Light From The Dark: Protecting What's Theirs, page 6
My throat felt like sandpaper as I tried to speak through the vise-like stranglehold my fear had caused. “A d-doctor?”
He was a doctor. In this town. He wasn’t the killer. He couldn’t be.
My mind was a jumbled mess while I tried to process what was happening. I shrank back as I watched the man bend down to pick up something off the floor by my feet. He held up the small card. “Detective Ethan Hardgrove. Do you need me to call him for you, sweetheart?” His tone was low, and I knew he was trying to sound soothing, as if he were speaking to a wounded animal. All I could think was that I had never heard the killer’s voice. Would it be low and deep like this man’s?
My gaze darted around to see all the concerned and pitying stares. Some people were huddled together, whispering to each other. I jumped when I saw the man move to pull something out of his pocket, and I couldn’t hold back a whimper.
“Easy, sweetheart. I’m going to make a phone call, okay?” He began to punch in numbers as I heard someone stifle a laugh. It was the last of what I could take. I turned and ran.
Seven
ETHAN
I stood up from my desk with a snarl, causing my chair to roll back and crash against the wall. I slid my suit jacket back on, grabbed my keys and cell phone off the desk, and rushed for the door, ignoring all the eyes watching my hasty departure from the station. I had my phone to my ear before I made it outside.
“Get to the inn. Our girl needs us.”
I slammed the car door hard enough to rattle the windows and tossed my phone into the cupholder. I had backed out of my parking space and floored it to the inn within minutes of the phone call. I bit back a growl of frustration.
Something had spooked our girl bad enough that she’d had a panic attack in the middle of the grocery store. All Tom could tell me was that she’d asked for a phone and had my card in her hand.
“Good girl,” I whispered into the car’s interior. I didn’t like hearing my girl was scared, but I couldn’t deny that I was happy as fuck that it was me that she had wanted to call. One thing was certain: we needed to find out what the fuck had set her off. We already knew she was running from something, but if we were going to help, we needed answers. Now.
As I pulled into the parking lot, I saw Brent turning the corner. I stood next to my car as he parked and stormed over to me, his mossy green eyes blazing.
“What the fuck happened?”
“I don’t know. She was at the grocery store and freaked the fuck out. She had my card in her hand, so Tom, the pediatrician from the clinic, called me to tell me she ran.”
He raked a hand through his blond hair and let out a frustrated noise low in his throat. “Fuck. We need to get her to our house where we can keep an eye on her.”
I shot him a look. “We can’t keep her locked up.”
“The fuck we can’t. She’s obviously in some kind of danger. She will tell us. Today, so we know what to protect her from.” He started heading to the front door, but I grabbed his arm, pulling him back. He turned to me with a growl.
“Look, we go in there, we have to be calm. She is already upset. Seeing you go all angry caveman on her isn’t going to make her want to come home with us.”
He glared at me, his chest heaving, looking like he wanted to throw a punch at my jaw. I would let him get his frustrations out if I needed to, but I would prefer to do it a different way. Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option at the moment.
“Just calm down, babe. We need to show her that she can trust us to be her safe place. I’m upset, too. I wish we would have just taken her straight home after lunch. But this is Casey. She’s skittish. Just… fuck. Just keep calm, alright?”
“Calm. Right.” He chuckled darkly. “Yeah, I can be calm.”
I gave him a look. From the outside, he was all movie star good looks and charm. There were few people that knew what lurked below his surface. He had too many demons inside of him. I had a feeling that Casey would be the one person that would be able to do what even I couldn’t for him. She was going to be the one that could soothe the beast that was always raging inside of him.
He returned my look with a glare and raked his hand through his hair again. “I’m good man. I’ve got it under control. Right now, I just want to get to our girl and make sure she’s alright.”
I nodded, and together, we both walked through the door of my aunt’s inn. Aunt Gladys came through the doorway from the back of the inn where her private space was. She was wiping her hands on a towel and had a smile on her face that brightened further once she saw the two of us standing in her entry.
“Please tell me you boys are here to check on that sweet girl.”
I bent down to kiss her cheek. “Hey, Aunt Gladys. How is she?”
“I wish I knew. She looked so upset. She just rushed inside and went up to her room. I don’t think she even saw me.”
Brent kissed her cheek next. “Thanks for looking after our girl. I hope you don’t mind that we take a paying customer away.”
She waved a hand. “I just want that girl to be happy. There’s something in her eyes that tells me she is holding something dark inside that she needs to let go.”
Brent and I glanced at each other. Yeah, there was something there. And we would get to the bottom of it. We just had to be careful how we did it. It was instinct to corner her and demand she submit to us, but that was sure to be the fastest way to have her back on a bus and out of town before we could blink.
“We will take care of everything. Which room is she in?” I looked at the stairs as if I could see her in her room already.
“Room 2. The pretty one.”
Brent pulled some cash out of his pocket and pressed it into Aunt Gladys’ hand. “All your rooms are pretty, Gladys.” I knew he would give her cash, for the same reason I had already arranged to pay the difference on the room rate that she had generously cut for Casey.
