Playing for Keeps (Hope Valley Book 10)

by Jessica Prince

  I let out a giggle and started back toward the bedroom with her walking right beside me. “I’ll send you the link to where I got it. Oh, and the Taser.”

  “You have a Taser?” she inquired with big eyes.

  “Yep,” I shot her a wink. “Single women these days can’t be too careful.”

  “Do you . . . have it on you?”

  The more I got to know Marin, the more I liked her. “If he’s moved by the time we get back in there, I’ll let you have it.”

  “Deal.” She all but skipped back into her former room, and we went about packing the rest of her belongings.

  Frank the fucker was still lying on the floor in the living room by the time we finished loading the last of her boxes in the back of my car, either passed out from the pain or having bawled himself to sleep.

  I saw the disappointment in Marin’s expression as we headed out, but to make her feel better, I gave her the Taser anyway . . .

  Just in case.

  Chapter Six

  Charlotte

  Stepping into the store, I felt my stomach lurch, twisting into a mass of painfully tight knots as I scanned the cases and walls. I ignored the voice in the back of my head, screaming at me that this was all a huge mistake, and steeled my spine in determination as I moved to the case closest to me for a better look.

  “Help you with somethin’, girly?”

  At the question, I lifted my head to the person who’d just asked it. The old man standing behind the case looked and sounded eerily like Kris Kristofferson in Blade, only with longer hair. He studied me closely, his salt and pepper beard twitching as he shifted the toothpick he was chewing over to the left side of his mouth.

  He definitely looked like he belonged in this place, while I felt completely and totally out of my element.

  I pulled my bottom lip from between my teeth before I chewed it right off and tried to keep the tremble out of my voice as I answered, “Uh, yeah. I wanted to see about buying a gun.”

  His bushy white eyebrows lifted high on his forehead in bewilderment before his expression turned dubious. “You sure about that, darlin’?”

  I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin. “Of course I’m sure.”

  “Really? ’Cause you sure as hell don’t look it.” To prove his point, he glanced down at my hands, and I followed his gaze to see they were resting on the case, shaking like crazy.

  I curled my fingers in, clenching my hands into tight fists. “I’m sure,” I repeated, infusing a certainty I definitely wasn’t feeling into my voice. Truth was, guns scared the hell out of me. Especially after being shot. But if yesterday’s run-in with that dickhead Frank had taught me anything, it was that not all threats would go down as easily.

  I hadn’t been lying when I told Marin I’d promised myself I’d never be helpless again. I was done being a victim. That meant there might be a situation where my baton, or even a Taser, wouldn’t be enough, and I refused to be caught off guard if or when that time came.

  The man crossed his arms over his barrel chest and rested them on the slight beer belly he had working beneath a faded flannel. “All right. Well, what’re you lookin’ for?” From the expression on his face, I knew he was calling my bluff, and damn if he didn’t do it well.

  “Uh . . .” I looked back down at the case between us, not really having the first clue what I was looking at. There were a bunch of guns in different sizes. The expression “the bigger, the better” came to mind, so I pointed at the biggest gun I felt I could handle. “That one.”

  The man let out a bark of laughter so loud it made me jump. “Girly, you try shootin’ that one, it’ll knock you flat on your ass first time you pull the goddamn trigger. You do any research before steppin’ foot in here?”

  I curled my lips between my teeth instead of answering. Truth be told, it had been a knee-jerk decision. I’d been on my way to Evergreen Diner to grab some lunch when I saw the store’s sign and executed an illegal U-turn that pissed off the cars behind me.

  “All right,” I replied a little snappily, crossing my arms and mimicking his stance. “Then what would you recommend?”

  “That you walk the hell outta my shop and go do some research before tryin’ to buy a deadly weapon.”

  I could feel my ire rise as the blood in my veins began to heat. With his condescending tone, it sure seemed as though he didn’t give a damn about making a sale. “Fine,” I clipped, dropping my arms and lifting the front of my shirt just high enough to reveal my scar. “I was told this was made with a .45. You think I can handle a .45?”

