It's a Love Thing (34 page)

Other couples joined Longbow and
Nikki, swinging away. Blanca so wanted to give it a try. Nikki
looked absolutely free, joyous to an extent one only remembers from
childhood games and thrills. Now Blanca understood her persistence
to dance with Longbow. It wasn’t about the man as much as it was
about how he could make her fly on the dance floor.

He was truly a sight; powerful and
fluid, like a massive machine built for speed and grace. He snapped
Nikki to and from him like she was an extension of him, one long
line of rippling muscle. She couldn’t believe how he moved. Usually
big men weren’t that graceful, but Longbow was magnificent. His
baggy jeans, cotton shirt, and colorful bandana only added to the
affect. The two of them looked very hip out there among the cowboy
hats, wrangler butts, and boots.

When the song ended Longbow motioned
for Nikki to lead them back to the table. She plopped down on her
seat and grabbed Blanca’s hands. “You have to go next. It’s the
most amazing feeling in the world to dance with that man. It’s the
closest to thing to an orgasmic experience I’ve ever come without
getting naked. If he were my type I’d never let him off the dance
floor.” She winked as if she knew Blanca had been worrying about
her intentions toward Longbow.

Blanca blushed, but shook her head.
She had no idea how Longbow had managed to put on a show like that
with the injuries he had, but she wasn’t about to contribute to
making them worse. “I’m not that good of a dancer when it comes to
partners. It’s easier to dance on my own, that way if I step on
anyone’s toes, it’s usually mine.”

Blanca alternated line-dancing with
jaunts outside to cool-off. The bar was packed and apparently had
no air-conditioning. When Nikki wasn’t occupying Longbow’s time he
was off playing pool or chatting it up with other crew members in
the bar. She hoped he’d ask her to dance during one of the slow
dances, but he never did. It seemed he was no more interested in
her company than she was in the men who asked her to dance
instead.

After her third trip outside, Blanca
noticed she was getting light-headed and a bit tipsy. She looked
down at her glass of tea and realized it had managed to remain full
through the evening. It seemed someone had been refilling her glass
without her knowing it. She studied the glass and then looked
around the room. No one had been sitting at their table when she
and Nikki had been out dancing. Jesus and Emanuel had moved to
another table and Longbow had been busy at the pool tables for over
an hour.

In the city, it was an unspoken rule
for the last person at the table to stay put and watch over the
drinks of the others. You could never be too safe. Date-rape drugs
and hallucinogenic agents were dropped into glasses at clubs like
candy in trick-or-treaters’ bags on Halloween.

Blanca decided it was time to head
home. She looked for Nikki but it seemed her friend had found
herself a tall cowboy with a matching tobacco ring on his back
pocket. So that was her kind, Blanca thought. She should’ve known.
She didn’t want to interrupt, after all her place was only a block
away. She left a tip at the counter and walked, half-stumbled out
the door.

She’d made it across the parking lot
and was resting against one of the dumpsters when someone whistled.
It was a taunting sound, one meant to intimidate, not compliment.
Blanca had been around enough creeps to know the
difference.

Three men, looking like outdated
versions of The Outsiders, came around the corner of the last
dumpster and quickly surrounded her. “Whatcha doing, bootiful?
We’re not goin’ to hurt ya. We only want a kiss.” They alternated
saying with drunken slurs.

One man pushed her against the
dumpster and drove his knee between hers, forcing his way into
position as he grabbed one of her breasts and squeezed. The other
two stood sideways, blocking the view from the road and the
bar.

“
What, a city girl like you
too good for us?” he asked, gripping her hair in his hand and
forcing his mouth on hers.

Blanca swung her fists, but the men
next to her had already anchored them at their sides, away from her
body. She couldn’t get any leverage to free herself. She been too
disconnected from her senses to even realize they’d grabbed her.
She raised a knee but was unable to do more than kick at the man
who was already pressed tight against her body. She head-butted him
instead and immediately regretted it. Her head spun and her gut
rebelled viciously.

The next thing she knew, she was
thrown to the ground and someone was on top of her slapping her
face and ripping at her clothes. Vomit roiled from her gut to her
throat and she rolled onto her hands and knees and heaved
violently. The punishment went on for what seemed like forever. She
hadn’t even realized she was free until arms wrapped around her
from behind and picked her up. She screamed and bucked like a wild
animal.

“
Shhh, it’s ok,” a familiar
voice growled in her ear. “I’ve got you. You’re safe.” Longbow
stood her on her feet and turned her to face him. “What the hell
were you thinking coming out here alone?”

Blanca took a cleansing breath and
looked around. Jesus and Emanuel were standing over the three men
who’d attacked her. They were writhing on the ground in pain. Nikki
stood off to the side and was talking on her cell phone. By the
sounds of it, dispatch already had the Deputy-Sheriff on the
way.

“
How did you find me?” she
asked the group in general.

Jesus spoke first. “We saw you leave,
thought it was another of your fresh air breaks, but when you
didn’t come back within five minutes, we got worried. Nikki and
Forest were on the dance floor, so we signaled them and came
looking for you.”

“
It’s a good thing too,”
Emanuel said. “It took all three of us to chase these cowards down.
They took off running the minute they saw Forest.” He smiled, his
gold-crowned front-teeth gleaming in the light of the street lamp.
“I would’ve run too, with a madman like him coming for me at a dead
run.”

Longbow kept a hand on her shoulder,
like he was making sure she didn’t get out of sight while he spoke
to the men. “I owe you both. If it hadn’t been for you, our Doc
here would’ve become a statistic.”

Jesus shook his head and said. “No
problemo. The way I see it, we’re even. I let a tree get away from
me, and you let a girl get away from you.” He leaned in and spoke
in a low voice as if Blanca wasn’t right beside them. “De hombre a
hombre, my friend,” he said motioning from Longbow to himself, “the
girl is by far the bigger loss.”

