Chapter 5
S carlett breezed into the kitchen, a plate of crumbs in each hand. “Beth, this cake tastes as divine as it looks. Thanks for throwing me an amazing party.”
“Anything for you.” Beth beamed the maid of honor worthy smile glued to her face. Her lips hurt from forcing it to stay there.
Linc sidled up next to her. “How about some ibuprofen for me? All this festive shit is giving me a headache.”
“Sure.” She could use some herself. “It’s upstairs. Be right back.”
She weaved through the living room and waved to the few remaining guests. At her front door, she said goodbye to Hudson, VIPER’s trauma surgeon, and his pregnant wife, Tessa. She smiled at Dr. Patience Fairbanks, the orthopedic surgeon responsible for attaching the prosthetics to the VIPER boys.
The brunette with the glossy brown hair and eyes to match had her head bent to Sergeant Gage McAllister’s. Unlike the VIPER team he supported, Gage possessed all the limbs he’d been born with. If the hard gleam in his gray eyes and those muscles that nearly tore the stitching on his long-sleeve polo shirt were any indication, the lack of a super limb didn’t make him any less dangerous. If tonight’s events hadn’t left Beth so shaken, she’d engineer more than a conversation between the two. Just because post-party sex wasn’t in Beth’s cards didn’t mean she couldn’t help others enjoy holiday cheer.
She trudged up the stairs. The throbbing in her head increased with each step. At the top, she leaned against the wall. The cake-stealing incident compounded her apprehension about going home tomorrow for her town’s annual Christmas party. Last year, she’d let nerves rob her of the annual tradition. She wouldn’t let that happen again.
As she pushed off the wall, her phone buzzed with a text alert. She pulled the device from her pocket and looked at the message.
Pain, as raw as the day a pair of savage hands broke her wrist, seized her breath. Her vision blurred as the message jumbled into nonsense. She barely made out the sound of heavy footsteps rushing toward her as she dropped the phone and lunged for her bedroom door.
Strong, real hands, not the remembered kind from her nightmare, grasped her upper arms from behind.
Not again. Not again.
She ducked her head and twisted like she’d been trained to do. An insistent voice saying her name froze her midmotion.
Kane. It’s Kane. Not him. He’s not here.
Kane spun her to face him. “What’s wrong?”
Laughter from the partygoers tunneled into her ringing ears. Remembered pain zipped up her arm. Fresh fear raced to catch up.
He’s not here. I’m safe.
Kane picked up her phone, his other hand securely on her hip, and backed her into the bedroom. His scowl deepened as he looked at the message. The sprinkles on the cake froze into tiny ice shards that pricked her gut with each frightening word he read.
“Is this from the dickhead who hurt you?”
She dropped her gaze and stared at her feet. Curling her toes inside her heels, she closed her eyes and willed her legs to stop shaking. “The cake stealer didn’t hurt me.”
Kane closed the distance between them in two long strides. “But someone did. The terror on your face is the same as when I took you to the hospital and you made every excuse not to go in. And it’s the same as when I watched you have a nightmare in my truck on the way home and then later in this bed.” He nudged her hand with his. “Come on, Beth. You can tell me what haunts you.”
She jerked back from his touch. Panic vibrated under her skin like a thundercloud about to burst into a Category 5 hurricane. Wrapping her arms around her middle, she fought the urge to launch herself into Kane’s strong arms. Unlike the last time they were in her bedroom, she wouldn’t put herself in a position to be pushed away again. “Some guy stalked me online a couple of years ago.”
Kane didn’t need to hear the entire twisted tale, and she didn’t trust herself to tell it without breaking down. She was a master at pretending everything was okay, at least on the outside. She’d worked her ass off to manage her fears enough to be a functioning member of society, but all the training and preparation in the world couldn’t stop the message from pulsing in her vision.
Your cake was almost as pretty as you, querida.
Memories careened from the cage where she’d imprisoned them. Like rabid dogs, they pounced as brutally as if her fears were slabs of raw meat. Her breathing sped up along with her heartbeat as she fought to control her spiraling thoughts.
He’s not here. I’m safe.
