“I know you’re angry,” I began.
“Angry? I feel betrayed, duped, manipulated…angry barely scratches the surface of what I’m feeling.” She was shaking as she spoke the words. “You knew exactly how I felt about you having Val poke around in my past.”
“I was trying to find out Shawn’s whereabouts, Darby.”
“How long have you known? When did he start coming to Colorado Springs?”
I shoved my hands in my pockets. “A while. I didn’t want to worry you.”
“You just completely disregard everything we’ve talked about, my feelings, my rights…you don’t own me, Trex. You don’t have the right to make those decisions for me.”
“No, I don’t own you. But I do love you, and that does give me the right to try to take care of you the best way I know how.”
She shook her head. “I can’t be with someone I can’t trust. Please go.”
“Darby!” My voice was louder than I’d meant for it to be, the shock coming out as anger. “I’m not leaving. We’re going to talk this through.”
The doors swept open, and Darby looked up with a pageant smile on her face that quickly morphed into fear. She blinked a few times, letting her gaze fall away from whoever had walked in. I turned to see two men, one that I recognized as the passenger in the white sedan parked at the hotel on Thanksgiving night.
“Merry Christmas,” the man said loudly, as if he was addressing a lobby full of people. He was in civilian clothes, but his hair was standard military length. His features were sharp, his chin long but square, and even though he was the shorter of the two, he was a solid six foot one. The light stubble on his jaw crowded his thin lips. I knew immediately who he was when he targeted Darby with his clear blue eyes. His pupils took up most of his irises, his long nose pulled down at the tip just slightly, a slight cleft chin. He looked like Kurt Cobain with a bad haircut.
I stepped closer to Darby. My Glock was in the glove box of my truck, too far away to be of any use.
Darby slowly reached down to the drawer beneath the cashbox, opened it four inches, enough to reach in and tap her nail once against a tiny pistol. I only glanced at it, but from what information I could gather in the second my eyes were drawn to the sound of her nail against metal, it looked like a late sixties model Baby Browning. I had no idea how she’d gotten hold of a weapon that easily cost more than seven hundred dollars, but there it was. Hopefully, if shit went down, it was loaded and ready to go.
“Shawn,” Darby said.
There was something on the edge of her voice I’d never heard before, something that excited Shawn. She was still afraid of him, and he fed off it. If I thought demons existed, he was one.
“It’s been a long time, bunny.”
“Don’t call me that,” she blurted.
Shawn rested his elbows on the desk and leaned in. She stepped back, and he smiled. “I’ve missed you. I don’t think you realize what it did to me when you left me at the altar. Took me months to even think clearly again.” He turned his gaze on me. “I’m Shawn. But you know that.”
“Trex,” I said, glowering at him.
“Nice to finally meet you, Trex. This,” Shawn said, gesturing to Darby, “is my fiancée. Maybe she’s mentioned it when you were fucking her.”
“Pretty sure you have to be engaged to call her that,” I said.
“Oh,” Shawn said, his voice smooth, “we’re engaged. We never got married, you see, so we’re still engaged.” He looked at Darby. “We should fix that, bunny.”
Darby recoiled.
“Leave,” I said.
Shawn cackled, walking away. “These Marines. So goddamn confident!” he said to his buddy. He covered his mouth. “Sorry, bunny. I know you don’t appreciate that word.” He walked back, returning his elbows to the desk and leaning in, looking straight into my eyes. “I’ve never liked Marines. Arrogant fucks.”
“Is that what you said to Naomi when she put that grunt on his back?” I looked at his friend. “Was that you? How’d that feel?”
Darby looked at me, confusion on her face.
My heart began to thump inside my chest, my breath getting faster to catch up. “Baby…”
Darby stepped back, looking as alone as she felt. Her trembling hands touched her beach ball–sized middle. “I want everyone to leave. You first,” she said to Shawn. She reached for the receiver of the hotel’s landline phone and held it up for everyone to see. Her voice sounded a bit braver than before, but her eyes stayed on the floor. “Or I’m calling the police.”
