Chapter Sixteen
Linden
“Get out of here, please! Go!” I beg, crying as he digs his elbow into my ribs, shoving me to get inside.
He showed up out of nowhere, wasted, and banging on my door. I barely managed to get outside before waking Avery up, but I can’t hold on much longer; he’s stronger than I am.
“You don’t get to tell me what to do, you bitch! I own you!” He screams, and the alcohol on his breath burns my nose.
My body trembles as I hold my fortress behind my back while rain pours from the sky, soaking my pajamas.
I came out here because I didn’t want Avery to see him like this, but I never should have opened the door. Now he’s trying to take her.
“I’ll call the police!”
“Yeah, go and try. I’ll have them putting you in cuffs before you can utter any of your bullshit to them,” he threatens, and unfortunately I think it’s true.
I think his family has every cop and official on speed dial, and I am no match for their power. I never have been.
Tears stream down my face as his nose digs into mine. “I should have killed you and that baby when I had the chance,” he spits through gritted teeth, pinning me to my storm door so hard my skull bounces off the glass.
His fist raises, and I whimper in terror, bracing for the hit, when instead, air whooshes in front of my face.
I blink up at nothing but the streams of water being reflected off my porch light.
I hear high-pitched ringing, but I feel hands… Gentle hands on my face. “-you okay? Linden, are you okay?”
Jack? Turner’s intoxicated screams still have my eardrums buzzing.
My eyes finally focus on the black eyes in front of me. Those gentle hands swipe at my cheeks, and then my forehead, and I cling to his forearms. “Are you okay?” His voice is clearer now.
“I’m okay,” I barely murmur.
He searches for the truth on my face and nods curtly before backing away.
My hands claw for his. “No, Jack,” I beg, and his focus drops to our linked hands, but I don’t know what I’m begging for.
“He’s out of his mind drunk,” I warn as Jack’s gaze finally raises from my hands to my face.
Turner’s stumbling up from the ground after being launched off my porch, gasping for the breath that was knocked out of him.
“He’s leaving,” he says calmly.
“Fuck you, asshole. This is my wife,” he threatens raggedly.
I let my hands fall, clutching them to my chest instead as Jack puts his body between us. “Not anymore.”
Turner tries to get in his face, but Jack twists his arm into a chicken wing behind his back so quickly, he screams like a baby. Jack walks him like a dog back to his Lincoln before shoving him up against the side. “I’m going to kill you for coming after her.”
I don’t know if he realizes that I can hear him, but I can. I hear every menacing word.
“Ahh.” Turner struggles painfully against Jack’s grip. “Fuck you!” He spits.
Jack’s hand grips Turner’s wet head, and for a moment, I think he’s going to bash his skull in.
“Jack, don’t!” I scream. Hurting Turner is practically a death sentence. “They’ll ruin your life if you hurt him.”
“They can try,” he seethes against Turner’s ear.
“I won’t have anyone if they take you away,” I plead, risking a few steps into the driveway, and Jack’s shoulders drop slightly.
He yanks Turner’s neck back at an unhealthy ninety-degree angle, making him yelp.
“If you ever lay a finger on her again, I’ll kill you,” he threatens seriously.
“I’ll take you into the depths of hell, and I’ll torture you slowly.
I’ll only kill you after I break every bone in your fucking body.
These girls do not belong to you anymore. ”
He hauls his entire body back, and I prepare for the impact, but instead the driver’s side door opens, and Jack flings his wimpy opponent into his car.
“Get the fuck out of here,” he growls, stepping back until he’s between me and Turner’s front bumper. His rain-soaked shirt and heaving shoulders block my ex from seeing me.
Turner’s car rumbles to life nearly at the same time he throws it in reverse, but his tires only make it a quarter down my driveway before they lurch to a stop. He can see me now, and the way his eyes bounce between Jack and me, I know he’s livid.
Blood coming from somewhere is dripping from the corner of his mouth, and his eyes are wild and fully crazed.
The longer he stares us down, the louder my heart thunders. When his hands tighten on his steering wheel, I see the evil intent brewing.
His engine is nearly silent as the rain pours, but you can hear the exact moment his transmission shifts into drive. He’s going to run us over.
Oh God, Avery.
That’s all I have time to think before Jack’s hand glides across his waist so fast, I barely catch his shirt lifting and the gun being drawn before it’s in the air and aimed directly at Turner’s head through the windshield.
He produced it so cleanly and efficiently that I know two things for certain.
He is definitely more than a recreational gun user.
And, he will kill Turner without any hesitation if it comes to it. Every single part of his body is primed to stop a threat, and it isn’t adrenaline. This is pure muscle memory.
Turner must come to the same conclusion because his car never moves even a millimeter forward.
The transmission clicks, and his car high-tails out of my driveway, hydroplaning down the road.
In what feels like a lifetime, I breathe.
Jack reholsters his gun before turning around to face me, and for the first time ever, his face is full of emotions that I can actually read—anger, worry, and hesitation.
The last time I spoke to him… I told him to stop rescuing me.
“I didn’t know if you could hear what was happening. I didn’t know if you’d come,” I cry, muffling my sob with a hand to my mouth.
