Chapter 17 #2
“I’m in the safe room in Zach’s house. I’m fine.” The video display went dark along with a few of the blinking lights on the desktop machinery. Her phone remained on, as did the blue light overhead. “There are at least three people in the house. They’re robbing Zach. Can you alert Sam?”
She needed to remain calm. In control. She tried to imagine she was taking a call on the hotline for her victim support group, and was giving advice to someone in this situation. What would she say?
“He’s already on his way, Gabby, and I’m only minutes behind him.” Clay’s voice was steady, providing the answers her frantic brain couldn’t process right now. “Are you sure the door is locked?”
Her eyes went to the light on the code pad near the door. The digital readout said, “armed.” Seeing it gave her a little more peace. Or maybe that just came from hearing Clay’s voice when she was so scared she couldn’t think straight.
“Positive.” She lowered herself to sit on the narrow bed and tucked her knees up to her chest. “Should you warn Sam that there are at least three people? One of them was looking for Mia.”
She didn’t want to overlook anything. Couldn’t screw this up. She’d been so close to shutting the door on her past and moving forward. What if this break-in sent her free-falling back into her old nightmares and fears?
“Sam has backup meeting him there,” he assured her. “I’m staying on the phone with you so I know what’s going on. Keep talking. Let me know you’re okay.”
Clay was saying all the right things to ease some of the fear.
“Okay.” She breathed in his certainty. His faith in her strength. He gave her courage when someone was trying to break into the safe room.
She wished she could see what was happening on the other side of that door right now.
Clay sounded like he was on the headset in his motorcycle helmet, the rush of wind and roar of the engine making him raise his voice as he spoke. “A boy from the first foster home has been stalking Mia. She never mentioned him to you?”
“Connor? The foster brother she didn’t like?
” She put the pieces together from long-ago conversations, remembering how desperate Mia was to get out of that house.
“I knew she disliked him when she lived in that house, but I had no idea he was still looking for her. She never said one word about that.”
Why hadn’t Mia confided in her? She lowered her forehead to her knees. What if the boy had found Mia at home alone?
The need to protect the girl surged into anger. A warrior fury. She could not allow anyone to hurt Mia the way she’d been hurt as a teen. More important, she needed to tell Mia that she would help and protect her.
That she wasn’t alone.
It was that feeling of being on her own in the world that had sent Gabriella running to the pill bottle that day. She had to make sure Mia never felt that way.
Clay’s voice rumbled in her ear, low and steady. “Mia has kept too many things to herself and shouldered too many burdens for someone her age. You were right about that, and I was too caught up in my feud with my father to pay attention.”
“You didn’t even know about her until two weeks ago,” she reminded him, unwilling to let him take on any more blame.
“Because I purposely avoided my father and I should have thought through things. I should have realized given his history there could be a Mia…or more. I can’t fix the past, but I’m here now.
” His voice anchored her in the moment, helping her know she wasn’t alone in this tiny safe room even as the noise outside the door grew louder.
There was thumping and bumping. Someone shouting?
“Clay.” She held her breath, listening. “I think Sam might be outside, or someone else. There’s a lot of noise out there.”
“Don’t open the door for anyone but me.”
“I won’t.” Her heart squeezed around the thought, along with the idea that Clay wanted to be there for her. To keep her safe.
Maybe even more.
She’d already fallen for him and the knowledge that she cared about him so much was a tender ache in her chest.
“I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Or Mia.” His words were a promise she trusted.
“I know that.” She wanted to tell him that it was because of him she was able to be so brave today—to banish the old ghosts for good.
Her throat burned with the need to share that and more, but she knew it wasn’t the time when the intruders were tearing Zach’s place apart and Sam was risking his life to save her.
“I don’t want to think about what’s happening outside the door, though.
Talk to me more. About Mia. What happens with her now? ”
“I’ll ask Mia what she thinks would be best for her—where she wants to live—after my father passes.” Clay sounded more certain about his course of action with Mia than he’d been in the past. More at peace.
She wanted to ask about his father, but just then a pounding sounded on the safe room door.
“Open up! Police!” A voice Gabriella didn’t recognize shouted through the heavy barrier.
Swallowing a hiccough of fear, she hugged her knees tighter.
“Are you almost here, Clay?” She needed to see his face and hold him. Needed to be held, too.
“I’m pulling into the driveway now. But you’re okay. The cavalry has arrived, Gabriella. Three cop cars plus Sam’s truck.”
“Be careful.” Closing her eyes, she imagined him outside the house. Entering the front door. Finding her.
She had been waiting for someone to protect her for a long time, she realized.
Too long, in fact. Now that she understood how deeply her mother’s abandonment had hurt her, she could see how she’d let her brother play protector for so long.
Sam Reyes, too. But they had their own lives now.
More recently she’d expected Clayton to swoop in and save the day for her and for Mia, too.
But as much as she cared about Clay, that wasn’t realistic. He told her he had built a life for himself in Memphis. Now it was time for her to get to work on building a life of her own. The time had come to stand on her own two feet.
