Page 18 of Recklessly Yours

She’d barely come to a stop, the back of her car still in the road, before she threw the door open and darted straight toward me.

I opened my arms and brought her tight against my body.

She shook with adrenaline and fear, her breaths coming in gasps now. Fuck. I’d never wanted to punch a wall—or better yet, the asshole following her—more than I did in that moment.

This prick was messing with the wrong person.

I tightened my hold around her as the dark-colored vehicle sped up and flew past my house.

“7KL4TBC.”

“What?” she whispered against my chest.

“License plate.” I repeated the digits in my head as I pulled my phone out and texted Aiden, asking him to pull the registration for a Toyota with this license plate.

“I need to call this in.”

She pulled back and peered up at me, her eyes glassy. “What?”

“He’s escalating. I need to get the department involved so we can start an investigation.”

I didn’t plan to mention the possible dead end we’d hit with the gas station. According to the attendant, the surveillance cameras only held on to a recording for so long before it was erased to make space for new footage. The guy didn’t know how to access it or how long footage was saved, so we planned to go back tomorrow to speak to the owner.

She nodded and blew out a shaky breath. “Okay.”

“That means you need to tell your family.” I pulled back and gripped her shoulders, forcing her to look at me.

“Now?”

“It’s no skin off my back if they hear about your stalker from someone else—and you know they will; you know how this town is—but is that what you want?”

She shifted her weight and sighed. “No. Especially my parents.”

I nodded. “Come on, I’ll drive you over.”

Lips pressed together, she nodded. “I guess it’ll look like I’m being responsible if I show up with the police.”

I couldn’t help but smirk at her reasoning.

It faded quickly, though, as uneasiness settled in my gut. Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, I led her toward my SUV.

Chapter Eight

DYLAN

This was definitely nothow I thought this would go. I didn’t anticipate having to answer to anyone but Hattie’s parents, since she wanted to hold off until tomorrow to tell her siblings. But as luck would have it, Rhett happened to be here too, glaring at me.

Hattie, of course, was already trying to downplay the situation.

This woman would be the death of me.

“Really. It’s probably nothing, but Dylan wants to be safe and look into it.” Hattie shrugged. “I doubt he’ll find anything. It’s hard to believe anyone would actually stalk me.”

All I could hope was that Hattie was minimizing the issue for her parents’ sake.

“Can we talk?” Rhett stepped up next to me, nodding toward the kitchen. My stomach sank at the idea that he was going to grill me about exactly why I was here with Hattie. With as easily as Aiden had seen through my denial of my attraction to her, I worried Rhett might too.

But without waiting for a response, he headed out of the room.

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