Stolen Redemption (Texas SWAT, #2)

by Bristol, Sidney

  “Trevor?” Jenna leaned out of the glass door leading from the house to the patio.

  “What’s up?” He took a few steps toward Jenna before her wide-eyed stare registered.

  Something was wrong.

  “Where’s Dina?” he asked for her ears alone.

  He crowded Jenna back into the house and slid the door shut. The guys didn’t need to be privy to whatever else was going on here. Scarlett sat on the sofa, her eyes so wide they took up her whole face.

  “I’m sorry,” she blurted.

  “Where’s Dina?” Trevor glanced into the kitchen.

  “She’s out front, but—Trevor.”

  He didn’t need an explanation. Dina’s location was enough cause for alarm. She couldn’t be standing out on a street in full view of anyone driving by. They were miles away from her house, but that didn’t mean much in a small town.

  Trevor opened the front door. The setting sun cast long shadows across the yard.

  “Dina? Dina, where are you?” He stepped out onto the walk.

  A long, leggy shadow stretched across his path.

  He turned, following it to the owner.

  Dina stood behind the low boughs of a magnolia tree, one hand on her hip, the other on her face. Her back was to him. She had the most expressive shoulders. Tension hunched them and every few moments they trembled.

  “Hey.” He laid his hand on her arm.

  Dina jerked away.

  “Hey, let’s go inside, okay?” Shit. What had Jenna and Scarlett said?

  “I don’t want to go anywhere with you.”

  “Okay, but you can’t stay out here.”

  “I need a God damn minute,” she snapped.

  “Then why don’t you go to one of the bedrooms or the—okay.”

  Dina stormed past him without looking his way once. Her flip-flops slapped the sidewalk hard enough he knew this fuck-up was his fault. Somehow. Maybe he’d drank that first beer too fast?

  Trevor followed her back inside, pausing to glance up and down the street.

  Nothing stuck out to him. They were probably fine. Just fine.

  Now to deal with what had set Dina off like that.

  He entered the house and closed the door behind him. Once again Dina was nowhere to be seen. Jenna and Scarlett stood in the middle of the living room clutching wine glasses and staring at him.

  “What happened?” He needed to get to the bottom of this and Dina clearly didn’t want to talk to him.

  “It’s my fault,” Jenna blurted.

  Trevor was seriously regretting downing that first beer as fast as he had. He crossed to the sofa and sat, the women joining him.

  If Dina needed a minute, the least he could do was figure out what he’d done wrong.

  “I was apologizing. We got to talking and I could see what you meant about her.” Jenna’s free hand fluttered as she spoke, like some kind of drunken butterfly. “I was trying to say I made assumptions about her, given your history, and I think she took it the wrong way.”

  “She took it the wrong way,” Scarlett said.

  Jenna turned toward Scarlett, pinning her with a glare. “If you hadn’t led with the high school story, we might have smoothed it over.”

  “I just—you’re right. I open my mouth and the wrong words fly out.” Scarlett sighed.

  Trevor sifted through their words for the facts.

  Jenna had informed Dina about his track record with women as a way of validating how Dina was different. Scarlett dredging up a few weeks in high school when he’d been there for her hadn’t helped the case given how intensely private and cautious Dina’s life had been for the last eight or so years.

  “Where is she?” he asked.

  “Laundry room,” Jenna said.

  “Tell the guys to stop talking about her. Especially Benji.” Trevor couldn’t take words back and he couldn’t change what had been said or his past. He just knew that things with Dina weren’t like before.

  He pushed to his feet. Yeah, pounding that first beer as a bad idea, but he couldn’t help that now, much like the rest of his past. He strode through the living room and kitchen to the laundry-slash-mud room. The door was shut but the light inside was on.

  “Dina?” He tapped on the door. “Can we talk?”

  Silence greeted his request.

  He turned the door knob. It met with no resistance. He pushed against it and the door swung open.

