She could, she swore. She could. While it was true that Greg had been on the track team in high school—or so he had said—a lot of years had passed since then and he had obviously been neglecting his workouts. What that meant was that it had caused him to lose some of his speed since then.
Felicia was so laser-focused on making her getaway she didn’t even realize that the man she had run past was Aaron, until she was almost behind him.
“Aaron!” she cried in disbelief, practically doing a one-eighty.
Overjoyed at finding her, Aaron quickly shoved Felicia directly behind him. He wanted to pull her into his arms, but now wasn’t the time. He had to be sure she was all right,
Aaron swung around to face the bellowing man who was running after her.
“Did he hurt you?” Aaron demanded, ready to make her ex-husband pay if he had harmed so much as a single hair on her head.
She was relieved beyond words to have Aaron suddenly appear out of the blue like this. “I’m all right.”
She still couldn’t believe that Aaron had somehow managed to find her just in time. She had left her phone on, but she had no way of knowing if he could actually track her.
“But she’s not going to be for long,” Greg boasted, his expression ugly. “Listen, you SOB, this is none of your business,” he shouted at Aaron. “So unless you’re asking for a few new holes to be put in your body, I’d get the hell out of here if I were you.”
“But you’re not me,” Aaron told him in a taunting, belittling voice. “You’re a sniveling, craven coward who gets off on brutalizing women.”
In response to Aaron’s jeer, Greg’s face turned to an angry shade of crimson red.
“He said he’s got a gun, Aaron,” Felicia cried, terrified that her ex actually did and would carry out the threat he’d made earlier.
What if he shot Aaron?
If anything happened to Aaron because of her, Felicia knew that she wouldn’t be able to ever live with herself. That was why she had left Nicole’s house in the first place. To spare everyone, not to get anyone shot—especially not Aaron.
“Don’t worry. Cowards always make empty threats,” Aaron told her. His eyes met Greg’s, all but penetrating the man’s soul—if he even had one. “He doesn’t have a gun. He doesn’t have anything.”
“Oh, you think that? You think that?” Greg repeated, practically shrieking.
Wild-eyed, the man took one step toward Aaron, his intention to harm him and then take his fury out on Felicia infinitely clear. With a savage yell, he ran up to Aaron—and wound up walking right into Aaron’s powerful right hook.
It took Aaron just two swings to bring Greg down for the count. The man was knocked out cold.
Unable to believe that Aaron was safe and that he had actually managed to save her, as well, Felicia threw herself into his arms. She held on to him tightly, as if she was never going to let him go.
She was shaking and on the verge of tears as she cried, “You found me! You actually found me!”
“Damon’s friend gets part of the credit,” Aaron told her, holding her to him and feeling incredibly relieved to actually be able to do so. He was not about to release her. “That was pretty clever thinking,” he told her, “leaving your cell phone on so we could trace the signal to that car outside of the motel.”
Felicia smiled at him through her tears. “What can I tell you?” she sniffed. “I like spy novels.”
Laughing, Aaron hugged her even closer to him.
Just then, they heard the sounds of an approaching police car as a siren cut through the air.
The siren grew louder, obviously coming closer.
Felicia looked at Aaron quizzically. “Did you call the police, too?” she asked, surprised that he would think to do something like that.
She had just naturally assumed that Aaron would have waited until he had gotten here and then just handled the situation himself. When it came to things like that, he struck her as a loner.
“I didn’t call them,” he admitted, “but I’ve got a feeling that my mother did,” Aaron said. “As soon as Damon’s friend gave me the name and address of the motel where your ex was staying, I told my mother. There was no other way she was going to let me leave without her unless I told her where I was going.”
Still shaking, Felicia was grinning from ear to ear. In Nicole’s place, she would have done the same thing. “I love your mother,” Felicia told him with feeling.
“Yeah,” Aaron said, finally giving in to the temptation he had been dealing with and kissing her briefly, “I know.”
Aaron glanced over toward the crumpled heap on the floor. “Your ex is going to go away for a long, long time.”
“He’s not my anything,” Felicia firmly informed Aaron. “And as for his going away for a long time, it’s going to be longer than you think.”
He thought her words were motivated by wishful thinking and animosity, but Aaron discovered it was otherwise when the two policemen who had responded to his mother’s call entered.
“Mr. Colton, your mother filled us in on what was going on here.” Hogan, the older of the two policemen, told Aaron. “We’re going to need you both to come down with us and give us a statement.”
“We will, but I think you might want to look into this man’s vehicle first,” Felicia told the two responding police officers.
Both men and Aaron looked at her quizzically, waiting for a further explanation of what had prompted her to say that.
“When Greg had me locked in the trunk of his car, I thought I could smell drugs—he had something floral and chemical in there, and flowers were definitely not in there,” she told them.
The two officers exchanged looks. “Sounds like it might be drugs,” Wilson guessed.
