Chapter 11
Blaze hada keen understanding of fear. He’d lived it, experienced it, ate it for breakfast, and kept going anyway. Was he damaged because of it?
Probably. Wasn’t going to stop him, though. Worst thing you could do was stop and let the fear engulf you.
Today’s fears were different from the ones he’d had as a child. He knew how to deal with today. He was still figuring out the kid shit. Probably always would be, truth be told. None of it had been his fault, and yet he still sometimes caught himself thinking that if he’d been a better kid, his mother would have loved him enough to kick the drug habit.
He knew that was bullshit, but his inner eight-year-old didn’t.
Emma Sutton was tougher than she looked, but she was in danger of being engulfed in her fear. He needed to know what was after her, what scared her, so he could keep her safe.
Because he damned well was going to keep her safe. It was what he did. What he’d always done. It was risky to get involved, but this was protection, not a relationship.
After he’d cleared her apartment, he’d called Chance and asked him and Seth to reconnoiter the area. They hadn’t found anything, but they were headed for Emma’s apartment now so they could take a better look than he’d had time for. Look for anything out of place. Not that she had anything worth stealing yet, but that didn’t stop someone from planting a camera or a mic if they wanted to spy on her.
He didn’t reject any possibilities. He waited patiently as Emma swallowed and clasped her hands together around her knees. Her feet were still tapping the floor. He could feel his anger building. Not because she tapped the floor or hesitated to talk, but because some asshole had done this to her. Scared her half out of her mind.
Her eyes behind the glasses were big and shiny, and he knew she was fighting tears.
“His name is Simon Marsh. He’s thirty-five, five-eleven or six-foot, with brown eyes and blond hair. Short hair. He has a tech consulting business. He builds websites for people, optimizes online branding and advertising, keeps their sites secure, that kind of thing. He works from home, which means all he needs is an internet connection to do his job. He doesn’t have a boss or employees in the traditional sense. He has a virtual assistant, and he contracts out some of the work he needs done, but there’s no job to go to, no one keeping up with where he is on any given day.”
“So he could follow you to Alabama and nobody would miss him.”
“Right.”
He had so many questions. He started with a simple one. “How did you meet?”
She pulled in a breath. “At the gym. He was building their website, and he started to work out there. We said hello in passing, he started to talk to me, then he eventually asked me out.” She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they were harder than he’d expected. “It was a huge mistake to get involved with him, but he’s the kind of man who says and does all the right things until the day he doesn’t. He was controlling and verbally abusive, and it took me far too long to realize it.”
Blaze thought if Simon Marsh walked through his door right now, he’d flatten the asshole. “Did he ever hit you?”
Her eyes flashed fire. But then her chin quivered, and she dropped her gaze to her lap. It killed him. He didn’t even fucking know her, and it killed him.
“It’s not your fault,” he rasped. He could see his mother taking that shit from the men she dated, and it twisted him up inside as if it was yesterday. “It’s never your fault, no matter what he told you.”
She nodded. Didn’t look at him. He wanted her to, but he wouldn’t force it. She would trust him before they were through. He’d make sure of it.
“When I went to work the morning after, I knew I wouldn’t go back. He was in my apartment, because he’d started staying there much of the time, but I wasn’t going back for anything. I stayed at the hospital, slept there until a couple of the other doctors cornered me and made me tell them what was going on. I don’t know what happened, not really, but they went to my apartment and had a talk with Simon. The next thing I knew, he was gone.”
“But that wasn’t the end of it.”
Her knuckles were white. “Not entirely. He called, sent texts, swore he wasn’t like that, that I needed to give him another chance. I ignored them all. He finally stopped, but by then the wheels were in motion for the move back to Sutton’s Creek. My dad had decided to retire, and I jumped at the chance to get away from there. I wanted to feel safe again.”
“You didn’t see him before you left?”
She hesitated a moment too long.
“Emma. It’s okay.”
She sucked in a breath. “I saw him. From a distance. At the gym. At the grocery store. Across from my apartment building. At the hospital a couple of times. He didn’t speak to me. He stared. Hard. That’s when I started to feel the tingling sensation that I was being watched.”
He was really fucking pissed at the way some men treated women. “Anything else?”
She shook her head. “No. Staring at me wasn’t enough to call the police, so I didn’t. And, um, I didn’t report the assault. I should have, but I was embarrassed. I just wanted to forget the whole thing.”
He hated that she’d been too scared to call the cops, but he also knew why she hadn’t. He’d lived around too much of that shit as a kid. He knew the psychological toll it took on women and children. The excuses people made, thinking it was their fault, that they’d caused it, that the police already had enough to do and what was one more assault to them.
“He knew you were leaving?”
“I don’t know, but he’d have figured it out if he was watching. I broke my lease, sold the furniture, donated what I didn’t need, and packed my car. I could have taken more time. My dad wants to retire to travel with my mother. She had a heart attack last year, but she’s fine now, and he’s not quitting immediately. I took his decision as a sign when it happened after everything with Simon.” She dropped her head to her hands and shook it again, slowly. “I’m talking too much. I do that when I’m nervous. And maybe I’m blowing this out of proportion. Why would he follow me here? He’s an asshole, but there are plenty of other women for him to intimidate. Maybe I didn’t engage the lock. Maybe the prickly feelings are just paranoia.”
