Chapter 8 Derek
S he stumbles onto the road, looking like she’s been dropped there by a storm—braid unraveling, one shoe missing, hands scraped raw. There’s a streak of dirt across her cheek and a smear of blood at her temple. Her eyes don’t focus right, like she’s halfway between here and somewhere terrible.
My stomach lurches.
I should’ve been faster. Should’ve never left her alone. That damn banner wasn’t worth five minutes with Simon, no matter how crookedly it hung. I thought I had time, but it’s the same damn lie I told myself with Sarah.
My jaw locks, hard enough to ache. Past and present press in like a vise.
Not again.
Not this time.
I throw the truck into park, jumping out so fast the door bounces. She sways when I reach her.
“He’s here,” she whispers, voice shredded and barely there. “He found me.”
I pull her into me before the words even finish falling from her lips. She folds like paper against me, shaking so hard I can feel her heart echo through my chest.
“I’ll fix this. I swear, I will.”
But I’m not sure how.
I don’t know if fixing it means calling the sheriff, or driving to Mike’s motel and making him disappear. I just know the woman in my arms is breaking, and all I’ve got are these hands—and they’ve failed before.
God help me, they can’t fail her too.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I murmur into her hair, holding her like I can glue her back together. She smells like vanilla and fear. I press my lips to her temple and breathe slowly, hoping she’ll catch my rhythm.
Time stops. Or maybe it drags. All I know is her knees start to buckle, and I catch her before she hits the ground.
She doesn’t resist. Just tucks herself against my neck.
I carry her to the truck, keeping my voice steady. “Was it him, Annabelle? Was it Mike?”
She doesn’t answer with words. She doesn’t have to.
“You know him?”
She flinches, nods, then shakes her head like both options burn.
“Not here,” she croaks. “Please. Just… Not here. I’ll tell you. Everything. Just get me out of here.”
“Okay,” I whisper, already opening the door. “Okay, baby. I’ve got you.”
Her knees and dress are streaked with grass stains and cuts, and a red mark blooms on her neck.
Seeing it guts me. I sweep over the scrapes on her hands and legs, and the blood stain on her temple.
There’s no wound there. As I buckle her in, gently as I can, she reaches for my wrist like she’s afraid I’ll vanish.
“Don’t leave me,” she breathes.
God.
Every part of me screams to turn this truck around and end him. But I can’t. Not with her like this. Not yet.
“I’m not going anywhere.” I brush my thumb along her cheek. “You’re safe now.”
But he’s not.
I shut her door and quickly search the grass for her missing shoe and purse, as if returning them might make the world right again. It doesn’t.
I slide into the driver’s seat, rage burning so hot, it makes my hands shake. I start the truck and aim for home.
“I’ll kill him,” I whisper to the dash.
Deep breath. Hold. Release. Let it out before I do something reckless.
I stare straight ahead, white-knuckling sanity. “Should’ve picked up laxatives at the general store,” I mutter. “Could’ve spiked his eggs and let karma handle it. Rat poison might’ve been more efficient.”
She doesn’t laugh.
Of course, she doesn’t. Not after what he did. And I’m afraid I don’t know half of it.
I grip the gearshift like it might fly off, and glance sideways. Shadows slip across her face. The silence between us is heavy, but my pulse drums its own steady truth:
He touched her.
He grabbed her.
He terrified her.
In my town. On my road. On my watch.
The driveway crunches under the tires like it knows better than to speak. I kill the engine, but we sit there, unmoving. Just breathing.
She turns her head slowly. Her eyes are rimmed red, lashes still clumped from tears. And then her gaze finds my mouth.
“Derek,” she breathes, hand lifting toward my face. “Your lip…”
I shrug. “It’s nothing.”
She doesn’t buy it. Of course, she doesn’t.
“You call that nothing?” Her fingers hover, then make contact—soft, careful, and electric. She traces the edge of the cut like she can erase it.
“You did a good job cleaning it.” Her voice drops, fingers moving slower now. “Not sure you’ll avoid a scar, though.”
I could tell her that Dr. Marvey patched me up in five minutes flat and gave me a tube of ointment I already forgot in the glovebox.
But I don’t. Because right now, her hands are on me. And I need them to stay there.
She looks up. “What happened?”
I glance at her swollen eyes and cracked lips. My altercation with the bastard doesn’t even compare to her pain.
He fucking touched her.
“Just a disagreement.” I flinch as she presses gently against my lip.
Her brow arches. She doesn’t believe me, but lets it go.
“At least, let me clean it at home. It could get infected.”
Home.
That word. Like it has roots. Like she belongs in that house. And she does.