But even as her brain battled to believe the words, her body retreated until her knees hit the bed.
Kane glanced at the message again. His chest rose and fell as he studied the single sentence. “You said that the cake stealer spoke to the owner in Spanish. Querida is Spanish for sweetheart, darling, and all sorts of other things a creepy stalker might call you.”
“I know what it means.” But she wasn’t letting her trauma take the spotlight. Tonight was about Scarlett. Straightening her spine, she pulled in a slow, fortifying breath. When the house was empty, she’d sit on the couch with the lights on, her eyes on the front and back door, and her gun in her hand. Right now, the urgency to go back to doing something normal, like giving Scarlett an engagement party without the past crashing the festivities, shook her harder than her fear. “I’ve got to get back downstairs.”
He blocked her escape. “Who texted you?”
“Move, Kane. Linc needs something for his headache and Scarlett and Chris are leaving soon and…” She looked away from the indigo flecks in his eyes. The determination in their depths matched the intensity of her fears.
He clamped his hands on her shoulders and seated her on the bed. Dropping to his knees, he caged her in with his body.
She tried to rise, but he shielded her like an impenetrable wall. “None of this is your business, Kane.” Hell, none of it should be anybody’s business. She’d hoped this twisted chapter in her life was over. She’d even begun to believe it. But deep down, she’d known her stalker would return, just as she knew Kane would protect her from him .
She couldn’t let him.
She shoved at his chest and met solid muscle that didn’t give an inch. His strong, steady heartbeat, so unlike the rabid rhythm of hers, pulsed against her palm. “I mean it, Kane. Move.”
“I’m not leaving like the last time you were upset in this bed.”
Mortification—and another kind of heat she didn’t want to feel—spread across her cheeks. “I’ve forgotten all about that night.”
“That’s a load of horseshit. You know how I can tell?” He dropped his hand to her thigh. “Because you’re shaking, and your cheeks are redder than your skirt. Later, we’ll discuss the night you claim to have forgotten. Right now, you are going to answer my question.”
Her breath stuttered as he fiddled with her sequined hem. “I thought you were some sort of cowboy, a country gentleman.”
He smirked. “See what I did there? I annoyed you so you’d forget about being scared for a minute and think clearly enough to understand that I can help you.”
She huffed out a curse. Score one for the cowboy. His play had worked. The knot in her belly loosened a little. “I am scared, but I’m not helpless. I know how to use a gun, and I study martial arts.”
“Good to know.” He clasped her chin in his hand. “But know this about me. I’m part of an elite special forces team. I’m literally built for danger and intrigue.”
That she didn’t doubt. She wasn’t stupid enough to turn down help from a legit super soldier, but accepting it from the genuine hero kneeling before her like a knight offering fealty was a deadly idea.
She wouldn’t let another man die protecting her again.
Damn. Kane had broken horses less stubborn than Beth. She’d been testing his patience and his resolve not to get involved with a woman beyond a one-time fling for weeks. Turning down his offers to help with the party. Avoiding eye contact when they ran into each other at Chris and Scarlett’s house. Sitting on the other side of the table from him when she met up with Scarlett and the team for dinner. Yeah, she’d been polite, but he didn’t want courteous. He wanted the feisty woman he’d taken to the hospital who had argued with him about getting a CT scan and only agreed to the test after she’d bargained for ice cream afterward.
“Tell me who sent that message so I know whose ass to kick.” He held her gaze and itched to get his hands on the motherfucker who stole the dazzle from her eyes and replaced it with stark fear.
Sighing, she slipped her chin from his grip. “I wish I could give you the name of the stalker who made my life hell, but I don’t even have a face.”
She rose from the bed. He inhaled her lilac scent as she brushed past him. The enticing essence didn’t mask the fear etched in her features. She may have learned to live with whatever went down with her stalker two years ago, but the present appeared to have shattered her reconciliation with the past.
A few steps brought her to the window. Without looking back at him, she toyed with the lavender cord holding the white gauzy curtain back. “Two years ago, my friends at work created a profile on an online dating site behind my back. I agreed to meet a guy who seemed normal, mostly to shut my friends up, and I made them promise to come along. When I canceled because my fiancé Danny and I had gotten back together, the guy started harassing me. ”
Fiancé? Kane flinched as he followed her gaze to the nightstand. A framed photo of Beth and a handsome blond-haired guy sat next to a lamp with a beaded shade.
