Shooting Starr

couldn’t get her to listen to him even long enough to tell her that; he had his hands full just trying to keep her flailing arms and hammering fists from doing either one of them damage.

Truth was, she was starting to scare him. Having grown up with sisters, he was no stranger to feminine tears and histrionics, but this was clearly beyond his experience. If she kept on like this, he thought, she was liable to hurt herself.

“Come on, calm down, dammit!” he yelled at her. “Can’t you see I’m tryin’ to help-”

“Don’t…help.” She bit off the words like a snapping turtle, spitting fury.

And tears! He’d never seen tears like that in his life. It was eerie, seeing all those tears pouring out of sightless eyes, seeing the emotions-silvery flare of passion and darkness of pain-knowing the windows of her soul were only one-way glass. It was almost too much for him. Dammit, it was too much. He could feel his eyes burning, his own emotions heavy in his chest.

“Don’t help me. You can’t help me,” she choked out, “don’t you get it? You can’t fix this-” she jabbed a finger toward her streaming eyes “-can you? You can’t make me see! What are you going to do, lead me around like a puppy on a leash for the rest of my life? You want to help me? Well, I’ll tell you something-it’s too late. It’s too late. I asked you for help and you wouldn’t give it to me. And now Mary Kelly’s dead and I’m blind and you…can’t…fix it.” The thumping of her fists against his chest grew weaker. She sagged against him. “You can’t fix it! Damn you…”

He didn’t blame her for saying that. How could he, when he’d said the same thing to himself so many times over?

When he went to put his arms around her, he was meaning only to give her comfort. That was his honest intention. He had no idea what happened next. He sure as hell never saw it coming. Just, one minute he was reaching out for her, his heart warm and aching with sympathy-and all of a sudden he felt a completely different kind of pain in his midsection, and where his next breath should have been there was… nothing.

He was looking desperately for it, doubled over and clutching his belly, when the next thing he knew he was flying through the air, and the cold, murky waters of the farm pond were rising up and hitting him in the face.

Chapter 10

Caitlyn heard the splash and then some hoarse, honking sounds, followed immediately by a smaller splash and a canine yip, though that didn’t fully register in her consciousness until a little later. The rage that had enveloped her cracked like an egg’s shell. The anger drained out of her, leaving her hollow…cold…shocked to her core.

“C.J.!” she screamed. She thought she’d screamed; all she heard was a raspy whimper. She tried it again, then again, and she was staggering, stumbling toward the gasping, whooping sounds, hands thrust out before her like Frankenstein’s monster.

The ground squelched under her feet. Razor-leaved grasses slashed at her clothes. She heard smaller splashes inside the larger ones, which seemed to be of the magnitude of those produced by frolicking whales. Cold water seeped into her shoes; it rose with each step she took until it had engulfed her to the knees. The terror that engulfed her heart was far colder.

“C.J.!” she shrieked. “Oh, God, C.J., I’m coming. Where are you? Answer me, damn you! C.J.-”

The whoops changed to swearing-some really remarkable swearing, she considered, to be coming from someone raised by a Southern Baptist schoolteacher. Then, “Stay there! Don’t-”

A wave caught Caitlyn in midstep. Knocked off balance and with her feet rooted firmly in mud, she sank gracefully into the frigid water like an empress lowering herself onto a throne. Water that smelled of mud and moss and wet dog and other things she didn’t want to think about rushed into her mouth. She spat it out with a bellow of disgust, coughing and clawing wildly at the unknown things she imagined must be crawling over her face. Hitting out as well at the hands that were reaching to help her.

“Cut it out!” C.J. yelled. “You’re all right, dammit, I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

She gave a squeak of sheer relief and launched herself toward him. Sobbing, “Oh, God, C.J. Oh, God.” She hauled herself along the lifelines of his arms until she’d reached the safe harbor of his chest.

Safe? She’d thought so, believed so, until she heard him grunt, felt him sway backward, pulling her with him. She gasped, then held her breath and clutched at the arms that were wrapped around her, and for a few suspenseful seconds they teetered together, swaying back and forth like dancers in the midst of some complicated step-a tango, maybe.

“Hold…still,” C.J. ground out savagely, and he was so close she could feel his lips move against her temple.

Her heart jumped like a frightened rabbit. Afraid to utter a sound, she felt his arms tighten around her and the muscles beneath her hands bunch and harden. It flashed through her mind-just one incredibly crazy thought-that he was about to kiss her, but of course he was only turning her around, shifting her position so he could maneuver them both to shallower water.

Moments later, streaming water and pond weeds and hanging on to each other, they were struggling uphill over slippery, squelchy mud with Bubba bumping unhelpfully against their legs, and shortly after that Caitlyn knew that she was standing once again on dry, solid ground.

Shock-the mind-numbing kind that protects people and enables them to function during times of disaster-was ebbing, but for Caitlyn, shock of another kind had taken its place. Shaking so hard she could barely speak, she clung to C.J.’s arm and felt with her other hand for his chest, patting at the soppy sweatshirt material as if to reassure herself that a heart still beat beneath it. “Oh, C.J.-I can’t believe I did that. I’m so-”

“Yeah, well, believe me, I can’t, either,” he muttered bitterly. “Come on-you’re freezing. Let’s get you-”

“No, I mean it. I can’t believe I could do such a thing. C.J., I am so sorry-”

“Forget it. Let’s just get you home before you catch pneu-”

Impulsively she slipped her hand upward and covered his mouth with fingertips that trembled. “No-please. I’m really, really sorry. I don’t do things like that. I don’t. I don’t know what came over me. I hate violence. I mean, my whole life is one big fight against violence. To think that I could-that I-” Her next word was muffled, swallowed up by a hard, cold mouth.

He’d had no idea in the world he was going to kiss her. One minute he was standing there shivering and shaking and grinding his teeth, wishing to God she’d shut up, and so cold and ego battered he could barely think straight. Then the next second her lips were slippery and cool under his, and the shape and feel of them was well on the way to becoming a permanent imprint on his senses, and his brain was filled with light and music like a Biblical revelation.

That shocked him so much he stopped what he was doing, letting go of a short sharp breath as he lifted his head.

She did the same, and followed it with a squeaky and airless, “What’d you do that for?”

His thoughts were murky as that pond they’d just climbed out of. Gazing down at her in the near darkness, all he could think was that she looked like a half-drowned puppy.

“I was tryin’ to shut you up,” he heard himself say in a voice he didn’t recognize.

“Oh.”

Then for a long, tense moment neither of them said anything. The only sounds came from Bubba, patiently panting somewhere nearby, and the sharp chirp of bats hunting in the twilight.

C.J. realized he was shaking all over but not from the cold. Somewhere along the line that had ceased to be a problem, because now there seemed to be molten lava flowing through his veins. He decided the shakes must be from the strain of keeping himself from kissing her again-for real, this time, with her mouth hot and open and her body growing eager and trembly pressed up against him. It occurred to him that that effort would be a whole lot easier if he could just bring himself to let go of her. Her body