A Promise to Protect

by Liz Johnson

  “Me, too.” He patted her back several times. “I’m proud of you, Ash. You’re doing a pretty amazing thing here.”

  She sure didn’t feel amazing today. She was vulnerable and lost and shaken to the core. She shook her cheek against him. “No, I’m not. I’m just doing what has to be done.” And today, it doesn’t feel like nearly enough. Ashley was usually pretty good at summoning confidence and determination, but it felt like everything that had happened over the past few days had whittled away her surety, leaving her the same fragile, unhappy girl who couldn’t protect herself, much less anyone else.

  “I’m serious,” he said. “These women need you, and after what you went through in college, to help them is—”

  Every one of her muscles tensed, pulling her away from his embrace, even though his arm still circled her shoulders. She jerked her head up, and looked anywhere but at him. “What do you mean?”

  “Um...just th-that—” He clearly realized he’d said the wrong thing, but there was no backing away from it now. Finally, the words she’d dreaded spilled out. “Tristan said that there was a guy. Peter? He just... I mean, it takes a lot of courage. You know you’re very strong.”

  Her neck burned until her cheeks flamed and she marched backward, putting a few feet between them. He knew? Tristan had told him? She was so humiliated and hurt she wanted to scream. She opened her mouth to say something, but the words weren’t there, so she snapped it closed.

  “I’m sorry.” He was quick to apologize though she was pretty sure he didn’t know what he was apologizing for. “I didn’t know. I mean, I’m not quite sure. That is, your brother just— Last night he said to—”

  The more he said, the worse she felt. She had to get away.

  “I need to get cleaned up,” she said and ran for the door. If she hurried, she could be first in the shower. And with the noise of the pounding water, no one in the house would notice if she cried.

  * * *

  Showered, dressed and with her hair halfway dry, Ashley finally felt that she’d regained control of herself. Tears weren’t quite as close to the surface—now she was just mad. She waved her hair dryer like a weapon, wishing she could smack her brother with it. What had he been thinking spilling the whole story of Paul to Matt? She’d worked so hard to be strong since then, and then at her weakest moment, she got slammed by it all over again. Like she’d crawled up a staircase only to be pushed back down, reminded of all of her failings.

  Her damp hair flopped in the burst of heat from the dryer—just like the rest of her life, going wherever the wind blew it. Or, more accurately, wherever the note writer sent it. But that was over, starting now.

  She wasn’t going to let someone steal everything she’d worked so hard for. Security. Peace of mind. Hope. These were hers, and she hadn’t gotten them by lying down when things got tough. She was going back to that bar, and she was going to figure out what Miranda had been trying to tell her. Whatever Miranda had known had landed her in trouble, and there was no crying “uncle” while women were in danger.

  Just as she turned off the dryer, someone thumped on her door twice. “Ashley? There are still some eggs on the stove,” Matt called through the door. “I’m going to run into town and see if I can find out who owns the Infinity property. Maybe there’ll be something to point us in the right direction.”

  Thankful that she’d dressed before drying her hair, she opened the door and stuck her head out. “I’ll be ready to go in a second. Just let me grab my shoes.”

  “Maybe you should stay here.” He had an expression that reminded her of when Julio broke something in the living room. He couldn’t meet her gaze and instead hemmed and hawed with his hands behind his back and toe digging into the floor.

  Just great. She’d made him uncomfortable. Or rather, her reaction to the bombshell he’d dropped on her, courtesy of her brother, had made him uncomfortable. Well, it wasn’t going to keep her behind today.

  “I’ll be there in a minute.” She slammed the door before he could argue and ran to find her tennis shoes.

  Matt was waiting for her in the foyer, his arms crossed and forehead wrinkled, when she came out to join him. “Are you sure you want to go? It’s probably going to be pretty boring.”

  “It’s Monday. I can pick up my car today.” She twirled her keys as she pulled her jacket from the hook by the front door. “Think you can handle a walk?”

  She flung open the door and bounded down the steps without giving him a chance to respond, but he was by her side without missing a step.

  They walked several blocks in silence, always keeping a respectable distance between them. His breathing, soft and consistent like a metronome, set the pace, and he matched his strides to hers.

  As they turned the corner, a big orange house with an array of pink flamingos in the front yard loomed ahead. Matt looked at her with an arched brow. “Why don’t you get some flamingos like that? I think they really add to the neighborhood.”

  “I’ll look into that right away.”

  His smirk faded until his lips formed a thin line. “I’m sorry about this morning. I didn’t mean to...um...bring up something you obviously didn’t want to talk about.”

  “Thank you.” And she meant it.

  “I’m sorry, too, about what you went through.”

  So was she. That didn’t mean she wanted to talk about it with him.

  He jammed his hands into his pockets, clearly looking for something to do. If she didn’t steer this conversation, he was going to pick it up right where she didn’t want him to.

  “How’s your leg feeling?”

  If he’d been a porcupine, his quills would have fanned out. Apparently he wanted to talk about his leg almost as much as she wanted to talk about Paul. They needed a safer topic.