Lucky bastard.
“How were you harassed?”
“He sent me messages indicating he knew my whereabouts. Sexually explicit texts threatening in detail what he would do when he finally claimed me.”
She wrapped her arms beneath her breasts and tucked her hands under her armpits as if talking about what happened chilled her to her core.
“I’m so sorry that happened to you.” He knew the words didn’t make it any better. He’d been hearing similar condolences since he’d lost his leg, but he’d signed on for a lethal job. She’d merely signed up for a dating site, for fuck’s sake. “How long did the harassment keep up?”
“For six months. He stopped after he attacked me and Danny while we were walking back from a late Christmas movie. We…” She swallowed. “We’d taken a shortcut down an alley. We’d always felt safe on that route even though it wasn’t the best area in town, but…” Her arm trembled as she slid her hand to her wrist.
His steel leg vibrated beneath him. Scarlett called the reaction to excitement or stress a glitch in his neurotransmitter. The team called it his “tell” when they played poker. The fucker who hurt Beth would soon call it his worst nightmare.
“He grabbed me and threw me against a brick wall. I tried to catch myself with my hand. The impact snapped my wrist.” She ran her finger over a long scar. “I needed surgery to repair the breaks. I got a concussion from when my head hit the ground.” She pressed her fingers into her temples and dropped her gaze. “After that night, I swore I’d never go back to a hospital. ”
And he’d been the one who’d convinced her to go the ER and relive the fucked-up experience again.
“Shit, Beth. I’m so sorry.” He crossed the room and landed inches from her. Gently, he sketched the pale scar with his fingertip. He’d spent so much time wondering about the emotional wounds she hid beneath her shine that he’d missed the physical one she concealed under sweaters. Hiding his tangible scar was easy to hide under clothes too. He muzzled the urge to tell her about the internal ones that kept him from wrapping her in the safety of his lethal body and protecting her forever. “Did the cops catch the guy?”
She shook her head as she sniffed. Kane wasn’t sure if her actions were an answer to his question or a refusal to cry. The first scenario had his fists clenching. The second broke his heart.
“Scarlett tried to find him…” Beth looked toward the window. “But if he could elude her…”
He followed her gaze to the darkness beyond the curtains. “That means we’re not dealing with some amateur, horny dude.” If the guy had better skills than Scarlett, he was either one of the best in the world or working with the best, and that made him dangerous as fuck.
Running his hand through his hair, he fit the pieces of what he’d learned together. One by one, the events clicked into place and made sense of their not-quite-date.
Her hesitancy to go to the hospital.
The nightmare she’d had in his car on the drive back to her house.
The way she’d clung to him when he’d carried her upstairs. Like he’d helped her find a sweet spot in her dreams, and if she let him go, she’d fall back into her nocturnal hell.
The way she’d cried, “Danny,” and screamed for help in her sleep after he’d tucked her into bed, and the terror in her eyes when she’d awoke .
He’d thought Danny was a guy who hurt her somehow, not the man she’d loved. Envy panged in his chest. He shut it down. “What happened to your fiancé?”
Scarlett appeared in the doorway. “What about her fiancé?”
Beth stiffened. Kane ignored Scarlett’s concerned tone as he dipped his head to Beth’s ear and whispered, “I know this is hard, but it’s time to tell her and the team. We need their input.”
Beth wrapped her hand around his wrist. “No. I don’t want to…I can’t do this now.”
The tremor in her hushed voice strengthened his intentions to find the bastard who made her shake in her sexy-as-fuck heels. “It will be okay, I promise.”
“It hasn’t been okay for a very long time, Kane. You can’t make it better.”
He could. If only for tonight, he could kick out the guests, take her to bed, and prove he could make her feel more than better. But he wouldn’t. She was Scarlett’s best friend. And he’d promised her she’d be okay, which meant offering protection from anything that could hurt her, including the potentially lethal events in his future that could leave her with more scars.