“Good point. Now go or you’ll be late. I’m not supporting your dumb ass.”
He kissed me again. “Love you.”
“Love you back.”
After he departed, and the roar of his Ram’s engine died away, I finished my coffee, then poured another. Leaving the dirty dishes for later, I strode to my office and opened my computer. I spent a few moments composing my thoughts, then started to work.
I’d delved deep into the project for several hours, absorbed and oblivious to my surroundings. The sound registered on my consciousness moments after my ears heard it. Lifting my head, I sought to make the connection. What was that?
A door hinge had creaked.
A tingle of alarm shivered through my nerve endings.
The soft, sneaky tread of a foot in the hallway got me onto my feet.
I crept silently behind the half-opened door, listening, guessing where the intruder was. Turning my head, I peered between the wood and the doorjamb. A shadow crossed my sight. A man. Not Bethany.
Austin Rivers.
He paused in the doorway, perhaps looking into the office. Surely he’d suspect I stood behind the door, as the house wasn’t big and had only one story. No doubt, he’d checked the bedroom, the kitchen, the TV room. I listened to him breathing, waiting for him to take a step inside.
Austin did.
I flung my entire body against the door. I didn’t just hit him with it, I slammed him flat to the floor in the hallway outside. Rivers went down with a strangled cry of pain. Dragon quick, I threw the door back and slammed my foot into his crotch. Then I stood back, out of his reach, with nothing between me and the front door except space.
Writhing on my carpet, Austin’s face turned purple. His mouth uttered strange grunts as he cradled his injured jewelswith both hands. Austin’s pain-wracked eyes found mine while he wheezed for breath.
“Bitch,” he said thickly.
“I broke your balls,” I commented. “Now I guess I’ll shoot them off.”
Striding to my coffee table, I pulled my Glock from the drawer. Austin rolled onto his side to watch me, then slowly pulled his own gun from his waistband. I lifted my right brow.
“Think you can shoot me from that angle?” I inquired, aiming down the barrel of my gun. “How about I step this way?”
I paced to my right, forcing Austin to crane his neck in order to keep me in his view. He lifted the gun, then rolled onto his belly. Holding it in both hands, his mouth grinned madly, drool sliding from the corners, he aimed it. But his hands shook, and I circled him yet again.
His head drooped.
“Good God,” I snapped, pacing forward and kicked the pistol from his hands. “Prick.”
His acting might have earned him an Oscar.
Austin’s hand hot out, grabbed me by my ankle and he yanked hard. I stumbled backward, falling onto my ass and back, losing my grip on the gun. The impact with the floor stunned me, but only for a moment. As he half rose, still grinning, crawling toward me, I kicked him hard in his nose with my free foot.
He cried out as blood gushed from his busted nose. His hand, lax, fell from my ankle. I crabbed my way away from him, grabbed my gun and stood. Gasping for breath, I aimed down at him.
“I can shoot you right now, you son of a bitch,” I grated. “You entered my home with a gun, planning to kill me.”
“Then do it,” he yelled, his eyes narrowed in hate behind the blood. “Shoot me, bitch. Shoot me.”
The vision of Skinner arresting me shot across my mind. Shooting the intruder as he lay on my floor wasn’t exactly self-defense. At the moment, Austin was as helpless as a kitten. I might manage a self-defense case, given his history. Still, was that something I could truly do? Pull the trigger on a man who lay bleeding on my carpet?
His gun had fallen far from his hand. Austin posed no danger to me. Not as he was. Sure, I had the right. Perhaps even the duty to kill him. Save myself, save Brody, save the world from Austin’s depravity. Did that really give me the right to blow his brains into my office?
“Get the fuck out of my house,” I snapped. “Come back, and I’ll kill you.”
Chapter Twenty
