An Unexpected Love by Amber Riel (dar e dil novel online reading .TXT) 📕

          Cassie couldn’t believe the sound from the gun shot.  It was loud enough to make her jump.  She wanted to scream but knew she couldn’t.

          Brandon couldn’t move.  He just watched as Micheal’s body fell back to the ground.  He was in shock from the gun shot.

          Cassie couldn’t hold the scream in any longer, once she seen the body fall, she let out a good loud terrified scream.

          Brandon snapped back to reality when he heard a girl screaming.  He felt so terrible but he couldn’t let whoever was screaming know that.  He was confused because he had no clue where the screaming was coming from.  He leaned on the desk and was smacked in the face with a hard back book.  “Ow.”

          Cassie stood up and started running.  Brandon had jumped over the desk.  Cassie was faced against the brick wall.  She turned around to see the masked man right behind her, holding the gun up.  “Please don’t kill me?” Cassie begged, tears and fear filling her eyes.

          Brandon checked out Cassie.  He looked her up and down and thought that she was actually pretty cute.  “I’m not going to kill you….” He grabbed her arm and pulled her body closer to him.  He held the gun up to her head.  “I’m kidnapping you.”

          Cassie was terrified to fight back so she just let him take her.

          Brandon didn’t think that it would be that easy, especially the kidnapping.

          Brandon had taped Cassie’s wrist together behind her back.  He had her walk in front of him as they made their way to his truck, holding the gun up, barely touching the small of her back.  He was trying to keep the tough guy act going and made it seem like he knew what he was doing but the guilt grew inside of him.  He hadn’t planned for the murder or the kidnapping.

          When they arrived at the truck, Brandon opened the passenger door and helped Cassie into the vehicle.  The young woman was confused by his actions.  He had even buckled her up and closed the door.  He worked his way around the truck and climbed into the driver’s seat.  He closed the door and buckled himself up.

          “Why did you buckle me up?” Cassie asked.

          “Well,” Brandon replied as he cranked the engine, “that way you’ll be safe just in case something happens.”

          “What?”

          “Never mind.”

          There was a long lingering awkward silence while Brandon drove home.  They were almost to his neighborhood.  He wasn’t sure if he should turn on the radio or not for some kind of reassurance.  “I’m sorry about all this,” he told Cassie after a while.  “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

          Cassie rolled her eyes.  She wasn’t buying into the man’s words.

          “I’m Brandon by the way,” the idiot masked man revealed.  “Brandon Cook.”

          Cassie was shocked.  She couldn’t believe how anyone would be stupid enough to rob a bank, kill a banker, kidnap a witness, and tell the witness his name.

          “You are?”

          “I’m Cassie Smith.”

          “Cassie, that’s a pretty name for such a pretty girl such as yourself.”

          “Thank you and Brandon is a nice name for a guy in a mask.”

          When Brandon pulled up into his driveway, Cassie couldn’t believe her eyes as she looked at the white two story house in front of her.  It looked small but it looked nice.  Brandon climbed out of the car and helped Cassie out of the truck.  He grabbed her right arm and held the gun to her head.  He led her to the house as he made sure none of his neighbors were out watching.  He locked arms with her so he could get the key to unlock the door and so she couldn’t try to run off.

          Brandon led Cassie upstairs after he had closed the door and brought her into a small room.  “This is where you’re staying for until I say so,” he told her.

          Cassie looked around the room.  The room was decorated for a six year old girl.  The walls were painted light purple and there was a bed small enough for a six year old with princess sheets and blankets.  The pillow case matched the blanket.  “How is your wife going to react when she finds out that you have an eighteen year old girl in your daughter’s room?”

          “I’m not married,” Brandon admitted.  “I’m not dating either.”

          “Okay then how is your daughter going to react?”

          “I don’t have a child and…. I respect women enough not to push them into…. Well, you know.”

          “Okay then why….?” Cassie’s mouth dropped.  “You’re one of those freaks who kidnaps young girls and does terrible things to them….”

          Brandon couldn’t believe how Cassie’s imagination could be so outrageous and insane.  “No…. I don’t believe in that…. That’s sick…. Why would someone even think about doing something that wicked?”

          Cassie realized that the guy was telling the truth.  Something inside of her was telling it that he was a sweet guy but today just hadn’t been his day.  “Okay, then why do you, a grown man from what I can tell by your voice, has a room decorated for a little girl?”