  “Fuck me.” The dude’s face leached of color and a muscle in his jaw began to tick wildly as he clenched his teeth.

  I dropped my shirt back into place instantly, feeling more than just a little shitty for how I’d gone about making my point, but what was done was done. “So, are you gonna help me pick something that won’t knock me on my ass or what?”

  An irate voice spoke from behind me. “Not a fuckin’ chance.”

  A chill worked its way up my spine as I turned to look over my shoulder, and when I caught the downright terrifying expression on Dalton’s face, my blood turned to ice in my veins.

  He stomped farther into the shop with all the grace of a rage-filled charging bull, and the look on his face was downright terrifying. “Judd, some privacy,” he ordered, and as ill-timed as the thought was, I couldn’t help but think that the dude on the other side of the case definitely looked like a Judd.

  He jerked his chin at Dalton and turned toward the back. “Think I’ll go pour myself a cuppa coffee in the back. Try not to destroy anything, yeah?”

  He didn’t wait for a response before bailing out.

  I looked back at the furious man coming at me, goosebumps rising across my arms. “Dalton . . . wh-what are you—?”

  That was all I managed to get out, mainly because he closed in and bent forward, only an inch from my face, and boomed, “Are you out of your goddamn mind?”

  If he wasn’t so freaking scary, I might have actually been pissed about him stomping in here and yelling in my face. “Dalton—”

  “You’d have to be, takin’ on a man you already fuckin’ knew had no problem taking his hands to a woman. What the fuck were you thinking?” he continued to shout.

  Oh shit. “How did you know about that?” I managed to get out in a whisper past the sudden Sahara-like dryness in my throat.

  His chin jerked back almost as if in shock. When he spoke again, his tone was much lower, but that didn’t make it any less menacing. “Are you serious? That’s all you gotta say?” It seemed like a perfectly reasonable place to start, in my opinion, but apparently, he didn’t agree. When I didn’t reply to a question I assumed was rhetorical, he carried on. “I keep tabs on you whenever I can.”

  It was my turn to jerk my chin back in shock. “So you spy on me?”

  He shrugged casually, crossing his arms over the wide, solid wall of his chest like it was nothing. “I do what I have to do to ensure you stay safe.”

  I didn’t want to like that, but I couldn’t help it. His need to protect was just one of the many, many things that made him so irresistible. Which was all the more reason I needed to stay the hell away from him. “I had it totally under control.”

  His eyes widened in bewilderment. “Really? You had it under control?”

  “Yes,” I hissed, feeling my hackles rise.

  Uncrossing his arms, he pinched the bridge of his nose like he was struggling to keep control. “All right. So tell me, what would you have done if he’d been armed?”

  “You’re talking in hypotheticals,” I shot back. “He wasn’t, and everything turned out just fine.”

  “You think so?” he asked sarcastically, and I got the distinct impression he was about to school me on something very serious. “Frank Walton’s a known associate of some not-so-good guys. He’s also a collector. The house you and your girl were in the middle of clearin’ out when he caught you had no less than
three guns inside. You know that?”

  I hadn’t, and at the knowledge, an unwelcome shiver raced down my spine. Reading my expression, he continued. “Didn’t think so. You got lucky, Charlotte. Plain and simple. All it would’ve taken was for him to get his hands on one of those guns, and you and your girl wouldn’t have been walkin’ out of there on your own two feet. You’d have been carried out in goddamn body bags.”

  I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. Unfortunately, he wasn’t finished.

  “Being in control of a situation means knowing exactly what you’re walking into before you step foot inside. It means knowing the opponent you’re goin’ up against and having plan A, B, and C in place on the off chance shit goes sideways. And it means cluing someone else in on what you’re about to do. You never walk into shit like that without backup. You didn’t do any of that,” he barked furiously. “You were careless. Not only did you put yourself in danger, you put your friend in danger too.”

