by Jodie Bailey
“Stay away from the store. Tell Jason not to go in, either. I mean it. I know him. He’ll try.” Wyatt’s foot dug into the accelerator, and the engine roared as it tackled the hill toward downtown. He might not trust Jenna Clark, but if she was in danger... “Hang up the phone. Call 911 and get them rolling. I’ll radio in from my end.” He killed the call and took a right onto Barnett Street, reaching for his radio. One other officer was on duty in town for the night, but their calls would bring in the county as backup.
His headlights swept across the alley as he turned in. Jenna’s small crossover sat close to the back door, but a dark late-model sports car with Texas plates was parked slightly behind hers at an angle calculated to prevent her from backing out.
Adrenaline crashed into his system, thrumming through his veins. This was no break-in. Blocking her vehicle was targeted. And those Texas plates? The same state as the box truck on Overton Road. The odds the two were connected were slim, but if traffickers were in the area and one had stumbled upon Jenna or Liza alone at the shop in the dark of the evening...
His throat tightened and he rolled in behind the unfamiliar vehicle, cutting off its escape route. After notifying Dispatch, Wyatt eased out of his SUV, eyes on the door of the shop, hand resting on the pistol at his side. An attacker would never try to take Jenna or Liza out the front door, not with so many people flowing past on their way to tonight’s concert. They’d head straight out the back, directly toward him.
He inhaled deeply, steadying his nerves. He’d hated approaching situations with no intel ever since his very first domestic call when he was a rookie cop. There’d been five first responders in the small yard, a mix of town and county officers, pinned down by shotgun blasts. While he’d been in numerous firefights during his enlistment in the army, being an untested cop taking fire on home soil had sent him into a tailspin that still echoed in his emotions.
But they couldn’t today. Not if he was going to deal successfully with whatever was behind Jenna’s door. You’re in control, Stephens. You know he’s here. He has no idea you’re waiting. You have the upper hand.
Maybe Jenna had a friend visiting, someone who’d surprised her. Though she’d never mentioned exactly where she’d lived before moving to Mountain Springs, her drawl tilted toward the Deep South.
Maybe to Texas.
Even with the vague hope this was all a misunderstanding, he couldn’t let down his guard. Assumptions could get a man—or a woman—killed.
So could acting too quickly. As much as he wanted to bust in alone to make certain Jenna was safe, smart training told him to wait for backup. He approached the door from the left, where it would open out should anyone leave.
A crash echoed through the alley as the door burst open and a man shoved through a couple of feet from Wyatt’s position.
Wyatt jumped back and took aim but the man was dragging Jenna by the throat and blocked any chance at a clean shot.
Kicking and fighting, Jenna clawed at her assailant’s thick muscled arm. Her wide-eyed gaze scanned the alley before she spotted Wyatt, froze, then renewed her struggle.
The fear in her eyes ripped through him. He had to rescue her.
Busy with Jenna, the other man hadn’t seen Wyatt or his patrol vehicle. Thankfully, the man also didn’t appear to have a weapon out, though one peeked from beneath his jacket at his hip.
Surprise would be the best offense and would keep him from drawing his weapon. As Wyatt prepared to make his presence known, he nodded once at Jenna then holstered his pistol. It was a risky move, but he had a better shot of keeping Jenna safe if he could wrestle the stranger to the ground than if he drew a weapon and instigated a shoot-out with her in the middle.
Sirens sounded in the distance, from the direction of the police station.
The man hesitated and was still facing away from Wyatt. His hold on Jenna relaxed.
Now.
Wyatt dove from his position, crashing into the assailant’s lower back and driving both him and Jenna into the side of the car.
Her cry of pain mingled with a deeper angry curse. The stranger’s grip on Jenna loosened as he whirled toward Wyatt, fists in front of him, prepared to fight.
Wyatt was more than ready. He swung an uppercut to the man’s thick jaw, staggering him backward. “Jenna! Get inside and lock the door!” If she was still within reach, her attacker likely wouldn’t think twice about lunging for her, either for leverage against Wyatt or to attempt an escape.
