Page 8 of Dear John

Then the bullets came.

And the final straw…He took Riley. He ran Bowie down, nearly ending his life. I stared down at my shaking hands, squeezing them tight. I would not be afraid of Shawn. I would not let him ruin my life or force me to shy away from being the person I always was.

I flung off the covers and quickly showered and dressed. What I really needed was a cup of coffee. That would make everything better. After slathering a bit of curly cream in my hair, I stared at my gaunt face in the mirror, pinching my cheeks just like Scarlett O’Hara, trying to manipulate some color into them.

No, I hadn’t slept through the night since Kavanaugh left on his last job. But it was only partially because I wasn’t sure I could trust him. He’d told me everything about this job, from where he would be to who he would be with. I felt like I was in a military briefing as he described the “op”—as he called it—in great detail. I practically had to kick him out of the house so my brain could get a rest.

But I understood why he was doing it. Complete trust, that’s what he wanted between us. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that it would take more than him informing me of where he was going and what he would do. It was really great that he wanted me to know, but trust was based on not knowing and still believing in him, and that was going to take time.

My phone rang and I glowered at the name on it. I probably could have been good friends with any of these people if Kavanaugh didn’t have them calling to check on me constantly. “Dash?”

“Isla. You always say my name with such disdain. Is it because I wanted to know about the package so much?”

“No, it has to do with the fact that you call me every morning to make sure I’m okay.”

“Boss’s orders.”

“No, they’re Kavanaugh’s orders,” I retorted, feeling rather irritable.

“He cares about you. He just wants to make sure you’re okay.”

“Well, you can see I’m okay because none of the alarms have gone off. You have this place rigged to high heaven. If everything weren’t okay, you would know it.”

“Still, have you given any thought to my suggestion?”

Right, the whole distress answer. If I was in trouble, I needed to have a keyword or phrase to say to him. I sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of my nose. “How aboutI slipped on a banana peel today.?”

He tsked in disapproval. “That’s a terrible distress phrase.”

“And why is that?”

“Because no kidnapper would believe that.”

“Well, if he was there to kill me, maybe he wouldn’t care.”

“If he was there to kill you, you wouldn’t have time to get the whole phrase out. Keep working on it.”

“Why don’t you just tell me what you want me to say?”

“Because then it won’t sound natural.”

“Then I want the banana phrase,” I argued.

“Listen, I think we both know what this is about.”

We did?

“I get it. You like this little back and forth with me, but I gotta tell ya, I’m happily married. Nothing can happen between us.”

I swear, I didn’t mean to laugh at him, but seriously, he thought I was hitting on him?

“Hey, it’s been known to happen.”

“Right, and you know what else has been known to happen?”

“What’s that?”

“I will hang up on you and you won’t call me back tomorrow morning.”

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