Images 33

Chapter 33

Billy gets the disc back to the city cop and we all end up in the office getting a look at the bastard that’s threatened Nin and her mom. The lot of us are seriously angry and feeling defensive about the whole situation.

But with the bad there’s some good. I’m pressing into Taylor and he’s holding me extra tightly and secure, Davey’s doing the same for Njinda and Billy’s picked Kendal up to put her on his lap in front of the computer. He holds her as tight as Taylor’s holding me and you can here him whispering. “I’m so proud of you beautiful…you’re amazing…” in her ear.

It’s something girls like me and Kendal seriously doubt that we’ll ever have.

Taylor pulls me away from the whole scene and those angry thoughts. And he takes me out of there and into the hall and leans me against the wall and smiles then he runs his fingers through my hair a couple of times from front to back then he kisses me. Oh this, this helps, more than he’ll ever know this helps me…centers me…calms my soul.

He’s the one who had the cancer…and he’s saved my life ever since I walked through those doors.

Taylor breaks the kiss and smiles that smile of his, it’s sort of this half a smile but not. It’s not half anything not when you know him. The short hair, those Rocky Mountain spring morning blue-grey eyes the slight bit of stubble there…that half smile from his lips is completed by the way hat he looks at me.

I can look into those eyes of his and always, always see I love you there.

“Better Hon?”

“Yeah, much thank you baby.” I tell him but step in and bury my face into his chest and just breathe. “I needed to step away from that stuff.”

“I know, I could feel you tensing up and tensing up and knew that this wasn’t a good scene for you.”

“It’s this, that asshole dad was dealing with and the bullshit with Troy…I’d just like it to stop Tay, I just want this stuff to stop and our life to start.” (sniffle.)

“I know, I know I’m just hoping for the same. Don’t worry…it’ll get resolved.”

No sooner really than he said that Davey and Billy and Tim are headed out of the office with that look that those hard guys of ours get. That’d have scared me awhile ago but now this is our guys who aren’t the cleanest guys law wise being the guys they are. That kind of guy that all girls want their guys to be.

I look at Taylor and the look he has watching them heading out and pull myself up his shoulders and kiss him passionately for all that I’m worth and even slip him my tongue and keep going until I can feel him harden against me.

I’m aching with need too but I step back let him go and lean against the wall panting a little.

“Go..”

“Go?” He’s breathing hard and yet… “You sure?”

“Yes, go…go take care of our family.”

He kisses me again pinning me to the wall in a good way and his hands are all over me to the point where he pulls them away and holds them away for a minute and my hand rubs his crotch and at that he thumps the wall lightly a few times on either side of me to work through it.

It’s a charge, a boost to my female soul that I can do that to him. And that makes me feel strong. Strong as a woman feels different than strong as a guy.

“Okay…okay…I’m going.” He leaves heading out after the guys and I follow to watch him from the top of the stairs as he pulls on a black ski cap and shoves his feet into his biker boots and getting into his leather jacket…I lost sight of him a minute but see him and a baseball bat get into our truck and he backs out and pulls away leaving a spin of gravel.

I sit there for a bit just soaking in the feelings love, pride in him, in all of us and there’s that thing in my head like when it was game time.

I go in and look at the girls. “Right…worrying and stuff’s not going to help us right? So lets get to work and get stuff done, we’ll keep busy and most of all we’re not going to let this guy win.”

Holly nods. “Definitely besides the guys are going to be needing food when they get in and we need to keep this guy out of our heads.”

It takes awhile to get them going and Nin’s mom’s more than into this. She lived through the shit over there and a lot of her life is moving on, going on getting through some stuff that was so horrible I can’t really get my brain around it.

She’s powerful.

You know this thing that older women get. That matriarchal trade off you get from getting older and just getting more and more steeped in being a woman, she’s got that in spades as she’s helping us in the kitchen and teaching us.

I love older women, old ladies they’ve lived really lived and there’s so much they know and experienced and have taken into their souls I’m always in awe, I’m being the kind of woman I am sort of wishing some of that’ll soak into me somehow.

You have to respect them for that at least. (Fond smiles.)

She teaches us to make Rooti which is a bread and that they use a lot of rice and pasta in their food not cous-cous but spaghetti broken up usually lots of beans and a wheat that’s like using bulgur. It’s very working class food and a lot of tomatoes, cucumbers, mint are found in it too, and their main spices are cloves, cardamom, sage and cumin as well as ghee is used instead of regular butter because it keeps longer.

The learning is really keeping us busy and getting taught some Somali words and dance steps and to sing some of their basic work songs.

I make a big batch of Qumbe… It’s basically water to dissolve some cornstarch, and cardamom powder then it’s folded into sweetened coconut and an egg white and salt once it sets you bake as a whole sheet the cut it into squares or add some more cornstarch and deep fry them.

Of course I try my own version while we eat the first batch with me adding cayenne, and nutmeg and freshly grated sweet potato and fry it like a fritter. Those aren’t too bad like an African doughnut.

We do that and we get thermos’s of coffee ready for when the guys show and I make a great big kettle of spaghetti sauce. And we get busy the rest of the time making stuff up ahead of time like bread and pies and all of the stuff we go through piles of.

