Chapter 38

CHAPTER 38

I had everything done and was sitting on the rickety daybed by the open window, eating my lunch from Coral's and planning on bringing couch cushions next time, when Maggs, who had been sitting by the door, emitted a low growl. What fresh hell was this?

Maggs' growl was getting louder and even while I wished Max was here, I realized I had part of Max with me. I went to the door and opened it.

Harvey Ware was there, looking angry, which was ugly, but smiling, which was uglier. "Want some company, sexy Rose?" he said, evidently thinking that was a winning approach.

"No," I said and tried to shut the door, but he blocked it with his foot.

Maggs growled again, and Harvey grabbed my arm and pulled me out the door, shutting it in Maggs' face, and I heard the dog's body hit the door as he dragged me out into the open.

"We don't need him," he said to me, leering.

"Take the hint, Harvey," I snapped at him, trying to wrench my arm free, and starting to panic now. "I don't want you. Go away. "

"Well, maybe you just need a reminder of what you used to get," Harvey said and grabbed my breast, squeezing hard.

" No, " I yelled, shoving his hand away, trying to make him listen, furious now. "You were lousy, Harvey . " He grabbed for me again, tore at my apron when I jerked away, and I yelled, " LET GO OF ME, " and hit him in the face with my fist.

His face twisted, and I was reaching in my apron pocket for my pepper spray when he was knocked off his feet by three hundred pounds of enraged llama making a sound like a really angry car revving its engine.

Then she walked on him.

"Thank you, Fernanda," I said loudly so that she'd stop, but I was shaking so hard that I really hoped she'd keep going, and then I realized there was probably a command. "Stop!"

Evidently Fernanda didn't have commands.

Harvey took another hoof to the stomach and I had to stop her from killing him before she ended up on death row for taking out a rapist exterminator, so I grabbed her vest and said, "Enough!" which at least distracted her enough that I could look her in the eye and say, "Good girl, Fernanda, good llama, stop now ."

Harvey tried to roll to his feet, but now I was ready with the pepper spray, except that Maggs came around the side of the house just then, a black streak that went for his throat, and Harvey fell back again and froze, Maggs' jaw clamped very near his jugular.

"Okay," I said, my voice shaking. "Let's all be calm."

I patted Fernanda again, once, cautiously. I was shaking really hard, adrenaline and fear and outrage, but I had to make sure Fernanda wasn't going to go for Harvey's groin next, no matter how much he deserved that. Maggs was perfectly still, her teeth on Harvey's throat, waiting for my command to finish him off.

"Harvey, listen to me very carefully. You are an idiot. For some reason you think you're attractive. You are not. I find you stupid, smarmy, creepy, skeevy, and nauseating. I had a lousy time with you years ago, and I want nothing to do with you now. I'm amazed that Bea does want you, that's the luckiest thing that ever happened to you, and you're screwing around with that because you think I have money. If you have any brains at all, which I seriously doubt, you will go back to her. I'm going to tell Maggs to let you go now, and if you don't turn around immediately and leave when she lets you up, I will tell Fernanda to step on your balls next."

He whispered. "Please. Get him off."

"The dog is a her, Harvey, and so is the llama who just kicked your ass. You're going to have to stop underestimating females."

My problem was, I didn't know what command would get Maggs to release Harvey. And I wasn't in a rush to give it.

Even so, I didn't want Maggs to kill him.

"Maggs?"

She rolled her eyes to look up at me. She was Max's dog and Max wasn't a very complicated person so . . . "Release."

Maggs let go of Harvey's neck.

Harvey tried to get to his feet, slowly, holding his stomach with one arm pressed against it, and Fernanda spit on him, something green and vile.

" For Christ's sake ," Harvey screamed, and Maggs barked, and Fernanda made that revving sound again. He made it to his feet, still holding his stomach, and took a wobbly step toward me.

"I know you don't mean that, Rose," he said.

So I pepper-sprayed him right in the face.

Coral was right. Women should be armed.

He screamed and backed away, blinded, and fell backward down the steps, which I enjoyed immensely. I waited a minute and when he didn't come back up, I went to look and he wasn't there. So I clipped the pepper spray back to my pocket and turned to my rescuers.

"Good girl, Maggs," I said, still shaking, I couldn't stop shaking, and she pressed her side against my leg, so I scratched her behind her ears. Then I reached over and scratched Fernanda behind the ears, too. "Thank you, Fernanda, you were wonderful." She seemed to enjoy it.