  Dina stood with her back toward him. Her hair was wound up in a bun, leaving her neck exposed. Her shoulders sloped, the straps of the sundress barely hanging on. The cheerful floral print was at odds with the mood rolling off of her. He shut the door behind him and leaned against the washer.

  What did he say to her? How did he begin to make her understand?

  “I’m your project.” She wasn’t asking a question.

  “No. No, you’re not.”

  “Do you or do you not date women with problems? Is this not a reoccurring thing with you?” She turned to face him, arms wrapped tight around herself.

  He was afraid to touch her for fear that she might break apart.

  And this was his doing.

  Shit.

  “I can explain—”

  “Which means it’s the truth.”

  “But not with you.” He held up his hands.

  “Not with me? Really? With all my shit, everything that comes with me, and I’m not one of your projects? Is that what gets you off? Playing the hero? Praying on women at their weakest?” She edged closer that inner fire of hers building until she was almost right up on him. “I trusted you.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “The hell it isn’t.” She vibrated with rage, hands balled into fists, her eyes flashing with pain.

  It would be easier if she’d punched him rather than stare at him like that, with her anguish on display.

  “When I saw you in the market I didn’t know any of this. When we started talking, I thought that whatever bad shit you’d run from was in the past. Who you were, what’s going on now, it didn’t factor into us.”

  “Us.” She rolled her eyes and turned from him.

  “Hey.” He grasped her elbow. “Don’t do that.”

  “I need to leave. I need to get away from you.”

  “Dina, can we please talk about this?”

  “You’ve made me into the town’s sideshow, Trevor.” She pulled away from him, retreating a few steps to the other side of the small room.

  “No.” He braced his hand on the washer and the folding table, then hung his head forward.

  How did he make her understand what was inside of him? He didn’t have words for this, but he could tell it was different. It was a knowing. A feeling. The instinct that came with understanding people.

  “You don’t need me,” he said.

  “What?”

  “You don’t need me.” He lifted his head and looked back at her. “Do I have a tendency to see a woman in trouble and...take them on? Yeah. I do. Did. It’s been a while since I did that. Two, three years? But, you don’t need me. If I hadn’t lived close, if we hadn’t crossed paths at the market, you’d have gotten out of this one on your own. This is different.”

  “Or is that what you want to tell yourself?” she asked softly.

  “What? You don’t think you’d have slipped out of town without those two guys getting wind of you?”

  “I’m not staying here. Everyone in this house thinks I’m your next project.” She closed her eyes.

  “Fine. We’ll go.” He dug in his pocket for the keys then held them out to Dina. Two beers in and a hot head meant he wasn’t good to be behind the wheel.

  She took the keys and stared at them like she didn’t know what to do with them.

  Trevor reached past her and unlocked the side door. He’d text Jenna to come lock up after them. There was no need to drag Dina through the house if she was wound up like this. He pushed the door open.

  “What am I supposed to do with
these?” she asked.

  “You’re driving.”

  “Where?”

  “To the cabin. Go on.” He risked nudging her to get her going.

  Dina stepped out, and he followed, pulling the door shut behind him.

  She stared at the side of the house. There was a brittleness to her that he wasn’t prepared for. Even when she’d cried and seemed at a loss for what to do, she’d held herself together. There was a strength to Dina he wasn’t sure she was aware of, and now that was gone. Because he was an asshole.

  “Come on.” He gestured toward the sidewalk but didn’t dare touch her again for fear she’d break apart.

  She remained out of reach and a step ahead of him all the way to his SUV.

  Trevor got in the passenger’s side. He was fairly certain he’d never sat on that side of the vehicle before. While Dina adjusted the seat he plugged in the address for the Jones family property. That done, he sat back in his seat and kept his mouth shut.

  How did he make her understand a feeling?

  She steered the SUV onto the street, moving at a crawl.

  “How do you drive this thing?” she muttered.