She didn’t hesitate, disappearing behind Wyatt as he kept a wary eye on his opponent.
With Jenna out of the way, Wyatt reached for his pistol, but the man turned and ran for the entrance to the alley, ducking around the corner as Wyatt took off in pursuit.
The suspect hit the main street before Wyatt and blended into the crowd flowing toward the Fine Arts Center. In the shadowy light from the ancient streetlights, he melted into the small sea of humanity.
Wyatt skidded to a halt. He could give chase, but doing so would risk a shoot-out on a busy street and would leave Jenna unprotected. She had to be priority number one.
Releasing his grip on the pistol in his holster, Wyatt turned and jogged to the alley, speaking into his shoulder radio as he headed to the shop to check on Jenna. “Suspect on foot, headed west on Main Street.” He ran through a quick description of the man, which ended as he reached the heavy metal back door of Jenna’s shop.
He pounded on the door. “Jenna! It’s Wyatt!” A soft shuffling came from inside, and he stepped away so she could better see him through the camera situated above the door.
After a moment, the door swung outward, and Jenna stood silhouetted in the light from the front of the store before she slowly sank to the floor.
TWO
Headlights swept through the windshield of Wyatt’s police SUV as a car turned onto Barnett Street and cruised past the light where Jenna and Wyatt were stopped.
She turned her head away from the light, toward Wyatt, away from whoever was driving the car. She’d been spotted tonight. Recognized. If the intruder in her shop had called in reinforcements, it was only a matter of time before she was surrounded and dragged to El Paso and the man she feared, the life she despised.
Logan Cutter had appeared to be everything a girl like Jenna could want. Well, everything a girl like Genevieve Brady—her birth name—could want. After never knowing who her father was and growing up with a mother who tried to live a fantasy before she eventually committed suicide, there had never been a father figure, other than one man, Anthony Reynolds, her mother’s boyfriend when Jenna was seven. He’d treated Jenna and her twin sister, Amy, as his own...until her mother had abruptly booted him from their lives in less than a year.
Desperate to be loved, she’d given Logan everything she had and had accepted his jealousy and anger as the price of being with him. Then she’d discovered evidence of his unfaithfulness, of the levels of his depravity...
One night, in confusion and grief, she had packed a bag and fled. He found her before daybreak. Beat her. Apologized. Held her as she cried.
She stayed.
The second time was worse.
And the third... Jenna glanced at Wyatt and squeezed herself tighter against the seat. She’d nearly died after the third time and still bore scars that sometimes ached in the cold.
That night, Genevieve Brady had disappeared from Del Sol Medical Center with Anthony’s help. Three days later, Jenna Clark became the newest resident of Mountain Springs, North Carolina. Thanks to her mother’s ex—who had built an underground business out of making both the innocent and the guilty disappear—every link to her past was severed and she had the paperwork to lend credence to her new identity. All she had left of her old self was her love of art and a “go bag” hidden in the attic crawlspace at her apartment, insurance in case Jenna Clark ever needed to disappear as well.
> The scars on her back ached at the memory, and Jenna clamped her teeth on a whimper she would never let Wyatt Stephens hear. It was bad enough he’d already seen her at her weakest. Her cheeks were still hot with embarrassment in the midst of her fear. He’d likely saved her life tonight, and the minute he’d returned for her, she’d collapsed in a heap like some weak woman in a 1940s melodrama. She was stronger than a fainting starlet.
For the moment, though, embarrassment was probably a whole lot less detrimental to her mental health than fear would be. Thinking about Wyatt having to haul her into his arms and carry her into her office was easier than coming to grips with the truth. Her logical next move was to be gone by sunrise.
The best thing to do was to keep her focus on the man beside her, not on the one who hounded her nightmares.
“You didn’t have to drive me home.” His presence made escape harder. Her apartment was across the street and two blocks away from the shop, above Higher Grounds Coffee Bar, another former town watering hole.
