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They stared at each other for a long time. She saw his throat convulse as he swallowed repeatedly. When he spoke, it was as if he was so surprised he couldn’t put the words together. “You don’t even know how that makes me feel right now.”
21
Spencer took big gulps of air as he ambled to his truck. He navigated through the maze of thoughts and feelings and felt perplexed about his progress. She made him feel things he’d never felt before. He was thirty-one years old, and she had his insides all knotted together so much so he didn’t know where one emotion began and another one ended.
The attraction was certainly there, of course—she was gorgeous. But she was so much more than that. She was smart, so damned smart. She was professional. He’d enjoyed listening to her talk to her clients this morning, and he got a better idea of who Kenna Lawrence was as a businesswoman. She called the phone company to change over their landline and he listened as she explained how she wanted it to work. Then she negotiated a great price for the service to boot. She wasn’t as prone to hysterics as many people would be. Stoic. She’d gotten the shit kicked out of her yesterday and while at first she cried, and a few more times the tears flowed yesterday, she wasn’t a hysterical mess. She processed everything with such grace and poise. Dammit, he admired the shit out of her. Then today, at the sheriff’s department, color him completely enamored as she faced the three men across the table from her with a quiet reserve he didn’t even feel.
Hopping into his truck, he caught Kenna’s eye through the windows; she smiled and gave him a thumbs-up.
He smiled, returned the signal and waited for her to back her Jeep up and head toward her place. He followed closely in case she had any trouble, but she didn’t. It looked like she did just fine without his help at all. That gave him mixed feelings. He enjoyed being needed by Kenna.
Once at her place, he assisted her to the apartment door.
She stopped in the doorway. "I should check the mail."
“I’ll run and get it. You go on up and I’ll be right there.”
He jogged to the mailbox on First Street and pulled it open. There were several letters, a magazine, and far too many fliers and postcards advertising this, that and the other. Trying to stack it in some order so he dropped nothing, he heard the loud pipes of Colt’s truck. He turned just as Colt gunned the truck toward him. He dove out of the way as the mailbox flew into the air and landed a few feet from where he laid.
He scrambled to his feet and Kenna came out the door.
“Spencer!” she yelled.
He got to his feet as Colt spun around and raced toward him. He ran to Kenna and hustled her toward the building. “Get inside.”
She made her way back to the front porch and Spencer turned to see Colt aim at him, then veer off at the last minute. He called to Kenna, “Get your phone out and record this bastard!”
He grabbed the mailbox laying crumpled on the ground near the Smith Squared law office. Two office girls had stepped out onto their front porch, one of them on the phone. He set the mailbox to the side to fix later. Colt’s truck came barreling down the street once again and he turned to see Colt veer into the parking area of The Paper Trail, barely missing him and his truck, then shooting across the small patch of grass between The Paper Trail and Smith Squared and out of the parking lot.
Sirens sounded, and he looked down the street to see if Colt was coming back or if he also heard the sirens. No sign of Colt or his truck.
Spencer walked toward Kenna and felt instantly better when she hugged him. He held her close, though now he was feeling a few aches and pains from his deep dive onto the blacktop. A police squad car screeched to a halt in front of Smith Squared.
The officer exited her squad car and strutted toward the women on the porch at Smith Squared. She chatted a moment with the women, watched a video one of them made, then walked toward him. He glanced at Kenna, who was making her way down the front steps of the building, and waited for her to join him. He laid his arm around her shoulders.
“I’m Officer Bradley. Can you tell me what happened here?”
He held his hand out to Officer Bradley. She looked down at his hand, which was now bleeding from the scrapes on the blacktop. Her face blanched and he pulled his hand back.
Kenna said, “I’ll go get the first aid kit.”
“I’m alright, Kenna.”
“Shush,” she said as she limped away.
Officer Bradley looked him in the eye. “Before you tell me what happened here, what happened to Kenna’s face?”
“Craig Howard and his goons.”
She sucked in a breath. “Is she alright?”
“She’s doing okay. I’ve been helping her out. Nothing’s broken, but she’s pretty sore. She took a vicious beating.”
“It looks as though she did.”
He nodded and tucked his hands into his front pockets. Remembering the blood, he dropped his hands down to his sides. “Colt Lowe made this mess here.” He waved his arm out toward the parking area and where the mailbox used to be. Some pieces of mail still littered the parking area.
“Why did he do that?”
