Page 87 of Texas Kissing
That was what was so great about Bull. Sure, he was arrogant and pushy, with an ego the size of Mars. But that meant he never let anything get in his way. He simply couldn’t conceive of an obstacle big enough to stop him...and so nothing could.
And sometimes, that’s exactly what you need.
The horse grew closer. Close enough that we could see the snarl on Bull’s face.
The dark-haired guy bailed, grabbing my wrist and pulling me with him. Out of the car and across the street, into the first store we came to.
74
Bull
I sliddown off the horse, gave it a pat and stalked into the store.Betty’s Fine China Emporium,said the sign.
Inside, narrow aisles threaded between shelves. The shelves groaned under the weight of plates and teacups in a million different patterns.
I saw the dark-haired asshole halfway down an aisle, dragging a protesting Lily behind him.
I saw red.
I bellowed and charged down the aisle. The shelves shook under my footsteps, setting up a clattering vibration. The aisle narrowed and my shoulders were too wide for it.
Fortunately, the shelves weren’t attached to the floor. I just smashed them out of the way, jolting and sometimes tipping them. Piles of china slid and crashed all around me, drowning out everything else. When the Mafia guy turned to glance over his shoulder, I had to settle for seeing his lips move. “Shit,”he mouthed.
He pulled his gun and fired once, twice. A teapot and a stack of side plates exploded. The third bullet grazed the top of my shoulder. And then he ran out of time.
I’d lowered my head to avoid the shots and wound up hitting him in the legs like I was sacking a quarterback. He slammed backwards into another shelf of crockery and the gun fell from his hand. He slumped, limp and groaning.
Suddenly, the store was very quiet aside from the occasional plate sliding off a pile and breaking. Outside, I heard sirens. Probably Calahan and the local police catching up with the driver.
Lily was standing with her back up against a shelf, panting. “You crazy fool,” she told me. “You could have been killed!” Then, in her next breath, “Thank you.”
I rubbed my head and figured that was probably the right time to kiss her, so I did.
Epilogue
Lily
With Antonio and the other thugs who’d come to Gold Lake in custody, Calahan allowed us a day to say our goodbyes.
Meeting your boyfriend’s parents is always hard. Meeting them and telling them whatwehad to tell them...that was on a whole different level.
I cleaned myself up as best I could, put on a blouse and jeans that I prayed made me look respectable and we drove to Dallas: Bull, me and an FBI agent.
The house was a huge white mansion. The driveway alone must have been a mile long, with white fences the whole way and horses grazing in the fields on either side. By the time we pulled up, Bull’s mom and dad were already waiting for us on the doorstep.
His mom was a petite little thing with a cloud of frizzy blonde hair that had been brought firmly under control with about a thousand pins. His dad was in his sixties—a towering man with a thick white mustache.
“Mom,” said Bull. “Dad. This is Lily.”
We’d decided I was going to keep the name, for now.Tessafelt like someone else.
His parents hugged me and told me how pleased they were to meet me. His mom bustled off to get drinks and his dad started to show me around and it was only when they saw our worried faces that things...stopped. We’d hoped to get them sitting down but in the end we blurted out most of our story standing in the hallway.
“No,” said Bull’s mom. “No. No, there must be some other way.”
“There isn’t,” said Bull. “Even if Lily’s uncle goes to jail, the rest of the mob will be looking for us. We have to disappear. New names. A new town. We don’t even know where we’ll be going.”
His mom had tears in her eyes, now.“No!”she insisted. “Your sister’s not home! Your brother’s in North Dakota, of all places! They need to see you, they need to say goodbye!”