Getting Rid of Bradley by Jennifer Crusie
Zack relaxed. “Well, that’s a load off my mind. I want you on my side. You’d make one bitch of an enemy.”
“And don’t you forget it,” Tina said, narrowing her eyes. “If you ever hurt my sister, I’ll cut your liver out. Now get out of my car. I’ve got things to do.”
Zack opened his car door and then, on an impulse, leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “You’re not that tough,” he said and then slid out of the car before she could retaliate.
“WHAT IN THE WORLD were you talking to Tina about?” Lucy asked when he found her in the kitchen, pulling cupcakes out of the oven.
“I was asking for your hand in marriage.” Zack opened the refrigerator. “She said sure. What’s for dinner?”
Lucy froze, the cupcake pan in one gloved hand. “She said sure?”
“She knows quality when she sees it. We’ve got steak? When did we get steak?”
Lucy put the pan down and slid another unbaked one in the oven. “Tina brought it,” she said, easing the oven door shut. “And her cook made stuffed potatoes, too.”
“You know, I like your sister a lot.” Zack took the steaks out and started opening cupboards, looking for a pan.
Lucy’s mouth dropped open. “You do? You really like Tina?”
“Oh, yeah. She’s great.”
Lucy looked at him closely to see if he was being sarcastic.
He wasn’t.
“What kind of pan do you cook steaks in?” he asked, his head in one of the bottom cupboards.
Lucy gave up and went to find the broiler.
ON FRIDAY MORNING, Anthony came by with bad news. He stood in the living room and watched Zack mediate a truce among the dogs, and then he dropped his bomb.
“We’ve made the paper, but we’re not on the front page. Another plant closing, more graft at city hall, and storm warnings for a major snowfall headed this way, but not us. We’re on page two. The guy at the paper said he could have done better it we’d actually caught somebody, but just the bonds alone weren’t very interesting.”
Zack stood and left the dogs to stare suspiciously at each other. “Oh, come on, we’ve had two bombs here.”
Anthony shook his head. “I tried that. Both already reported. Yesterday’s news.”
“Hell, they made the front page.”
“Yes, well, if there’d been a bomb in the box, this would have, too.”
Zack sank down onto a chair arm. “So all we can hope for is that John Bradley will read the paper all the way through. Great.” He looked up at Anthony. “We’re screwed.”
“Possibly,” Anthony said. “Maybe John Bradley reads his papers cover to cover. But just in case he doesn’t, do not take your eyes off Lucy.”
“I never do,” Zack said.
ON SUNDAY EVENING, they put the dogs out in the backyard and sanded the kitchen floor. Zack had sent Anthony out for varnish, and he’d brought back three gallons and a spray can.
“What do we need spray varnish for?” Lucy asked.
“Touch-ups,” Zack said. “Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. Be prepared.”
Lucy looked over at him and felt her breath catch, the way it always did lately when she looked at him. He was on his knees, scraping at the last stubborn spot of glue before they began to varnish, giving it the considerable force of all his attention. His shirttail was out of his jeans, and his hair was rumpled, and his eyebrows were drawn together as he concentrated. He looked solid and electric and safe and exciting and like everything she’d ever wanted, and she felt her breath go again, just watching him.
She slumped back against the cabinets and tried to breathe normally as she looked at him. Even now, semi relaxed, he looked like a coiled spring. She ached to touch him, to feel all that electricity under her fingertips. There was so much energy in Zack, it flowed into her, too. And some of her calm went into him. Maybe he was right. Maybe they should get married. Because she knew for sure that after only two weeks, she never wanted to be with anyone else. Ever.
How could she ever want anybody else but him?
She thought of all the times in the past few days that they’d laughed and argued and talked to the dogs, and even just sat side by side together in front of the fire, warm and happy from just being together. And then she thought of how they’d made love together in the past week, how hard his body was under her hands, how sweet his skin tasted under her tongue, and her heart began to beat faster. She closed her eyes and thought about loving him there on the floor, pulling his shirt from his shoulders and running her tongue down his body, tasting him everywhere. I can’t believe I want him this much, she thought. I want all of him, all the time, everywhere.
