Page 16 of Guarding Bristol

She shrugged.“Then I’ll keep trying to change your mind.”

“By coming back here to stalk me around the city some more?”

“If that’s what it takes.”

He flexed his jaw, frustrated by her misdirected stubbornness.The deadline for his appointment was coming up fast.He’d been trying to set it up for a long time.She had to leave.Now.

“Fine, I’ll think about it.But don’t get your hopes up.”He nudged her into the car.

She slid into the seat but threw out a hand to catch the edge of the door before he could close it.“Crimson Point is gorgeous, and the job and the people who run the construction company are legit.I wouldn’t have put it out there to you if they weren’t.”

Her expression was so damned earnest and open, her hope and distress at leaving him here almost palpable.Like she wanted to drag him in the car and take him home with her to get him off the street.It might have been endearing if it wasn’t so exasperating.

“Come on,” she prompted.“What’s there to think about?”

Things she couldn’t imagine.“Go home.”

She kept a hand on the door so he couldn’t close it, still staring up at him.“My name’s Bristol, by the way.”

“I don’t care.”A flash of hurt crossed her face before she masked it.He refused to feel bad.He needed to make a point here.

“You deserve better than this, TJ.I hope you believe that.”

The steel encasing his heart hardened more.“You don’t know what I deserve.”

“I don’t think you do either,” she countered.

They stared at each other for a long, tense moment.Then her expression softened with a slight smile.“Well.Thank you for escorting me to my car.”

He held back a sigh, reprimanded himself for getting trapped in her gaze.“Lock your doors and drive back to Crimson Point.And Bristol?”

Hope flared in her eyes.“Yes?”

He paused a moment for effect.“Don’t ever come looking for me again.”

He pushed her door shut before she could say anything, closing it with a solidthunk.Then he stood at the rear bumper of the car in front of hers with his arms folded across his chest and watched while she pulled out of the parallel spot and slowly drove away.

And she fucking stuck her arm out the window to wave goodbye.

He shook his head, testing the sound of her name in his mind.

Bristol.

Staring after the red glow of her taillights, the buried fragments of his conscience pricked at him like knives.Had he considered the job in Crimson Point since she’d given him the business card yesterday?Of course he had.The location was convenient.The drug scene was just as active there as it was everywhere else, the constant flow of product arriving from offshore and flooding inland all up and down the coast.

He thought of the crumpled business card still in his pocket.Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to meet with the owner.Check out the area.See how things went.

It would at least get Eric’s sister off his back.And they would both be safer for it.

BRISTOL BLEW OUT a hard breath of disappointment as she made the turn toward the freeway entrance, her heart heavy and her stomach still in knots.

That had not gone well at all.Maybe not as disastrous as her first couple of attempts to reach Eric had been, but still.Pretty bad.

TJ was harder than Eric.Hard enough to let the job opportunity in Crimson Point pass him by just to prove he didn’t want anyone’s help.It made her feel frustrated and powerless.

A call came in, and she wasn’t surprised to see Cassie’s name pop up on the display.She had left a string of increasingly worried texts over the past hour.So if Bristol ignored this call, Cassie might literally send out a search party.

“Hi.Yes, I’m alive,” she answered, “and driving back to the coast right now.”

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