  He didn’t think she’d appreciate an answer, and right now his mind was preoccupied.

  When Dina had walked into The Hole wearing that red dress he’d been drawn to her. Over the course of a couple drinks she’d been confident and intelligent. He hadn’t caught a whiff of a problem off her and he typically could diagnose issues in under five minutes. The only time during their night when he’d seen under that mask was in the shower. He’d chalked it up to too many drinks and post-sex emotions, but when he’d woken up and she’d vanished—that was when he’d become worried.

  He’d gone and stuck his nose into her business when she hadn’t asked him to. Then he’d made it his job to dig into her past, uncover her secrets until their paths crossed again.

  Maybe he was the problem here, rooting around where he wasn’t wanted.

  “Where are we going?” Dina asked as the city limits sign whizzed by.

  “The Jones’ property.”

  “Why are we going there?”

  “Because the Jones’ own, I think sixty acres. You can get lost on their property.” He turned and admired the trees.

  Ransom was about as far west as real trees grew. Not many miles past the Jones’ land and the trees were either decorative or the kind of low growing scrub of the arid region that eventually turned into the desert out west.

  Dina kept going with only the sound of the navigation system to break up the silence.

  Why did he do this? What was his problem?

  He’d wondered what made him tick, what inner drive he had that set him down this path time and time again. Was it nature or nurture? Something deeper? Or was this just his ego talking?

  12.

  DINA DID HER BEST to stare straight at the sun as if that would help dry her eyes. Trevor and whatever fucked up situation this was wasn’t worth her crying any more. She’d known the night she texted him that it was a silly, foolish thing to do. There was nothing good that could come out of her and Trevor getting involved. And tonight went to prove exactly that.

  He didn’t care about her. At least not really. With time and distance, he wouldn’t even think of her. While she’d opened up to him, a complete stranger, like she hadn’t to anyone in years. Not even her on-line work friends.

  She would have been better off leaving the day they met up in the market like her gut told her to. He was a sign, an indicator that her world was about to crash down around her and she needed to get out fast. When Rudy got back to her, she was going to give him a piece of her mind and this time he’d give her a discount on a new ID. She’d go somewhere new, maybe even leave the country.

  But then Dominick won. He got to take her safety away, steal her life, make her run all over again.

  Dina didn’t know who she was more pissed off at right now, her brother or Trevor.

  Dominick she understood. To him, Dina had betrayed everything they cared about, everyone they loved. She didn’t have to accept his view to understand.

  But Trevor? That was the real violation. She’d trusted him. Let herself care about him. And ultimately she’d changed her MO because he was there to help prop her up. All the while she’d been playing into his fantasy.

  “Your destination is on the right,” the navigation system announced as they topped a hill and headed down. After a few golden fields, the sudden clustering of trees in the low area was strange.

  Dina slowed and turned into a gravel drive. The metal sign over the drive read The Jones Family. A gate barred her way.

  “The code is 8319,” Trevor said.

  She lowered the window and keyed in the four digits.

  What was this place? Who were the Jones?

  She eased the SUV down the tree lined drive leading between the two hills. Ahead of her she saw a large farm house with a silver tin roof and two stories. A couple trucks were parked out front and two men in jeans and cowboy hats stood leaned up against a tailgate talking.

  “Take the dirt road that goes off to the left up there by the bushes,” Trevor said.

  Dina wouldn’t have noticed the path if he hadn’t said anything. The ground was hard packed earth, not much different from the pavement or gravel from what she could tell. They left the farm house in the cluster of trees behind and broke out, driving along a fence line. Trevor didn’t instruct her to stop, so she kept going.

  The light faded faster down here between the hills and trees so she turned on the headlights. They wove back through more trees, then broke free only to be stopped by a gate. In the distance, fifty or so yards away, a small pond sat in what looked to be a perfect crater. On the western side a square cabin sat back from the water on the higher ground.