  My whole body started to shake. “I-I didn’t think—”

  “No,” he snarled. “You fucking didn’t. And now you’re here, buying a goddamn gun. Have you ever even fired one before?”

  I sniffled and shook my head, unable to speak past the lump that was swelling bigger and bigger in my throat with each passing second.

  “Judd!” he bellowed, causing me to jump as I cast my gaze down to my feet. From the corner of my eye, I saw the old man move through the store behind the cases, coming to a stop across from me once again. “Anyone back there usin’ the range?”

  “All clear at the moment.”

  “Good. Gimme the Sig P365 and a box of bullets.”

  Oh God. My stomach revolted, and a cold, clammy sweat misted across my skin as Judd, a man of few words, did exactly as Dalton had ordered. I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience as Dalton grabbed my hand and dragged me through the shop. The next thing I knew, I was standing in the first stall of an otherwise empty indoor gun range while he loaded bullets into the gun with an ease I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to accomplish.

  I stood motionless, unable to move or breathe as he slipped a pair of safety glasses on my face. “All right. You think you can handle a gun? I want to see you in action.” He lifted the now fully loaded gun to show me where the safety was and how to flip it on and off, then he grabbed my right hand in his and placed the weapon in it. He took me by the shoulders and turned me to face the target that looked like it was miles away.

  “Hold the gun with both hands just like this,” he instructed, forcing my stiff arms up and placing my hands just where he wanted them. “Line your target up in the sights here, then fire.”

  With that, he released me and took a step back. Without him at my back, I felt the kind of cold that seeped into your bones and made you tremble from the inside out. The gun wasn’t as heavy as I thought it would be, but even still, just holding it scared the living hell out of me.

  “Shoot, Charlotte,” Dalton demanded, making my already frayed nerves that much worse.

  My whole body began to shake, making it impossible to see the target through the sights, and the finger I held on the trigger refused to move. My breathing grew labored, and my vision blurred as tears began forming in my eyes.

  “You wanted to do this, so do it,” he snapped, rattling me to my core.

  Unable to hold my arms up for another second, I let them fall, dropping the gun on the table in front of me like it burned my palms. Lowering my head, I ripped off the safety glasses and squeezed my eyes closed, causing the tears to spill over and slide down my cheeks as I struggled to pull in a full breath.

  “I can’t do it,” I croaked, my voice coarse and raspy with shame. Then a second later, I lost it.

  Dalton

  Fuck me. I was an asshole. I’d stormed in here with every intention of scaring Charlotte straight, but as I drove through town, intent on getting to her as fast as I could, I kept thinking about what she’d done two days earlier and all the ways it could have gone horribly wrong, and I lost control.

  Fear had filled me with adrenaline, making my blood heat, and when I walked into the shop and saw her standing there, I did something I hadn’t done in years, something that had been trained out of me—at least until a certain hazel-eyed girl with a beautiful pixie face had blown into my life like a whirlwind and made me forget myself. I let my emotions get the best of me, and I took everything I was feeling out on her.

  Her whole body had started shaking from the moment I put the gun into her hands, and she stood there like a scared deer, pointing it shakily at the target before her whole frame collapsed.

  “I can’t do it.” Her words came out watery, and a second later, she lost her battle and began to sob. The sound of it was like a knife to the chest.

  Unable to help myself, I reached for her, grabbing hold of her delicate shoulders and pulling her into me. “Shh,” I cooed, trying my best to soothe her as she burrowed her face into my chest, her tears soaking the front of my shirt. “It’s okay. You’re okay, Thumbelina.”

  Her scent, something fresh and tropical like coconuts or pineapple, wafted from her hair and filled my nostrils, and it took everything I had to fight against getting hard as I held her in my arms.

  “I-I hate b-being weak,” she sobbed, clutching at the material of my shirt and fisting it tight.

  “You aren’t weak,” I insisted with a vehemence that made my chest rattle. “You’re the furthest thing from weak I’ve ever seen.”

