Alison Stone - High-Risk Homecoming

“I live in the apartment over the garage,” Ellie said instead, scanning her surroundings. Neat homes set back from the street with lots of shrubbery. Shrubbery an attacker could hide behind.

A band of fear tightened around her chest, making it difficult to breathe.

Thin lines of stress accented Johnny’s eyes. “Lock the doors. I’ll give Officer Bailey a call. Couldn’t hurt to have extra patrols in your neighborhood.”

Ellie made an awkward sound; a cross between disbelief and fear.

Johnny touched her hand. “Whoever attacked you tonight was pretty clumsy. They also made a rookie mistake using a national shipping company to transport illegal drugs. Every indication points to a low-level drug dealer who’s stumbling around.”

“So, you don’t think he’ll come and kill me in my bed?” She forced a smile and a strangled laugh sounded on her lips.

The dark shadow on his face made his expression difficult to read, but she sensed a smile. “I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Warmth crept up her neck. She didn’t want to ask him how he intended to do that.

“Instead of staying in the garage apartment, maybe you could stay in the main house?” Johnny spoke in the way a person does when they’re constantly assessing the situation, trying to figure out what’s best.

“Ha! And tell my mother, who already thinks the gift shop is not a fiscally sound idea, that I was attacked in the back room the night before I even opened?” And moving back into her old room would send her plans of independence back to step zero. Living above the garage was bad enough.

“I’ll take that as a no.”

“You said it was some rookie stumbling around...” She knew she was grasping at any assurances he threw her way.

“Rookie criminals get desperate, too. Especially if they think you have something that’s theirs.”

“I don’t.” Ellie’s shoulders slumped in frustration.

“They don’t know that. I’m afraid you won’t be safe as long as they think you do.”

TWO

“Well...” Ellie sighed heavily “...today didn’t go as I’d planned.” She dragged a hand down the length of her ponytail and rested her elbow on the railing of the stairs leading to her apartment above the garage. She wasn’t quite ready to call it a night. She’d never be able to sleep now. But she couldn’t very well invite him in for coffee. Johnny wasn’t exactly her friend, even if he had come to her rescue tonight.

Inwardly she bristled at the notion. She was not going to continue her trend of letting men rescue her. She could stand on her own two feet.

Johnny cleared his throat. “How are your parents?”

A small part of Ellie was relieved that Johnny wasn’t ready to call it a night, either.

“Dad’s been gone three years.” The back of her nose prickled. “Good thing, too, because if he saw you standing in his driveway, he’d come out here and knock you into next week.” She laughed at the memory of her high-spirited father cursing Johnny Rock up and down for tricking his son into this “whole drug business” as he’d called it.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” There was something about his deep voice, his offer of sympathy in the cover of darkness, that felt more personal than it was. She didn’t know Johnny. Not really.

How could someone make a living pretending he was something he wasn’t and in the process mess up an innocent boy’s future? Johnny should have been more careful with his accusations.

“I’m sure he would be proud of you,” Johnny added.

Ellie shifted her stance. “I like to think so, but sometimes I don’t know. I used to say I wanted to go to college to study art. He’d tell me to be an art teacher. He was always practical. Not sure he’d like the idea of a gift shop.”

“Did you study art in college?”

Ellie’s stomach dropped at the mention of college.

A fat raindrop landed on her cheek and she wiped it away. “After my parents paid for my brother’s high-priced lawyer, there was no money left for college. For either of us.”

“I’m sorry things worked out that way.”

A few more drops plopped onto her head and shoulders and sounded loudly on the metal trash cans near the garage.

“But you’re not sorry for having my brother arrested?”

“We could go round and round about this until we’re both soaking wet.” Johnny squinted up at the sky.

She shook her head. “I better get inside.” Another drop fell, then another and another.

Oh, just great.

Ellie grabbed Johnny’s arm and pulled him toward her mother’s front porch. She wasn’t about to invite him into her apartment. “Wait out the storm. You’ll get soaked.”

The porch light flipped on and her mother appeared in the doorway.

Even greater.

Inwardly, Ellie rolled her eyes. Her mother was going to blow a gasket when she saw Johnny Rock standing on her porch with her daughter.

Nancy Winters squinted and tented a hand over her eyes to shield them from the bare bulb on the overhang of the front porch. “Hello, Ellie. Who do you have there?” A hint of accusation laced her mother’s tone. The screen door creaked as her mother pushed it open with an outstretched arm.

Before she had a chance to answer, Johnny smiled and extended his hand. “Hello, Mrs. Winters. It’s Johnny...Johnny Rock. It’s nice to see you.”

An expression Ellie had seen a million times settled on her mother’s features. The I’m-angry-but-it-will-have-to-wait look. The look her mother whipped out in the presence of company. “Hello, Johnny.” Her brow furrowed. “Is everything okay?”

“Johnny ran into me on Main Street. He offered to walk me home.” The words tumbled out of Ellie’s mouth.

Her mother glanced at the overhang as the rain poured down. “Come in out of the weather. The rain will still get you if the wind starts up.”

Johnny raised his hand, about to protest. Ellie shook her head slightly. “You might as well come in. My mom won’t take no for an answer.”

He shrugged and smiled. He had grown more handsome in the ten years since she had seen him. His brown hair was cut close on the sides and a little longer on top. Hair a girl could run her fingers through.

Where did that come from?

A smile curved his mouth and heat warmed her cheeks. Good thing he couldn’t read minds.

“I suppose I’ll come in,” he said, “until the rain lets up.”

Ellie held the door and Johnny brushed past her. His clean scent tickled her nose and a fondness coiled around her heart. Oh, she didn’t need this complication in her life.

Johnny glanced down at her and she smiled tightly at him, dismissing her feelings as remnants of a silly schoolgirl crush.

“Have a seat,” Ellie said, holding her hand out toward the small kitchen table in front of the windows. Johnny did as she said. Ellie took the chair across from him, fully aware of his masculine presence in the small space.

Why couldn’t the rain have held off for five more minutes?

“So, what brings you here, Johnny?” Her mother busied herself filling the teakettle at the kitchen sink.

Ellie shot Johnny a don’t-mention-the-intruder look.

“My grandfather is selling the house on Treehaven Road. I’m giving him a hand organizing and packing. That sort of thing.”

Nancy set the kettle on the stove with a deliberate clunk. She turned the back burner to high and set about the business of getting out three teacups and the tea bags before bothering to ask if they wanted any tea. A rainy evening called for tea, whether they agreed or not.

“And you’re able to get away from your job?” Her mother crossed her arms and glared at him; a searing look that would have had the teenage Ellie confessing to sins she hadn’t committed.