She looked away. “Didn’t your sister tell you?”
“No. She didn’t tell me anything apart from asking me to try to convince you to go see her.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Angela—”
She met his gaze once more. Determination reflected in her brown eyes. “Until I feel I can’t handle the situation, I want to retain what I have here.”
“Which is?”
“My own life without him dictating my every thought.”
Anger shot into Chris’s blood that the guy ever had that much say over this beautiful, vivacious woman. “And if he sees the paper?”
Chris stared at her as the silence stretched. Angela had taken control of the conversation and admiration mixed with gratitude inside him. She was intelligent and savvy. He had no right to push her. She’d clearly been pushed around enough. Her need to control what happened from there on in resonated with him—even if he didn’t like it.
He slowly returned his mug to the table and touched her hand. “You should be proud of yourself, you know.”
For a long moment she said nothing before she huffed out a laugh and slid her hand from his. She looked across the beach. “Proud? I wouldn’t say I’ve got much to be proud of right now. Not when I’ve got a cop’s brother sitting in my house wondering what the hell he’s gotten himself into. You do know I thought you might have known him at first?”
She might as well have slapped him in the face. “What?”
She turned and gave a wry smile. “I know. I know. Crazy. But when I learned you were the DI’s brother, I figured even Robert wouldn’t be that desperate to befriend a cop’s brother to get to me.”
Chris shook his head. “I’m not wondering what I’ve gotten myself into. I’m wondering what I can do to help you.”
She turned, her jaw tight. “You don’t have to do anything.”
Chris shook his head. “That’s not going to happen.”
“It will if I say so.”
“I can’t walk away knowing what I do. If anything should happen to you...” Frustration simmered. “I can’t walk away. I’m sorry.”
The tension crackled around them. He sensed her defenses rising right along with his. He looked up.
She glared. “This isn’t your problem. I shouldn’t have told you what I did, but you don’t have to feel responsible for me. I’m a big girl. You walked away from me when we were stranded at the park. That was the right decision. I want you to do that again.”
Guilt and shame that he’d turned his back on her burned like a fireball in his gut. He was a self-absorbed coward. He might have walked away during the flood, but the buck stopped there.
“I’ve made some stupid mistakes and decisions in my life. I don’t want to make another one with you.”
Her cheeks flushed. “You don’t even know me. I won’t be another mistake. Walk away, Chris. I’m asking you to.”
“No.”
The seconds beat out like minutes. His mind raced to find the right thing to say, something that would get her to understand his need to be there for her. But what words could convey what he didn’t even fully understand?
He looked out across the water. “I might not know you, but I care about you and that changes everything. I’m here for you, whether you like it or not. It’s too late for anything else.”
Her face paled. The panic in her eyes was undeniable. The skin at her throat shifted as she swallowed. “I’m not asking you because I’m being bullheaded. I need you to walk away.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want you dragged into this. Robert will destroy everything that stops him from getting to me this time. I know he will. He would rather kill me than let me live without him.”
Chris tightened his grip around his mug. “Have you heard from him?”
She sighed and her shoulders slumped. “Not yet.”
“Then you have time to pack up and move out of here.”
Anger flashed across her gaze. “That’s my decision, not yours. Your sister’s the town’s top detective. I half expected you or her to turn up this afternoon, but neither of you are responsible for what happens next. That’s up to me. Judging by the way DI Garrett looked at me this morning, I’m not entirely surprised she sent you instead. I guess those pictures in the paper spoke a thousand words.”
Chris couldn’t drag his gaze from hers, couldn’t stop his hands trembling with the need to touch her. “Meaning?”
“Meaning they looked...suggestive.”
He opened his mouth to deny what the pictures implied but snapped it shut. He felt the spark between them the moment he pulled her from the floodwater, the moment his hands met her skin. The photographs had captured it all. He’d be lying if the thought... No, the hope, she’d felt something, too, hadn’t risen time and again since he last saw her.
Even if the thought guaranteed trouble.
He cleared his throat. “Maybe they were, but we know the truth. We were in a disaster situation. People cling to each other in those circumstances.”
She stared. Chris could’ve sworn her eyes shone with silent disappointment. She turned and looked out across the water. “So, there you go. You have no responsibility for me. I’m my own person now, as I was before the flood. Just say what you came to say and leave. You shouldn’t be here...I don’t want you here.”
Her words sliced across his chest. “You don’t mean that.”
Her jaw tightened. “Yes, I do.”
“When I came in the house, you said you were glad it was me.”
She snapped her head around. “I said I was glad because you weren’t Robert. Don’t try to look for something that isn’t there. I don’t need you or anyone else.”
“I don’t believe you.”
She glared. “Then you’ve got a very big ego. This is my survival. When I say I don’t want you here, I mean it. None of this...absolutely none of it is a game. I’m not playing with you. This is my life. I don’t want you with me because I don’t like that you care. I don’t want you here so I don’t have to worry about you.”