A part of her heart was still in this town and she wouldn’t run from it after the trial was over. She had friends here and a support network that she had forgotten about. Nina and her grandmother, Daisy Spencer, for instance. Amy Finley. Her brother and his soon-to-be bride. Sam.
She was ready to put down roots, and the best place for that was right here in Heartache. If only Clayton felt the same way.
Clay had hidden in closets as a kid to avoid his father’s drunken rages.
He’d left home more than once, spending nights in the woods in the hope Pete would sleep off a bender.
But he’d honestly never been so scared in his life as he had been for the last half hour, afraid something would happen to Gabriella.
Now, standing outside Zach’s safe room, he knocked on the door.
He still had her on the phone. He wasn’t hanging up until he had his arms around her.
Behind him Sam and another cop waited to make sure Gabriella was released safely.
Every now and then the radio chirped on the uniformed officer’s hip.
Four teens had been taken into custody for breaking and entering as well as robbery. Two of them were still in the living room being read their rights.
“Gabby?” He cleared his throat, emotions threatening to swallow him whole.
The hits kept coming today. His father. Mia. Gabriella. Clay hadn’t been there for a single one of them when they’d needed him.
“Clay?” Her voice sounded more clearly through the phone than the door.
He leaned closer to the door to hear her. “Are you okay?”
“You’re here.” Her words hitched on a sob.
He told himself it was adrenaline let down, but her distress tore him up inside.
“I’m right outside the door, sweetheart.” He didn’t care who heard him. He pressed his palm to the steel barrier. “Do you know the code to get back out?”
“I’m entering it now.” She sniffled and then gave a sharp bark of laughter. “It took me three tries to get it right the first time. I’m lucky they didn’t find me before I got inside.”
Nausea rose at the vision of her struggling to stay hidden from the intruders. He knew she’d suffered nightmares for years after her attack, and she’d returned to Heartache to put the past behind her. He hated to think this night might have stolen that from her.
“Take your time. No rush.” He remembered holding her just a few hours ago, peeling off her clothes and making love to her.
Because he loved her, he realized.
That was the reason he wanted to spend every night with her since finding her again. The reason that it was killing him to think about anything happening to her. He loved Gabriella with a fierceness that he’d never felt for anyone before.
And after the trial was over and Covington was behind bars, he was going to take her away from here.
They could start over again without the reminders of all the ways Heartache had lived up to its name for them.
Go someplace safe where they could be their own family.
He had never had much luck with relationships in the past, but for Gabby’s sake, he was willing to try.
“I’ve got it,” Gabriella said right before the alarm system buzzed and the door opened, blue light spilling out into the closet.
For a frozen instant, Clay and Gabby stood face-to-face, phones to their ears in mirror images of one another. But a moment later he had her in his arms. Holding her tight. Breathing in her soft floral scent as he buried his face in her silky hair.
He didn’t want to let her go. He knew they would be here for a while tonight. Sam Reyes would need her to give the police a statement. Her brother was already on his way back to Heartache to make sure she was okay.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her words a light brush of air over his lips while they stood in the closet, the scent of cedar winding around them. “I couldn’t have gotten through this night without you.”
“Yes, you could have.” He wanted her to know she was stronger than she realized. “But I’m glad you didn’t have to. I’m just damn sorry I wasn’t here with you.”
He eased back just enough to take in her expression.
To cup her cheek in his hand and kiss her tenderly.
“I wanted to face my old room by myself,” she admitted, trembling against him.
“That part wasn’t as bad as I feared. The house is so different now and I realized that overdose wasn’t just a response to my attack.
I mean, it was a response to that, of course.
But it was also a plea for my mother’s attention.
I never realized how much it hurt that she was so willing to just… let me leave.”
He edged back to look at her, whistling softly. “I’m so sorry she wronged you.”
She nodded. “I’m just glad that I sorted through those old hurts. I think that’s why I’ve been so insistent that someone step in and be a family for Mia. I’ve been living out my past through her. Too much, I guess.”
He kissed the top of her head. Sliding his jacket off, he draped the leather around her shoulders, wanting to stop her shivering.
“Mia is lucky to have you.” He stroked a hand over her hair.
“And I’m damn lucky that your brother is a high-tech genius with a safe room.
I owe him more than I can ever repay.” Clay wished he could take her in the safe room now, in fact, and close the door on the rest of the world until he caught his breath again.
Until the fear in his gut eased away completely.
But he knew they needed to face Sam. “Are you ready to talk to the police yet?”
She nodded firmly, scrubbing aside the tears with her wrist. “I think so. But then I want to go to the hospital to be with you and Mia. Is she okay?”
“It was a rough night.” Briefly, he brought her up to speed with Pete’s failing condition.
“But yes, so far, she’s doing well.” He led Gabriella out into Zach’s basement office to speak with the police, more certain than ever that he had the right idea to leave town with her and Mia so the three of them could have a fresh start in Memphis.
As soon as he could, he was putting Heartache behind him forever.