He understood why she questioned herself. Maybe she was right, but he wasn’t going to dismiss her feelings so casually.
“Would he have known where you were going when you left town?”
“Probably. He knows where I’m from. Even if I took another job, he’d probably expect me to come here. He wanted to know all about where I grew up when we started dating. I was happy to tell him everything back then.”
There was a knock on the door, and she flinched.
“It’s my friends,” he said. “I’m going to give them your key and let them have a look around.”
“Okay.” She offered her key ring.
He handed off the keys and returned to sit near her again. “Do you have a picture of him?”
It’d help if he had more than a description to go on. If he saw the guy lurking outside the building, or hanging around in the Dawg, staring at her, he could intervene.
Emma shook her head. “He was adamant about pictures. He didn’t want to be in them. He never let me take any selfies of us on dates, or even just a picture of him to have back when I thought he was a nice guy.”
Blaze frowned. It wasn’t quite normal behavior, but it wasn’t illegal either. He was careful about photos. All his guys were. They’d spent years relying on the basic anonymity that came from not having photos plastered all over the internet for others to find. Maybe tech bros like Simon were cautious about their online footprint because they worked online and saw how it could be abused.
Blaze had what he needed for now, so they talked about other things. Unimportant things like the weather and how good the banana bread over at the Kiss My Grits cafe was.
“Warm from the oven with a smear of butter,” he said, and she nodded enthusiastically.
“Wendy bakes the best banana bread I’ve ever tasted. I got a piece this morning and savored it with my coffee.”
Seth and Chance returned a few minutes later. Emma hadn’t relaxed much, but at least she’d stopped tapping her toes and hugging her knees.
“Find anything?” Blaze asked his teammates when the introductions were done. He could have had the conversation away from her, but he sensed that was the wrong thing to do. Emma was scared, but she wasn’t a child and wouldn’t appreciate being treated like one. The woman was a doctor, which took crazy amounts of schooling and time. He was certain she could handle whatever they’d learned.
“Nothing inside. But the lock was picked recently. There are fresh scratches around the keyhole that didn’t come from a key,” Seth said.
Blaze looked at Emma. She shivered. Then she sat up a bit straighter and thrust her chin out. He didn’t know if she was telling herself to be brave or feeling vindicated that it wasn’t just her imagination.
“These locks aren’t the best,” Chance said. “Could use something a bit more secure.”
Blaze thought so too. “I’ll pick something up tomorrow. For both apartments.”
Not that he worried about his ability to stop an intruder, but a better lock was warranted.
“I can help you install them,” Seth said. “What about cameras?”
“Those too. At least in the hall. I’ll have to clear it with Doc Sutton.”
Emma seemed to shake herself from her reverie. “I don’t want my parents to know why,” she blurted. “I never told them about Simon. After things went wrong, I c-couldn’t.”
Her knuckles were white, the corners of her mouth tight. It wasn’t his business why she hadn’t told her parents. Maybe they weren’t the kind of people you shared information with. He thought they were nice, but he wasn’t their kid.
“I’m not going to tell them. I think after what happened at the Gas-n-Go, they’ll be amenable to security measures.”
“I hope so. But lots of people still don’t lock their doors in Sutton’s Creek.” She swung a hand out, pointing vaguely west. “You could drive into the historic district right now and walk into just about any house without encountering a locked door. It’s been that way for years.”
Blaze exchanged a look with his teammates. “That may be,” he said gently. “But the area’s growing and more tourists visit every day. Adding security to public buildings is reasonable.”
She nodded. “Just don’t tell them what happened. Please.”
“If I tell them, I’ll say it was my door, okay?”
“Okay.”
She sucked in a breath and climbed to her feet. She didn’t even come to his shoulder. He wanted to wrap an arm around her the way Theo had, feel her slight body solid against his. Infuse her with confidence that he was going to keep her safe.
“I’ve imposed enough on you tonight. I should go.”
“Can you sit for a moment? Let me walk the guys out?”
He thought she was about to tell him no, but she sank to the couch and started tapping her feet again. Blaze went into the hall with his guys and told them about Simon Marsh.
“I’ll see what I can dig up,” Seth said. He was their IT guy, and he was good at research.
“Thanks. Appreciate the help tonight.”
They clasped hands all around, and then the two men disappeared down the hall. Blaze went back inside, closing the door behind him. Emma was where he’d left her. She looked up when he walked in. Her eyes were a little glassy, and he thought she must have been fighting tears. It made his gut tighten a little more.
“You can’t stay in your apartment tonight. Whoever picked that lock could come back. It’s not safe.”
Her mouth opened. Closed again. She seemed to think about it for a moment. “I can’t go back to my parents’ house. I’d have to explain. I don’t want to explain it to Rory, either. Or Theo. They don’t know about Simon, and I don’t want them to know. I have no choice. I’ll put a chair under the door and call you if anything happens.”
Blaze blew out a breath and raked a hand through his hair. He got her reasons, but her logic wasn’t sound. Just like insisting earlier that she could walk home alone. She was stubborn as hell sometimes. Or maybe it was pride. He didn’t know, but he couldn’t let her risk it.
There was only one thing he could say.
“Then stay here tonight. With me.”