It was like giving her stalker an open-ended invitation to come inside.
I had been driving by her house each night, back and forth, to make sure nobody was around. I had seen her sisters arrive. Clayton was Ronnie’s fiancé, and knowing he and the other two women were in the house with Brin made me okay with staying away.
Because, while I didn’t doubt Danny Wade’s story, once I had calmed down I was reminded of all the other shit that had happened to her. Finding Brin in fear with a gun clutched in her hands hadn’t been a stunt or dramatics. It had been real. All that crap I had shouted at her had just been that. Angry crap from a man clearly unable to deal with the fact that he was falling for a woman for the second time in his life and was shit scared about it.
Now she was going to be in a house filled with people, many of whom, assuming they were Ronnie and Clayton’s friends, she wouldn’t know. I couldn’t have that. I’d told her I had her back, and even though she hadn’t known it, I had still been watching out for her.
Why? I asked myself. Why? There was only one answer to that question.
“Shit.”
“Kicking yourself for letting her go?” Jack asked me.
“I’m not letting her go,” I said as I got off the stool. “She’s mine. She always has been. I’ve just been too much of an idiot to realize it. And now she’s gone ahead and put herself in danger and I can’t have that.”
Jack laughed. “You’re going to crash the party?”
“That’s the new plan. Deputy, you’re off duty. Turns out I’m not getting drunk, after all.”
He gave me a salute and I rushed out of the bar to my truck that was waiting outside.
I had no idea what I was going to say to win her back, but if I had to lock her in her room while she kicked and screamed at me, at least I would know she was safe.
Shit, she might even throw her shoes at me. Those pointy things would hurt. But it would still be worth it, as long as Brin was talking to me.