The light turned green, highlighting his face with shadows that deepened the blue of Wyatt’s eyes and sharpened the cut of his jawline. His dark brown hair was tousled from his earlier scuffle. For the briefest of moments, he looked at her almost as though he might feel a bit of compassion, but then he turned away and made the left onto Main Street. “First of all, after what happened tonight, nobody’s letting you walk home by yourself, especially not in the dark.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, where Erin and her fiancé, Jason Barnes, followed in Jason’s pickup. “Second, I’m not interested in the lecture I’d get from Erin if I even dared to suggest you walk home unescorted.” He held up three fingers before resting his hand on the steering wheel. “Third, I have to ask some questions in order to do paperwork. And a bonus fourth thing, you promised me coffee. I don’t turn my back on free coffee. Ever.”
“Not even from me?” The man had never liked her. While Erin was her closest friend, and also happened to be Wyatt’s cousin, Wyatt had always kept Jenna at a distance, eyeing her with the kind of suspicion that made her feel like he could read all of her darkest secrets...and there were definitely plenty of those. Jenna avoided him, didn’t talk to him if she could help it. Something inside her rankled at the sight of him.
When she was forced to speak to him, her words always came out antagonistic, even when she tried to be nice. Even the shortest conversation with the town’s most popular police officer made everything worse. Wyatt Stephens unsettled her insides. There was no other way to say it.
His grip on the steering wheel tightened, and his jaw quirked to the side as though he’d tensed it until it ached. Finally, he relaxed and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “You’ve been through the wringer tonight, okay? We’ve got every available officer out looking, even the ones off duty. You have a lot of friends in Mountain Springs who want to see this guy caught. Until then, let’s concentrate on getting you home, where it’s safe.”
Safe. The word no longer had meaning. Jenna sighed and stared out the window into the side mirror at Jason’s headlights behind them as Wyatt cruised slowly along the street. He had no idea what he was talking about. Nowhere in town was safe. She hadn’t flown far enough from Texas. Somehow, after three years, Logan’s men had found her in the town she now called home.
She’d grown to love this place in a way she’d never imagined possible. The local bookstore, staffed by volunteers from the library, glided past. The co-op where local artists consigned their paintings, pottery and other art. Higher Grounds Coffee Bar...
She leaned closer to the window so she could see the second story of the building. Her apartment. The place where she’d once felt safe. She’d been taught to defend herself after all...and she’d failed. “I should have been able to handle the guy tonight.”
“What?”
This was what bothered her, the slight shame that had dogged her for the past hour. “My mom had a boyfriend, Anthony. He—he took care of me and my sister, taught us how to take care of ourselves.” She smiled slightly at the memory. “Taught us how to break away if a guy ever tried to grab us. Said the worst thing we could do was kick or knee, because it would throw us off balance. ‘Poke him in the eye,’ he said. ‘Fight like a girl.’ He said girls are tougher than most guys think they are, so fighting like a girl was a good thing.” Jenna sniffed, Anthony’s voice clear in her head, even though everything he’d taught her had flown right out of her head in the panic of reality.
“‘Fight like a girl,’” Wyatt murmured, making the turn into the alley by her apartment. “I’ll have to remember your story, maybe teach it to Erin.”
“I’m sure Erin can take care of herself.” The way Jenna was going to have to as soon as she could flee.
When the SUV came to a stop, Jenna shoved out the door, keys in hand, mind focused on getting away from her protectors and into the attic so she could grab her packed bag and get out of town. Her heart pounded, her feet desperate to carry her up the metal stairs on the outside of the building. First, she’d make her entourage leave, then she would barricade herself in and find the gun she’d shoved into the darkest, farthest corner of her closet shelf...
The stairs vibrated as Wyatt pounded up with Erin and Jason close behind. He extracted the keys from Jenna’s hand as she aimed for the door, gently slipping between her and the entry. “I’m going in first.”
Jenna wanted to argue, but her throat closed as Wyatt turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door, drawing his pistol as he pocketed her keys.
