Free Just a City Boy (Midnight Train Series) by V. L. Holt Page A

was raised to be polite, even to people I didn’t like.
    He winked at me and gave me a once over that made my skin crawl. I really couldn’t see how Brenda could be so off the mark with this one guy. Everyone else she hired was wonderful.
    Maybe my problem was that I just hadn’t bothered to get Harley’s story. Maybe I should try harder to be nice and find out a little more about his life. Maybe if I had his story I could be more compassionate and understanding.
    Mulling over these thoughts I didn’t see the couple of guys that fell into step behind me until a few minutes had passed. Yes, it was 1am on a dark street in downtown Detroit, but this wasn’t usually a problem. The streetlights were all on, and the sidewalks and storefronts were well kept. It was a nice little stretch between here and my stop.
    The problem with stalkers was that they always wanted to intimidate and overpower. I put my hand in my purse and stroked my insurance. I really hated violence, but if I had to choose violence inflicted upon my person or I inflicting violence upon another…well there was no contest. Daddy didn’t raise no shrinking violet. The first half of my life taking care of hurt animals was due in part to the fact that I hurt them myself, before I learned to be more careful when I was holding a frog with a soft middle, or a kitten with a cute little handle for a tail. I wasn’t a princess back in those days. I believe the term they used lovingly to refer to me was ‘holy terror’.
    I stopped and turned suddenly, with my hand buried in my purse. I looked at the men straight on.
    “Can I help you gentlemen?” I asked them calmly.
    They weren’t expecting me to confront them. But then again, guys like them never did. I watched their faces under the light of the streetlamp as they followed the line of my arm down into my bag, my hand obscured. They had no way of knowing what I held.
    The biggest one stepped closer.
    “Maybe you can,” he said with a sly smile.
    “You’d best stop right there, John,” I called him out.
    He looked confused.
    “You don’t know what my hand is holding right now, do you John?” I asked him. “Could be a can of mace, right? You ever had mace sprayed in your eyes? Well I have. My daddy made me try it when I was sixteen, so I knew what kind of power it had to disable an attacker,” I told the big man. I could tell he was wondering why I called him John. I would get to that eventually.
    “Could be a cell phone. I could have dialed 911 already, as soon as I noticed you two misfits following me about twenty steps back. I could be stalling right now, to give the cops time to come arrest you for bothering a helpless woman on the street in the dark of night,” I said, eyeing them both with an icy stare. My mama had that look down cold. I learned from the best.
    “But John, what you must be asking yourself right about now is why in the hell is this little woman in the green dress calling you John over and over again? You don’t know her from Adam, do you?” I was on a roll now. “The thing is, John Boy, I could also be holding a gun. A big gun. And if I was holding a gun, and I felt threatened, and my daddy taught me how to use a gun, including how to unlatch the safety by touch alone, and not just by sight, in conditions of extreme duress, then I just might aim that big gun at you,” and then I looked at the other man too, who had slowly brought both his hands to where I could see them without looking like he was surrendering. “And if I were to get spooked, all asudden like, then I might shoot you and your friend. And then when the cops came by to find out what all the fuss was about, I wouldn’t know your names, and the cops wouldn’t know your names, and you’d be down to the morgue with a tag on your big toe that said ‘John Doe’. So if I was you, I’d just keep walking, because really boys. You don’t know what my little hand is wrapped around and I really don’t want to show