Their eyes locked and Chris’s muscles tensed. Strong women had surrounded him for most of his life. Yes, his mother fell to pieces when his father was killed but before then, Chris swore the woman could bend metal with a look alone. Cat was a force all her own and Melinda always made it clear she was perfectly fine without him.
Frustration coursed through his veins, making him want to grab Angela and pull her to him. Grip her arms and make her understand he was serious. Why the hell was this woman, a woman he didn’t know, making his heart beat faster and dread curl like a snake in his gut? He needed to be there. Wanted her to want him there. Yet, once again, he’d met a woman who pushed him away when she should need him most. Well, one way or another, he’d find a way in. He always did.
“I can’t leave you to deal with your ex alone. Something...”
“What? Something what?” Her eyes shone bright with anger.
Heat burned at his cheeks but he had to say this or regret it. “Something inside me is telling me you’re important—to me.”
“What?” She inched back.
Chris pushed on. “Hear me out. Please. I came to the Cove to escape the pain of my ex-fiancée’s betrayal.” He blew out a breath. “She cheated on me for seven months. I’d be stupid to rush headlong into anything else. That’s not what this was about. It’s about not turning away anymore. Not avoiding trouble but facing it head-on. It’s time for change. My change.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
Chris shook his head. “Shit. Don’t cry. I didn’t mean to...” He pulled his hands together under the table to stop from reaching for her. He sensed her pushing him off, telling him to go before he laid a single finger on her. “I have
to do something. I know you get that.”
She shook her head and swiped her fingers under her eyes. “Just go. Please.”
Chris drew in a long breath. “Come with me to the station and tell my sister you need her help. Meet me halfway. You do that and I’ll leave you alone.”
She studied him. Her gaze dropped lower to his mouth. “If I give you my word I’ll go to the police station first thing this morning, you’ll leave it at that?”
“And what about tonight?”
“He won’t come tonight.”
“If you really believed that I wouldn’t have faced the wrong end of a gun just now.”
A moment passed before her gaze softened—a little. She closed her eyes. “I’d be stupid to ignore the fact I reached for a knife and then a gun when I thought it was Robert at the door, but I’m not the scared woman I used to be. I have a fire inside me now.” She stared deep into his eyes. “Yes, it’s shifting sands and I might be a crumbling mess tomorrow, but I need to figure out exactly what to do next before I do anything rash. I can’t afford to make a mistake.”
Protectiveness rippled through Chris’s muscles. “You need my sister’s help. Better still, you need to leave Templeton. Do you really want it to come down to kill or be killed? Wouldn’t it be better to get the hell out of here before he finds you?”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand.”
Determination mixed with nonchalant acceptance that she had nothing past her current reality lingered in the cocoa-brown depths of her eyes. Chris’s heart kicked. “Cat will help you. You’ve never met a better cop. She’ll deal with this.”
“How? By shipping me out of Templeton? Tracking Robert down and threatening him with a trip back to prison?” She shook her head and flashed a wry smile. “The police promised me all that before, but until I’d stripped my whole life wide-open to the media, they did nothing. He won’t care about what the police will or won’t do. He cares about nothing but me. I’m his. Always will be. You seem like a good guy, and what Robert is capable of is most likely a million miles away from what you could do to a woman, but it’s happening to me.” She pushed her fist against her chest. “To me. Not you. I don’t want you involved. I’m even more sure I don’t want the cops involved despite knowing that eventually I’ll have no damn choice. But as far as you’re concerned, I do.”
The desperation to make her understand he was going nowhere hummed through his blood. “How could the police possibly make this situation any worse?”
She sighed. “They don’t listen, Chris. They do their job. They follow the rules, but they don’t listen. If he comes here and they catch him, then what? You think that’s it? Happy days? Normal life resumed?”
The mocking tone of her voice irritated him. “Is that so stupid? I feel like calling Cat and getting her to come here. I can’t walk away from this not knowing what is happening inside your head...your heart.”
She flinched as though he’d struck her. “My heart has nothing to do with this. That’s a closed door. He bolted and locked that down a long time ago. If Robert comes here, this time it will be a fight to the death.” She inhaled a long breath. “The question is whether it’ll be his or mine.”
Chris stared into her beautiful eyes. Pure unadulterated truth. This Robert, this faceless piece of shit, could kill her. Dead.
“What did he do to you?” The words came out in a whisper.
Her chest rose and fell as her gaze lingered a moment on his lips before snatching to a point past his shoulder. “I’m not talking about it. It’s in the past. Gone.”
Guilt for asking her to reveal something so private burned his face and self-hatred festered in his blood. He had no right to question her. Who was he to tell her what she should or shouldn’t do? Should or shouldn’t tell him. Didn’t he make his mind up about his problems? Didn’t he walk away until he figured out what to do? His personal peeve was other people butting into his life and issuing orders. He’d fought other people’s wants his entire life, and when he relented, he dealt with the situation fast and with fury.
You let people in, you get hurt. He was living proof. So was Angela.
He closed his eyes and swiped his hand over his face. “At least come with me to my sister’s house. You can stay there until we know for certain your ex-husband—”
“No.” She slammed her mug down on the table so hard coffee spattered the tabletop. “He’s not taking my life from me a second time. The decision of what happens next won’t be governed by him, you or your damn sister.”
