Chapter 24 - Paisley
Exhaustion overtook me as soon as I was alone in my room.
I sank onto my bed, so soft and warm, yet somehow not as heavenly as I thought it would be after days of sleeping on blankets piled on the floor.
Was I actually anything less than ecstatic to be back in civilization, safe and full of delicious food? Yes, I was.
And it wasn’t because I was going to miss cuddling up with Dan at night, or sparring with him, or laughing with him.
The fact I had to go back to being completely professional and not even give him a glance wasn’t what weighed so heavily on me, not at all.
Now that I was out of the little bubble we shared in that cabin, reality was ready to crash back in on me.
My phone still rested where I left it on the bedside table and I was loath to turn it on. I stared at it like it was a spider, finally grabbing it and firing it up, hoping against hope that I wouldn’t have a single new message, and especially not one from Agent Pierce.
Well, there wasn’t one, there were several, each one more urgently asking me to get in touch with him. I absolutely didn’t want to hear more about finding Mr. Caraggio, or rather, his body, because I didn’t need the gruesome details.
I read the messages, all of them full of concern for my wellbeing, which also led me to believe I truly was in deep shit. Not that I wasn’t already aware. I suddenly felt so alone, even in that huge place, surrounded by people who so kindly showed that they cared.
Now that I knew Dan a little bit better, I considered creeping down the hall to his room and asking his opinion on my predicament.
He was definitely strong, capable, and determined.
I never would have been able to get firewood on my own and I would have gone crazy with anxiety if he hadn’t been there, ruthlessly cheering me up and keeping me distracted.
Katie, who was the biggest mama bear I’d ever met, had no problem with him stepping in when the professional bodyguard couldn’t go shopping with us.
Whatever elusive business he did, he knew how to protect.
But would he protect me when he learned what I was involved in?
“You’re crazy if you think so,” I told myself, chucking my phone out of my sight.
A couple of wonderful nights while we were trapped out in the wilderness didn’t change the fact that I’d never see him again once this job was finished.
Katie had eluded to keeping me on after the vacation ended, but surely she was just being kind and appeasing her daughter and the other kids who had taken a shine to me.
And I was so attached to them already that I really didn’t want to imagine the goodbye scene when we all had to go home.
Except I might not have a home to go to. There was the very high probability that I’d have to go into hiding, maybe for the rest of my life. I couldn’t involve Dan or his family in any of that nonsense, possibly bringing them into a mass murder plot.
Knowing how much Dan adored his family and how protective he was, he’d freak out the minute he knew what I was tangled up in, no matter that it was completely accidental and I certainly wasn’t involved with those criminals at Axon.
I was on my own unless I wanted to trust the FBI, but I didn’t have any answers for them. Once they figured out I was useless to their investigation, they might leave me to swing in the wind, all alone once more.
Trying to shove it all out of my mind, I got the first boiling hot shower in days, thrilling in the steamy heat but almost sad about erasing Dan’s musky scent from my body.
In my thick flannel pajamas, I burrowed under the down comforter, trying to be grateful that we’d been rescued, that I was fully warm for the first time in days, and my stomach was full of something other than stale protein bars.
All I felt was alone and even more scared than when Dan and I realized the woodshed was buried and the logs we had wouldn’t last another full day. I was still in danger, and didn’t even have Dan’s strong arms to comfort me, or his skillful hands to keep the thoughts of my murdered coworkers at bay.
I tossed and turned despite my exhaustion, finally pulling the blankets over my head and curling into a tight ball, wishing I wasn’t alone in the big, warm, much too empty bed.