Legal Guardian: OTT Dark Stalker Romance (Dangerous Desires Book 1)

1. Mark

A single ray of sunlight pierces the clouds and falls upon Anna’s face. Tear-streaked but brave, facing a crowd of onlookers she may not even know. Being her father’s daughter has taught her to face things head on, and today it serves her well. She’s wrapped in beauty and grace and just enough sadness to make her appear human, even though I know she’s an angel sent from heaven. She has to be.

I can’t take my eyes off of her, and only something otherworldly could possess me like this.

Anna Dawson. Eighteen. Off-limits. Shining with innocence beneath that single ray of golden light, but a calm beauty amidst the storm of sorrow engulfing us.

Soft raindrops continue to fall as she makes her speech, inciting the memory of her mother, saying kind things about her father and how her parents are together now, wherever they may be. People around me begin to shuffle and move towards their cars, whispering condolences or well-wishes to others as they go. I stay put, my hands clasped in front of me, ignoring the people who recognize me and try to make conversation.

I haven’t been part of their crowd in years, and I’m not interested in rejoining them. Not when they all left me at the snap of Henry’s fingers, like I was something to be discarded. Like I had made the mistake intentionally, like I wasn’t sorry for it.

Like I wasn’t killing myself for it already.

Nothing will ever rid me of my guilt for what I’ve done. Nothing.

I’ve suffered for it for five years, but now Henry’s gone. He can’t look at me with grief-stricken eyes any longer. Can’t leave me drunken, threatening voicemails.

Can’t continue to neglect his kindhearted, hard-working daughter who paid for all the groceries and cooked for him and cleaned for him and took care of him while he succumbed to his grief. She parented him these last five years, and now it’s her turn to be taken care of.

Anna Dawson has always been mine, and I’m finally coming to collect. Legally, I’m her guardian - or I was, at least, until she turned eighteen. I’ve kept my distance to appease her father and keep a restraining order off my record, but now that he’s gone, I can step in and help instead of merely sending “care packages” - more like survival packs - to their home every month. They helped keep Anna going at the time, but now I’m going to ensure that she thrives.

She deserves nothing less.

Seeing her standing at the front of the crowd with that lost look in her eyes nearly breaks me. Her speech is rote, memorized, and anyone who doesn’t see the way she stands around at the end unsure what to do with herself is blind.

But no one offers her any advice. They just pat her on the shoulder, give her a half-armed hug, sniffle a little, and walk away. Leaving her all alone to figure this shit out on her own.

She’s been doing that for years. And it’s time for that to end.

Once the interment is over and the crowd parts, I make my move. Only a few stragglers remain, but they pay me no mind as I walk directly towards my girl.

She’s looking at a puddle by her shoe until all of a sudden, her face lifts and our eyes meet for the first time. Baby blues swimming with unshed tears that she hastily wipes away.

“Mark,” she chokes, laughing like a broken music box. “Out of everyone, you’re the last person I expected to see today.”

“I came to check on you.”

“And pay your respects?”

“I have no respects to pay. Not to him.”

I expect her to stiffen or shed a few tears at my brute honesty, but she doesn’t. After a pause, she clasps her hands together and nods. “It’s hard to remember how he used to be, y’know? Before Mom died.”

Words fail me. I haven’t been there for her, and I don’t know the full extent of what Henry was like in his final years. I watched from the street, close enough to intervene if needed, but just far enough away that I could remain a stranger. That I couldn’t hurt Anna the way I hurt her father.

She smiles, a beautiful curve of her lips that I don’t deserve, and reaches for my arm. Warmth seeps through my shirtsleeve as she clings to me and presses her head to my shoulder.

“Walk with me?”

I’ll go anywhere with you, sweetheart. I’m never leaving you again.

“Of course.”

We walk in silence towards the cars lined up on the street, but other than my own Chevy and the O’Malley’s Prius, there’s none awaiting us. The O’Malley girl helps her grandmother into the car and drives off, leaving Anna and me alone.

Just like that, everyone forgot about her. Everyone except me.

She’s quiet and staring off into the distance, lost again.

“Hey,” I murmur, pressing my lips to the top of her head. I need to take her home. Shelter her. Bathe her. Keep her warm and guarded and safe, where nothing can touch her. Not sadness or grief or anger or frustration or— “Why don’t you come—”

Her stomach growls and she jumps as though she’s been bitten.

My invitation into my home morphs into something else entirely. “When was the last time you ate?”

She shakes her head, and a soft, broken laugh fills the air. “I wish I could tell you. I’m not sure.”

I know she works at the diner. She has access to food. Has no one noticed that she’s been starving herself— Cutting off my thoughts and the simmering anger threatening to rise, I lead her to my truck and lift her into the passenger seat. “Buckle up, sweetheart. I’m taking you home.”