Patrick grimaces.
I sigh loudly, head spinning with too much to say in one conversation. Instead, I pull my laptop from my large, leatherpurse, tapping on the top. “I have everything documented here. Would you like me to email you a copy along with the restraining order?”
“Has it all been reported?”
I nod.
Patrick offers me a business card with the distracted air of someone who already knows the outcome. His eyes flicker once, something unreadable behind the professional calm. Then, it’s gone.
“Like I said, ma’am, you’re safe at Off-Duty.”
The free-station coffee tastes like metal and ash. Cold seeps through the cinder-block walls. I wish I hadn’t left Anson’s scarf in the car. And the space is white and devoid of personality, with a faint odor of metal and antiseptic that hits me hard.
I leave the station exhausted, the rest of my in-town research a daze. Half-hearted. At the community library, I chat with a few locals. Get glowing recommendations about Off-Duty Ranch and the men who run it.
Anson’s name comes up more than once. Runs a local booth at the farmer’s market and other festivals in town. Good produce, well priced. Makes sure those in need have enough. None of it surprises me. All of it tells me I need to leave before things get complicated. He deserves better than a woman always looking over her shoulder.
Shuffling to my car, I start the engine, mind wandering back to my earlier meeting with Chief Patrick. Same story—sympathy stretched thin over resignation. Like they know they can’t do anything, even before they finish taking my reports.
On the drive back to the ranch, a silver Chevy two cars behind me at a stoplight makes my heart stop. A chill snakes through my veins, inky and cold. Cary Brantley. I’m almost certain. I raise my cell phone, flipping the camera and taking a series ofshots before the Jeep directly behind me honks, and I realize the light’s green.
My gaze keeps darting to the mirror; the Chevy stays two cars back, a shadow that never blinks. Black military-style sunglasses and dark-tinted windows make identification impossible. But I feel him, the weight of someone thinking dark thoughts just for me.
As I thread onto the dirt road that leads to the ranch, the truck turns to the left, cars following so closely on either side, I can’t make out his license plate. But my phone vibrates just as I reach the crest where the ranch becomes visible.
Dumb bitch. Nobody’s coming to help you.
Chapter
Six
ANSON
When she’s gone, the cabin still smells like her—vanilla and apple blossoms tangled with the faint spice of sandalwood.Home, somehow.
Gravel grinds beneath tires as Lacey parks in front of my cabin, next to my truck. I look through the kitchen window, watching her march to the front door.
My fists clench and unclench, the ache from mending fences nothing compared to the one gnawing in my chest. The need to protect her burns like muscle memory.
Sunlight glances off the porch railing like a blade of warning. She grips it, white-knuckled, ascending the stairs a chore. My scarf is a talisman in her hand.
Lacey hesitates in the doorway, her body half-turned as if expecting to be told to leave. The sight guts me. “You’ve been gone a while.”
“Town errands. Reports. Bureaucracy,” she says. Her voice is steady, but her bottom lip trembles. Her eyes slide past me like I’m furniture.
I don’t press, just nod toward the picnic table out back. “Come eat before you pass out.”
“You don’t have to?—”
“Want to.”
She moves through the room and out the slider to the covered porch, scarf dropping on the couch as she passes. I follow with plates stacked high.
“Homemade bread. More of your Frankenzucchini loaf,” I say with a lopsided grin.
“So, it didn’t kill you?” she teases.
“Delicious, actually.”