Her cheeks pinkened, but she slid the wad of bills into her pocket, already knowing by now that there would be no arguing with either of us when we offered her money. She gave us each a squeeze on the arm, then turned around to head back into her kitchen. From the smells coming from back there, I was willing to bet she was well on her way into baking a large batch of chocolate chip cookies.
We both headed for the stairs and took them two steps at a time, walking straight to the door with a fancy scrolled two on it. Before I could raise my hand, Brent had his fist up and was banging on it loudly. He ignored my warning glare, his jaw hard and determined. There was shuffling coming from the other side of the door, and I held my breath for what we would see once she opened it. I didn’t like the thought of Casey upset, and all I had wanted to do since receiving that phone call was get to her and hold her close.
The door handle turned, and then the door cracked open, allowing Casey to peek around the wood. She didn’t look overly surprised to see us standing at the door to her room. I watched as she swallowed and then lifted her chin. Before she could tell us to go away, I had my hand on the door and pushed it gently but firmly open. She took several steps back as we both entered.
The room was neat and tidy, but the first thing I noticed was her suitcase was closed and standing by the door. “Oh, good, you’re already packed.” Brent’s words had her gaze flying up to his face before she abruptly turned around and walked to the bed. I hadn’t missed the hurt look that flashed before she turned away, though.
“Uh, yeah.” She picked up her backpack from the foot of the bed and slid it over her shoulders. “I was just getting ready to leave.” She turned back to face us, her expression carefully blank. “I wanted to thank you guys for lunch again. I appreciate it. Can you tell Grace thanks for everything she’s done for me?” Her eyes got glassy for a minute until she blinked and then fixed that blank stare back on us, walking toward her suitcase.
Before she could reach for it, Brent had his hand on the handle and was pulling it out of the room. “You can tell her yourself when you go in tomorrow for that job she offered you.” His words were said over his shoulder as he continued to walk toward the stairs, her suitcase in tow.
“Wait! I need my suitcase!” Casey squeezed past me and marched up to Brent, where he had paused at the top of the stairs. “I’m heading to the bus station.”
“Why?”
She swung around to look at me, an incredulous look taking over the blank one I hated. “Why? Because I made a fool of myself in the grocery store! I need to get out of here before everyone realizes I’m a nut job.”
I couldn’t help my glare as I stalked over to her. I put my hand under her chin and gently forced her face up to look at me. “Don’t ever call yourself that again. Do you hear me, Casey? Everyone has moments of weakness. You obviously had something spook you, and it shook you badly. From what Dr. Tom said, you had been nervous for a while. Did you feel like you were being watched? Followed?”
I could feel her neck convulse as she swallowed hard. Her eyes got that glassy sheen again, and she stared up at me silently.
“Casey.” Brent’s growl came from beside us as he moved in closer. “Answer him.”
Her eyes went to him, then back to me swiftly. “I, uh. Yeah, I felt like I was being watched.” She jerked her head back and glared at us both. “But I don’t see what right you have to question me about it.”
Brent took another step closer. “We have the right dollface because we want to make sure our girl is safe.”
I cleared my throat before he could say anything else and reveal what our intentions were. We had to ease her into it slowly, not shove her head first while she was still raw from her emotional trauma. “We are worried. Look, we already discussed you coming to stay with us, and I think now would be a perfect time for you to come to our home. We can keep you safe. When you are ready, you can tell us all about what spooked you and why. But not until you’re ready. Okay, sugar?”
Her shoulders dropped, and her expression lost the look of defiance that she had been so bravely wielding. “I—” She looked off into the distance, and I could imagine she was weighing her options. Get back on the bus and keep running? Or come home with two strangers that offered her safety. I could see the moment she made her decision, and the tension that had been a ball inside me let go, allowing me to take my first relaxed breath since Dr. Tom’s phone call. “Okay.” She looked down at the floor, but instead of looking defeated, she looked relieved.
“Okay, what? I have to hear it, dollface.” Brent stepped forward, standing shoulder to shoulder with me.
She looked back up, a small smile playing around her beautiful lips, even as they trembled slightly. “Okay, I’ll become a guest in your home. I accept your offer.”
Eight
BRENT
The moment the words left her lips, I wanted to shout, to rush her and wrap her in my arms. To kiss her. I did none of that. Instead, I took a page from Ethan’s book and pasted on a grin. “Good girl,” I practically purred, delighting in the pink that tinged her cheeks at the words.
I took her suitcase by the handle again, and this time, I didn’t stop until I was at my truck, lifting it into the backseat of the dual cab. I closed the door firmly and turned around to see she was back to being shy, but hadn’t reverted to reluctance. If she had, I didn’t know what I would do with my sheer frustration. I had never been so eager for anything in my life. Ethan had always been there for me, always ready to fight my demons with me. This, not knowing if our futures would include her… it was killing me.
“Ready?” I didn’t give her a chance to back out, just opened the passenger door and lifted her by the waist, depositing her in my truck. I wanted nothing more than to run my tingling hands over her body, but I would settle for knowing we were finally getting her into our home. It was the first step in reaching our forever together.
