Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Penny
F orty-eight hours under Calvin's watch has me feeling safe again. Safe enough to sit on the wide deck that runs the length of the home's ground floor, even while Calvin stays inside working from his home office.
He refuses to be far from me.
He called in someone else to handle his work with the timber business. It's me that's keeping him in front of his computers here, trying to trace emails and phone records to narrow down the identity and location of the person who's been harassing me.
I had no idea he could do that without my phone, but it turns out that Captain Clavin James Murdock-- he filled me in on the finer points of his military career after my late husband would have known him-- isn't just a former SEAL commander, he has some sort of special talent for exactly this kind of thing; logistics, orienteering, tracing electronically transmitted information.
Calvin's a badass. And that only makes him hotter. And hotter is not what I need my self-appointed personal security detail to be.
The phone in my hand pings with an incoming message.
Which startles me out of my sudoku app because no one has the number except Cal.
He bought me a new phone and set it up so that I can check on my accounts without leaving a data trail that reveals my current location.
But the only person who should be able to contact me directly on this device is Cal himself.
The number is unknown.
The message has me running inside to find Calvin.
He's right where I left him, sitting in a large room on the second floor where floor to ceiling windows face the granite mountain that the house clings to.
He told me he doesn't love closed-in spaces-- something about diving that didn't sound like it was something he did for fun.
The desk in here runs the length of the room and wraps around in a U shape. Monitors stretch across the wall. Everything from fidget spinners to a set of nail clippers and several empty coffee cups fill in the spaces around keyboards, mice, and trackpads.
Calvin is leaning back in a chair that looks like it belongs on a space ship.
Those long legs of his stretched out under the desk, one hand resting on a large track pad, the other on the arm of the chair, fingers drumming against the padded armrest in a strong, steady cadence that indicates he's lost in whatever it is he's working on.
I quickly got used to his hyper-focused glare, the way he gets completely absorbed in anything he's seriously interested in.
When we're downstairs sharing a meal, or sitting on the deck sharing conversation-- it's me that's fixed in his singularly attentive gaze.
It's only made me more aware of how isolated I've really been from meaningful human contact.
Sure, I have my online community and they've been instrumental in helping me get through the hardest part of my life. I have my parents, but they live far away now, having moved to be closer to my sister-- who gave them the grandchildren that Tyler and I never had a chance to.
Tyler's family and I didn't stay close. They said the right things in the beginning, but once I started coming out of the darkness, it became clear they didn't really want to see me thrive without their son.
Since this drama ramped up, my friends haven't been the most reliable. Concerned, sure, but because they think I'm having some sort of psychological event driving me to make up trouble for attention. Not because they believe me.
Cal believes me though. He listens intently when I speak. He takes care of me with a gentle nature that's so incongruous to the hardened military man that's stepped up to protect me without question.
Standing at the door of his office, I pause a moment to look at him.
With his muscled physique, rugged masculinity, and protective demeanor, it's hard not to notice that Calvin Murdock is all man.
And that makes it impossible not to remember that I'm a woman.
"Cal?" I knock against the frame of the open door, trying not to startle him. Of course, that's impossible, despite his laser focus, he seems to always be aware of the slightest shift in his surroundings.
"Come on in, let me show you something." Calvin sits up in his chair, swinging a monitor so it's easier for me to view as I move into the space beside him.
"I think we found him."
"I think he found us first." I hand the phone to Calvin with the text still unopened, so only the first few words can be read from the notification, and watch Calvin's jaw tighten as redness creeps up the back of his neck; the only indication of his anger as he reads the message.
"When he knows the truth, he'll help me gut you."
Calvin
E ither this guy doesn't know I set up her new phone so I could back trace every in-coming message, or he doesn't care.
Since he made the move to text the new number directly, I'd say he wants us to know that he knows where she is. And that she's with me.
I traced the emails and the original text messages back to an address in Utah, a couple hundred miles from where she lives. When she walked in, I had just found his personal information.
I don't want to tell her that this new message pinged off a tower in Middleton-- about three hundred miles southwest of us, but far closer than I thought this asshole had the balls to get to her if he knows she's under my protection.
This house isn't secure. Not enough.
When I left the service, I left the danger too. A buddy of mine runs private security now, he asked me to come on board after my retirement but I declined.
Now I'm hitting him up-- not for a job, but for support. I need a secure location for Penny until I can lure this scum into the open and eliminate any kind of threat he poses to her.
"Frost. Murdock. I have a situation. Respond ASAP. Encrypted."
"What's going on? I thought you said you figured out who the guy is?"
Penny pulls a chair up beside me to stare at the screen with the map that has a red pin dropped on a location.
I do my best not to stare at Penny.
"Yeah," I answer slowly, glancing at my phone and willing Frost to call me back. "I know who he is-- and I know he's not where that pin is on the map."
Before she can say anything, my phone lights up.
"...Yes it's a goddamn emergency," I bark into the receiver after listening to Harlan scold me for interrupting whatever he was doing.
"I said I have a situation here. I need a secure location, the closer, the better. Preferably with a way in that doesn't put us on the open road."
He knows exactly what I'm getting at.
Four minutes and thirty-seven seconds later, I've got coordinates and my brother knows we're on our way up to his place.
"This place will be stocked. Just grab some clothes. Leave the phone here."
Penny nods but she's shaking. I'm agitated, and she already knows me too well. I don't get agitated. I've been through too much to let emotional responses threaten my decision-making skills.
Until Penny.
"It's all right. We just need to get a secure location, we don't have time to lock down the house."
I pull her into my arms. I can't help myself. Every instinct in my body drives me to provide comfort as well as protection to this sweet girl.
Penny melts against me. As I wrap my arms around her, I feel her shaking subside.
Unfortunately, I also feel her soft curves.
I can smell the floral fragrances layered up from the shampoo she brought with her, the body wash I sometimes sneak into her bathroom to smell, and the lotion I've watched her rub into her skin.
Her hair is soft against my cheek when I find myself leaning into the top of her head and, although the kiss I lightly drop there might be fatherly-- nothing about the threatening hard-on beginning to thicken my cock is.
I came to terms with my attraction to her quickly enough, but it hasn't been until this moment that it's occurred to me that she might be feeling the same way.
Before I can unwind my arms from around her, Penny lifts her chocolate eyes up to me. Her lips are parted slightly and there's little doubt in my mind that I could kiss her now. That maybe that's what she wants, even.
"Grab your things, Clint's got the bike waiting for us."
Now's not the time.
I can't bear the disappointment that clouds her pretty features, so I don't look. I just step away and head for the safe.