Chapter the Eighth -- A Brief Armistice

Tender is the truce I'm tasting
But watching you dictates
Heady nights of sleepless waiting
A face I can't escape

Arcadia - Keep Me In The Dark

Ch 08 -- A Brief Armistice

Mara returned to Rafe's room with a glass of cold water and her bottle of ibuprofen. In case Rafe was sick of taking whatever he was taking, she figured the 'profen would at least take the edge off any pain he was feeling.

Rafe looked up at her with an endearing fuddled expression on his face. 'Endearingly fuddled???' she asked herself, alarmed. 'Fuddled, yes, but... endearingly?' The man in front of her was all masculine angles, both physically and personality-wise. It would certainly be an interesting... challenge to get past all those sharp angles, but she didn't think she was the one to do it.

Instead she chose a small challenge for now. "Here's some water for you, don't worry, I'm not going to make you take the artesian cure, that stuff's only good for bathing in, you'd probably get heavy metal poisoning or something if you drank it on a regular basis. Anyway here's some bottle water and a bottle of ibuprofen if you want a pain killer or would you rather that I went and fetched yours wherever you've got it stash...?" she trailed off.

Rafe was looking at her, a wicked grin on his face.

"What?" she asked.

He quirked an eyebrow at her.

She sighed. "I'm sorry, I'm babbling again, aren't I?"

"Mmm, maybe. Just a little."

"It's just that I'm not, well I'm not, er, um..."

"You're not used to having a guest in your home? A male guest?" The slightest emphasis was placed on the word 'male' but it was enough to send a hot blush flying up Mara's face and a warm flush heading south.

'Get a HOLD of yourself, Pitts!' she scolded herself. 'Just because he's male and you're female... Albeit a very attractive male dressed in only his boxer sh...OH SHUT UP!' She blushed harder than she thought possible.

Rafe was still grinning at her. He gestured to the chair next to the bed, "Please, have a seat. I'm sure this is the point where you're going to enumerate all the many guests you've had staying in your domicile over the years."

"Don't be silly, I don't often have guests."

"Well, you're awake and I'm awake. I'm guessing you're going to stay awake because you only have about two hours before you would normally go in to work," he said, gesturing at the clock by the bed, which read 3:12 a.m.

"Crap! And it's snowing out now, too. Heavy snow. If it gets any windier, we'll probably have a blizzard going and..."

"So what would you like to talk about, other than the weather, that is, before you have to go to work?" His mischievous grin had turned into a full-blown smile. "Especially since you haven't tales of other guests to intrigue me?"

"Well... um..." she was the one feeling fuddled now, confronted and confounded by his smile.

"Cat got your tongue?" he teased.

"Boris hasn't been bothering you, has he?" she asked.

"Boris?"

"Boris. My cat."

"You have a cat? I haven't seen him."

"He's kinda shy around strangers. He's probably down in the basement pouting because he's too scared to come up and meet you. For such a big cat, he's sure 'fraidy."

"So when will I get to see him?"

"Oh, give him a couple of days to pout about the fact that there's another man in the house and he'll come back upstairs and make friends. But enough about Boris. I'm just glad you're not allergic."

"Oh, I had a small menagerie when I was growing up. Small being the operative word. There's not too much room in a two bedroom apartment for big dogs or anything like that. So Mom let me have a cat, a gerbil, a snake, a canary..."

"Good heavens, how did the cat and your father handle all that?"

Rafe flinched at the word 'father', "the apartment was where we moved after my father divorced my mother. So I didn't have to see much of that ass as I was growing up. He was more interested in having trophy girlfriends than being any kind of a father..." he brought himself up short as he realized that he had been living a little too much like his father, with serial trophy girlfriends.

"I'm sorry, Rafe, I keep putting my foot in it where you're concerned."

"Don't apologize. You're not responsible for my life. Although, you're free to be curious. C'mon ask me a question."

She caught his eye and held it. "You know what I want to know."

He grimaced and looked his right leg. "I was asking for that, I know!"

"Well it's not every day I have a male guest," her turn to emphasize the word male, "who happens to be recovering from a bullet wound. You'll have to admit, that's got to have a story behind it..."

"Okay, but not for the Prairiedog. At least, not yet."

"Don't worry, I wasn't going to scoop your story out from under Kevin. He'd probably unleash the wrath of the journalism gods and put me out of business."

"He's not THAT ruthless."

"Yeah, I know, but it would certainly put an irrepairable dent into our friendship."

"That would indeed."