She pushed to her feet and her chair screeched along the decking and tipped onto its back. Chris sat frozen as she stormed back inside. The French doors slammed shut so violently metal cracked against metal.
* * *
ANGELA STORMED INTO the kitchen and tossed the remainder of her coffee into the sink. She slammed the mug on the counter and gripped its edge in an effort to stop the trembling ripping through her body.
Why had he come? Even DI Garrett would have been preferable to being faced with Chris’s inquisitive and gorgeous hazel eyes. Questions stormed and accusations shone in their depths. She’d never met a man who focused as he listened. Men were a selfish breed, a needy breed who wanted a woman’s attention on them one hundred percent of the time—not the other way around.
She closed her eyes. God help her, Chris Forrester was a man in every sense of the word. His masculinity came off in waves and it scared her that she felt herself leaning toward him. Something she’d sworn she’d never do with another man for a long...long time.
Independent thought and self-preservation were key. Oh, she wanted a husband and family one day. Robert hadn’t entirely killed that basic human need for company. What he had killed was the desire for a man’s support and protection. He’d shown her with his fists and words that men were masters of disguise, yet in Chris she saw nothing but sincerity staring back whenever she looked at him.
The click of the French doors opening behind her kicked Angela’s heart back into high gear and her eyes snapped open. Silently she counted to ten as his footsteps moved across the floorboards and then stopped in her living room. Leave. Leave now. He needed to go before she crumbled and begged him to stay, to keep her safe through the night.
She couldn’t afford to trust him.
The silence fell heavy around her. The atmosphere piqued with tension and unspoken words. Swallowing hard, she turned. He sat on her sofa, his head bowed and his hands clasped together between his open knees. Angela swallowed against the dryness in her throat. She’d hoped he’d walk out the front door and not look back. Heed her warning to stay away and leave her to it. She’d hoped, but deep down she sensed his honor. She had about as much chance of Chris walking away from her as she did his sister.
She pushed away from the counter and walked into the living room. Her only option was to make it impossible for him to stay. “I want you to leave. You being here frightens me.”
“What?” He jerked his head up, his eyes wide. “I frighten you?”
“Yes.” Just not in the way you think.
He stared before shaking his head and reaching into his jacket pocket. He pulled out his phone.
Angela took a step toward him, panic thundering hard through her blood. She fisted her hands on her hips and glared in a futile attempt of authority and control. “What are you doing?”
“Calling Cat. If you can’t talk to me, she needs to know I tried my best to help. I can’t be held responsible for walking out and leaving you alone.” His gaze left hers and he dialed the number. “If she thinks I left here without doing everything I damn well could, she’ll have my balls in a vise.”
When he held the phone to his ear, Angela lunged forward and snatched it.
She held it to her chest. “Don’t.”
Anger flashed in his eyes. “
You need to meet me halfway. You’re scared. Shit scared, and I’m not leaving you alone not knowing whether your ex-husband could turn up.”
Angela’s heart raced. A strange combination of irritation and appreciation knotted inside her, confusing and unbalancing her self-induced state of independent thought and action. She raised her hands and blew out a defeated breath.
“Look, I’d be feeling the exact same way if I’d walked in on what you did, if someone told me what I told you, but I moved to Templeton, away from my family, for this exact reason.”
Swallowing hard, she sat next to him on the sofa. The smell of musk and pine rose between them. He smelled so damn fresh. It made her feel dirty and tainted just sitting next to him. He had no idea what had happened to her and she prayed he never would.
“If Robert finds a man in my house, there will be no chance of talking him down or even saving my life. His rage will be absolute. People think battered women take the abuse lying down. For the most part, we don’t. We fight back, but Robert has been in prison a long time. I put him there. If he finds me, he won’t just hurt me, he’ll kill me.” She touched his arm. “He could kill you.”
He clenched and unclenched the muscles in his jaw. His gaze ran over her face, her lips and her hair. Angela slipped her hand from his arm and clasped his phone instead. “Say something. Say you understand.”
He stared at her mouth. “I can’t say I understand because I don’t. If you won’t come to see Cat with me now or even in the morning, you need to come up with an alternative option that suits us both. I need to know you’re not going to have any reason to fire that damn gun tonight, tomorrow or the next day.”
The need to keep him safe burned in Angela’s soul and she hated it. Fire blazed in Chris’s eyes and her frustration grew. Couldn’t he see she was doing this for him? For her?
She closed her eyes. “Fine. We’ll go to the station.”
The sofa shifted. “Now?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
CHAPTER NINE
ANGELA STARED AT the facade of Templeton Police Station. Once she set foot inside, there was no going back. The police would be a presence in her life once again. She held herself rigid as Robert’s long-reaching fingers dug hard and cruel into her shoulder blades as they had so many times during and after their marriage. He could be in Templeton right now for all she knew. He could be behind her, watching and waiting. For over a year, Robert had exerted his own silent brand of authority until she couldn’t take any more.
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