desperately trying to suck in air. Her throat burned, as did her eyes.
A familiar voice told her to try to relax. Ethan.
She turned to him, his outline blurry through her tears. “W-what?” she asked in a croak.
“Pepper spray,” he said, lightly touching her back. “Give it a second.”
“Pepper spray?”
“You were a casualty of your own rescue.”
He pointed and she turned to look at the scene behind her. Over a dozen old ladies were beating the man with their purses and dousing him with pepper spray. Several police officers hovered nearby, as if they couldn’t get close enough to help the guy. They didn’t look like they were trying very hard.
“What kind of sicko pervert are you?” one woman demanded. “Liz Sutton is one of us. You try to hurt her, you answer to all of us. You got that?”
“Seniors to the rescue,” Ethan told her.
Liz straightened and started to laugh. Laughing made her cough, then she couldn’t stop either. Not until Ethan pulled her close and held her.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I will be.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
IT WAS CLOSE TO TEN BEFORE life calmed down. Liz had been taken to the hospital to be checked out. Less for the pepper spray than for the swelling around her jaw and the bump on her head. When she’d been pronounced healthy and ready to go home, Ethan had brought her to his place rather than hers.
“My mom is with the kids,” he explained. “They’re worried but fine. Why don’t you call home and talk to them?”
She’d done as he’d suggested, reassuring all three of them that she was fine. Then Ethan had sent her to shower followed by a long bath. The former to wash away any residual spray, the latter to help her relax.
As she stretched out in the tub, bubbles to her chin, she found herself unable to shake off the feeling of being watched. A sensation that would take time to erase, she told herself. A few minutes later, Ethan knocked on the door.
“Come in.”
He opened the door a few inches. “If I bring wine and promise to behave like a perfect gentleman, may I come in?”
Even if he didn’t promise, she thought but didn’t say. “Sure.”
He stepped into the steamy room, an open bottle of wine and two glasses in his hands. He poured one for each of them, then settled on the tile surround by the tub.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, looking just above her head, as if not wanting to look directly at her.
“Okay. A little weird.”
“Your eyes still burning?”
“No. They’re fine. The toxin wears off in about an hour.” She managed a smile. “That was the damnedest rescue I’ve ever seen.”
“Don’t mess with our seniors.”
“Apparently not.” She glanced at him. “Did you hear from the sheriff?”
He nodded. “The guy is Bradley Flowers, age thirty-six. He has an assortment of arrest warrants, three convictions for some fairly nasty crimes. Just his being here is a violation of his parole. The attempted kidnapping won’t help his case, either. He’s in jail, waiting extradition back to Colorado. The D.A. is still figuring out the best way to charge him. He’ll probably be tried here, serve out his sentence there, then come back to finish up with prison time for kidnapping.”
“How much time does he have left in Colorado?”
“Fifty years.”
“Oh.”
The thought of an eighty-six-year-old stalker was a little less frightening.
He stroked her cheek, finally staring into her eyes. “Try not to think about it. You’ll have plenty of time to deal with it later.”
She nodded. “I’ve never had anyone come after me like that. Some of my fans are intense, but they’re not scary. A lot of them are cops.”
“So I should make sure I stay in line.”
She smiled. “Probably.” She held up her free hand. “At least I’m not shaking anymore.”
“It’s okay if you are. You’ve been through a lot.”
She sipped her wine. If she wasn’t careful, she could find herself reliving the moment. Not exactly the best way to spend an evening. The doctor at the hospital had given her a short-term prescription to help her sleep. Normally she wasn’t big on prescription drugs, but this time she might make an exception.
“Everything happened so fast,” she murmured. “I wasn’t prepared for him to attack me.”
“Why would you be?”
“I guess I wouldn’t be, but it was weird and so quick. He creeped me out. I guess it’s good I paid attention to that.” She thought about the flying handbags and zealous hits of pepper spray. “It must have been surreal to see the old ladies go on the attack.”
“Not something I’m going to forget.” He shrugged.
She noticed something intense in his expression. “What?”
“I wanted to kill him.”
The words were spoken evenly, calmly, but with a certainty that told her Ethan wasn’t kidding.
Before she could react, he continued.
“Tyler nearly went crazy trying to get to you.” There was pride in his voice now. “He wanted to take the guy down.”
She felt a little warmer on the inside, knowing the men in her life wanted to protect her. That there were…
Wait a minute. Men in her life?
“Maybe it’s not so bad here,” Ethan said.
“Maybe not,” she admitted, turning her attention back to the stalker and away from Ethan.
She wasn’t sure what would have happened if her crazed stalker had struck in a big town. While the police would have still dragged him away, she wasn’t sure she would have been so well protected by other people who just happened to be there.
“We should stop talking about this,” he suggested. “You need to relax, not relive the event.” He rose. “I’ll leave you to your bath.”
Not sure if she wanted him to stay or not, she watched him leave. After placing her glass of wine on the tile surround, she settled back in the water and closed her eyes.
As she did, she remembered the feel of the man’s hand on her arm, the rush of air as he barreled into her, pushing her to the ground. She reached up and lightly touched the left side of her face. It was painful and swollen but not too bad. It could have been a lot worse.
She drew in a deep breath and tried to relax. This time when she closed her eyes, she saw Ethan, which was a much better picture. She smiled, thinking about
He’d gotten Rayanne pregnant and had done the right thing. That’s who he was. He would do the right thing now. She knew the character of the man and was willing to admit that twelve years ago, he’d still been a kid. Not mature enough to stand up for the woman he claimed to love. Or maybe he hadn’t loved her enough. But that was the past and if they were to work anything out, she had to be willing to let it go. The fact that he might not have
