Page 25 of Rescued Faith

Penny a took a sip from her glass. “Wow. I can see why they’re famous for their malts. This is amazing.”

Bryce grinned and took a big bite of his burger. Penny laughed and pointed at his face. “You’ve got ketchup on you.”

He swiped his napkin across his cheek. She laughed harder. “You just smeared it. Hand it over.” He passed his napkin over to her. She gently dabbed the corner of his mouth. “You always did wear your food.”

The whiff of her vanilla perfume swirled around him, evoking memory after memory.

So many good times they’d shared. And he hated that she thought the worst of him. That he’d pushed her away. So afterswallowing his bite he blurted out, “I want you to know that Ididn’tcheat on you.”

Penny’s hand immediately fell away. “What?”

“That night you left. I know what you saw, and it probably looked bad. Ashlee showed up at my door. Drunk. She came on to me, and I was trying to let her down. She kept tripping and falling?—”

“I get the picture.” She shoved a fry in her mouth.

“Do you? Because I swear, that’s all you saw when you showed up. I had Logan help me take her home. She got sick all over her living room, and we helped clean up the mess and made sure she was okay before we left. But nothing more happened. And as soon as I left, I went directly to your apartment. But you were already gone.”

“Oh.”

He waited for her to say more. Ask questions. Demand answers of her own. But she stayed silent.

“Oh? That’s all you have to say?”

“Look, Bryce, I’m…glad you weren’t cheating?—”

“So you believe me?”

With her arms wrapped around herself, she shrugged and looked up at him through her lashes. “Yeah, I do.”

Okay then. That was all he wanted. Right? For her to know he hadn’t cheated on her.

But it felt unfinished still.

“You don’t have any questions for me?”

“Not really.” She dragged another one of her fries through a pile of ketchup and took a bite.

Huh. Well, that’d been a heck of a lot easier than he’d expected. But why didn’t that seem to fix the gulf between them?

Whyhadshe left?

“I think I’m going to take the malt to go.” She stood and took her glass to the counter. Guess that was the end of that.

Her words from earlier echoed back.

I told you from the beginning I wasn’t looking for anything serious.

Of course. Because people didn’t takehimseriously. Why would it be any different with her?

And why did it matter? He’d said his piece. And like she’d said, they’d moved on. If he was going to get serious about someone, she probably should be the kind of girl that didn’t balk at going to church or reading the Bible. Obviously, that wasn’t Penny.

But as he watched a little red-headed kid bump into her and caught her wince, that surge of protectiveness rose within him again. She’d been caught by thugs, trapped in a fire, knocked out by a bomb blast, and then shot at. All in less than twenty-four hours. The woman needed backup and a league of angels to surround her.

He was certainly no angel. And she most likely would leave as soon as this case wrapped up. But while they were doing this job, he would do everything in his power to protect her from getting hurt any more.

It was the least he could do.

When she came back, Penny’s phone rang.

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