Someone could be in her home, waiting for her. It wasn’t a foreign idea, but watching Wyatt slip into her front door armed...
Jason edged in front of Jenna and stood inside the doorway as Erin’s arm slipped around her waist and guided her toward the threshold. “Come on. Let’s stand inside.”
Inside. So no one on the outside would see her.
Tremors shook Jenna by the time Wyatt walked along the short hallway leading to her bedroom. He holstered his pistol, his broad shoulders seeming to dwarf the space. He’d never been in her apartment before, and his presence served to make an already surreal night even more bizarre. “All clear.”
Three sets of eyes turned to Jenna, who stood between her living room and the bar that separated the area from the kitchen, her feet rooted to the polished hardwood. This must be what zoo animals felt like. On display. Exposed. Vulnerable.
Those were feelings she’d vowed never to succumb to again. Lifting her chin, she turned her focus to Jason and Erin and slipped behind the mask she’d worn for years. They’d be the easiest ones to convince. “You guys didn’t have to follow me home. I know you were looking forward to the concerts tonight. Go. I’m fine. Really. Plus, I’ll be a whole lot better if I don’t have an audience staring at me while I put together the pieces of somebody breaking in to my shop.”
“Not just breaking in to your shop. He—” Erin stopped abruptly as Jason laid a hand on her back, his fingers grazing her shoulder-length brown hair. She clamped her mouth shut, opened it again, then leaned against Jason’s chest and let him slide his arm around her waist. “I’m sorry. It’s just, after what happened to us...” She sighed. “I’m sure tonight terrified you, but I’m also sure nobody’s stalking you like they were me. I shouldn’t have hinted at such a thing.”
Good. Let them all think the attack was a one-off and she was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time. It would make everything easier...until she fled and they had no idea why. “Really. Go. I’m fine. Wyatt’s got to ask me some questions, so he’ll be here for a bit.” The ability she’d honed as a child, to put on a brave front and act as though the world wasn’t exploding, was working to its full effect tonight.
Erin hesitated then glanced at Wyatt, seeming to search for confirmation. Finally, she hugged Jenna, who held on tight for a breath longer than usual. If things went according to plan, she’d be gone
by morning and would never again see the closest friend she’d known since her sister’s death.
Erin pulled away and turned to Wyatt. “Look out for her.”
He tipped his head and walked outside with Jason and Erin, giving Jenna a moment to breathe. She could do this. Half an hour. Make some coffee. Answer some questions. Usher Wyatt out the door.
Then disappear.
* * *
One. Two. Three.
Jenna scooped coffee into the filter basket of her coffeepot. Sleep probably wasn’t coming any time soon, so caffeine was her friend. The sooner she had a warm mug in her hand, the better she’d feel. Besides, the activity kept her from having to turn toward Wyatt, who stood on the other side of the granite counter.
“Jenna, it’s okay to sit still. Nobody’s here but us. You’re safe.”
Four. That’s what he thought. “You don’t have to stay.” Seriously. If he left, she could curl in the corner of her couch and fall apart in peace, grieving what she was about to lose. The fear quaking her insides could run rampant through her body until it subsided.
Then, when the numbness set in, she could save herself.
Reality knifed her chest, causing her breath to hitch. She held the silver spoon tighter, the handle pressing into her palm. Shelley, who owned the building and the coffee shop, had given it to her when she moved in. Tonight, she would leave even this small memory behind.
“You said you were making me coffee. I’m going to make sure you keep your promise.” There was a rustle as he shifted position. “You might have convinced Erin she didn’t have to stay after you gave her the whole it-was-no-big-deal speech, but you’re forgetting something. I’m the one who scooped you off the floor like a wet beach towel. You are not okay.”
Wow. He had to go and remind her. That kind of arrogance was exactly what she expected of Wyatt. To be so smug as to point out her weakness and his strength. The strength she’d felt in his chest through the thick layers of his heavy uniform jacket. For a moment, she’d wanted to stay there. For a moment, she’d felt safe.