I was never like this before.
It must be Zack.
He looked up then and caught her staring at him. “What?”
Lucy blinked.
“I told you to cut that out.” Zack pointed the scraper at her. “What?”
Lucy hesitated, torn between her usual reserve and surging lust. Zack opened his mouth again and she cut him off. “Wait a minute. I’m trying to think how to say this.”
Zack frowned and rolled off his knees to sit with his back against the stove. “Don’t think. This is me. This is us. Just say it.”
“Okay.” Lucy swallowed. “Okay. Well. Okay. It’s like this.” She opened her mouth to speak and then shut it again. It was such an inappropriate thought. Saying it out loud was out of the question.
She blinked again.
“What?” Zack said, exasperated.
“I want you,” Lucy said. “I want you... in my mouth.” She blushed. “I want you hard in my mouth.”
Zack closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them, he said, “You know, you’ve got to quit taking me from zero to eighty in two seconds without a warning, or I’m going to have a stroke.” He tossed the scraper over his shoulder and rolled back onto his knees to crawl across the floor to her. “Come here.”
Lucy met him halfway, and he pulled her to him. She arched up into him to feel the pressure of his chest on her breasts as he pushed her down onto the stripped wood floor and she ran her hands up his sides under his shirt to feel the hardness of his body. And when he kissed her, his mouth warm and open against hers, she wrapped her legs around him and pulled him tightly to her.
And the phone rang.
“Oh, hell.” Zack pulled back from her, breathing deeply from her kiss.
“Ignore it,” Lucy said breathlessly and pulled him back down to her, licking her tongue in his ear as she unbuttoned his shirt.
Zack said, “Right,” and kissed her again, stroking his tongue into her mouth as he moved his hands over her. He ripped open the snap on her jeans and slid the zipper down, sliding his hand down into her jeans as he kissed her harder. Lucy rocked with the charge that surged through her, arching her hips up to meet his hand and biting him on the lip.
And the phone rang again.
“I want you so much,” she said, her eyes locked on his. “All the time.”
“Lucy,” he said and fell into her to kiss her again, pulling her up hard against him.
She pushed up at him, tilting her hips so that he rolled onto his back and she was balanced above him. He ran his hands up her sides under her big work-shirt and then back down to pull her hips tighter against his.
And the phone rang again.
She leaned forward onto him to shove her jeans off, laughing as her ringers tangled with his on the waistband as he helped her strip them down over her hips, stopping to kiss him again.
And the phone rang again.
“Oh, hell.” Tack stopped as his hands gripped her hips. He glared in the direction of the living room. “If that’s Anthony, he’s not going to quit.” He rolled and tipped her off him gently and kissed her.
And the phone rang again.
Zack sat up. “I’m going to kill him. Then I’m going to leave the phone off the hook.”
“Hurry,” Lucy whispered, and Zack kissed her again, h
“Count on it,” he said when he came up for air.
The phone rang again.
Zack snarled in the direction of the phone and then stood, stopping to look at Lucy for a moment as she lay sprawled half out of her jeans on the floor. “You stay here, just like that,” he said finally. “You stay hot, too. I don’t want to find those jeans on when I get back here.”
And the phone rang again.
“Damn it!” Zack said and went to answer it.
Lucy pushed her jeans all the way off and walked through the dining room to stand in the archway to the living room in her shirt and underpants. Zack turned as he got to the phone, and she held up her jeans and dropped them on the floor. “Ta-da.”
“More,” Zack said. “Take it all off.” He picked up the phone in the middle of the next ring and said, “What?” and then he swore and hung up as she walked toward him. “I don’t know who that is who keeps hanging up—” he began as he turned back toward her.
And then one of the front windows behind them exploded, and Zack yanked Lucy off her feet and onto the floor with him.
