Page 152 of Damaged Protector

“Don’t be stubborn,” I started, but she pressed her hand over my lips.

“I’m coming with you.” I licked her palm, and she giggled and pulled it away.

“Fine, but stay behind me.”

I quickly dressed myself and gave Mal a pair of my shorts to wear, cinching up the drawstring to keep them from falling down.

The damage inside my house wasn’t too bad. The television had been knocked from the wall and lay shattered on the floor, but other than that, the interior was fine.

I stood on the front porch with Mallori to assess the front yard. Some branches were down, but otherwise, all was good at my place. I glanced to the right and saw Ms. Wallace, my elderly neighbor, standing in the darkness of her porch, staring at a pine tree that had fallen across her burgundy sedan in the driveway.

Jogging across the yard in the rain, which was now a soft patter, I called to her. “Hey, Ms. W. Are you all right?”

She placed her hands on her ample hips, covered by a floral cotton nightgown. “I am, but poor Jenny isn’t,” she huffed, gesturing to her car.

“That sucks. I’ll come over in the morning and get the tree taken care of for you.”

I hadn’t even realized Mallori had followed me until she spoke, “I’ll come too and take pictures of the damage. You’ll need that for your insurance.”

Smiling down at her, I wrapped my arm around her shoulders like it was the most natural thing in the world to do. Like we were a real couple.

Ms. Wallace’s eyes missed nothing, and she grinned at the gesture. “That’s very kind of you both. I checked with the electric company, and they said it would be at least three days before the power is back on.” She sighed. “This old lady can’t go that long without air conditioning in this damn heat, so my daughter is driving over from Longview so I can stay with her until it’s back on.”

That triggered something in my brain. Longview was a couple hours from here in the Piney Woods of East Texas. I actually had a place near there.

After assuring Ms. Wallace that we’d be back tomorrow, I led Mallori back to the house. We were dripping from the rain, but it actually felt good since it was muggy and the temperature was in the high eighties, even in the middle of the night.

We entered the house, which was already becoming stifling, and I removed my arm from her shoulders. “Mal, I was thinking we should go to my cabin for a couple days.”

Her brows scrunched together. “You have a cabin?”

“Yes, and as much as I’d like to stay here and lick sweat from your body for the next three days, it’s about to get very uncomfortable in this house without air conditioning.”

A smile crested her lips, and she nodded. “Okay, that sounds good.”

Though I meant what I said about the air conditioning, I had an ulterior motive. This time next week, Mallori would no longer be living in my house, and that made my stomach clench. I wanted to spend as much uninterrupted time with her as possible before she left me.

Leaning down, I softly kissed her lips. “We’ll leave in the afternoon. Don’t bother packing any clothes.”

Chapter 43

I held Mallori’s hand as we made the two-and-a-half-hour drive to East Texas. We alternated between talking and listening to music, and I marveled at how easy she was to be with.

I was going to miss her so much when she left next week.

“You know,” she said, “you totally looked like a lumbersnack this morning.”

Laughing, I shook my head. “I’ll probably regret asking this, but what the fuck is a lumbersnack?”

“You were chopping those trees, and you looked totally edible.”

“Glad you appreciated the view, Bee.”

After taking care of Ms. Wallace, we met Woody, Tank, and Shark over at Cam and Shiloh’s house. They had lost a huge oak tree in their backyard, but luckily it hadn’t hit their house. We worked together to cut it up into firewood so Cam wouldn’t have to deal with it when he got home.

Turning on my blinker, I took a left down a dirt road that was dappled with light shining through the overhanging trees.

“Wow, this looks like a good place for a murder,” Mallori commented, rolling down her window and inhaling the fresh, woodsy scent.

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