voice sounded. How matter-of-fact. “You’ve got some bruises back here.”
“So that’s what I feel. It must be from when he shoved me against the truck.” She tipped her head to the side, down, then sucked in some air as she brushed her fingers over her shoulder and across her chest. “Seat belt burn, too. Shit. Well, better than the alternative.”
“Fuck that.” He said it softly, but still she shifted to look around at him.
“Ford.”
“Fuck. That.” He bit off the words now as that gush of fury spewed out, a raging, boiling geyser. “You’ll have to get your calm and your Zen somewhere else, because I’m not up for it. Goddamn it. Goddamn it! The son of a bitch came at you. You’re all bruised and bashed up. He did that to you. Did you see your truck? For Christ’s sake, did you see what he did, what he tried to do? He hurt you.”
She’d turned to face him, to stare at him. With hands stunningly gentle in contrast to his face, his voice, he unhooked her work pants, crouched to ease them down her legs.
“Your truck’s in a fucking ditch, and the only reason you’re not is because you took him out. There were skid marks on the road as far as I could see.” He took off her shoes, her socks, lifted her foot, then the other to free them of the pants.
“Better than the alternative? Better comes when I kick that crazy, murderous bastard’s teeth down his throat. That’s when better comes.” He turned her around, unhooked her bra.
He picked her up, eased her into the bubbling water where she just sat, staring at him.
“I’ll get the aspirin and that robe you brought over.”
After he strode away and up the stairs, Cilla let out a long breath. “Wow,” was really all she could think of.
Meditation might not have worked very well for her, but Cilla found fifteen minutes in hot water with pulsing jets helped considerably. Especially with the image of Ford’s anger playing behind her closed lids.
Steadier than she’d have believed possible, she carefully climbed out. As she wrapped herself in a towel, she heard him coming back down the stairs.
“I’ll do that,” he said when she started to flip the lid back over the tub. “Here.”
He handed her pills, water, and when she’d taken them, helped her into the white terry robe she’d left at his place.
“Sorry about before. You don’t need the ravings of another maniac.”
“You’re wrong. You helped me, you gave me exactly what I needed by staying calm when I was the shakiest. You stayed steady, and took me to the cool and the quiet. You gave me magic peas, and you let me lean on you. There have been a very limited number of people in my life that let me lean on them.”
She laid her hands on his chest, on either side of his heart. “And after I got through the worst of it, you gave me something else. The outrage, the anger, the blind thirst for revenge. It helps to know someone could feel that on my behalf. That while he was feeling all that, he could still take care. It’s no wonder I fell for you.”
“I’m so in love with you, Cilla.”
“Oh.” She felt a jolt, nearly as violent as she had while under attack. “Oh, Ford.”
“Maybe it’s lousy timing, but that doesn’t change a thing. It’s not what I was looking for. It’s not simple and easy, just picking which bed we use and who walks home in the morning. That’s how I figured it, and I was wrong.”
“Ford-”
“I’m not finished yet. When that woman-Lori-called, she was careful to let me know right off you were okay. But all she had to do was say accident, and my heart stopped. I never really understood what it was to be afraid until that moment.”
Everything he’d felt, and was feeling now, swirled in his eyes. So much, Cilla thought. So much in there.
“When I got there, and I saw you sitting on the side of the road. So pale. The relief came first, waves of it. Waves. There she is. I didn’t lose her. Waves of relief, Cilla, and this lightning strike at the same time. There she is. And I knew. I’m in love with you.”
It had been a day for shocks and jolts, and huge moments, Cilla thought. “You’re so steady, Ford, and I’m so disordered.”
“That’s just another way of saying, ‘It’s not you, it’s me.’”