“Jesus, cowboy,” I say, putting my hand on my chest. “You scared the shit out of me.” I place the last pair of my pants into the bag.
“Answer the question, Olivia,” he demands. I can tell by his tone that he’s pissed, but for the life of me, I don’t know what he’s talking about.
“Good news.” I start talking, hoping my tone is peppy. I’ve been preparing this speech ever since I made the decision this morning to leave. “Since the guy was arrested yesterday, the detective said it was safe for me to go back home.”
He steps into the room, and I can see that his face is dirty now, especially his forehead. “Which detective told you this?”
I try not to breathe in, and my heart starts to pound even harder than ever. “The one working on my case in LA.” I ignore his look or at least I try. “I booked a flight out tomorrow morning.”
“You aren’t going,” he snaps. “You don’t leave until I’m sure the threat is over, and I’m”—he points at himself—“telling you it’s not right now.”
I shake my head, trying not to read too much into his words. It’s not that he doesn’t want me to stay because he wants me here. No, he doesn’t want me to go because he doesn’t think I’m safe.
“Cowboy.” I realize I’m going to miss saying his nickname. I’m going to miss him so much more than I’m admitting to myself. “I’m going to be fine. Besides …” I look over at him. He’s so handsome. I look at his arms and see what looks like little pieces of sawdust. “It’s time.”
“It’s not time.” Charging over to me, he reaches for the top of my head as he pulls the elastic out. “I love your hair down,” he whispers. The whole time, I’m standing here, holding my breath. I don’t even realize that I’m not breathing as I take him in, and when I do, I smell him all around me. He smells of trees and the woods; he smells perfect. He threads his fingers into my hair, and my hands move to his hips. His eyes go darker as he gets close to me. “It’s not time,” he says again, but this time in a whisper. “It’s not time.” His face comes closer this time, and I can feel his breath on me. My heart speeds up, and I wait for it. It’s what I’ve been waiting for what feels like my whole life. It’s also something I know I’ll remember, if only just once.
“Darlin’.” When he says my nickname, his lips come so close to mine, but then the phone in his pocket rings. We both look at each other, waiting for the ringing to stop as my heart beats faster and faster. I want to get on my tippy toes this time and just take the kiss he wants to give me. When his phone rings again with a strange ringtone, he drops his hands this time, and I try not to let it hurt.
I tell myself it’s for the best. It’s better this way. He answers, barking out, “What?” He listens to whoever is on the line, and when his eyes fly to mine, I see something in his gaze. “Find out.” He hangs up the phone and then his eyes go down before he glances up at me again. For the second or maybe for the third time, my life is changed. “Your attacker was just found dead in his cell.”
Chapter Ten
Casey
I say the words I know will change everything. “Your attacker was just found dead in his cell.” I watch as she looks at me, and then she falls to her knees. I’m not fast enough to catch her in time and watch as she howls out in what sounds like gut-wrenching pain. “Darlin’,” I say, picking her up and carrying her out of the bedroom. She buries her face into my neck and wraps her legs around my waist as I carry her into the kitchen.
When I walked in and saw her packing, I went through so many different emotions. I was pissed she was leaving and then sad she wanted to leave. But most of all, I didn’t want her to leave. I didn’t want her going anywhere, and I finally admitted it to myself. This thing between us is there. In all this craziness, I’ve gone and fell for her on a level that is just … I can’t even come up with the words to explain it. When I pulled her hair out of the elastic and then buried my hands in her hair, it was as soft as I dreamed it would be. Watching her shield go down, I saw the softness in her eyes as the color got just a touch lighter. I was so close I could taste her, but then the phone rang. I wanted to throw it against the wall, but then when it rang again with Derek’s ringtone, I knew something was wrong.
I place her on the counter, but her legs don’t let me go. My arms go around her, and I know that I’m filthy, and she’s probably going to get dirty, but I don’t care. I’ll hold her for as long as she needs me to.
“Darlin’,” I say softly as her sobs are beginning to subside.