I shut the door after reaching across her body to buckle her in, hiding my grin at the adorable squeak she let out at my touch. I turned to face Ethan, taking in his relaxed posture and the grin that matched mine. Yeah, we were both beyond relieved at this first step.
I stalked over to him and grabbed him by the back of the neck, and slammed my mouth against his in a brief kiss that held a promise of what I wanted to do with him later. I yanked back and stared into his honey eyes before smirking and stepping back, letting my hands fall from his body. “Love you.”
I turned around before he could say anything and stalked to the driver’s side of the truck. It wasn’t that I didn’t like saying the words. Ethan knew I loved his sexy ass and had since we were teens. I was just uncomfortable with them. My home life had been nothing but fucking shit, shaping me into the man I was today. There was no love in our house. There was only filth and hatred. Ethan understood that, and he understood me.
I turned the key, fired up the engine, and backed out of the small parking lot, feeling Casey’s eyes on me the entire time. Once we were a mile down the road and too far away from the bus station for her to change her mind, I let the tension I’d been hanging onto out with a heavy breath.
“You two are cute together.”
I turned my head so I could glance at her out of the corner of my eyes, seeing her wistful smile. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. How long have you been together?”
I grunted, turning back to the road as she played with the hem of her top. “Since high school. We were competitors, and then we became friends.”
When Ethan had seen past the hard exterior I’d built for the world, somehow seeing the pain underneath. He had insisted I talk to him. He was the first person to have ever shown any concern for my well-being. Growing up, none of my teachers had ever seemed to notice all the bruises, or they just didn’t care to. Ethan, though, he cared. It took our rivalry from being the best on the team to being a duo that worked together to make an unstoppable pair on the field. By the time we had made it to our junior year, we had been more than friends and didn’t give one solitary fuck what anyone thought about it. The couple of times someone thought to give us shit, they learned real quick that we would beat acceptance into their shallow little brains.
“Competitors?”
“Yeah, we were both on the football team since our freshman year. We were both damn good and always tried to outdo each other on the field. Once we became friends, we started working better as a team and became unstoppable. Turns out, working together does more for your stats than working against each other.”
Her little snort had me grinning and glancing at her again. The sun was shining through the window and lit her hair up. It made the dark blonde strands shine with every shade of gold you could imagine. It took my breath away.
Both of us knew we liked girls. We just hadn’t had time for them when we were freshmen. Or we were just too awkward to get involved with one. I knew I held back because my head was fucked up. Falling into each other after spending our days and nights hanging out at his house, and later, taking his car out for joyrides when we got a bit older, was as easy as slipping on your favorite pair of jeans. Or slipping them off.
“So, you became friends, and then…”
I chuckled. “What do you want to know, dollface? You want to know which one of us took the plunge first?”
Her cheeks were rosy, but there was a twinkle in her eye as she stared at me. “Sorry, it’s just… you guys together…” She turned her head to look out the window, obviously feeling shy from the turn the discussion had taken. “I just think you two seem to have a deep connection together. I wish I had that.”
She said the last part so softly I could barely hear it over the sound of the radio playing a country song on low volume. I clenched my hands around the steering wheel, wanting nothing more than to reach over and grab her hand and drag it onto my leg. I wanted a connection with her; I needed her touch. I wanted to show her that she could have what we did. With us. Instead, I shrugged.
“He’s been my best friend for years. It made us close. Solid. He knows me better than anyone in this world.”
She looked back at me, and I glanced over to see her eyes were shiny, but her smile was genuine. “That’s great. I’m glad you have that.”
I finally gave in to temptation and took one of her hands with one of mine and gave it a gentle squeeze. Her fingers were small, delicate. So different from Ethan’s. It had a jolt of lust running through me at the thought of having her under me, so small that she would disappear.
I let go and cleared my throat, placing my hand back on the wheel as I turned down our driveway. The first view of our sprawling ranch-style house had her sitting up straighter with a gasp.
“This is your house?”
I pulled in front of the doors to the garage and put the truck in park, seeing Ethan pull up the drive behind me in the rearview.
“Yep. Home sweet home.”
I hopped out and rounded the hood at the same time Ethan parked his Mustang next to the truck. I gave him a wink and then opened her door before he could turn off his engine.
“Ready to get settled into your new home, dollface?” she already had her seatbelt undone, so I reached in and plucked her from her seat, letting her slide down my body to the hot concrete. She turned her face up to glare at me, shielding her eyes from the sun.
“You don’t need to manhandle me. I can get in and out on my own.”
I was still reeling from the feel of her soft tits pressed against my chest for those few seconds I had her in my arms, so all I could do was grin down at her. Ethan slammed his door, and she swung her head over to him, the glare dropping and a smile gracing her lips.
“Your home is beautiful.”
“Just wait until you see the inside.”
They stood there smiling at each other as I opened the back door to haul out her small suitcase. She couldn’t have much. Our girl was going to need more of everything. I had a feeling that both Ethan and I would have fun spoiling her.
