Page 18 of Healing Hope
Jess shook her head, wondering why these thoughts pestered her. Paul was no one to her, but there was something that definitely appealed to her. More than was normal walking into a situation like this.
She watched as he left the kitchen, his shoulders cocked like he was tired. Or something was aching on him. Maybe his prosthetic was causing him issues.
Jess had never been around anyone with a fake appendage. It didn’t freak her out, or anything. Quite the contrary. She was impressed with what Paul could do with the arm. They had fashioned it to be arm and hand-shaped. She wasn’t sure how high the prosthetic went on his arm. The coloring was off a little, but not too much. And it moved like a normal hand and wrist would, just a little slower. Paul didn’t seem to have the same grip strength in his right hand as his left, but for what he did, it was probably negligible. After a while, she wasn’t even aware of it.
She wondered how he’d lost it. Obviously it had been when he’d been in the military, but it wasn’t something she could just ask about. Was it?
Sighing, she turned off the lights to the kitchen and locked the patio doors. Paul usually did this, but he seemed more tired than normal. Then she sat down and opened the screen on her computer. It had been a while since she’d checked in on things, and she needed to make sure her investments were working correctly.
8
An hour later, she was just clicking out of her laptop when she heard something outside. Moving cautiously, she stepped away from the light of the laptop and into the hallway. Her gaze probed the dark, but she didn’t see anything. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end, though.
Paul had explained to her about the alarm system, but had he set it before he went to bed?
Jess stood there for a solid five minutes, looking for movement, but nothing happened. Finally, she turned and headed down the hallway. Perhaps a coon or dog had gotten into a trashcan or something.
As she walked down the hallway, though, her senses were still on alert, which was maybe why she heard a voice cry out. Then Sophie began barking like mad. Jess went still, her heart pounding, before bolting down the hallway to Hope’s door. She got there just before Paul did and flung it open. Her hand fumbled for the light switch beside her.
A man in black with a black ski mask on stood dragging at Hope’s arm. The little girl screamed and jerked, flailing, her scrawny little legs flashing white as she tried to pull away. Sophie was literally biting at the man’s ankles before he swung back a leg and kicked her.
Jess watched the little dog fly across the room and her fury surged. Before she could do anything, though, Paul was shoving past her, charging at the man like a locomotive. With one heavy swing of his left arm he punched the man, but Jess realized then that he had probably been in bed, because he’d removed his right arm. Shit! Lunging forward, she grabbed at Hope, pulling her from the man’s grasp as Paul hit him repeatedly.
The man in black had several inches on Paul, though, and more reach. Paul wasn’t a small man by any standard, but the man in black was very tall, probably close to six four or five. And he used that reach to punch Paul several times. Jess dragged Hope out of the bedroom and looked for a weapon to help Paul, but there was nothing, really, in the hallway or Hope’s bedroom. She pushed Hope into Paul’s office down the hall and grabbed an iron poker from the cold fireplace.
“Stay here, Hope. I’m going to help your dad.”
“And Sophie,” the girl cried, sobbing.
Shit. If something happened to that dog, it would break the little girl’s heart, and she’d already had so much loss…
Jess got into Hope’s bedroom just in time to see the man in black tumble through the window headfirst. She ran to it and watched as the man disappeared around the side of the house.
Paul was down on one knee near the closet, wiping blood from his face. Jess grabbed a dirty t-shirt from the floor and crossed to him. “Are you okay?” she panted.
Paul nodded and took the t-shirt from her, wiping at a gash on his forehead as he tried to catch his own breath. When he missed the cut, Jess stepped forward and took it from him, pressing it to the streaming wound above his eyebrow. Paul looked at her, and something flashed between them, some… understanding. “Is Hope okay?”
Jess nodded. “She’s in your office.”
Fearing they would have more bad news, she glanced around. Sophie wasn’t laying where she’d landed. As if she knew it was safe to come out, the little dog limped out from beneath the bed, holding one paw off the floor. She looked pitiful, but she wagged her tail as she joined them near the closet. “Good girl, Sophie,” Jess crooned. “What a little badass you are, standing up for your girl. Stay there, girl.”
“Hold this here,” she instructed Paul. “I need to call the cops.”
She left Paul kneeling on the floor and bent down to pick up Sophie. When she went into the office, Hope was hiding behind the desk. She came out with a cry when she saw Jess holding Sophie. “I think she’ll be okay, but we need to call the police. Are you okay? Did the man hurt you?”
Hope rubbed her arm but shook her head as she took Sophie from Jess’s arms. “I’m okay. Did he hurt Daddy?”
“A little bit,” Jess admitted, crossing to the phone on the desk. She dialed 911 and reported what had happened. Police and an EMS would be on the way, the woman on the other end of the line told her calmly.
Jess didn’t know how dispatchers kept their cool so well. Her heart was still racing out of her chest, but she thought it was just the effects of the adrenalin. She looked up as Paul walked in the door.
“Daddy,” Hope cried, running across to him.
Paul leaned down and tried to comfort her with his body but still hold the cloth to his bleeding forehead. He swayed a little, and Jess hurried across the room to get him to sit in the chair near the fireplace. The knuckles of his left hand were bleeding too. He’d legitwhaledon the intruder. Jess was amazed that the man had even been able to jump out of the window after the punches Paul had thrown.
Hurrying from the room, Jess went to the bathroom and dug beneath the sink. There was a small first aid kit here. She popped open the lid and sighed. There was barely anything in it. Maybe there was enough to get the bleeding stopped, though. Quickly, she wet a washcloth and returned to the office, her eyes darting to every window, watching for movement.
Paul grimaced as he allowed her to clean him up. “This is a lot of blood for Hope to see,” Jess whispered to him when he tried to push her away. That got through to him, and he allowed her to wipe away as much of the blood as she could. She taped three gauze four by fours over the still bleeding wound, hoping that it would stop the bleeding. Then she moved to his hand.