For the record, I do not know the command to make Fernanda stomp on balls, but I don't think I'd need one. Fernanda seems self-activated. And Maggs hadn't liked Harvey before he shut her in the cottage and I'd screamed at him. I realized she must have gone through that open window next to the old couch.

"I love you, Maggs," I said, because a dog who will leap through a window for you deserves nothing less. "You, too, Fernanda."

Then the whole thing hit me.

Harvey Ware would have raped me if he could have. I cupped my breast because it hurt where he'd squeezed it. He'd touched me. And he probably thought he had the right. He was one of those morons who thought forcing a woman would be good for her, I'd bet on it. Show her who's boss. Women like that.

I threw up in the bushes.

Then I went back and sat down at the top of the steps in the warmth of the sun and just shook, my pepper spray ready in my hand. I was never going anywhere without pepper spray again. Or without Maggs and Fernanda.

I heard "What the hell?" and started up, aiming my pepper spray, but it was Betty Baumgarten, coming out of the trees, her llama's long lead rope in one hand, a gun in the other.

"Rose, what's wrong?" she said, so I must have looked like hell.

"Harvey just attacked me," I said. "Fernanda and Maggs took care of him."

Betty nodded. "Good. What did you do with the body?"

That helped calm me down a little. I was okay. Nobody had died. "He lived. And left."

"Pity." Betty put the halter back on Fernanda, who took it stoically. "Next time he attacks you, take him out."

"Well, he groped me and I didn't like it, but we stopped him in time. I don't know if that would be enough to justify murder."

"It was just you and Harvey, right?"

"Yes."

"Well, he wouldn't be around to complain in court, would he? Not that it would ever have gotten to court. We take care of our own. Just give me the word and I'll pay him a visit. We can smoke him in Melissa's basement."

As a law-abiding citizen, I knew that was wrong. As a woman who'd just been attacked by the scum of the earth, I was a big fan of Melissa's crematorium.

"Fernanda deserves a treat, she was wonderful."

"Good for her," Betty said. "How are you?

I needed a change of subject before I started screaming, so I pointed at the cottage. "You wouldn't happen to know whose cottage this is?"

Betty shook her head. "Abandoned for years. Pike and Oz probably bought it way back when. Anything that wasn't National Forest, they snapped up. You'd have to ask Pike."

"Okay."

She looked from me to the cottage, and then back. "You looking for a new place?"

"No," I said firmly. "I have a shop to run and a kid to raise. It's just so peaceful out here. Well, except for Harvey showing up." I swallowed hard and then took a deep breath to slow the shaking. Get over it, Rose.

"Your kid's going to college and you get one customer on a good day, and that's usually me." Betty shook her head. "I told you. Stop serving people and live."

"Well, uh . . ."

Betty kept going. "I love living out here, out of the town." She looked about. "Someone has been clearing out the weeds here. Probably Max. He walks by early in the morning every day. But not this morning."

The thought that Max, on his own, had cleared away the cottage cheered me. There were good men. And I had temporary custody of one of them.

"Max was dealing with a problem in Sid's place," I told her. "Three women who, uh, worked with Sid."

She frowned. "You said he was dealing coke?"

"Not dealing. Max called him a cutout. The women came to pick up the drugs and pay him for them."

"Couriers," Betty said and then stopped. "Three of them? Not the Witches, was it? Redheads?"

"Dora, Mal, and Hermione."

"Oh, hell. That's all we needed."

"They're gone now," I said, trying to be cheerful. "Well, two of them are. The little wet one stayed. Hermione."

"Yeah," Betty said. "Watch her. She'll take anything that's not nailed down." She looped the halter over Fernanda's head, then tightened it down. "Well, I'm glad my girl came through for you. Next time, scream bloody murder and I'll come running." She gave a gentle tug on Fernanda's rein. "Let's go home, sweetie."

Fernanda ambled back into the woods with her, and I watched them go, kind of wishing I had my own llama.

Yeah, because I needed another thing to take care of.

I put the padlock back on the door, and Maggs and I walked out of there. I kept the pepper spray in my hand in case Harvey had come back, but the path was clear.

I hated having to keep a lookout for him.

I hated that he had touched me, hurt me.

I hated that I'd needed a dog and a llama to save me.

And I really hated Harvey.

I tried to put him out of my mind as I headed home through the woods, which is when I realized something. What I'd liked best there hadn't been the light. It had been the quiet. Just the breeze in the trees, and the birds, and the burble of the river, and no people.

Until fucking Harvey showed up. I really needed to do something about my self-defense skills.

I realized I was still shaking.

I needed Max.