Chapter 17
Tanner looked up as the door to the interrogation room opened and Jake stepped in.
“Fuck. Finally. Am I free to go?”
“We interviewed some witnesses. They all said that you grabbed that guy, Tanner.”
“Because he touched my girl.”
“Your girl?” Jake sat across from him. “She said nothing about being yours.”
He ran his hand over his face. “Fuck. Fine. She’s not mine. But I know Lilac. We met six months ago. I’m not going to stand by while some asshole puts his hands on her. Fuck. I wouldn’t do that for any woman in Haven. I can’t believe you’d expect me to.”
“Of course I wouldn’t. But I also don’t need you to escalate the situation. That was a full-on bar brawl. The two Docs had to get out of bed to come and patch people up. Do you know how fucking mad Curt is that I got Jenna up at one in the morning?”
“Is Lilac okay?” Worry filled him. He’d been so angry seeing that asshole touch her that he hadn’t seen anything but him.
“She got checked over and went home.”
Relief flooded him. Thank fuck.
“My brothers?” he asked.
“They’re waiting for you. Listen, I’m not charging you since that guy grabbed Lilac and you defended her. But you need to get yourself under control. Throwing punches and getting mad isn’t always the best way to deal with things.”
He wanted to tell Jake where to stick his advice. What did he know about shit? But the truth was, he kind of had a point. Tanner had spent most of his life doing whatever he wanted. Shoot out the tires of a car on his property, sure. Get banned from most of the bars in the county, yep.
But this time, he actually wondered if he’d made the right choice in his actions because . . . what if something had happened to her while he was busy fighting?
Thank fuck she was all right.
Walking into the main area, he saw Raid and Beau waiting on him.
Beau grinned when he saw him. “Aww, I told Jake he should just lock you up and throw away the key. But then he threatened to lock me up if I didn’t shut up. Not that I wouldn’t do well in jail. Everyone would love me.”
Tanner just scowled at him as they walked out. “Love you? Do you want criminals to love you?”
“Why not? Criminals are people too, Tanner.”
“Come on, I need to get home. You staying with us tonight?” Raid asked them both.
“I better go home before Scarlett hears about tonight. Is your girl okay?” Beau asked.
“My girl?”
“Don’t play coy with me. The girl you just defended in there? She was about to get trampled on when I got to her.”
“What?” Tanner felt ill. “Jake said she got checked over and went home.”
“Must be all right, then. She looked a bit pale and frightened when I picked her up and carried her away. She seemed like she’d hurt her side.”
“Fuck!” She had? “I need to go make sure she’s all right.” He’d go there right now. Maybe he should take her home with him. Make sure she was properly looked after.
Yep. That was the best idea.
But as he stormed off, Raid wrapped an arm around him.
“Let me go.”
“You need to stop,” Raid warned.
“Let. Me. Go.”
Beau moved in front of him. “You can’t go to her now, Tanner.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Because she’s likely asleep, asshole. You want to go terrifying her?” Raid snarled.
No. Of course he didn’t. “But I need to know that she’s all right. She could be alone and hurting.”
“Hannah saw her with a woman the other day,” Raid told him.
She had? Who was she?
“She seemed fine, just a bit shaken,” Beau told him. “She’ll still be there in the morning. But you go there now, and you’ll scare her.”
Fuck. They were right.
But in the morning, he was going to check on her.
* * *
“What do you mean,she’s not here?” Tanner’s heart skipped a beat. Had she left? Where had she gone?
How was he going to find her?
“I mean, she’s not here.” The woman in front of him had her hair teased up so much it almost stood on end. She was in a pair of silky pajamas that clung to her generous curves. Was she a friend of Lilac’s? “She’s at the diner.”
Lilac must have gone to get breakfast. He heard a baby cry in the background and the woman at the door turned away. “I’ve got to go.”
The door slammed shut in his face before he could ask any more questions.
Frustration filled him, but he knew he had to talk to Lilac.
Turning away, he stormed down the path to head around the main house. Linc had a large house with a wraparound porch. He didn’t know how the deputy could afford a place like this on his salary, but it wasn’t his business.