  Trevor got out without explanation and opened the gate. She rolled through, leaning forward to catch as much of the landscape as she could before the light totally failed her. Trevor got back in, still not speaking. His silence was a blessing that grated on her nerves. She wanted answers, an explanation for why, some sort of justification or reason that made it all okay. But there wasn’t one. She knew better than to hope for an easy solution.

  She pulled the SUV up to the front of the cabin and shifted into park.

  “I’ll carry the stuff inside if you want to take a minute,” he said.

  That was it.

  No further apology or reasoning or anything.

  Trevor retrieved her bags and another from the very back, then strode toward the cabin. The headlights shone on his backside, the denim of his jeans hugging his ass in a way that was utterly wrong.

  This was her life. This was what she had to deal with.

  She’d come through worse. She was strong. One man wouldn’t destroy her.

  Dina killed the engine, flipped off the lights and got out. She walked toward the pond and listened to the song of crickets and other unknown things. When she’d first moved out here, the sounds had scared her. For such an empty place there was a lot of noise. But now it was comforting. She wasn’t truly alone even if that was what she pretended she desired.

  Trevor hadn’t been back in her life for more than a week and he’d wrecked her. Hell, after their one-night stand she’d been emotionally vulnerable then, too. She should have known better, but she’d been weak. Lonely.

  Maybe that was her problem. Despite the risks, being alone only made her more of a risk to herself? So how did she stop this? How did she find that place in life where she could be safe to open up to others?

  Stopping Dominick. That was the only universal solution that kept others safe. To do that, she needed the law. It wasn’t something she could do by herself. She wasn’t a vigilante who could take on her brother and whatever power he’d amassed while she was trying to live her small, quiet life.

  For now she needed Trevor. She’d take whatever he gave, but when this was over she was out. She didn’t want to be someone’s pet
project. She didn’t want to be that girl. She wanted her own life to be and do whatever she felt like doing.

  Dina stood there until most of the light had faded, then turned.

  The cabin’s windows were lit up. There were no curtains so she could see into the bathroom and what appeared to be the single room of the rest of the space. It was rustic, that was for sure, but it didn’t seem weathered by age either.

  Trevor sat at the dining table facing the door, his back to her.

  What reasoning would he give her? What would she say?

  She couldn’t allow herself to sway under his smile or the impassioned way he spoke. She had to remember who, and what she was to him. A project, that was all.

  Dina circled around to the small front porch and opened the door.

  “You didn’t step in cow pies, did you?” Trevor asked.

  “What is a cow pie?” she asked slowly.

  “Oh, good.” His shoulders slumped, and he sighed.

  “Do I want to know?”

  “Piles of shit.”

  Dina’s gaze dropped to her glittery new flip-flops. She lifted one foot and looked at the diamond tread.

  “If you’d stepped in one you’d know,” he said.

  For safe keeping she checked her other foot. Besides a few blades of grass and some gravel, there was no poop. Cow pies weren’t exactly the conversation she’d been prepared for them to launch into.

  “Will you come here?” He held out his hand and pushed away from the table.

  Last night and today she’d have gone to him, leaned on those stronger than granite shoulders and accepted his platitudes about her future and their outcome. Now, she couldn’t allow herself that luxury. She had to be strong, for herself and what came next.

  “It’s different, Dina. You’ve got to believe me.” He dropped his hand to his thigh.

  “It doesn’t sound different. You get that, right?”

  “Yeah, but—it’s different.”

  “I don’t know what that word means in this context. You have to give me something more.” She shook her head.

  “Look, do I know what I do? Am I aware of my habit? Yeah. And that’s why—that’s why I’ve been trying to not do that. That’s why I was really bummed out when you vanished. You were different. You didn’t have a problem. There wasn’t an abusive ex. You weren’t trying to escape something or someone. I asked every leading question I could at the bar and you didn’t take any of the bait. You were normal. And we connected. I know we did. You felt it.”