Felicia nodded. That sounded right. The smell had made her head hurt by the time the trunk was opened. “If I know him, Greg has turned to supplementing his income with what he once referred to as easy money.”
“Go check it out, Wilson,” Hogan directed.
“Would you happen to know where he keeps his car keys?” Wilson asked.
“I think he should still have it on him,” Felicia answered.
Wilson began to pat Greg down and made another discovery. Finding a handgun on Greg’s person, he pulled it out and held it up. “My guess is that he doesn’t have a permit for this,” he speculated.
Felicia stared at the gun, horrified and stunned. “For once, he was actually telling the truth,” she cried, looking at Aaron. “He really did have a gun.” She looked at Officer Hogan. “He said he did, but I didn’t believe him.”
“Well, if what I just found in his closet is any indication, this guy’s going to go away forever,” the younger policeman told the couple.
Thank God.
It was over, Felicia thought. The nightmare she had been living for the last four and a half years was finally over.
She blinked back tears as she looked at the two police officers. “It can’t be long enough for me,” she told them honestly.
Putting his arm around Felicia, Aaron pulled her to him. “That scum is never going to bother or try to hurt you again,” he promised and meant it from the bottom of his heart. Even if Harper wasn’t going to prison.
Hogan, meanwhile, had handcuffed Greg’s hands behind his back. Coming to, Greg moaned.
“That’s it, Sleeping Beauty. Time to wake up,” Hogan told him. But Greg had passed out again. “Hey, this guy’s really out cold,” he commented, taking a closer look at Greg. “What did you hit him with?” he asked, curious.
“A right hook,” Aaron said simply.
The policeman grinned at him in admiration. “Good for you,” he said. “A lowlife like this guy had it coming to him. Drugs, guns and abusing women. That’s a trifecta if I ever heard one. Don’t worry, ma’am,” he told Felicia. �
��This guy’s going to go away for a long, long time.”
“Hear that, Fee?” Aaron asked, pressing a kiss to her temple.
She beamed at him. He had called her “Fee,” she thought, instantly feeling closer to him. “I heard,” she replied.
The sigh of relief she breathed echoed in her very soul as she leaned against Aaron and watched the two policemen half walk, half carry Greg out of the motel.
She was finally safe, finally free.
Epilogue
The moment Felicia opened the front door and she and Aaron walked into the house, Nicole immediately flew into the foyer. She was wearing the widest smile possible as she greeted them. Blinking back tears, she threw her arms around Felicia as if the young woman was, at the very least, her long-lost daughter.
“Oh, thank goodness!” she cried as she looked up at her son. Nicole extended her hand toward him so that she could touch him, as well. “I was so worried about you two. Did the police get there in time?” she asked. She had spent the last hour imagining everything that could have happened to them, worrying herself sick.
“Not for Greg. Aaron had already knocked him out cold,” Felicia told his mother.
She was looking at Aaron and smiling as she thought about him coming to save her.
Nicole released Felicia as she assessed her son. “I guess all those boxing championships of yours did come in handy,” she told Aaron with no small amount of pride.
Aaron, never one to bask in credit, whether justifiably or not, merely shrugged off her words. “I guess,” he said.
“Come,” Nicole beckoned, leading them into the family room. Sitting down on the sofa, she patted the places beside her, indicating that they should both take a seat next to her. “Tell me everything.” And then she interrupted herself. “I take it that the police arrested your ex,” she said hopefully.
Aaron turned toward Felicia. This was her story and he felt she should be the one to tell his mother what actually happened.
“That they did,” Felicia assured the woman. “And they’ll be throwing the book at him, seeing as how they found drugs and a cache of firearms both in his car and his motel room.”
Nicole looked incredibly relieved as well as concerned at what could have happened. She shook her head. “Guns and drugs! Thank heavens he’s off the streets. You’re right. They are going to throw the book at him.”
Felicia nodded. “If there’s any justice, they will,” she agreed.
Nicole paused to kiss Felicia and then her son. “There still is,” she said with the confidence of a woman who had lived long enough to actually witness justice in action a number of times.
* * *
Because they were all wound up thanks to the events that had transpired, Aaron and Felicia stayed up and talked with Nicole for more than an hour. But eventually, because it was getting late, Nicole begged off, saying that she was going to bed. Her parting words to the two of them were, “I am so happy that everything turned out the way it should have.”
“Yeah, me, too.” Aaron was sitting on the sofa, his arm resting comfortably around Felicia’s shoulders. “You tired?” he asked her, not seeing how she couldn’t be.
“Yes,” Felicia admitted. “But I’m also wired. Besides, I don’t want you to go yet.”
He smiled at her. “Who said anything about my going?”
Felicia caught the inviting note in his voice. “Oh? Does that mean you’re staying the night?” She could feel hope budding within her. What she had gone through with Greg had been awful, but if it got her to this place, then it had all been worth it.