“Stay down!” he yelled, and another window shattered, and he rolled with her to a corner near the windows but away from the shattered glass.
“What is this?” Lucy screamed back, clutching him. “What’s going on?”
And then there was silence.
“Are you okay?” Zack was holding her so tightly that she couldn’t breathe. “Are you all right? Tell me you’re all right. Say something.”
“Yes,” Lucy whispered, and his grasp on her loosened. “Those were gunshots, weren’t they? Somebody’s shooting at us.”
Zack let her go. “Just stay down and stay here. Don’t move.” He spoke quietly as he drew away from her, but Lucy could hear the excitement in his voice. She reached out and hooked her fingers in the waistband of his jeans and yanked on it hard. His knees slid out from under him sideways on the hardwood floor and he fell, half on his hip, in front of her.
“Hey, cut it out,” he whispered, annoyed. “There’s glass all over...”
“What do you think you’re doing?” Lucy whispered back. “Where do you think you’re going? Somebody out there has a gun. Somebody out there is shooting at us.”
“I know.” Zack flashed his grin at her as he tried to pull her fingers off his jeans. “Isn’t it great? Let go of my pants.”
“What do you mean, isn’t it great? Are you crazy?”
“Listen,” he whispered, as he peeled her fingers one by one from his jeans. “I’d almost given up hope of ever finding this guy. Now that he’s here, I think I should say, ‘Hi.’ Or something. Now shut up and stay down and stay put. There’s glass all over the place and you’re half naked.”
“No,” Lucy’s voice rose with fear for him. “He’s shooting at you, for heaven’s sake. You stay put. I’m calling 911.”
She leaned forward to crawl across the floor to the phone table, and Zack blocked her. “No!”
“Why not?” Lucy snapped, and the third window exploded, showering the phone table with glass.
“That’s why,” Zack said, pushing her back against the wall. “And also because by now your neighbors will have made the call for you. Mrs. Dover alone has probably called the Army, the Navy and the Marines.” He let her go and started to move away again. “Now stay put. I’ve got things to do.”
“Like getting shot at?” Lucy hung onto his arm. “No. Just wait for the police.”
Zack yanked his arm away from her. “Lucy, I am the police. It’s my job to get shot at. Get used to it.”
“Get used to it?” Lucy sat stunned while Zack began to inch his way toward the dining room again.
“Can we talk about this later?” he said, as he crawled toward the kitchen. “While you’re yapping at me, Bradley is getting away. Stay there.”
“You’re a Property Crimes cop, for heaven’s sake,” Lucy hissed after him. “You’re supposed to be chasing burglars and embezzlers. How many crooked embezzlers shoot people?”
Zack had pulled his jacket from the dining-room table. While she watched, he took his gun from the inside pocket and checked the clip. “More than you’d think.” He snapped the clip back in, and then, before she could reach him again, he was gone into the kitchen, and she heard the back door open and close softly. It was then that she suddenly felt the cold, not only on the outside from the February wind that blew the lace curtains away from her shattered windows, but deep inside, too, and it was the cold inside that made her shudder while she waited for him to come back.
IT WAS VERY QUIET for a while— quiet enough that Lucy could hear sirens in the distance. Gunshots anyplace would bring the police, but gunshots at her place would bring everybody in southern Ohio. It was getting to be like the O.K. Corral. With bombs.
Then she heard the shots.
There were three of them, one right after the other, and then silence.
The silence was worse.
Zack woudn’t shoot first, she knew. Which meant that Bradley had. And once he had fired at Zack, Zack would shoot back. Except he hadn’t.
It was really cold now where she was sitting. The February air was icy, but she hardly felt the wind on her body. The cold that was eating at her would have been the same in August, if she’d been the same place, hearing those shots, and wondering if Zack was bleeding someplace.
Or dead.
She was very calm, she realized. That was good. Amazing, but good. It was amazing how calm you could be when you didn’t know whether or not you’d lost everything that mattered to you.