“What are the police going to do? What have they ever done?” Shawn asked, reaching for her.
She dropped the phone and stepped back, and I put myself between them. Darby was terrified, her entire body was shaking; her breath faltered.
“I’ll kill you if you touch her,” I said. “That’s not a threat. I will fucking slit your throat and shoot you in the face until there’s nothing left to identify.”
Shawn’s smile fell away, and he suddenly looked tired. He pointed at her stomach before he let his outreached arm fall to the desk. “Is it mine?”
It took a moment for Darby to speak. “She’s mine.”
“She?” Shawn said, his eyes glossing over. “It’s a girl?”
Darby nodded.
“Bunny—”
“Get the fuck outta here,” I growled. “She’s not going home with you. She didn’t marry you because you’re an abusive piece of shit.”
Shawn pointed at me. “Did you know he was a Marine, Darby? Do you know how many people he’s killed? Do you know why he and his ex really split up? He wasn’t nice to her. You should ask him about it sometime, not that he’d tell you the truth.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I asked.
“Do you know how his best friend really died?”
“Go fuck yourself,” I said.
Shawn pointed at me again. “He’s a lyin’ ratbag fucker, this one. You don’t have to go home with me, but you don’t want this guy. He’s nothing like you think.”
Darby’s red, wet eyes pleaded with me to deny it all, but I couldn’t deny that I was a Marine, and because of that, she wouldn’t believe the rest. Her bottom lip quivered, then she looked at Shawn, reaching again for the phone. She tapped out three numbers. “You have ten seconds.”
“Okay,” Shawn said, raising his hands.
I could hear the dispatcher on the other end answer. “Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”
Darby watched Shawn leave, the white sedan peeling out of the parking lot.
The dispatcher repeated herself.
“Um, I’m at the Colorado Springs Hotel. There were a couple of guys here behaving suspiciously, but they left when I called.”
Darby vaguely explained the situation, leaving out that Shawn was her ex. When she hung up the phone, she covered her mouth, working to control her breathing.
I reached for her, but she pulled away. “Your turn.”
“Darby…”
“I’m leaving,” she said, her voice breaking. “I’ll get my things later. I’d appreciate it if you weren’t there while I do that.”
“No. Stop,” I begged. I didn’t know what else to say. I tried to appear calm, but on the inside, there were alarms, flags, and screaming; panic was about to take over. “Don’t believe him, Darby. Don’t let him do this to us. What he said wasn’t true.”
“Which part?” She wasn’t yelling. Her voice was quiet, emotionless. I didn’t feel truly afraid very often, but in that moment, I was terrified. She was speaking to me and looking at me as if she were a stranger.
“I was a Marine,” I began.
“It’s too late.”
“But I told you the truth about Laura,” I blurted out. “Matt died saving the rest of our team. He threw himself on a live grenade. I didn’t tell you I was a Marine because everyone at the hotel knew you were adamant about not dating a certain kind of guy.”
“It’s too late.”<
br />
“After you told me about Shawn, I was too chickenshit to tell you about my history with the military. I was afraid you wouldn’t want to see me again. Even after you were okay with me being a federal agent. Even after you warning me to be honest with you. There were a hundred times I could have told you, and every time I let my fear of losing you talk me out of it.”
“It’s. Too. Late.” She wasn’t crying. She began to organize her work space, acting as if I weren’t there.
“Baby,” I said, walking toward her.
She turned to face me, raising an eyebrow, clearly telling me without words not to come closer.
I swallowed. “We’re good together. All that…that’s my past, Darby. You’re my future. Maddie is my future. We’re going to get married. You’ll both have my last name. We’ll be happy. None of this will matter years from now.”
“Because we’ll only know what you choose to share?”
“No, because we love each other, we’re happy, and our kids are happy.”
“You should go,” she said, returning to her work.