Except for the fact that he was helping Lilac. Why? Linc was a nice guy, but to put up two strange women and a baby in his guesthouse? That seemed . . . odd.
“Tanner.” Linc walked out of his house onto the back porch. “Didn’t expect you here this morning. You here about last night?”
“Sort of. Did you really have to cuff me?”
“Just doing my job. Why’re you here then?” Linc asked.
“Really? That’s all you’ve got for me? No, sorry for being a dick and arresting you?”
Linc sighed. “You didn’t get processed. From what Jake said, some asshole grabbed Lilac and you waded in to help her.”
“How do you know her?” he demanded.
“Lilac?”
“Yeah. Why is she staying in your guest house?” Tanner asked.
“Don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Tanner replied. “Lilac is my business. Or she’s going to be my business.”
He’d done some thinking last night. And while he understood Raid and Beau’s reasoning when they’d told him to pull back and put some distance between them . . . he’d decided it was bullshit.
He’d thought about her for months.
Grown bitter over what happened.
Would he have done that if he hadn’t cared? Nope. If she’d never meant anything to him, then he’d have quickly forgotten about her. He’d planned to marry her. And he figured the fact that she had turned up in his town was a sign.
That he was supposed to have her.
So, he didn’t care who got in his way nor her reasons for ghosting him. The simple fact was, if he had to lock her up in the bunkhouse to keep her, he would.
Or even put a tracker on her . . . yep, he liked that idea.
He wasn’t letting her go. And he wasn’t stepping aside so Linc or Devon or any other prick interested in her could have her.
“You can’t just declare someone is yours. They have to agree.”
“Don’t see why.”
“Free will?”
He snorted. “She wants me.”
“So many red flags,” Linc muttered. “You know I’m sworn to protect the people in this town, right?”
Tanner folded his arms over his chest. “Yeah. I’m one of them. Remember?”
“You can protect yourself.”
Damn right, he could.
“You don’t need to protect Lilac from me,” he said, knowing where Linc was going with this.
“I better not, Tanner. Because, believe me, I’ll pick her over you. Not because I don’t like you, but because she needs help. You have a whole fucking huge family behind you. As far as I can tell, those women have nothing.” He nodded over to the guesthouse. “Nothing but the clothes on their backs and a shitty RV that’s probably going to cost more than it’s worth to fix. So, you give her any grief and I will protect her. That’s my job as her guardian.”
“You are not her guardian.”
Linc was right, though. She needed someone to protect her.
Him.
“Not yet,” Linc replied. “But she’s living on my property. I put a roof over her head. She knows it’s Jake or me, and she trusts me more. So, guess who it is going to be.”
Linc knew just how to push his buttons.
If it wasn’t for the fact that he did not have time to spend in fucking jail, he’d lay him out flat.
“I’m the only person who is going to be her guardian,” he said through gritted teeth.
Linc narrowed his gaze. “We’ll see. But if I ask her and she tells me that you’re annoying her or trying to push her into something she doesn’t want, I won’t be happy. Nor will I allow that to happen.”
Fuck. He was furious at Linc. Yet, at the same time, he knew that the other man was just trying to look out for Lilac. And it sounded like she had little of that.
Which made him wonder what her life had been like up until now.
“I won’t pressure her into anything. I’m not an asshole. But I . . . I want her, and I’m gonna make that clear. She ran from me before, but I’m not gonna let that happen again. I can’t.”
Linc eyed him for a long moment. “As long as she gives consent, I’ll back you. You’re a good guy. Crazy and wild, but I know you’d look after her. After them.”
“I would. Her and the baby.”
Linc gave him a strange look.
“Where did you meet them? Why are they staying here with you?”
“Probably something for her to tell you.”
“Why do people keep saying that,” he muttered. “No one wants to give me a straight answer.”
“Guess you’ll have to discover the answers yourself. If Lilac is willing to share, that is.”
“You said they had an RV that needed fixing. Where is it? With Matt?” he asked.
“Yep. And that’s all I’m going to say. I’m going to go check on them.”
“Lilac’s not there.”
“That’s okay.” Linc whistled as he walked away.
Huh. Perhaps he was into the one with all the hair. That would certainly make things easier for Tanner.