  She sniffled, releasing me to brush the tears from her face as she looked up at me, and while I missed the hold she’d had on me, I was thankful as hell she hadn’t pulled away. “I’m scared all the time,” she whispered. “I just don’t want to be scared anymore. I-I thought . . . if I could prove to myself that I wasn’t a victim—” She trailed off, lowering her gaze to her feet and giving her head a shake.

  Christ, she was gutting me. “Hey,” I said softly, placing my fingers beneath her chin and forcing her gaze to return to mine. Just like always, every time our eyes locked, I lost a piece of myself to this incredible, infuriating woman. “Being scared doesn’t make you weak. Everyone’s scared of something, Charlotte. Anyone who says otherwise is either a liar or a sociopath.”

  She reacted as I’d been hoping, those full, pouty, pink lips of hers curving up ever so slightly into a smile at my lame joke. And fuck me if seeing that smile—even as small as it was—didn’t make something warm bloom in my chest. Charlotte Belmont had the kind of beauty that would steal a man’s sanity and bring him to his knees, and from the moment I’d first laid eyes on her all those months ago, I’d been determined to make her mine in every way.

  Problem was, I wasn’t the first man in her life to want to keep her. There was a line that came before me, only those fuckers hadn’t cherished what they’d fought so hard to possess. They’d left her scarred and wary. Because of them, she closed herself to everyone, keeping her secrets locked away tight.

  Extending my fingers, I rested my palm against the side of her neck and dragged the tip of my thumb beneath her bottom lip. My desire to taste her was overwhelming.

  Her lips parted on a sigh, and I watched as her eyes traveled down to my mouth. I watched as the pulse in her neck began to thrum wildly and her chest rose then fell on a big exhale.

  “Christ, you’re so beautiful,” I murmured, losing myself in her.

  “Dalton,” she whispered, and I’d have given absolutely anything to hear her say my name like that while I was buried deep between her thighs, feeling her clutch around my cock like a glove while I moved in and out of her.

  I could see it in her eyes. I could feel it in the way she melted deeper against me, giving me more of her weight. She wanted me as badly as I wanted her.

  She was almost there, I nearly had her. Then, as fast as a heartbeat, I saw those shutters fall back into place, and just like that, I lost her.

  “I’m not good for you,” she said on a breath, her voice so small I almost mi
ssed it. Feeling the weight of defeat and frustration on my shoulders, I dropped my forehead against hers and closed my eyes, trying to gain control of myself.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered regretfully. “I’m so sorry. I don’t deserve you.”

  “Stop,” I grunted. With a sigh, I lifted my head and reached up to scrub at my face. She took a step back, and the space between us suddenly felt like a chasm too wide to ever cross. “Just . . . stop.”

  “I’m toxic, Dalt,” she asserted. “Anything good in my life, anyone I care about, it all gets ruined eventually, and I’d hate myself if anything happened to you because my shitty, miserable luck rubbed off on you. And that’s what’ll happen. It’s what always happens.”

  I couldn’t stand that she saw herself like that. She really believed she was toxic and underserving in any way.

  Closing the distance between us, I took her face in my hands and leaned in close. “One day you’re going to see yourself the way I do. You won’t be able to fight what you feel for me anymore, and when that day comes, you’ll give me all your secrets.”

  I inhaled her scent one last time, letting the fresh, sunny fragrance of pineapple and coconut fill my lungs. Then I let her go and walked away.

  Chapter Seven

  Charlotte

  My plans to grab lunch were shot to hell after my encounter with Dalton. I’d been rattled beyond reason as I watched him walk away after throwing out those words that felt a whole hell of a lot like a threat . . . or maybe the most delicious of promises.

  I’d ignored Judd’s knowing look as I bolted out of the gun store and drove in the opposite direction of the diner to Divine Flora, the flower shop where Hayden worked.

  The bell over the door let out a pleasant, melodic tinkling chime I was too anxious to enjoy as I pushed through the door and scanned the shop in search of my best friend.