The Deputy-Sheriff arrived and took
their statements. By the time it was all taken care of, the three
men were being transported to the Idaho City jail and Blanca was
safe in her clinic. She’d showered, applied butterfly stitches to
her split lip and eye and was waiting for the ok to go home and go
to bed.

The disposable scrubs she’d found in
one of the cupboards were three sizes too big for her and could’ve
passed for pajamas, but it was better than smelling like vomit.
She’d taken samples from her clothing and would run them in the
morning. Nikki had been doubtful, but if Blanca’s instincts were
right, the big cities weren’t the only places where drinks were
being tampered with.

Nikki had left Longbow watching over
her since her kids were with a sitter. He sat in the waiting area
of the clinic, waiting for her. It wasn’t like Blanca didn’t
appreciate everything he’d done. It was just awkward, him seeing
her like this. Tonight had brought back too many painful memories,
and she wasn’t sure she could share them with anyone, especially
him.

She stepped into the hallway and
shuffled toward the front of the clinic. Maybe Longbow wouldn’t
feel like talking. He was probably as tired as she was and just
wanted to get home as well. He stood the second she came into view.
He winced at her appearance. The hot shower had probably made the
bruises on her face look worse than they really were.

The walk to their homes was brief, and
she thought she’d gotten off without having to talk about the
evening, but she was wrong. Instead of leaving her at the door as
she’d hoped, Longbow guided her through it and sat her on the
loveseat in her living room. He went through each of the other
rooms, one by one, and then returned to sit beside her.

“
Place is all clear. All
the windows are locked, the back door is bolted and you can bolt
the front door when I leave.”

“
Do you have to leave?” she
asked, despite knowing it was better if he did.

Longbow leaned back and pulled her
against him, brushing his hand gently through her hair as her head
rested on his shoulder. “I don’t understand you,” he said after a
long moment of silence. “One minute you’re friendly and flirty and
the next you can’t be seen dancing with me. You put out these vibes
like you want the attention but the moment you have it, you pull
back and go all loner on me.”

His words jumbled together in her
fuzzy brain and it took her a moment to process them. “Wait . . .
What did you say about not wanting to dance with you?” She pulled
her knees onto the couch, separating the two of them, and really
looked at him. He looked worse than she felt. With all the
commotion she hadn’t thought about his injuries and how he might
have made them worse by fighting with the men who’d attacked her.
“Where did you get the idea I didn’t want to dance with you? I
waited all night for you to ask me to slow dance, but you never
did.”

A look of surprise came over him. “You
told Brandi you didn’t want to dance with me. I was standing right
behind you at the time.” He scratched his head and ended up pulling
the bandana off and wrapping it around his hand. He studied the
cloth as he spoke. “How would I know you wanted me to ask you to
slow dance when you refused every other man who offered, and only
danced in the lines?”

She placed her hand over his and
squeezed. “I would’ve slow danced with you in a heartbeat. It was
the country swing that worried me. I didn’t want you to hurt
yourself. I’m a terrible follower when it comes to partner dancing.
I end up trying to lead every time. I knew Nikki would wear you out
with her repeated requests and I didn’t want to be any part of
that. I wanted to tell her to leave you alone, that you were
injured, but I didn’t think it was my place…”

He raised her hand to his mouth and
kissed it. “That explains the dancing, but it doesn’t explain your
leaving without telling either of us. I would’ve walked you home,
made sure you got here safe.”

The kiss on her hand made her jittery
inside and her mind instantly formed questions about how it would
feel to have those lips on hers. She had to force herself to stay
calm and keep from stammering. “It was less than a block. Nikki was
dancing with that cowboy, and you were in the middle of a game of
pool. I wasn’t feeling well, and I didn’t think it would be a big
deal. You hardly paid any attention to me, and I thought you
weren’t interested in me that way.”

He raised a single eye-brow as if to
challenge her reasoning.

The gesture broke her. “All right, I
was feeling sorry for myself and just wanted to go home alone and
wallow in my misery.”

“
For someone who’s afraid
of being alone, you sure find plenty of excuses to push others
away. You can’t be this enticing island that draws travelers to it
with your serene solitude one minute, and then chase them away with
a storm of insecurity the next. Which is it going to be? You either
allow people around you that worship your beauty and your brains
because you have pride in yourself, or you end up with those who’d
strip everything from you on a whim, just because they
can.”

“
I didn’t ask for what
happened to me tonight. You make it sound like I deserved to be
attacked by those men.” She backed away from him and stood at the
foot of the couch. “I think you should leave.” She motioned toward
the door and then crossed her arms protectively over her chest. “I
know I have issues, everyone does, but at least I don’t throw yours
in your face when you’re beaten and weary.”

“
Blanca, I’m not attacking
you. I’m not saying what happened was your fault. I’m just saying
if you took more pride in yourself, valued yourself more, you
wouldn’t take unnecessary risks like you did tonight. Nikki told me
before she left the clinic that you suspected someone had spiked
your drinks. And yet, you still chose to leave the bar alone. What
were you thinking?”

“
Obviously, I wasn’t
thinking. I was confused and tired and just wanted to go
home.”

He placed his hands on her shoulders
and then slid them to her face so he could make her look at him.
“You deserve to be swept off your feet, escorted home, and tucked
into bed every day of your life, but you have to believe it before
it can happen. You are a treasure: a beautiful, smart, feisty woman
with a great sense of humor. Why is it everyone but you can see
that? You come out here to get away from whatever it is haunting
you, but you haven’t let go of it, you’ve brought that baggage with
you. And if you don’t find a way to rid yourself of it, you'll
never truly be safe from yourself. You'll never be able to conquer
your fears and change your life for the better.