Chapter 19
Nineteen
Travis kept his eyes on Roxy as she spoke with the officers.
She looked as though she had folded in on herself, her arms wrapped tightly around her middle as if to shrink into her own body.
Her head remained down, staring listlessly at the ground as the officers spoke to her.
She looked scared and defeated in a way that he hated.
She was always so fiery… and now it seemed that all that fire had been snuffed out.
He flexed his hand, the knuckles aching in the best way possible.
It had felt so damn good to lay that bastard out.
The fury that had coursed through him at finding Roxy in the clutches of that animal…
he’d seen red. Only by pure willpower had he stopped at one solid punch.
He wanted to keep hitting him, over and over again, until he was a bloody mess on the ground.
Until he was physically incapable of hurting Roxy ever again.
Roxy shivered and he moved on instinct, stepping around her.
He settled his hands on her bare shoulders and then smoothed them down her arms, the skimpy bandana top doing nothing against the evening chill.
She sighed and leaned her back against his chest and he felt her body shudder with another shiver.
This damn top was little more than a fucking handkerchief.
He turned to Blondie. “Did she bring a jacket?”
Blondie snapped her eyes up to his and nodded dazedly. “It’s inside. I can go get it.”
He nodded once and shifted his gaze back to the officers standing in front of him and Roxy. “Are we almost done here?”
“Yes,” one officer said, his hands settling on his utility belt. He looked down at Roxy. “You really should go to the ER. Have them check you out.”
“I don’t want to,” she whispered. “I just want to go home.”
“We’ll have an officer do periodic drive throughs, since Mr. Johnson has disappeared. You’ll need someone to drive you, or we can give you a ride home,” the other officer said.
“I’ll take her,” Travis said, his hands spanning wide across her biceps. He expected some kind of reaction from her, but there was none. Which worried him even more. Leaning down, he spoke quietly in her ear, “I’m going to take you home, okay, Red?”
Blondie returned and held out Roxy’s jacket, which he took and draped over her shoulders.
He could feel the blonde’s stare drilling into the side of his head, but didn’t bother to acknowledge it, instead stepping back several paces.
She stepped in front of Roxy and took her hands in her own. “Roxy. Do you want me to come over?”
Roxy shook her head, and he saw her squeeze her friends’ hands gently. “No, Nat. It’s okay. I’ll be fine, I promise.”
“I can take you home,” she said quietly.
“I’ll get her home,” he said gruffly. Blondie’s eyes widened and she stared at him.
“Oh…I didn’t realize you two were…” her friend whispered, shooting a glance over Roxy’s shoulder toward him.
He leaned to one side and shook both the officer’s hands as they said their good-byes, but kept his body angled toward Roxy, as if she had some gravitational pull that he couldn’t break free of.
“We’re not,” Roxy said dully. “He stopped Neal. That’s all. I just want to go home.”
Her friend nodded and squeezed Roxy’s hands once more. “Call me tomorrow, okay?”
Roxy nodded and Blondie stepped back before heading back into the bar.
A group of curious onlookers had congregated outside the doors a while ago, but the officers had ushered them back inside to give Roxy privacy while recounting the events of the night.
As he’d listened, he’d gotten more and more angry at the motherfucker.
All those times he’d witnessed Roxy being jumpy, the constant looking over her shoulder…
his gut had been right after all. She was scared of someone.
And that someone had hurt her, on more than one occasion. A monster.
Again, he flexed his fingers wide at his side, letting the ache in his hand anchor him. He was a monster, too. A different kind of monster.
I may be a monster, he admitted, but I’ll fight like hell to protect her.
Stepping forward, he settled his hand at the small of her back. “Ready?”
She glanced up at him finally, those hazel eyes far away until they connected with his, and she seemed to come back into herself a little. “Thank you, Travis.”
His eyes swept over her face; the battered cheek that already had a bruise blooming beneath her eye, the smudges of mascara beneath her lashes, that jagged white scar that bisected her bottom lip. “You don’t thank me for this, Red. I’ve got you, okay?”
She nodded, taking a deep, shuddering breath in and letting it out in a slow exhale. “My head hurts.”
“I wish you would let me take you to get checked out,” he murmured gently, pressing with his hand at her back to urge her to move forward. He guided her toward his vehicle. “You could have a concussion.”
She shook her head as he opened the passenger door of his Bronco and assisted her up into the seat. He reached over her and buckled her in, since she was still trembling slightly. “I doubt it. He didn’t hit me as hard as he has before. I just need some Tylenol.”
His back molars ground together as he clenched his jaw so tightly together it ached. “He’s lucky I didn’t kill him tonight.”
He closed the passenger door and rounded the hood, climbing in behind the wheel and starting the vehicle.
He adjusted the heat inside the car—the late May evening air was chilly, and he knew from experience she hated the cold—and sighed in relief when moments later she stopped shaking, settling into the seat.
“You… you said something to Neal…” she started, and he tightened his fingers around the steering wheel as he steered them out of the parking lot.
“Which way?” he asked gruffly, and she pointed toward the left. She told him her address and he nodded, heading that direction.
“You told Neal you’d killed someone… Was that true?” she asked quietly, and he could feel her stare through the dark interior of the car. He sighed again, running a hand over his mouth and chin, scratching at the beard that covered his lower face.
“Yes,” he said simply, his voice low. “Yes, I killed a man with my bare hands once.” Turning to look at her, he said earnestly, “You have no reason to be afraid of me though, Red. I may be a monster, but I won’t ever hurt you. I promise.”
He heard her swallow hard in the quiet between them. “I’m not afraid of you, Travis. I can see that you’re a good man. If you did that to someone… I’m sure that it was deserved.”
He stared ahead at the lines of the road that blurred in the headlights and flexed his fingers around the steering wheel again.
He had never talked about this with anyone, other than the police, his lawyer, and his therapist. Regular people didn’t understand.
“It was deserved. But that doesn’t make me a good man, Red. ”