His steps are instant, taking me into his arms, and holding my head to his chest, letting me break down against him. “I heard you. I’ll always hear you, and I will always come for you,” he promises.
It only makes me cry harder. “He was trying to get to Avery.”
“I know, baby. I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
Raw emotions tear out of me as I fall apart in the safety of someone’s arms. Arms capable of holding all of my pieces upright because I can’t pull myself together alone this time.
“You call for me anytime you’re in trouble,” he utters against the top of my head. “And I’ll be here to stop it.”
“I don’t want you to get in trouble.”
“They can’t touch me, Linden. I won’t let them touch you either.”
I digest his words with my face buried against his chest. I can hear his heart beating in my ear. He’s not speaking in fear. He seems so sure.
“Jack… You’re not a mechanic… Are you?”
There’s a long moment of hesitation before he answers. “No.”
“Do you work in security?”
He doesn’t respond this time at all, even after I look up at him.
“Are you a dangerous person?”
He’s looking at me with such deep sorrow that I can’t distinguish it. He exhales deeply. “Not to you. And not to Avery.”
I don’t fully know what that answer means, but I know I believe him.
My shoulders jerk as I shiver in the cool rain, and he notices right away, tucking me into his side and leading me back into my house.
“Go get dry, and crawl in bed with your girl. I’ll be right here.”
“You’re going to stay?”
“I’ll watch over you in case he comes back. You rest,” he murmurs, pushing my wet strands off my face.
His shirt is plastered to his torso, and I can’t stop my hands from roaming over it, gripping the wet fabric.
“You’re wet.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“I won’t be able to sleep if I think you’re cold, and I’m exhausted.” I grip the bottom hem of his shirt and push it up his stomach and to his chest until he’s forced to comply, raising his arms to help me remove it.
I gasp when I see his bare chest. He has scars everywhere. Thin scars that are only an inch in length, circle scars that I’m afraid I know the source of, and a few that are deeper and probably required quite a few stitches.
His gun is holstered inside the front of his waistband, and even though I can’t help but see it, I keep my hands clear. Instead, I let them wander over his skin, feeling his muscles twitch underneath my fingers.
When I lean forward, kissing his chest softly just above his heart, his breath hitches. “Thank you for saving me.”
I kiss the other side of his chest, and then as high as I can reach, just above his collarbone, when his fingers thread into my hair at the base of my skull, tipping my head back.
“You have no idea the lengths that I would go to save you,” he states seriously, stealing my breath away. “That’s why I should stay away from you.”
His agony sobers me.
“You are my weakness, Linden.”
He wants me…
But he doesn’t want to…
And I don’t understand why.
A sad smile tips the corners of my mouth because I know he won’t tell me. I’m just the foolish girl who lives next door. “I’ll go get you a dry shirt.” Not someone anyone could care about enough to truly fall for.
As soon as my eyes drop from his, he releases his grip on my hair and lets me back away from him.
When I come back, dressed in my own dry clothes, he’s seated in one of my kitchen chairs, directly by the front door. Fully prepared to sit out here all night watching over us.
“Here. This is one of my dad’s old work shirts. It should fit.”
He takes the gray metal works shirt from my grasp and slides it over his head. It fits, though it looks a bit snug in the shoulders.
“You said that your parents are in New York?”
Did I tell him that? Maybe I did. “Yeah. My dad worked for one of the biggest metal companies outside of Albany. He lost both of his legs in a workplace accident and is medically retired now. My mom is a hairdresser that specializes in perms. It’s a dying business.
” I cringe at my own crudeness, but he chuckles softly.
I don’t know if I’ve ever heard him laugh.
“My dad insisted that I use his settlement check to go to college. He was a big Virginia Tech basketball fan. I went there for him.”
“How do they feel about all of this?”
“Well, they know that I’m trying to get divorced, but that’s about the extent of it. They didn’t attend my wedding, and they don’t know about all of Turner’s problems. I didn’t want them to worry. They assume that I like it here and want to stay.”
“I’m sure they would want to know the truth.”
“I know. I’ll tell them the truth eventually. But probably not until I’m out of the quicksand.”
He grabs my hand gently, rubbing his thumb over my skin, and resting it over the pulse point near my wrist.
“Are you sure you want to stay here all night?”
“I’m sure.” His hand squeezes gently before falling from mine, but I swear it was with reluctance. “Go get some rest.”
“Okay… Goodnight.” I start to back away, and he turns his attention to the rain outside the storm door.
But I can’t make myself go to bed, not yet.
My bare feet cross the space between us, and my hand cups his jaw, tipping his head back to me.
“Thank you, again, for everything,” I whisper just before capturing his lips softly in mine.
I don’t mean to linger, but his lips are smooth, and the rest of his body is so hard, I have trouble pulling away.
Then his warm palm slides up the back of my bare thigh, and I melt further into him. It would be so easy to keep going. Being inside this haze with him feels more effortless than fighting it.
But I have a daughter in the other room to think about, and I don’t have the luxury of falling for the handsome but mysterious man next door.
His eyes are still closed as I pull back, but so terribly serious that I rest my forehead on his just to ease his furrow.
“Goodnight,” I murmur breathlessly, leaving him to his night watch as I go to bed, thinking of him, even when I tell myself I shouldn’t.