Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Penny
S itting at the chunky, wooden table, I chew on the frozen pizza while I look around at the kitchen.
It looks like something out of magazine.
Or my vision board. It's not just huge, it's filled with state of the art appliances and enough work space for a team of chefs to prepare a banquet for forty.
Such a shame that the man is subsisting off of frozen entrees with a kitchen like this.
The fact that I feel a zing of adrenaline at the thought that he must be single isn't lost on me though.
Even if his wife didn't cook either, certainly a woman would fill his freezer with fancy meals from one of those subscription services-- not cheap, frozen pizzas that are barely more than cardboard. Right?
"Gardening."
Calvin repeats my last word like he's testing it to make sure he heard right.
Since the garden is where it started, I figure it's as good a place as any to start the story of why I'm here, wearing a pair of pajama pants and a t-shirt that smells like cedar and laundry soap while I eat a pizza that he didn't expect to be sharing.
"One day I just tore up half the back yard. It had been almost a year. I'd gone to grief counseling, I'd connected with other military widows, I'd survived the winter without curling up in a ball and just letting everything end.
"It was spring. The sun came out, the birds were singing, and I was just so angry about it.
Like, how dare the world keep turning. So I attacked the fresh grass with a hoe and a shovel.
Nine hours later, it was dark outside, I was dirty and tired and sore.
My throat was raw from screaming, I was all cried out, and I was standing in a big patch of freshly tilled soil where my yard had been earlier that morning. "
I laugh at the memory of it, but Calvin regards me stoically, his thoughts carefully guarded.
"It was cathartic as fuck." I state simply, popping the last bite of my pizza into my mouth and sitting straighter in my chair as if channeling a little of the empowerment I felt that day.
The man across the table from me softens his gaze. Lines at the corners of his eyes deepen with the almost smile that tips up a corner of his mouth behind the gray whiskers of his beard. If I knew him better, I might think I see a trace of blush coloring his cheekbones.
It's been a very long time since I noticed a handsome man.
And Calvin Murdock is a very handsome man.
I squirm on my chair and give my empty mug a disappointed frown.
"I'm on it. Keep talking." Calvin pops up like he needs an excuse to put space between us, taking my mug and reheating the kettle.
"I woke up the next day feeling good for the first time since Tyler died. I went to the local nursery and bought a lot of plants. A lot of plants." I laugh at that memory too. There had been so many, the nursery had to deliver them because they wouldn't fit in my car.
"Then I learned how to keep them alive. I found working in the garden was so calming, and the plants felt-- I don't know-- life affirming. And then I started making videos."
I don't laugh at that memory. I slump back in my chair and sigh like a deflating balloon.
Calvin notices. His expression grows dark as he sets the new mug of steeping tea on the table in front of me and returns to his seat.
"What happened?"
It's like he senses this is where things started going off track, but unlike everyone else I've turned to for help, the tension that coils through this man's strong body feels protective. He just barely met me, but he's already on my side.
The attraction to him that I'm only just starting to acknowledge for what it is, heats a few more degrees and mixes with something more than mere lust, creating something confusing and uncomfortable. I decide to ignore it and cut the details of my story to how I got here.
"My social media accounts blew up." I blow across the top of my mug to cool the liquid. "I built a following, then a community. Other military widows and widowers at first, more military family members, then it branched out to other people coping through loss.
"I'm not a big influencer or anything. It's only a couple hundred thousand followers across all the platforms. But I get sponsors and make some money off it now..."
I sip.
The tea is a lavender, chamomile blend that seems too delicate for the rugged man keeping it in his cabinet.
Girlfriend then, maybe?
Some woman who comes and goes but only stays long enough to...
I don't like the way that idea makes me feel, so I squash it. Then find myself looking around at what else I can see of the house for any other signs that a woman spends time here.
Calvin
P enny's story circles back to the beginning, when she first told me she tracked me down because someone's been stalking her.
"So you picked up an obsessed fan, I take it."
There's never been any social media accounts in my name. They didn't exist when I joined the Navy and we were either discouraged or not allowed to have them once they did. I've seen what that shit's done to the world, to basic human relationships-- I don't figure I've missed out on anything.
It's hard to miss some of the stories about delusional fans getting out of control though.
Penny's accounts of messages, emails, and then texts and voicemails on her personal phone number seem to follow the pattern.
I get why the advice she got was "block and delete" at first. What I don't understand is why no one took her seriously when she started seeing signs of an intruder on her property.
She shakes her head at my assessment.
Damn, she's pretty. Curvy in a way that's all woman. Golden blonde hair, big brown eyes, perfect skin that has a soft, sun-kissed color to it.
And way too young to have my dick perking up attentively.
Trouble lines those chocolate eyes and I don't like the way she looks over her shoulder, clocking the door and the windows around us as if she's the one who's been ambushed a hundred times.
I catch myself moving closer to her. Unbidden, as if I get caught in the gravitational pull of her scent.
She's too young. She's scared and likely for good reason. And she's the widow of one of my men. It doesn't matter that she smells like sunshine and sweet peas or that she looks at me like she'd let me take her in my arms if I gave in to my impulses to do just that.
She's off limits.
I won't take advantage of her vulnerability.
"I did a series of videos talking about how I wished Tyler had never joined the military... someone decided it was unpatriotic. It-- it got worse from there."
Footprints in her garden that weren't hers. A row of dead flowers that she'd planted in Tyler's memory. Coming home to find her doors unlocked when she knew she'd locked them.
Someone wasn't content with trolling her from behind a keyboard. Someone wanted her to know they could get to her.
"Like I said, my family thinks I'm imagining it. My friends think I'm looking for attention. The cops think it's a play for publicity for the channel and then they said there were 'perfectly rational explanations' for all the physical evidence and nothing could be proven that I was in danger."
She bends her delicate fingers to make air quotes and lowers her voice in a mock male baritone as she repeats what the police told her.
It's cute as hell, but my blood boils at hearing the way everyone around her has brushed off the obvious signs that someone is harassing her.
"Show me the messages."
I expect her to hand over a cell phone, instead she jumps up, fishes in an oversized purse and brings me a stack of print outs.
"I changed my number. I got a new SIM card. I got a new phone-- he kept texting me every time. I got another text when I was driving out here. I freaked out and threw my phone off a cliff on the side of the highway."
She fills me in on more details as I read through the increasingly unhinged messages she's received.
When he got bored staying outside her home, things inside started moving.
Tyler's flag taken off the wall and set on her kitchen counter, things in her refrigerator and bathroom rearranged.
Nothing that proved an intruder had been inside, just enough to give the people who should be taking care of her ammunition to gaslight her.
The guy has gotten it in his head that Penny's anti-American. A few messages even suggest she might be a spy.
Whoever he is, he's unhinged. And he's a ghost-- like me.
"You need a bodyguard."
I lay the printed messages on the table, stating what seems obvious to me.
"I need this to stop." Penny leans forward, one hand remaining on her mug of tea, but the other she stretches across toward me.
God help me. I take her hand.
And right then and there, I know I'll die to keep this woman safe.
But not out of obligation to the man who served under my command.