She heard cars pull up, sirens screaming, and red lights swinging through her living room, and she still sat frozen in the corner of her living room, shivering in the dim light from kitchen, waiting for Zack. She heard voices, but not his, and the dogs barking from the safety of the backyard, and slamming car doors and running feet.
But not Zack.
And I was afraid of commitment, she thought. I was afraid of getting married and getting hurt again.
What could hurt more than this?
Well, there’s one thing for sure. If there was ever a litmus test for love, this has got to be it. If he comes back, I’ll tell him....
If he comes back...
She heard the shouts outside, and then more car doors slamming, and then, after about fifteen frozen, tortured minutes, somebody cautiously kicked the rest of the glass out of the bottom of the middle window and climbed through.
He was too tall to be Zack.
“Lucy?” Anthony peered into the dimness. “Are you all right?”
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Lucy’s voice came out funny, strained and scratchy.
“Zack? No, he’s fine. He’s mad, but he’s fine. Are you all right?” He came over to her and crouched down beside her.
“Don’t lie to me,” she whispered.
“I’m not,” Anthony said gently. “I wouldn’t. He got shot at but not hit. He’s got nine lives, didn’t he tell you? He’s Superman.” He put his arm around her and urged her up. “Come on. Let’s get you out of this glass. It’s cold in here.”
She stood, shivering from fear and cold, and he looked down at her long pale legs in gloom.
“Barefoot all the way up, huh?” he said, and picked her up.
She buried her head in the hollow of his neck and he carried her into the kitchen, kicking the door shut behind him to get her some kind of warmth. Then he put her down and took his coat off and wrapped her in it while she clung to him.
“I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to him,” Lucy whispered. “I just didn’t realize it until now.”
Anthony held her until she stopped shaking. “I can’t tell you nothing’s ever going to happen to him,” he said into her hair. “Zack tends to attract trouble. But he’s not stupid, regardless of what he looks like, and he’s not reckless, and he likes life a lot” He tilted her head up with his ringer so she could look i
Lucy swallowed, and the back door opened, and Zack came in and stopped. “Very nice. My best friend and my babe. Unhand that woman, you rat. I’m out there getting my butt shot off....”
“Shut up, Zack,” Anthony said, letting go of her. “Getting-shot jokes are not funny right now.”
Zack took one look at Lucy’s pale face and shut up, moving toward her so fast that Anthony stepped back to get out of his way. “I’m fine,” he said as he wrapped his arms around her. “The guy has no aim at all. Never even got close.” He hugged her so tightly she couldn’t breathe. “I am fine.”
“I know,” Lucy said, muffled against his chest “But it was bad there for minute. Does this happen to you a lot?”
“Hardly ever.” Zack put his cheek against her hair. “And even then, crooked accountants are lousy shots. Most of them are pretty nearsighted, too. And of course, I move with superhuman speed.”
“Of course,” Lucy said, finally looking up at him. Her color was coming back slowly and both Anthony and Zack relaxed. She tried to glare at Zack, but it was weak because she was still so worn-out from the cold and the fear, and he held her close while she buried her face in his coat again. “Listen, you big dummy,” she said finally, pulling back from him a little. “If you ever do that again, I’m going to shoot you.”
Zack tried to look annoyed. “Hey. It’s my job. It’s what puts nachos on the table. Not to mention into your dogs.”
“My dogs don’t need nachos that much,” Lucy began, and Anthony interrupted them.
“Well, since things are back to normal here, I’ll just take my coat and go back out front. You should probably go on upstairs and take the dogs with you, Luce. We’ll be downstairs for quite a while digging bullets out of your wallpaper. We’ve got people coming to board up your windows for the night, too, although if I were you, I’d call your sister and have her put in bulletproof glass for you.”
“My windows!” Lucy pulled away from Zack. “That glass was almost a hundred years old. It was beveled!”
“Sorry about that. My coat?” Anthony held out his hand, and Lucy took it off and gave it to him, still fuming about her glass.