Page 30 of Live for Me

“You have two minutes to grab your shit and get your ass in my fucking truck,” he clipped, the sound of his rich, deep voice seeping into me. My greedy soul drank in every single word. My heart was ready to jump—again.

However, my logic held her by the throat, his words settling into my brain in a very different way.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, shaking my head in confusion. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“Hallow Ranch got a call tonight. About three hours ago to be exact,” he told me, his voice hard.

Three hours ago.

That was how long it took to get to Hallow Ranch from here.

I opened my mouth to speak, but he beat me to the punch. “Red Snake Investigations is owned by Joseph Grayson, Abbie.” My knees buckled at the sound of my name on his lips, a different kind of goosebumps spreading over my skin now. His eyes dropped down my legs, his nostrils flaring slightly before he looked at my face again. “Joseph Grayson served in the Marines with Mags. They’re good friends.”

My heart stopped beating as shock poured over me like a bucket of ice water.

“Beau—”

“The man you spoke to is a former Navy SEAL, and he’d be damned if a woman is going to call him and tell him about her having a damn stalker, and he doesn’t run her number through the system. That’s just not the kind of man Ash Doss is.”

I swallowed the glass in my throat and spoke again. “Beau—”

“Ash Doss is the kind of man to show up at your fucking door and put you under his damn protection, and hunt down the sorry son of a bitch stalking you himself. However, you being who you are to me meant that once Ash discovered your identity, he called Mags,” he bit off, his arms falling from his chest.

You being who you are to me.

“This isn’t—”

He pushed off the door. “Say this isn’t my goddamn business, and I will lose my fucking shit, Abbie,” he growled, closing the distance between us. “I made you a fucking promise all thoseyears ago, and unlike you, baby, I intend to keep my promises.Allof them.”

I jerked back as if he’d struck me, my chest heaving.

“You are indanger,” he pressed. “You have a fucking stalker—one who broke into your home while you were in the damn shower.”

The last part came out as a feral growl, fueled by anger and pain. It was too much to bear, and I twisted my neck, focusing on my living room. “I need you to leave,” I rasped, my heart cracking in two.

Those lips, once addictive and teasing, spread into a cruel smile when I looked back at him. “You have another thing coming if you think I’m stepping out of this house without you, Wildflower.”

Wildflower.

I sucked in my bottom lip, sinking my teeth into the flesh to stop the pain that word carried from penetrating my heart. But I wasn’t strong enough, not anymore. Not after everything I’d been through. My body, my heart—my damn soul—was exhausted, beaten down to the point of no return. So when the man I loved called me the nickname he gave me the first time he made love to me in a field dotted with wildflowers as the sun set and stars twinkled above us, I couldn’t handle it.

The first tear was hot as it landed on my cheek, but the second? The second felt like the fires of hell.

I sucked in a broken, unsteady breath, trying to hold on to the last remaining bits of a sanity as I begged, “Please don’t call me that.”

My words were merely a whisper, hovering in the inches between us, but the impact was deafening.

I lifted my eyes to find his focused on my tear-stained cheeks, his brow knitted together as emotions—ones I wanted to ignore—lingered in his deep blue pools.

“Need you to pack a bag, Abbie,” he said, his voice low but gentle.

I shook my head. “I’m not going anywhere, Beau.”

He shook his head in return, not breaking eye contact. “It's not an option. You’re in danger. You’re not safe here.”

“I’ve been handling it,” I told him.

That strong jaw jumped again as he turned his head, giving me a view of his handsome profile. I stared, my heart jumping up into my throat, silently praying he would grant me—us—mercy, that he would leave my life once and for all. He needed to realize the truth, and I thought he’d finally gotten it through his thick, stubborn skull. His presence was proof it hadn’t. He was still fighting for this—for us, after all this time.

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