“You said you were in this.”
“I was,” she said, finally a glimmer of emotion in her eyes. “All I asked for was honesty. You can’t trust me with the truth, and I can’t trust you to tell it. I won’t settle. I won’t. I don’t care how nice your house is or how much time I spent on the nursery or how much I love you. Maddie deserves better, and so do I.”
“Jesus Christ, Darby, I’m doing my best. You can’t just—”
“You did this, not me. I begged you to be honest with me! You chose this over and over.”
I felt the blood burn under my cheeks. “All I wanted was to protect you. I wanted you to feel safe. I made more than a few mistakes, but it wasn’t because I wanted to control what you knew and when you knew it. I did it because I was scared to lose you. That doesn’t mean you can’t trust me. It means you can count on me to stick around no matter what.” I tried to keep my voice calm. “You saw Shawn, emotions are high, you’re angry, I get it. But don’t tell me like I chose this. This isn’t what I want. There’s nothing like us, Darby. Two hours ago, we were happy. Our life was amazing. I want to be wherever you are. I belong where you are. Both of you. I’m yours. Yours and hers.”
“Please leave.”
Her words knocked the air out of me. “Shawn is here in the Springs, Darby. I can’t leave you here alone.”
She thought about that for a moment. “Doesn’t look like I have much choice.”
“What if I…What if I wait in the truck outside? Just to make sure. I won’t bother you.”
Her lips pressed together in a hard line, and I could see she wasn’t going to let her anger get in the way of common sense. “Fine.”
“You really want me to be gone when you come home?”
She looked me straight in the eyes. “Yes.”
“Okay, I’ll…I’ll send Naomi over to pick you up and keep an eye out. At least until we know Shawn has left town.”
“That’s probably a good idea.”
My shoulders sagged. “Where are you…Where are you going to go?”
She didn’t answer, and before falling into a bottomless pit of despair, I grasped at anger. “Let’s be clear. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to walk away from either one of you. You’re pushing me away.”
She tapped the keyboard, and I was sure it was just her nails on the keys.
“Darby.”
“Trex, just go!” she said, closing her eyes tight.
“Hailey…Hailey’s coming today,” I said, feeling tears burn my eyes. “I need you home. It’s Christmas, for fuck’s sake.”
“Don’t swear at me.” Her voice was so small. Her lashes pushed mascara-stained tears down her cheeks. She covered her mouth.
My phone began to sing Hailey’s ringtone. If it had been anyone else, I would have silenced it, but I knew she’d been planning to be on the road before sunrise and could be close if not already in town. I was afraid she was at the house and I wasn’t there.
I cleared my voice before answering. “Hailey?”
“Trex?” she cried. “Trex!”
My whole world stopped. “Are you crying? What’s going on?”
“He hit me!”
“What?”
“I was just in an accident! The guy at the intersection! He hit my car and I can’t get out!”
“Where are you? Never mind, I can pinpoint your location. Sit tight. I’m coming.”
“Hurry!”
“I’m coming!” I lowered my phone. “It’s Hailey. She’s been in an accident. I have to…I have to go.”
“Is she okay?” Darby asked. It was the first time she didn’t look like she hated me since Shawn left.
“I don’t know. I’m sorry, I have to go.”
“Go,” she said.
I met her gaze. That one word was her good-bye. As badly as I wanted to stay, I had to go to my baby sister. Walking away from her was the hardest thing I’d ever done, but I turned and ran to my truck, seconds later peeling out of the parking lot.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Darby
You look worse than me,” Maya said, dragging in holding a large coffee.
“Thanks,” I said, putting on my coat.
“Have you been crying?”
I rubbed my aching belly. I’d been suffering through Braxton-Hicks my entire shift. “No.”
The printer was vomiting paper from the nightly audit, and I’d just logged out of the system. I’d already booked my old room and coded a key card. I didn’t bother to tell Maya that I’d be back. At least that way I wouldn’t have to talk about it until then.