  “Should we stop by the police station and talk with the chief?” She pointed toward their next turn.

  “I called him this morning after breakfast.” Matt didn’t sound at all happy. “I told him about Miranda, and he was madder than we were. He said he’d look into it right away. And he asked me to keep my eye out and to call his cell if we see any sign of her.”

  “Did you say anything to him about the Suburban that tried to run us off the road?”

  He shrugged. “I mentioned it, but without plates or any real evidence of a crime he can’t do anything.”

  “What about the blue streak of paint on the tailgate of your truck?”

  “What about the other four paint streaks? That truck’s been hit more than a baseball. There’s no way to prove the blue paint is from an illegal act without a witness or a serious accident.”

  How could he be so calm and rational about the whole thing? The blood beneath the surface of her skin simmered at the memory of the ordeal, but he acted as though it had been nothing. Like they hadn’t narrowly escaped a serious accident.

  Like he hadn’t kissed the stuffing out of her right after they lost the SUV.

  Oh, dear.

  Why was she thinking about that again?

  Maybe because he held you like that this morning but didn’t make any move to kiss you.

  She shoved open the door to the county recorder’s office in an attempt to silence the snotty voice in her head. No need to be thinking things like that.

  A slim woman in an ill-fitting, but not altogether unflattering navy suit stood behind the counter, her elbows on the counter and chin resting in her hands. The blue sign perched on the ledge said Sandy Brummings. “Help you?”

  “Yes, please. Can you tell us who owns—”

  A door at the end of the hall slammed open into the adjacent wall, and a man with a vaguely familiar face—and even more memorable sleek black hair—stumbled into the hallway, pulling on a brown overcoat as he yelled over his shoulder, “I’ll be back after the game.” The
feminine voice inside the office said something else that she couldn’t understand. “Hold my calls. It won’t take more than a couple hours.”

  Matt leaned in to speak to the clerk as the other man ducked down a side hallway. “Who is that man?”

  “That’s the mayor,” Ashley said.

  Sandy nodded, then winked like they shared a secret. “Off for his weekly poker game with Chief Donal and a few local business owners, I suppose. His office and the county offices share a parking garage, so he comes through here like that regularly.” They all looked back at the spot where the politician had vanished.

  Ashley cleared her throat, bringing them back to the present. “So can you tell us who owns some property?”

  “What land?”

  “It’s at the corner of Simpson and Elm. It used to be a bar called the Infinity.”

  Sandy’s one-inch fingernails clacked against the keyboard of her computer, her face a composition of concentration. “You folks thinking about buying it?”

  They’d been asked that before.

  “Just checking it out.” Matt offered the same response as he had to the tipsy man.

  “Well, it looks like the property was purchased a little over a year ago.”

  Just like the old guy had said.

  Sandy tapped one fingernail against her teeth, sucking on it as her eyes went back and forth across the screen. “It’s owned by a company called Ithyka Inc.”

  “How do you spell that?” Ashley dug in her purse for a scrap of paper, but couldn’t even find a pen before the other woman scribbled it onto a sticky note. The blue paper stuck between her nails, waving like a flag in a hurricane.

  “Thank you.”

  Matt leaned an elbow on the counter, bending his considerable height until he drew even with Sandy. “Do you know anything about this Ithyka Inc.? Any idea who owns it?”

  Sandy’s eyelashes beat faster than hummingbird wings as she smiled into Matt’s handsome face. She licked her red lips twice, flashing white teeth at him. “I could check on that for you.”

  He grinned, lines forming at the corners of his eyes in a true smile.

  Ashley pressed her hand to her stomach over a sudden knot. When had it gotten so hot inside? She ran a finger around her collar trying to get some air.

  “That’s all right, Ms. Brummings. Thank you for your time.”

  She marched ahead of him into the street after a quick wave at the clerk. If it hadn’t been for his footsteps, she wouldn’t have been sure he was with her until they reached the cool air where she could breathe again.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Fine.” She pushed a short breath through her nose. “But what were you—” She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down—a task that became significantly more difficult when she looked at his face, where a slow grin formed.

  He pointed at the closed door and raised both eyebrows. “Ashley, were you—”

  Jealous.

  The unspoken word hung in the air for hours. At least for long moments of painful silence.

  Because it was so terribly, utterly true.

  Finally she just turned and walked toward the glass repair shop. She had no words to explain her reaction to a completely innocent interaction. She had no right to be jealous of anyone where Matt was concerned. He’d be leaving town shortly. In no time at all this whole ordeal would be over, and she’d be back to life on her own.

  Yet despite her rationalizations, she still couldn’t come up with anything to say as they picked up her car and drove the nine blocks back to Lil’s. He seemed to understand that, letting the quiet keep them company.

  When she parked behind his truck, the blue stain on the tailgate taunted her, and she brushed her hand on it as she walked around the front of her car. This would end. It couldn’t go on forever.

  It had to end soon.

