Jennifer Crusie - GETTING RID OF BRADLEY

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, hotly, once quickly and then again, slowly.

“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.”