LITMIR.BIZ

       TWO

      “You didn’t need to come over. Really.” Casey tried to block the doorway to keep her best friend from entering the apartment. There was a reason she hadn’t called Kristin James and told her what had happened at the restaurant. Casey had known it would go down exactly like this, with her stubborn friend practically bursting through the door.

      Casey didn’t want a babysitter. She wanted a quiet place to curl into a ball and fall apart in peace. The shudders that had fluttered through her like wild birds for the past couple of hours were trying their best to work their way out to every limb. When she let go, the force would likely be epic, and the last thing an explosion of such a magnitude needed was a witness.

      Of course, Kristin was having none of that. She slipped past Casey into the small hardwood entryway, dropping her backpack into the doorway of the guest room as she passed. “Seems to me I remember the same argument coming out of my own mouth a few months ago.” She crossed her arms. “Did you leave me alone when someone came at me and broke into my house? No. I’m pretty sure I remember you bunking in my guest room and, oh, calling the police even though I asked you not to.”

      Casey crossed her own arms and mimicked her friend’s posture. “Your brother pasted a target on your back. This is different. Tonight was a random mugging.”

      “With a gun.” Kristin stepped into her personal space and leaned even closer. “Don’t pretend everything’s all sunshine and roses.”

      “Like you did?” Jerking away, Casey stalked for the den. Kristin had no room to talk. When the smuggler her brother had double-crossed came calling, Kristin hadn’t wanted help either, even after she was attacked in her own home. “If I want to be alone right now, let’s say I learned from the best.”

      “Ooh. Ouch.” Kristin twisted the dead bolt then followed Casey, her relentless streak going full bore. “See? This is how I know you’re not fine. You’re not me. You don’t go around biting heads off.”

      She was right, for the most part. “Maybe I’m not like you in some ways. But in others...” Casey dropped onto the couch and stared at the ceiling.

      “You need to be alone to cry.” Settling onto the opposite end of the creamy beige sofa, Kristin smiled with a gentleness out of character for her. Rarely did her blue eyes soften with sympathy. “I get it.”

      “Yet you’re still not leaving.”

      “Nope.”

      “How did you find out anyway?”

      Kristin’s eyebrow arched. “Two guesses.”

      “Travis called Lucas.” Casey sighed. She should have known without asking. Kristin’s fiancé, Lucas Murphy, was platoon sergeant in the same company as Travis. They’d been close friends for years. It shouldn’t surprise her Travis had contacted his best friend, who’d turned right around and contacted hers. After all, they’d met through the other couple, and although Casey had managed to avoid Travis for months, her days of avoiding him had likely run out.

      “I never understood why the two of you didn’t work out.”

      “You’d have to ask him.” While Casey appreciated Kristin trying to change the subject, she’d a thousand times rather talk about the mugging than her nonexistent relationship with Travis Heath. He’d been fun, had made her laugh, had been a perfect gentleman. Then one day, he was simply gone. The thought of his departure still burned bitter. “So how’s the wedding planning coming along?”

      Kristin’s lips tightened into a thin line. Clearly, she didn’t want to change the subject.

      Getting engaged had softened her hard edges so much that she now thought the rest of the world should pair up, too. Even though it had been months since Travis quit their relationship, Kristin still held out hope her best friend and Lucas’s best friend would somehow form their own happy little family. She sighed. “Wedding planning is good. We’re going for simple. Small. You don’t come around enough anymore.”

      So they were back to that. Well, she didn’t like being the third wheel. “Busy. And you ought not to be here. You should be out with Lucas, cuddling in a coffee shop or running a marathon or something.”

      “I don’t cuddle in public, and we ran this morning.” Kristin laughed, the sound a bright light in the apartment that suddenly seemed dim. “Besides, it’s past midnight. Lucas better be at his house sound asleep.”

      “And you should be at your house sound asleep, too.”

      “I’ve got better things to do.” Reaching across the small gap between them, Kristin aimed a finger at Casey. “Like it or not, it’s a good thing Travis was with you. If the guy had a gun, he was serious.”

      A shudder quivered Casey’s insides as she pictured the tense posture of the man who’d aimed that pistol. How much different would her night be right now if Travis hadn’t insisted on being a gentleman? She could have lost more than her laptop.

      “I knew it would hit you.” Sliding closer, Kristin leaned her shoulder against Casey’s. Kristin had never been a touchy-feely person, but she knew how to help carry a load, especially since she’d found Lucas and Jesus. The change had taken some getting used to, but her friend was definitely happier now than she had been in previous years.

      “I can’t stop the video.” Casey’s voice quavered, but she didn’t care. Let Kristin hear it. She was safe here. “I fought Travis on walking me to my car. If he’d listened to me and backed off...”

      “But he didn’t. You’re right here, safe in your own apartment.”

      Leave it to Kristin to hit her with a truth she couldn’t deny. Casey shoved aside the what-ifs. It was better to focus on the actuallys, which were a little bit easier to handle. “He took my laptop.”

      “You mean your right arm?” Thankfully, Kristin followed her down the rabbit trail away from nightmares. “You had a backup, I hope.”

      “I have my old machine to use until I can buy another, and everything is backed up on an external disk and in the cloud, but it’s still a pain. It’ll take a whole day to sort everything out and put it all together again.”

      “Well, before you do that, you ought to spend some time out on your great-grandfather’s farm with your bow.”

      “Wouldn’t that be nice?” It would feel good to pull back the string and let fly at a few targets. Really good. Load the fear and the stress into the tension of the string then release it forever.

      It was a nice dream, but there was too much work to do. “Can’t. I’m wrapping up an interview with John Winslow tomorrow, and I have one with another guy the day after tomorrow.” No need to discuss John’s behavior tonight. She hadn’t even told Kristin there was a dinner. Confessing would bring too many questions Casey didn’t know how to answer.

      She’d met John a year earlier, when she was writing an article

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