Page 38 of Mine to Protect

Tell him everything he wanted to know or walk away.

The easy way out would be to keep my mouth shut and pretend I didn’t want him as desperately as he wanted me.

“What do you want to know?” I asked. My gaze darted to where Benny raced into a cluster of trees after a chattering squirrel.

Cas gestured for us to keep walking. “I pulled your file, so I know the basics of what went down in Texas while you were in school.”

I wet my lips and swallowed past the lump building in my throat. “That’s good, I guess.”

“Tell me what happened and how that fucker ended up dead.”

He made it sound easy, but it wasn’t. Might never be.

“Start small. What made you want to study wildlife management?”

Benny bolted from the trees with the same angry squirrel hot on his heels. Sweet Benny. He was trained to kill, but that wasn’t who he was in his heart. If the other animals would allow Benny the chance, he’d befriend every animal on the mountain.

“Animals. I wanted to be a game warden just like my dad. The ecosystem is a balancing act, and a Texas game warden’s job is to make sure the scale never tips. They protect the animals from poachers and illegal fishing operations, render aid or removal when necessary, all to keep the animals safe.”

“But you never did,” Cas added as he walked at my side with Benny trotting between us.

I hitched my chin to the right, indicating the turn to my cabin. “No, I never did. I couldn’t stick around after everything. It became too much. My parents wouldn’t let me out of their sight. They booked me an appointment with every therapist in town in an attempt to help me cope. The first few months, they had every right to worry, I was a mess. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t move. Fear paralyzed me for a long time.” I paused to slip the sweatshirt over my head. As the dark cotton slid down my face, Cas’s strong masculine scent filled my nose and lungs, somehow offering a boost of strength to keep going.

“Not sure what all the file said, but it started as a stalking case. I worked at the local H-E-B as a cashier to help pay for the portion of school that wasn’t covered by my track scholarships. Who I am now is a shell of who I was before it all happened. Before, I was outgoing, funny, charismatic. I’d talk to anyone and everyone, with the core belief that everyone deserved a kind smile.” Out of habit, I brought my right thumb to my lips and chewed on the edge. “That was what caught his attention during the spring semester of my junior year. At first, it wasn’t anything big, just him coming in every time I was on shift and hanging back to talk to me, which I didn’t mind. Then notes appeared on my car at work, at school, when I was home.

“I told my dad, but he knew there was nothing we could do unless he made a threat, which he hadn’t. Everything he wrote was loving, telling me how beautiful I was, how he was glad to have a friend like me, stuff like that.”

The old wooden steps to my cabin creaked under our weight as we climbed in unison to the porch. Benny sat by my feet while I dug out the keys and unlocked the first deadbolt, then the next, and the next.

“Safer than Fort Knox,” Cas muttered as a joke.

He had no idea how right he was.

“There are deadbolts on the door, jams on the windows, and I had them cover the glass panes with a coating that makes them unbreakable.”

“Nice.” He nodded as he glanced around my filthy cabin. His lips pursed at the sink overflowing with dirty dishes. “So what changed?”

I tugged off my tactical belt, situated everything like I always did in my routine, and locked all three locks three times each. Unease rolled through my stomach, nausea building. Index fingers scraping at the cuticles of both thumbs, I turned to him.

“I don’t have people over,” I said as an excuse for the mess. With a cringe at the day-old bowls lying on the coffee table and empty water bottles strewn about, I quickly shuffled through the room, picking up the dishes and hauling them to the already full sink. As I started on the tower of dirty dishes, Cas snagged a clean dishrag from a drawer on the other side, ready to dry.

“Thanks. What was your question again?”

“What changed with the creeper? What made him go from leaving you nice notes to kidnapping you for three days?”

The dish in my hands slipped and dropped into the sink. “I started dating someone, and Lance, the creeper, wasn’t a fan. That’s when the notes changed. I stuck around that summer to keep working and take some summer school classes. The notes turned from angry and hurt to demeaning and scary. One had an undeniable threat toward my boyfriend and me. After talking with my dad, I decided it was time to go to the police. I filled out a restraining order and thought it was done.”

Beneath the sudsy water, my fingers quivered as I scrubbed at a spoon with dry ramen noodles stuck to it.

“The notes stopped, and he stopped showing up at work, so I took it as a win. The Sunday before Thanksgiving break, my roommate left, but I had to work that Monday and Tuesday, so I stayed behind. We planned for me to meet her in Dallas that Wednesday before I headed home for Thanksgiving.”

After the last dish was washed and dried, I hopped on the counter, allowing my legs to dangle. “I never made it to work on Monday. Sunday night, after my nightly run, I came home to the empty apartment, downed a bottle of water that was out on the counter and went to take a shower. My nose went numb first.” I scrubbed at the tip, remembering the tingling sensation. “It was so strange. Then my legs and feet grew heavy. Halfway to the bathroom, my legs gave out completely, sending me crashing to the floor. Face pressed against the apartment’s old carpet, my arms lost all feeling, but I could still see. Once I was completely immobile, Lance stepped out of the bedroom closet. His proud, sinister smile is the last thing I remember of that day.”

Clearing my throat, I made to jump down, but Cas maneuvered his way between my legs, holding me in place. “Stop. I can’t hear any more. Not now.” I glanced down to where he gripped the counter. Every knuckle was stark white, completely void of color. “Tell me, is there anything I shouldn’t do or say or mention? Any triggers I should know about now?”

I shrugged. Chewing on the edge of my thumb, I said, “That’s why I said earlier that we can’t do this. I don’tknowif I have any triggers. What if… what if everything you do is, or nothing at all? With everyone else, touch is a big one, but with you it isn’t. Then there’s the whole worry of being out of practice. I don’t want to be bad, you know.”

A hot hand pulled the thumb from my teeth. “That’swhat you’re worried about?”

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