Mary Sullivan - Beyond Ordinary

Timm watched and waited for her to move on, but she didn’t. She’d always had too much curiosity for her own good.

A couple of the bikers mounted their hogs parked out front. Another one noticed Angel and wandered over. She stood her ground.

For God’s sake, Angel, do you have to stand up for every fight? Walk away. Run.

She didn’t.

He’d watched her fight since she was old enough to understand the names kids called her mother.

“Haven’t seen you here before,” the biker said, his voice tobacco-roughened, his posture aggressive he-man. “Who are you?”

His gaze traveled her body, slowly, as if he already owned it. The hair on Timm’s arms rose. He shifted his stance, ready to defend Angel.

“No one,” she answered, obviously not impressed by the bruiser. He had a layer of fat padding his belly, but enough muscle on his bare arms to bully.

“Let’s party. Come on.” He turned but when she didn’t follow, he looked back at her. “I wasn’t asking.”

Timm straightened away from the wall. Bastard was going to cause trouble, all right.

“No, thanks,” Angel said. “Not if you were the last Neanderthal on earth.”

For God’s sake, Angel, don’t be stupid. Grit and balls are admirable in life, but with a guy like this?

The biker didn’t take her comments well. He grabbed her arm, and Timm shot out of the doorway.

As a teenager, he’d been helpless because of his injuries and had watched her fight her battles alone. He wasn’t helpless now.

“Get your hands off her,” he ordered.

At the same moment, Angel kicked the biker’s shin and he slapped her.

Timm was on the guy in an instant. Not a fair fight. A hundred and eighty pounds of intellectual versus a two-hundred-and-thirty-pound wrestler look-alike.

Timm smashed the heel of his hand against the bruiser’s nose.

“Angel, run!” he shouted.

The biker slammed his fist into Timm’s jaw and he saw stars and staggered, but caught himself before he hit the ground.

Angel jumped her attacker and grabbed a fistful of hair.

“Move on.” A voice called out from across the street. Brawny Chester Ames, with a good set of biceps, a tough attitude and a baseball bat in one hand, ran toward them and shoved the bat into the guy’s ribs.

With a roar, the biker pushed Angel away from him and spun around.

Chester held the bat raised and ready to do serious harm if the guy didn’t leave.

“You want to drink in my bar again, you go on home and stop bothering her.” Chester ground out the words. “Now.”

The biker hesitated. Chester waited. Timm bounced on the balls of his feet, ready to try to take the guy down if he dared to touch Angel again.

When the guy finally walked to his bike without a word, the breath whooshed out of Timm. Then he cursed his lack of control. He’d been too angry—he knew better than to be so emotional—and because of that emotion, he’d lost the fight. Sensei Chong had taught him how to fight smart, how to remain calm and rational.

He looked at Angel. What was it about her that called up so many feelings? That cost him his precious self-control? He only knew that he’d gone into a rage when the biker had hurt her.

Chester approached Angel. “Why are you out here this late at night?”

“Hey, Chester,” she said, her tone soft and affectionate, raising Timm’s hackles. Had she been with him at some point? But he was old enough to be her father.

“You shouldn’t be here alone,” Chester scolded, his tone stern like a father’s, easing Timm’s tension. A bit.

“I’m not alone.” She gestured toward Timm.

Chester eyed him dubiously, and not as a friend. He returned his attention to Angel. “D’you want a drive home? I can be ready in ten minutes.”

Before she could answer, a flash of possession roared through Timm, and he interjected, “I’m taking her home.” He wasn’t much better than the Neanderthal Chester had chased away.

Chester gave him a cold look, nodded, then crossed the road to go back inside.

Angel confronted Timm with her fists on her hips. “What are you doing here?”

“Watching out for you.” He stepped closer to her. “Making sure you don’t get hurt. I saw you from my window.”

Before she could respond, he said, “The next time I tell you to run, do it.”

“Don’t tell me what to do. I don’t run away from battles. I’m not a damsel in distress who needs a man to rescue her.”

“And yet, you just needed two of us.”

Framed as she was by the streetlight, Timm saw her cheeks fill with color.

“That guy was typical of Chester’s clientele.”

“I can take care of myself.”

His jaw ached where he swore he could feel bruises forming already. “I don’t doubt it, Angel, but why would you put yourself in a situation in which you would have to?”

“That’s my business.” She strode away and turned down a side street.

She got under his skin, made him angry, but he trailed her home. He hadn’t liked seeing her hurt. No woman deserved that.

She spun to face him. “Why are you following me?”

“Seeing that you get home safely.”

“I told you, I can take care of myself. Stop following me.”

“No.”

“I don’t want you to.”

“Tough. That biker could circle back, looking for you.”

He trailed her to her old neighborhood. The landscape changed from well-to-do to not on the flip of a dime. Heads, you’re rich. Tails, you’re poor. Heads, you live on pretty, tree-lined streets. Tails, you live behind the ugly, industrial feed store.

She stopped at the trailer she’d grown up in. After Missy and Angel had moved to Harold’s house, no one else had taken up residence. It stood lonesome, threadbare, neglected. Even so, it didn’t look much worse than the other trailers on the dead-end street.

What are you thinking, Angel?

He’d had so much room in the four-bedroom brick house where he’d been raised, yet it hadn’t been enough to separate him from his father on the nights he drank. On those occasions, the house had been claustrophobic. So, how had Angel felt in this little tin can while her mother’s boyfriends cycled through Missy’s revolving door?

Had those men ever bothered Angel once she became a teenager? God, he hoped not.

“How did it feel to grow up in there?”

She stared at him for a protracted minute. Then swearing, she picked up a stone and tossed it at the trailer, where it pinged off the metal loudly enough to awaken a nearby dog.

After a couple of barks, someone yelled and the barking stopped. The night turned quiet again, still and hot.

Breathless and waiting.

In front of the trailer at the end of the short street, Timm spotted the red tip of a burning cigarette. Was that a man? Was he watching Angel?

Timm’s muscles bunched and tightened, waiting for trouble.

He stepped closer to protect Angel if he had to, but at that moment she moved on, cutting through the trees and someone’s backyard to access the next street.

He followed her until she reached the short sidewalk to her mother’s house.

“Good night, Angel,” he called softly.

Nothing but the gentle click of her front door closing behind her answered him.

ON TUESDAY MORNING, Timm finished proofreading a hard copy of the Wednesday issue of the paper, then sat at his desk in the storefront to input the changes he’d made.

Megan and Mason, a pair of his reporters, had written excellent articles. He had to remember to tell them so.

As soon as he finished, he sent the file off to the printer in Billings.

They would print twelve thousand copies overnight and deliver them to Ordinary and other small towns throughout the county early tomorrow morning.