"So are you going to tell me why Kevin shoved you into the Pittsville Amateur Witness Protection Program? Your leg certainly looks like it's seen better days." She flinched a little in sympathy, looking at the extensive bruising. "That must hurt like a bitch."

"Oh, it isn't as bad as it looks," he said breezily, "but I am going to take a few of these..." he rattled the bottle of ibuprofen. "I'm sick of feeling fuzz-brained from the percocet, at least I know these won't knock me out."

He poured out four tablets and swallowed them with the water. "Prescription dose," he grinned at Mara as she eyed him with the slightest bit of awe after he downed the four tablets.

"So..." she trailed off expectantly.

"Yeah. My leg."

She found she had extended her hand toward his leg. Her hand fluttered above his thigh as if she wished to soothe the bruising. She quickly snatched it back, and folded it with its mate in her lap. "I won't mother hen..."

"It's okay, you don't. Well..." he paused to sigh. "Here's what happened. The less abbreviated version, but not the complete. I don't really like going back there, at least just yet...

-------

Rafe had been called by an anonymous source to tip him on a big bank robbery happening in Lincoln Park. He drove north to that neighborhood and found the place surrounded by police and a few other reporters. He parked about a block away to stay out of the way of any emergency vehicles that may be coming to the scene of the crime.

Checking to make sure he had his small dictation tape recorder in one pocket of his overcoat. He checked the other pocket for his steno pad and pencil in case the batteries decided to conk out on the tape recorder.

He had just removed the keys from the ignition and was reaching for the door latch, when the passenger side window was violently hit and shattered by something. He turned to see what was going on, when another blow splintered the safety glass. He lowered his arms from where he had flung them, in front of his face to protect himself from flying glass and saw a gun with a silencer aimed at him. He froze.

The gunman reached in through the window and flipped open the lock to the door, all the while aiming the gun at Rafe's face. "Put up your hands where I can see them, pretty boy. All I want is your car."

Terrified at the deadly weapon aimed at him, Rafe thought about all the cops not a block away. With all the alarms and noise, they probably hadn't heard the window being smashed. He complied with the gunman's request, holding his hands up at shoulder level. Looking at the man he saw that he had a ski mask on, Rafe wouldn't be able to identify him past any superfluous items such as height and probably weight.

The gunman opened the door and sat down. "Good. Just keep them there, pretty boy. And you may live to see the morning. A good reporter like you could probably put quite the spin on this little...incident."

Rafe swallowed, suddenly recognizing the man's voice. The anonymous tipper. It was a set-up of some sort. He thought quickly. It was either because the man knew of him and had wanted a getaway vehicle... He filed that away as improbable. It was most likely just a bank heist... And a chance to get even with the investigative reporter who had written a series on increasing gang activity in Chicago. The series had been finished over two months ago...

The gunman gestured at the floor. "Now bend over real slow and pick up those keys."

Rafe found to his fury that he was obeying the gunman, his brain frozen of everything except for the threat that confronted him. He had always thought that if he ever got into a situation such as this, he'd be able to at least, just maybe, talk himself out of it.

"Start the car. Good, good. Now open your door and get ready to say BYE BYE," the gunner snarled moving his gun closer to Rafe's face.

Instinct kicked in and everything spun into slow motion. He saw his hand smack down the gun down away from his face. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a policeman stealthily approaching the car as the gun went off. He felt a horrible cold burning start in his thigh and he gasped.

The gunman kicked Rafe on his thigh, knocking him out of the car onto the pavement. Rafe didn't see much of what happened after that. He grabbed his leg and tried not to yell at the pain. He groaned and heard his car spinning out from where it was parked. As his vision began to dance and blacken around the edges he heard gunfire and what sounded like a tire blowing out. The last sound he heard was the screeching of tires...

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Rafe came back to the present and was mildly dumbfounded to realize he was sweating again in spite of the chill of the room. Somewhere in the tale, Mara had grabbed his hand and seemed to be holding on to it for dear life.

He met her eyes as a tear coursed down her cheek. "Aw, Mara," he said shakily. "It wasn't all THAT bad."

She let out a small sob. His story had chilled and frightened her. To be facing certain death, when life was so short anyway...

"Hey, hey, come here." He pulled her unresisting, to sit next to him on the bed.

She covered her mouth with one shaking hand. "God, Rafe. How horrible."

Rafe reached out and wrapped her in half the blanket, holding her closer. He soothingly rubbed small circles in the middle of her back.

"God, Rafe." she said again. "You must think I'm the biggest wet goose..."

"No...no," he whispered "Not a wet goose, simply a flustered mother hen, a lovely, caring, hen..." he trailed off as he tipped up her chin to gently kiss her lips.