TWENTY-EIGHT AND A HALF WISHES (A ROSE GARDNER MYSTERY, BOOK 1)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Chapter Twenty-Six

I’d heard of time standing still, but until that moment, I always thought it was a figure of speech. When Crocker turned over with the gun, a million things happened at once, yet I was aware of every single one of them. Shouting and crashing downstairs. Crocker pointing the gun. Joe throwing me to the floor. Muffy rushing for Crocker’s arm. The sound of the gunshot. My scream. Even with all that knowledge in the moment, I didn’t know what I’d find on the other side.

When I looked up, Joe still stood where I last saw him, so I took that as a good sign. Muffy was growling and Crocker shouted and cursed, the gun still in his hand, pointed to the ceiling. Another shot. I jumped up to my feet, trying to get out of the way of any stray bullets.

Muffy had a death grip on Crocker’s arm, shaking as she snarled. Joe kept his gun pointed at the man rolling on the floor but couldn’t get a good shot with Muffy in the way. I looked on the desk for something to use as a weapon and found a crystal geode bookend. I picked it up, surprised to find it so heavy.

Crocker tried to shake Muffy off but when that didn’t work he started hitting her with his free hand. Muffy held on.

Seeing him hit Muffy pissed me off. And once I let that feeling wash through my head, fury followed right behind it. How dare he hit my dog? And tear up my house, not to mention my new blouse? Who did he think he was, beating people up and killing them? He’d messed with the wrong woman.

“Get your grimy hands off my dog!” I flung the rock at Crocker’s head.

The geode hit him square in the temple, and his arms crumpled into a heap on his chest, the gun tumbling to the floor with a clatter. Joe ran over and picked up the gun as Muffy hopped off Crocker’s body. Joe turned to me, disbelief on his face and just a hint of anger.

“He was messin’ with my dog,” I said in my defense.

Joe rolled Crocker onto his stomach and pulled his hands behind his back.

“Did I kill him?” I asked, scared I’d broken another of the Ten Commandments. I was really on a roll.

“No, but he’ll have one hell of headache when he wakes up.” Joe jerked the electrical cord of a floor lamp out of the wall. He pulled a pocketknife out of his pocket and cut the cord from the base, then wrapped it around Crocker’s wrists.

He walked over to me and tugged me into his arms. I let myself relax into his chest. “Is it over?” I asked.

“Yeah, it’s over.” He sighed with relief, blowing hairs on top of my head.

We clung to each other for a minute, thankful we could, then Joe grabbed my arms and pulled me away to face him, anger burning in his eyes.

“What the hell did you think you were doing coming here? You could have gotten yourself killed!”

“I was savin’ you, thank you very much!”

“I told you to stay in the house. I gave you a direct order.” He gritted his teeth, making his words muffled.

“You are not the boss of me, Joe McAllister! And besides, Muffy came back and was whining and barking at the back of my house. I couldn’t just leave her out there!”

“I told you to stay in the house!”

“If I had, they would have found me! Right after I got to Muffy, four men showed up and busted into your house lookin’ for me and found my shoes. So there!”

That caught him by surprise.

“Then I went to get another pair of shoes out of my house and found it trashed by them again…”