“Why?” she asks, voice cracking, and I feel her breaking down. “Why me?”
I wish I had the answer. I wish I could say whatever she needed to hear. I wish I could make all this go away. I do know one thing—I’ll die before it touches her again.
“I don’t know,” I say. The front door opens, and I hear the sound of footsteps running through the house. Kallie whips around the corner, stopping in her tracks with Jacob behind her. I look at her, and she puts her hands to her mouth. Jacob just looks at me.
“You heard?” he asks, and I just nod my head.
“Derek just called me,” I tell them. She peels her face out of my neck. She turns her head, but doesn’t loosen her hold on me. And neither do I.
“Why don’t we run a bath?” Kallie suggests, coming to my side and rubbing Olivia’s back. “A nice bath.” Olivia looks at her and then at me. “We can use Casey’s big one.” I see the look she had in her eyes right before I kissed her is gone, and in its place is the shield, and I hate it.
“It’s never going to stop,” she whispers. “Why can’t I just be left alone?” When she releases me, I see the defeat in her eyes. I watch as Kallie takes her hand and walks with her to my bedroom. Only when I hear the door close do I look over at Jacob.
“I’ll kill him.” My eyes return to the spot I last saw Olivia. “I swear to everything, if I see him, I’ll kill him.”
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Jacob says. Walking over to the cabinet on top of the fridge, I take out my father’s whiskey. I open it, forgoing the glass, and take a huge gulp, letting it burn all the way down. “You may want to go easy on that.”
“Fuck you, Jacob,” I say. I know I shouldn’t lash out at him, but he’s the only one in front of me. My phone rings again, the ringtone letting me know it’s Derek. I put it on speakerphone this time.
“Derek.” I say his name. “Jacob is here, and you’re on speaker,” I inform him in case he has something confidential. “What did you find out?”
“From what I can gather, he was killed between one and three a.m. The cameras on his block coincidentally went off at twelve thirty and only came back on at four.”
“Coincidence, my ass,” I say, looking over at Jacob.
“The guard on duty says he did a check at one thirty and everything was okay. When another guard did a second pass through, he saw him hanging,” Derek says. “I’m already running a check on both guards, but so far, everything looks clean.” I hear him typing in the background.
“Everything is not clean,” I say. “Check their debt history.”
Derek then stops typing. “I think I know what I’m doing.”
“Yeah. Yeah,” I say, not sure I want to have this conversation with Jacob here. “I want to know everything about them down to the last time they took a shit,” I hiss. “Fucking everything.”
“I’m on it.” He hangs up, and I take another gulp.
“You need to reel it in,” Jacob says, and I glare at him. “You aren’t going to do her any favors by flying off the handle.”
I’m about to tell him to fuck off again when I see Kallie standing there. She holds the wall while she sobs, putting her hand in front of her mouth to muffle it. It takes Jacob two seconds to get to her. “I need water,” she says, her voice cracking. “She needs water.”
I open the fridge, and I’m about to take a bottle of water to Olivia, but Kallie stops me. “You can’t see her like that,” she says while she tries to stop crying
, but her breath hitches. “She doesn’t want anyone in there. Not even me.”
I want to burst through the door, not caring, and then Kallie’s hand drops from my arm. “I just put her in the bath. I had to peel her off the floor. I’ve never ever …” She swallows. “She’s never been like this.”
“Go back in there,” I say to her. “I need to tell Mom and Dad about all this.”
“Casey.” She says my name. “Don’t do this if you aren’t sure.” She shakes her head. “I love you with all my heart, but if you hurt her, I won’t forgive you.”
Jacob must feel my anger reaching its breaking point because he kisses her, whispering, “Go take care of your girl.”
“I’ll be back.” I walk out of the house, and if I knew she wouldn’t hear me, I would scream out to the universe. I walk over to my parents’ house. They are both sitting out on the porch talking, but they take one look at me, and they both stop. My father gets up first.
