Page 68 of Protective Heroes

“Nice to meet you, Kami,” he said in a roughened tone.

His velvet over gravel voice coupled with his touch almost made me fall out of my chair. I felt like some delicate heroine in a regency novel who should be calling for the hartshorn and smelling salts to revive me from the spell that was making me dizzy and lightheaded.

Since I didn’t have any hartshorn or smelling salts on hand, I fortified myself with a deep breath and somehow managed to nod and not invite him back to my room to give those hands something to touch. “Tomorrow then, I guess.”

He took my hand in his much larger one, his gaze never leaving mine, and I was lost to him. At that moment, I knew real fear because I knew all he had to do was touch me and look at me like he was right that moment and I would follow him anywhere.

And I didn’t care if it made me look weak.

Five

Kami

Idon’t know how I managed to sleep a wink that night, but somehow slumber found me and held me until my alarm went off at seven the next morning. Once again, I rose rested and feeling refreshed. At least until I remembered the reason I set my alarm. Then refreshed left the building and panic set in.

Why had I agreed to let Trevor show me around the wilds of Hartwood today? What on earth had I been thinking?

Flashes of the evening before invaded my brain—my hand in his, his eyes that stared into every nook and cranny of my being, my name on his lips. I’d forced myself into believing I would forever be immune to the charms of that man after I left Hartwood.

After he left me for the Navy life and after living through the way my mother destroyed our family over “soulmate love” left me cynical of all the romanticized love at first sight, instant attraction, happily ever after nonsense.

But I wish it was real.

At least I believed it at one time. That counted for something.

But I don’t know how else to explain the inexplicable feeling of something inside me reaching out to Trevor as if he was the being I’d been waiting millennia to find.

I wanted to say I wouldn’t fall prey to the wild emotions churning inside me, but I fear a day with him in the forest would leave me falling for him all over again.

Letting fate guide me seemed like a sure path toward disaster. I saw what it did to my mother. She found her soulmate after marrying my father and having me. It destroyed our whole family when she left us behind.

But driving around town isn’t signing marriage papers.

As I tugged on a black and gray sweater, panic chiseled at my fragile attempt at calming my nerves.

Just as I thought I might start hyperventilating, my phone dinged with a text message.

I snatched it up, part of me hoping Trevor had somehow gotten my number and was texting me to tell me he had to suddenly move to Guam.

False alarm. The text was a photo from Asha—a selfie of her and Willa cuddled together on my rumpled bed. She added the message: Wish you were here!

I smiled and slowly sank to the bed, never taking my eyes off the photo. Right this second, I’d give just about anything to be right there in my mussed bed with Asha and Willa with some cowboy movie on and a bowl of popcorn in our laps.

I couldn’t help but text her back: I wish I was there, too. Things are MESSY here!

Of course, I should have known better. Approximately two seconds after I hit send on that text, my phone rang. I jumped in my seat and almost dropped it before I managed to swipe my thumb over the face of it and put it to my ear.

“You didn’t have to call,” I said in lieu of hello.

“Of course I did. What’s going on? What’s messy?” Asha’s voice grounded me immediately, and for the first time since I rolled out of bed my breath came almost normally.

I smiled and thought about how to explain. Really there wasn’t much to tell. The reality was that I ran into an old flame who offered to help me find a wedding venue. Simple.

But it was so much more than that.

“I met a man.” I winced and squeezed my eyes shut. I certainly hadn’t meant to blurt that out like that.

“What?”

---