  Matt leaped from the passenger seat when the telltale crack of a gunshot split the air, and the car window next to them exploded.

  ELEVEN

  Matt snatched for Ashley’s hand, which was still raised to cover her ear, and yanked her to his side, low to the ground. They squatted over the glass that was strewn across the street, sheltered by the little coupe’s door on one side and the passenger seat to his back.

  He wrapped both of his arms around her as she tucked into his side. With eyes pinched closed she clutched at his arms, as though trying to pull a blanket tighter around her.

  “That was a gunshot, wasn’t it?” He had to read her lips, as her pitch was barely audible, especially to ears still ringing from the sudden gunfire.

  She wasn’t really asking a question. The sallow tint to her face told him she already knew the truth, but he answered her anyway. “Yes.” He rubbed his hand in slow figure eights on her back, looking through the frame where the window had been for any sign of the shooter. Out of habit, he reached for the gun he always carried in his belt holster when on a mission. Except he wasn’t on a mission. And there was no gun there.

  He curled his fingers through the window opening and pulled himself up until he could take quick inventory of the situation. She trembled into his side as he eyed the spaces between every house and mentally checked off that every car had been there the previous three days.

  Of course, the shot had missed her by ten inches. And if they were dealing with a pro, as Matt suspected, he wouldn’t have missed. That meant that killing Ashley wasn’t the shooter’s goal. Whoever was after Joy knew the only way to get to her was through Ashley.

  Someone wanted to send a message. It had worked.

  He immediately ran quick hands from her shoulders to the tips of her fingers and from her knees down to the tops of her gray sneakers. “Are you bleeding? Were you cut?”

  She shook her head, eyes still closed and lips quivering with every breath. But at least her shoulders rose and fell in a steady rhythm.

  Letting out a slow breath seemed to loosen the knot in his stomach, and he reached for her cheek, desperately needing to feel her warmth and be assured she had been spared injury.

  “I’m going to call the police, and we’re going to wait here until they arrive and make sure it’s safe to go out in the open. All right?”

  Her shaking chin moved up and down against his shoulder, and he hugged her tighter as he pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed the station.

  “Charity Way Police Department. This is Sergeant Andrews.”

  “Yes, this is Matt Waterstone. Someone shot at Ashley Sawyer outside Lil’s Place.”

  “Is anyone injured?”

  Only shaken up. “No. We’re fine, but pinned down next to a black two-door.”

  “I’m sending officers there right now.”

  He hung up before the officer could ask him to stay on the line. He didn’t want to answer any more questions right now or think about anything except how to stop Ashley’s lips from trembling.

  Only every time he thought of how close he’d come to losing her, his limbs shook, too. So close to never seeing her smile again. He’d never be able to forgive himself if he didn’t protect her.

  This wasn’t about a promise to Tristan anymore.

  If he was honest, it hadn’t been about that for a while now.

  Finally she blinked at him, her eyes bluer than the Texas sky and warmer than a Middle Eastern summer. “Were you hit? Are you hurt?”

  The pad of his thumb made a slow trail from her cheekbone to her jawline as she leaned into it. He tried to reassure her with a sad smile. “No. I’m fine.”

  She closed her eyes again, leaning her head on his shoulder, trusting him to care for her. No woman had ever trusted him like this. And it was more than just trusting him with her safety. By letting herself lean on him, she was trusting him with her vulnerability, too—trus
ting that he wouldn’t take advantage of her moment of weakness. Trusting that he wouldn’t hurt her.

  Ashley kept trying to prove her strength. But maybe that wasn’t what she needed. Hadn’t that been in the Scriptures they read the day before? In human weakness God’s strength can be shown. In this moment, he was glad to see that she wasn’t forcing herself to stay strong.

  She pressed her nose into his shoulder and sniffed a couple times. “Is he still out there?”

  “Let’s not risk it, just in case. The police will be here soon.”

  She smiled up at him, and his gut clenched in response. This wasn’t fear or anxiety but their cousin, yearning. Oh, he knew it well. He’d succumbed to it the morning before.

  But not today.

  No matter how much he wanted to kiss away her fear or soothe her nerves or hug the dread out of her.

  He ran his hand over her hair in several long strokes, smoothing out a few wayward strands. But the partial smile she gave him had nothing to do with fixing her hair. His arms and hands shook, and he had a feeling it wasn’t from the cold or the spike in adrenaline.

  “Are you warm enough?”

  She nodded, the tip of her tongue sweeping over her lips.

  Just like the day before.

  But that didn’t mean he had to go there again.

  She swallowed slowly and drew in a deep breath before whispering over his shoulder, “For a second, I thought I was going to lose you.”

  This was a bad idea.

  Worse than before. So much worse.

  Now there was no excuse. He knew what he was getting into, and there was no denying that Tristan would be furious.

  “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

  “Me, too,” he replied. “Umm...I mean, I’m glad you’re all right.” What was it with this girl that made his tongue act like it had never spoken a clear sentence in his life? “We’re both going to be fine.”

  “Why didn’t you go after him?”