          Brandon took a deep breath.  “My niece…. Sometimes she’ll come and stay with me that is…. When she’s not in the hospital…. Now, I’m going down stairs, you have to stay up here.”  He whistled and Buck ran into the room.  Buck jumped on Brandon with excitement.  He wagged his tail as he greeted his master.  “Down, boy.”  Brandon managed to turn Buck’s attention over toward Cassie.  “She’s our prisoner and I want you to make sure that she doesn’t leave this room, unless I say.”  He turned his attention to Cassie.  “Cassie, meet my guard dog, Buck.  He’s big and tough…. He also bites so you better not try to leave this room because he will attack.”  He was doing his best to terrify Cassie which he knew was a complete lie but he had to make her fear the dog.  He left the room, closing the door and leaving Buck in the room with Cassie.

          Cassie looked at the dog.  Buck was a pretty good size dog but he hadn’t seen mean.  She sat on the bed and Buck jumped up next to her.  Brandon was right that Buck would attack but not by biting.  He attacked Cassie by licking her with his long pink wet tongue.  She started laughing and pulled her face away from the big dog.  “Stop…. Please.”

          Brandon pulled off the mask as he walked into his bedroom.  He threw it on his bed and placed the gun on the dresser.  “I can’t believe I did that.  That wasn’t supposed to happen,” he told himself.  He was ashamed of himself.  Knock, knock, knock.  He heard the noise from downstairs.  “Not now.”

          Brandon ran down the stairs and hurried toward the door.  “I’M COMING!” he called.  Once he was at the door, he opened it and Zeke walked in.

          “Dude, where have you been?  I’ve been calling but you didn’t answer.”

          “I was here,” he told Zeke, trying to stay calm and not act guilty, “all day…. I didn’t go anywhere….”

          “Ok-ay….” Zeke was confused.

          “I was sleeping….”

          “Man, calm down….” Zeke kind of laughed.  “You’re acting like you killed someone today.”

          “I didn’t kill anyone why would you say that?”

          “I was joking and I know that you wouldn’t do that…. Man, you’re acting really weird…. Oh that reminds me.  Have you been watching the news lately?”

          “No why?”

          “Well, this masked guy walked into the bank today, killed a banker, and kidnapped this eighteen year old white girl which for a white chick she was actually very cute.  Oh yea and that girl graduated high school last night.  I feel bad for her.”

          Brandon and Zeke sat down and started to watch TV.  Zeke had continued talking while Brandon listened, hoping that Zeke would leave.  “Oh yea,” Zeke said.  “They got a picture of the guy’s truck and I swear that it looks identical to yours.”  Luckily for Brandon, the clues hadn’t donned on Zeke to reveal that he was the guy from the news.  “That would be funny if that guy was like you…. I bet he probably has the girl locked up in his niece’s room,” he laughed as he spoke.

          Brandon pretended to laugh.

          “So how’s your girlfriend doing?” Zeke asked, he had an odd sense of humor.  “Do you know if Barbie has a friend?”

          “What?”

          “Yea…. Does Laura know that you take her dolls and that you use the doll for your own needs?”

          “What?  Dude, that’s crazy and I don’t do that.”

          Thump.  Something had fallen from upstairs.

          “What was that?” Zeke asked.

          “It’s probably, Buck.  He likes to get into things.”  Brandon jumped up and backed out of the living room and up toward the staircase.  “I’ll be right back.”  He ran up the stairs.

          Cassie was lying on the floor, laughing, when Brandon had walked in.  “What’s going on?”

          Cassie tried to stop laughing as she opened her eyes and looked into Brandon’s eyes.  That was the first time she had actually seen the man’s face.  As much as she hated to admit it but her kidnapper was dreamy and his beautiful eyes which she had figured where hazel or close to hazel locked with hers.  “Your really tough guard dog was attacking me with his big long tongue.”

          “He’s supposed to be mean.”  Brandon walked over and helped Cassie up to her feet.  “Okay.  I’m going back downstairs.  Buck, I want you to be mean to her…. You know growl at her.”  He started to walk out of the room.

          “I’m hungry,” she told him as he was just about out of the door.

          Brandon turned to face Cassie.  “What do you want to eat?”

          Cassie smiled.  She was going to have fun with this.  “Chinese.”

          “Sorry I don’t have enough money.”

          Cassie rolled her eyes.  “You robbed a bank today.”

          “Yea but I left the money when I kidnapped you.”

          “Then if we’re not having Chinese, then I’ll starve to death and I don’t think that you need two dead people on your hands.”

          Brandon knew that Cassie was right.  He needed her to be alive and well.  He didn’t need anything to happen to her while she was in his house.  “Fine.  I’ll order Chinese.”

          “Hey, Zeke,” Brandon said as he walked back into the room, feeling awkward and kind of embarrassed by what he was preparing to ask.  “If I order Chinese, will you help me pay for it, because I’m a little short on cash…. I’ll pay you back.”

          “No problem.”