Page 9 of Defended By Love

He gives me a smoldering smile. “It’s very nice to meet you, Hailey.” His voice comes out in a purr that makes me tingle all over. It’s a physical reaction I’ve never had to another man, let alone from his voice alone.

Also, I know it’s just a pleasantry (Dr. Debbie recommends saying it when you meet someone in her chapter on introductions), but the way he says it makes me feel like he really means it.

The Garnet Defender is happy to meet me.

“Can I ask you something?”

He smiles at me, his thumb brushing up and down on the side of my ribcage. “Hailey, you can ask me whatever you want.”

“Did you really save that whale from the fishing nets last week?”

It was the story that got the Garnet Defender on my radar. Posts about it were everywhere. On the far-away, blurry videos you can see that, out of nowhere, there is this streak of red through the sky—a streak that dives straight into the ocean.

In the background of the video, you can hear people yelling and panicking. Almost a full minute goes by with no sign of him. And then, bam! He bursts forth from the water with a baby orca above his head. He’s holding it in one hand. In his other, he has a mess of fishing equipment and netting. He tosses it a staggering distance to land on a nearby fishing vessel. The boat shakes when it lands.

Then, he sets down the whale and flies back into the air.

Later that day, I made a point to look into the boat’s company and sent them a strongly worded letter to remind them of best practices.

“Of course, I did,” the Garnet Defender answers, looking confused.

“It’s just, I was hoping it wasn’t faked—”

“Faked?” He sounds genuinely incredulous. “You think people would fake something like that.”

I stare at him. Is he joking?

“I would say most, if not all, of those types of videos are fake.”

Now, he stares at me. “And all those videos of people rescuing animals from shelters or abuse? Are those fake too?” His voice is back to being a bit higher and little more wobbly.

“Of course not,” I say. “Those are just done for attention.”

“What?” His voice cracks. “You’re a bit of a pessimist.”

I nod. “Thank you.”

He laughs. It’s a joyous, booming laugh that busts out of his chest and even gets me to crack the beginning of a smile.

“And you’ve definitely fallen for a Nigerian prince scam or two,” I kid.

His face goes serious. Maybe a little embarrassed as well.

“Have you?” I prod.

“Forget being a bit of a pessimist, you’re a full-on grump, aren’t you?” he teases.

“What’s more likely: superheroes have started appearing to stop drunk drivers from crashing into pedestrians or that some kid learned Photoshop and wants to pull a fast one on the internet?” I ask.

The Garnet Defender shrugs. “The first one.” I raise my eyebrow. “There are very few people who actually want to do bad. Practically everyone wants to do good. If they could, everyone would go around doing what I’ve been doing lately. I’m just the only one lucky enough to get the powers to do it.”

I wonder what kind of charmed life he’s lived to make him truly believe that. I recognize that I’m probably on the other end of the spectrum here, but I don’t agree with that at all. Day in and day out, I see people choosing bad. They hurt people and they hurt the environment just to get ahead.

No, I’m fully convinced that if most people were given his powers, they would not choose good at all. They would not become superheroes.

“And how did you get your powers?”

The Garnet Defender clears his throat. “That’s not important. What’s important is that all my heroics are real. And that you, Hailey Cox, are safe.” He’s back to using that deep, movie announcer voice of his that makes my skin hot, despite the pecking rain.

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