The guys are in and out both looking and from what I’m gathering spreading the word and pictures of the guy with the people that they know. It made for a long night and Nin and her mom left after a bit of talking to go out and stay at Davey’s place at night and both of them would be here during the days.

……………………………….....................Actually it turns into a long week. They guys all bought radios and we all got police scanners and while we worked and tried getting back to our normal lives there was still that edge and cloud hanging sort of.

Taylor’d get a call of someone who thought they’d seen him and he’d go. Twice during the middle of the night. The last time was last night and he came back pissed, and limping. This time it had been him and there was a fight to try and get him and a chase. Taylor ended up getting jumped and was pushed out a window while it was still closed out onto a fire escape.

No cops, no hospital the few cuts he had weren’t bad and I took care cleaning them out and putting on the bandages…I should be freaking out but I’m not. In fact the fact that he’s doing this…kind of turns me on. He’s my guy and he’s defending our own in his own way and god there’s something so sexy about that and him all pumped full of adrenaline and testosterone and just…

The sex was hard, desperate and good…oh my good it was good. Sprained ankle and all he…

I’m usually good with the details but….this, this wasn’t sharable.

Let’s just say…Spike…Buffy…eat your hearts out.

Tim had to bring his tools up in the morning and fix the bed. It took him an hour.

………………………………............................I suppose if this was one of those stories where the main character was a Mary-Sue then I might have seen him. I had gone with the truck with Nin and Holly to go get stuff for the Diner and to get the stuff that they needed too. It’s just easier with three of us and Holly’s driving as I’m still working on getting my license.

Cost co. and a few other places getting the Diner stuff first then getting our shopping done next.

He came out of nowhere at us in Wall-Mart.

I was getting some new towels from the Debbie Travers stuff and we were just talking when he comes around the corner and lashes out with a pretty big knife cutting me in the arm, he cut at Holly and missed and she screamed for help. Njinda froze and he punches Holly in the face right after she screams and she crumples with an in pain squeak.

He goes for Njinda and I start throwing towels and bathroom sets at him. I know, that whole thing with Troy and I should have went all bionic woman on him but I just blanked or something and I was just trying to keep him off balance until someone came to…

WHACK!!!

There’s this sound of one of those 1X5 boards that are part of the wooden cargo pallets hitting him upside of the head and it was swung so hard the board broke. The guy dropped like a stone.

I look up to see this woman. In the whole Wall-Mart standard kit the blue smock and the company t-shirt and the sensible slacks her glasses are cute and, a wig that looks decent on her and doesn’t look like it’s clashing with her complexion, smallish breasts coming it and a little extra weight but she…well If I wasn’t like her then I must’ve taken her for a middle aged lady…well a middle aged GG lady, she’s still a lady.

I’m blinking and looking at her, she looking at me and then at him. “Oh..oh..god did I kill him?”

“I don’t think so…I think he’s still breathing.” There’s a crowd gathering and the security guys are with them and I look at her. Then at the name tag.

“Dorothy…Dorothy…you can drop the board now.”

The security guard’s looking at her and at us then’s talking on the radio a minute. “Alright what happened here?”

“This guy was after these girls Scott he came at them with a knife I was just out back when I hear the scream and I just…oh…oh wow what did I do…?”

He look at me and at my arm and he get’s me a towel to wrap my arm in. It’s bleeding pretty good. “Here the ambulance is on it’s way and the police.” Njinda comes over and holds the towel actually twisting it to add pressure.

I look at him. “Good someone should tie him up or something, he’s wanted by the police and the RCMP he’s a Somali war criminal…he’s been after my friend here…he might have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for Dorothy….she swatted him down like a flying monkey.”

She’s blushing and sitting down and she looks right on the edge of a freak out. ‘He’s what…no..I..” She closes her eyes, takes off her glasses and wipes away a few tears that formed and she’s just trying to breathe for a few minutes.

The ambulance guys and the cops arrive about the same time and Holly get’s waken up by the EMT’s with smelling salts and she looks completely looped. We’re all taken to the hospital with the cops following us and they rewrapped my arm and I’m calling Taylor and letting him get a hold of everyone because I’m feeling a bit loopy. They’re being generous with the bandages.

I hope the cut didn’t mess up any nerves, that’ll screw up my throwing arm.

“Here Miss lay down.”

“Nuh-uh, that’s Mrs.”

“Okay…Mrs.?”

“Winters…I’m legally and officially Mrs. Taylor…oops…I mean Jenna Winters.”

“Yeah we better start another line.”

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing honey we’re just starting another IV line.”

“Oh…okay? Hey I‘m not your honey…”

It gets a little blurry after that but not unconscious. I remember seeing Taylor and sort of finger waving at him from the stretcher. “Hey baby!” he’s there and soon beside me and everything and I point out Dorothy to him.

“She’s the one who got him Tay, can you?”

“Yeah beautiful I’ll do that.”

“Thank you….”

I’m in and out of it and I do notice Taylor went over and talked to her after the cops and while the doctors were checking on her for shock and stuff. He gave her a card for the Diner and wrote on it. Then her ride came and I waved goodbye to her and she shyly waved back.

Nice lady, hopes she’s not a stranger.

And I’m still sort of out of it right up to when they’re wheeling me to the O.R.

The last thing I remember hearing is Angie’s voice. “Oh dammit Jenna, you’re a mess again!”