I waited for Naomi, and when she didn’t show, I called a cab. I assumed she was probably with Trex and his sister. Trex’s expression when he left played over and over in my mind. I talked myself in and out of moving out at least two dozen times during the night. My head and heart were still warring when I took a few empty boxes from the bar and walked out to meet the taxi. Winter blew its breath in my face the moment the doors opened. I put my hand on the door handle of the cab, when I heard a familiar voice say my name—the one I hate the most.
“Hi there, bunny. What are the boxes for?”
I stood across from Shawn, the air around me suddenly too thin to breathe.
He walked around the back, taking the boxes from my hand and handing them to one of two men standing just a few feet away. “Going somewhere?”
“Just…bringing those home.”
“No, you’re not.”
My eyes filled with tears, and I reached for the handle again. Shawn covered my hand with his, wrapping his free hand around my middle, burying his face in my neck.
“That’s not your home, bunny. Your home is with me.” He inhaled through his nose. “God, I’ve missed you.”
“Let me go,” I said. I was practically panting, but I couldn’t help it. Being in Shawn’s arms again was a nightmare I’d had many times since I got on the bus to Colorado Springs, and now I was living it again.
His fingers dug into my middle. “Come home with me, Darby. You leaving, everything I’ve been through since you left…it doesn’t matter anymore. We have a baby now. We’re going to be a family.”
I closed my eyes tight. “She’s…she’s not yours.”
He grabbed my hair and yanked my head back, and I cried out. “Fuck you, you fucking whore!” he growled.
The cab driver climbed out, nervous but determined not to stand by. “What are you doing?” he said in a thick accent. “You let her go!”
Shawn let go of my hair and grabbed my arm, pulling me with him.
“Hey!” the cab driver yelled. “I call the cops!”
The headlights of a white car lit up. Shawn opened the back door on the passenger side and shoved me into the seat. He pushed me over and sat down, slamming the door.
“Shawn,” the driver said, “this isn’t what we talked about, man.”
“Driv
e, you pussy, or I’ll put my fist through the back of your head.”
The driver slammed into reverse and stomped on the gas. I hit my forehead on the back of his seat, and then again on the window when he pulled forward and turned at the same time.
“Wh-where are we going?” I said. When he didn’t answer, I screamed, “Where are you taking me?”
“Shut up, you stupid bitch!” he screamed in my face. He sat back, hitting his forehead with the heel of his hand several times. He coughed a few times, then held my hand. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m just trying to think. Terry, go by her house.”
“You want to take her home?” the man in the passenger seat said. He was the biggest of the three, probably the one Naomi had put on his back at the bar Thanksgiving night.
“Drive by,” he said.
I worried Trex was there with Hailey. I had no idea what Shawn was planning. “Don’t hurt them. I’ll go with you.”
Shawn combed my hair from my face with his fingers. “You’re coming with me either way. We’re not stopping, bunny. Just driving by.” He smiled at me as if he hadn’t just kidnapped and manhandled me, like we were on an early Christmas drive.
I leaned away from him, trying to think of a way out of the car. If I jumped, I could hurt Maddie. There was nothing I could do until the car stopped. As Terry slowed at the next intersection, I put my hand on the handle.
Shawn held a knife to my stomach. “Don’t do that.”
I looked down. “Shawn…”
“I will put a hole right through you if you don’t sit in that fucking seat like a good girl. You hear me?”
I nodded quickly, hot tears streaming down my cheeks. Within ten minutes, we were driving into my neighborhood, passing the police station and our many neighbors. The sun was above the mountains, burning off the night clouds. The driveways were either empty or full of vehicles, everyone somewhere for the holiday. I sighed when I saw that Trex’s truck wasn’t in the drive.
Shawn reached over me, rolled down the window, and grabbed my phone.
“What are you doing?” I said, watching him toss my phone into the yard. “Why did you do that?” I cried.
From Here to You Page 33