“That all depends.”
She raised an eyebrow. Maybe everything hadn’t been resolved.
“On what?” she asked.
“On whether or not you want me to,” Aaron said.
She looked at him, elated that he would want to stay and surprised that he actually thought she might not want him to.
Rising, Felicia wrapped her fingers around his hand and tugged. Taking the hint, Aaron rose to his feet.
“Why would you even think that?” she asked him as they went up to her room.
“Because I acted like a horse’s rear end,” he told her with all sincerity.
They reached her room and went in. The sound of the door closing behind them was strangely intimate and inviting, Felicia thought.
Aaron began to undress her and Felicia responded in kind.
“I should have realized that you had a good reason for keeping your past to yourself,” he said. Aaron kissed her neck softly, sending shock waves of anticipation vibrating all through her. “I had no right to press you the way I did.”
“You’re right,” she told him, breathing heavily. It was getting hard for her to think. “I did have a good reason for not telling you. I was ashamed that I allowed myself to be treated like such a victim,” she admitted. “I thought once you knew that about me, that I let myself be abused, you wouldn’t want to have anything to do with me anymore.” There were tears in Felicia’s eyes as she looked up at him. “That you wouldn’t want to be with such a loser.”
“Such a loser?” Aaron echoed in disbelief. By now, their clothes were all discarded in a heap on the floor. “Are you kidding me?” he asked her incredulously, slowly running his hands along her body. He loved the way she reacted, loved the way she twisted beneath his touch. He had come too close to losing her and he never intended to run that risk again. “You are the strongest woman I know,” he told her, kissing the hollow of her throat. “And that includes my mother.”
He couldn’t have said anything more endearing and arousing to her if he tried.
Felicia sealed her mouth to his, feeling as if, at long last, she had finally, finally come home.
* * *
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Chapter 1
Soledad de la Vega brushed her palms against the front of her bib apron, then reached around her waist to undo the ties that wrapped it around her body. As she pulled the twill garment over her head, she stole a quick glance at the smartwatch on her wrist. It was almost midnight and her stomach did a flip, as if the prosciutto and cheese she’d snacked on earlier might come back up.
Working in the bakery after closing rarely unnerved Soledad. Downtown Grave Gulch, Michigan—where her business, Dream Bakes, sat—had always felt safe and she had never given any thought to anyone trying to do her or any of her employees harm. Tonight, though, her anxiety was at an all-time high. She took a deep breath to still her nerves.
She wiped the last remnants of flour from the counter and covered the yeast rolls that needed to rise before going into the oven. She pushed the oversize tray of rolled dough into the center of the table. The morning crew would brush butter across the tops and dust them with sesame and caraway seeds before they baked. Her small staff would hold the bakery down until she returned, and for the first time since starting her own business, Soledad wasn’t sure when that would be.
The night wasn’t like her usual nights. She wasn’t headed home to Melvin, her overweight tabby cat. There was no plan to finish the book on top of the stack that decorated the nightstand next to her bed, no cup of warm tea to soothe her to sleep. In less than
an hour, she would be driving her best friend, Annie, to safety. The two had planned every detail of Annie’s escape from her abusive husband, Gavin, and Soledad was only minutes from rendezvousing to whisk her and her baby girl, Lyra, away.
She looked at her watch a second time, then reached for the cell phone on the counter behind her. There was no message saying their plans had changed. Making one last sweep of the space to ensure all the ovens were off and the food was put away, she then shut off the lights, exited the building and headed to her car.
Minutes later, Soledad sat in the cul-de-sac near Annie’s home with her car running and the headlights off. She had pulled past the driveway and was parked under a massive oak tree. The quiet neighborhood was one of the more prestigious in Grave Gulch, and both she and Annie knew that the security officer who patrolled the neighborhood wouldn’t make his next round past the home until twelve thirty. Still, Soledad was praying steadily, every nerve and muscle in her petite body twitching with nervousness. She was scared, everything that could go wrong playing out in her head. Her biggest fear was that Gavin would wake before Annie could sneak out of the house and their window of opportunity would be lost.
Soledad and Annie had met in high school, the two girls running together on the long-distance track team. They’d been polar opposites, Annie’s blond pixie cut, blue eyes and fair skin contrasting starkly with Soledad’s blue-black strands, black eyes and olive skin tone. Soledad had been bubbly and effervescent, one of the more popular girls, while Annie had been more reserved and studious. But the two had become fast friends, bonding over the sport, their obsession with boy bands and the soap opera General Hospital.
After graduation they’d gone on to Grave Gulch Community College together, Annie wanting to pursue a career in medicine and Soledad unsure of what she wanted to do. It had been Annie who’d encouraged her to turn her love for pastries and baked goods into a career. Annie had pushed her to pursue a degree in business management and Annie had been there with her the day she’d opened Dream Bakes.
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