“What’s wrong?” he asks. My mother is right behind him.
“The guy who attacked Olivia was found hanging in his cell this morning,” I say. My father just looks at me, but my mother takes a step forward to go to my house. “Not now, Mom.”
“But …” she says. “Olivia.”
“She’s with Kallie,” I say, looking at my father. “She was going to leave, thinking that the threat was over.” I put my hands in the back pockets of my jeans, looking up at the pink sky. “I have to head back.”
“Makes sure she eats,” my mother says. My father puts his arm around her, and I turn and make my way back to my house. When I walk in, I spot Jacob on the phone, and he looks up at me. I walk over to the counter, screwing the cap back on the whiskey, then put it back in its place.
Jacob hangs up the phone. “That was the FBI,” he says. I glance toward the bedroom and knowing that I can’t hold her is killing me. Knowing that she needs something and I can’t give it to her makes me feel hopeless. “They are calling foul play.”
“No shit.” I shake my head. “What else did they tell you that we already know?”
“The guard who was on duty that night called in sick, and this was his replacement.” Now I look over at him. “Yeah.”
“I’ll tell Derek,” I say, taking out my phone and sending Derek a text.
Me: Guard was a replacement.
When I put the phone down, Jacob asks, “You ever going to tell me what it is you do?”
I want to laugh and shake my head, but then I spot Kallie. She’s wearing my shorts and a shirt. “What happened?” She shakes her head. Tears stream down her face, and she looks so helpless. “I got in the tub to hold her because she was shaking so bad.” My hands clench into fists. “I put her in your bed. She was so out of it that she didn’t even realize it.”
“I got it,” I say. She looks at Jacob, who walks to her and envelops her in his arms.
“If you need us, all you have to do is call,” Jacob says and carries Kallie out as she cries in his arms. I walk to my bedroom and find her lying on her side in the middle of my bed. I walk quietly over to her, trying not to wake her. I want to lean down and kiss her head, but I don’t. Instead, I walk into the bathroom, and I see water everywhere. After I put towels down, I start the shower. For the second day in a row, I take a fast shower, just making sure I wash off the dirt.
I keep the door open to listen for her, and when I’m slipping on my shorts, the sound of her screaming makes me rush back into my room. Standing in the middle of the room, she’s shaking like a leaf while tears streak down her face and her chest heaves as she gasps for air. Her eyes are wide, and the fear in them breaks me. I grab her around her waist and pick her up, carrying her back to my bed.
“Darlin’,” I whisper when she buries her face in my neck, and I feel her tears seeping into my skin. “It’s okay. I’m here.” I kiss the top of her head, and she clings to me tighter, but I lay her back down in my bed. Grabbing the water bottle on the nightstand, I take the cap off for her and hand it to her. “You need to take a sip of water.”
Her hands come up, but she’s still shaking so badly that she can’t even hold the bottle. I bring the bottle to her lips, and she takes a little sip, then looks at me. “I’m …” she starts to say. “I have.” When she looks down, I see that the fear is going away, but something else is creeping in. “It was just a nightmare.”
I push her hair away from her tear-streaked face, and her breathing slowly returns to normal. “There you go,” I whisper. “Just breathe.”
“They took me,” she says softly, and my blood starts to boil. “When they arrested him, I was there. Wrong place at the wrong time.” I watch her look down, and she finishes the story. “I was returning his stuff. I should have had it couriered over, but I wanted to have one last look at him and maybe see what I thought was there.”
She shakes her head, but her eyes never meet mine. She sits on my bed, and my hands are on both sides of her legs while she talks. I want to hold her in my arms while she tells this story, but I want her to open up to me more than I want to touch her.
“I was there maybe two minutes before the commotion started. Someone kicked down the door, and I was standing there with my feet glued to the floor. Even if I tried to move, I couldn’t because a gun was placed at the side of my head.” When her hand comes up and she rubs her temple, my anger starts to rise. “I can still feel the cold metal placed there.” Her eyes meet mine, and I see the turmoil in them. It’s clear for everyone to see. It’s clear for me to see, and for once, she isn’t guarded. For once, she is herself.