I nod once, pretending I don’t feel that warmth snake into places I thought were long dead.
We don’t speak on the way inside. We move in tandem, like two people who’ve just survived a wreck and haven’t figured out which way is up yet. The smell of apples hits the moment the door creaks open. It’s baked into the walls, into memory, into us, and I breathe a little easier.
I sit on a barstool. Annabelle pulls out the first aid kit and stands between my knees. Her fingers work quietly, brushing antiseptic across my lip with exaggerated care.
“I could kiss it better.” Her breath ghosts across my skin. “But it looks too sore.”
I smirk, because it’s the only defense I have. “Might still be worth it. For medical purposes.”
A flush rises on her cheeks. That pink suits her more than fear ever did.
“Let me help clean you up, too,” I offer, voice low.
She hesitates, then gives me a quiet nod. I wet a cloth, warm from the tap, and swipe gently along her cheek, lifting the smudged dirt away. She lets out a breath, slow and shaky, as I brush her hair back from her face.
But when I reach for her braid, fingers careful and slow, she flinches.
It’s subtle, but it cuts.
For a second she looks at me like I’m something to fear. Not because I’ve hurt her. But because I didn’t stop the bastard who did.
Because I failed her the way I failed Sarah.
“What’s really going on?” I ask softly. “How do you know him?”
She doesn’t look up. Just stares at her scraped hands like the answers are written in blood and dirt.
“Mike...was my landlord. Back in San Francisco,” she says, voice paper-thin.
My jaw tightens. “I met him at the motel.”
I reach into my pocket and pull out the small tub of cream—along with the crumpled pair of trophy panties.
“He had these.”
Her expression shatters.
I offer the cream, but she doesn’t take it.
“You should burn them both,” she whispers.
And I will. Happily.
I lean back, arms braced against the counter. “He said Huntz was his father. And that he knows you shot Huntz. That I beat him with a wrench.”
She goes still. A violent tremor hits her a beat later, rattling her from the inside out. Her hands grip the edge of the counter, but her knees buckle.
I’m already there, catching her before she crashes to the floor. She grips my arms for support, weightless and shaking, like every bone in her body is made of fear.
I lower us to the ground and hold her close, one hand at her back, the other shielding her head. She’s trembling so hard, it feels like an aftershock.
Her breaths are sharp, shallow, broken. Every inhale stabs through my ribs like glass.
“Shh,” I whisper into her hair. “We both know he doesn’t know the full truth. But I need to know how much he does. I need you to tell me everything, Honeycrisp.”
She clutches my shirt like it’s the only thing keeping her tethered to the world.
“Mike Bishop is one of Misty’s half-brothers. He’s the reason I couldn’t leave San Francisco,” she chokes out. “He blackmailed me.”
The words land like a punch straight to the gut.
“After Huntz, I went back to finish the lease,” she says, voice wobbling. “But I planned to return for Eric and Emma’s wedding. For you.”
My blood freezes.
She draws in a shaky breath.
“I wanted to be here. I knew you were waiting. But he caught up to me. He said he’d tell everyone I shot Huntz. He threatened me, Derek. He didn’t give me a choice.”
She pulls back just enough to look up. Her eyes lock with mine—wide, wet, and wrecked.
“He’s worse than Huntz. He burned down my parents’ house.”
My vision narrows. My pulse roars in my ears.
“What?”
“I was here that day,” she whispers. “In town. I came back to marry you. But he set the house on fire. Then he dragged me back to San Francisco.”
Rage rises in me like a tide. Cold. Hot. Merciless.
I cradle the back of her head, pulling her closer, fingers threading into her hair like I can hold her together by sheer force of will.
“You were here?” I breathe. My mind flashes to that day.
To the sharp suit, the ring in my pocket, and the hope in my chest. I remember standing near the riverbank, heart in my throat, watching the horizon for her silhouette.
Waiting. Then came the confusion. The fire and thick smoke curling over the hill from her parents’ house.
The sick, spiraling fear she’d been inside.
“I was,” she says, voice cracking open. “I wore a blue dress. I was going to say yes, Derek. I swear I was.”
My throat locks.
Everything I thought I lost was stolen.
All these months, I thought she’d left because she stopped loving me. But she was kidnapped again.
“I’ve got you,” I murmur, breathing her in like I’ve been holding my breath for years. “He’s never getting near you again.”
My voice is steady, but my grip tightens at her waist. I can’t pretend to be calm when every part of me is wired to fight. I tilt her chin up, gently but firmly, until she meets my eyes.
“But you need to let me help.”
Her lashes are wet. She nods, slowly and silently.