“He pushed me forward.” One of my hands forms a fist. “Told me to get down. The words were stuck in my throat. I didn’t know what was going on, and when I looked up, all I saw were black boots as they stormed into the house. It was almost like I was a part of a movie. They all had on headgear, and their guns were aimed, ready to be fired. I didn’t even feel him pull my arms to my back, but I then felt the cold cuffs being placed on me. He took a hold of my arm and forced me to stand, and all I could do was watch. I looked over at him and saw he still had his gun out, and I have never felt more scared in my life. Dominic was dragged out of his bedroom. I expected him to tell them that I had nothing to do with whatever was going on, that I was not even with him, but he did none of that. He kept his mouth shut and didn’t say a fucking word.” She shakes her head, and I want to have four minutes with this guy. Four minutes and I would bring him to his knees. Four minutes of pure torture. “Actually.” She looks at me now and then puts her head down. “He did say something. He said, ‘bunch of fucking pigs.’”
“Darlin’.” I lift her chin so she can see me. “You don’t have to relive it.”
“They threw me in a cell for fourteen hours,” she says, and she starts to shake. “Fourteen hours without one word. Nothing. I sat in there for fourteen hours, and all I could do was relive my whole life. And trust me, nothing about my life is good enough to relive, let alone think about for fourteen hours. Every single time I heard footsteps, my heart sped up, and I got my hopes up that someone, anyone was coming for me. But not one person showed up for me. The only ones who came to get me were two detectives. I was taken to a small office, and all I could think was what if they don’t believe me? What if they send me back to the cell, and no one comes for me?”
She puts her hand to her mouth before a sob comes out. I pull her to me, and I let her cry. Kissing her head, I want to say that I would have come for her. I would be there for her. I would have never let her sit in there for fourteen hours. I would have never let anything happen to her. But I swallow the words down. Instead, I do the only thing I can do. I hold her in my arms until she goes limp, the whole time making a checklist of the people who are going to suffer for all of this.
Chapter Eleven
Olivia
I feel so much heat around me, yet I can’t help but sink into it more. I open my eyes, seeing the sun peeking into the room, and I have to blink two or three times bef
ore I register that I’m in Casey’s room. As I look down at the arms around me, there is no mistaking that those belong to Casey.
Yesterday was pretty much a blur after he tried to kiss me. The whole night felt like a dream or, better yet, a nightmare. I went into Casey’s bathroom and literally fell to my knees. Rocking back and forth, I repeated the same words over and over again. “It’s never going to stop.” Kallie cried with me as she peeled my clothes off me. She filled the bath, but not even the hot water could stop my body from violently shaking. Nothing could stop it. I was in daze, but I could hear Kallie tell me it was going to be okay. I could hear it, but I just couldn’t come out of the daze. I didn’t even try to fight her when she put me in Casey’s bed. I just wanted to feel warm again. I wanted the cold that had seeped into my bones to leave.
“Morning, darlin’,” he says from behind me, and I shiver when I feel his breath on my neck.
“Morning,” I say, not turning around. I can’t face him right now. Last night, I poured more of my heart out to him and told him about the nightmare that started this. Whatever little piece of dignity I had left was gone the minute he caught me in his arms and carried me back to his bed.
“How did you sleep?” he asks. I want to turn around and maybe wrap my arms around his neck. I want to go back to yesterday afternoon when he was going to kiss me.
“Better than expected,” I answer. Honestly, I thought I would have nothing but nightmares after the first one, but in his arms, I felt safer than I care to admit. This isn’t good.
“Are you hungry?” he asks, and I chuckle. He is his mother’s son.
“A little.” Turning around in his arms, I come face-to-face with his bare chest. I look up into his blue eyes when my stomach decides that it’s time to eat. Letting out the biggest rumble that I’ve ever heard, it cuts the tension, and we both laugh now.
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