Page 63 of Tangled Like Us
My heart begins to race, and I lower back onto the old creaking stair.
My bodyguard halts at the banister. Towering above me, the staircase too narrow for more than one person to sit.
“Thatcher,” I greet.
“Jane.” He asks, “How are you doing?”
Chocolate melts between my fingers, and I lick my thumb. “I’m doing fine. I’m more concerned…”about you.
My voice fades completely. We both seem to tense in our silence, but the room is quite loud as SFO, Jack, and my cousins talk.
I break our quiet. “How are you feeling?”
Thatcher drops his voice another cavernous octave. “The same.” He holds my gaze much more securely. “I feel a strong responsibility to you.”
Dear God, let me breathe properly.“To protect me,” I state for clarity.
He nods firmly, but another raw emotion almost surfaces through his tightened gaze. He blinks and deadbolts it shut.
To protect me.
I push my wavy hair off my shoulder, hot all of a sudden. I need to backtrack, and I’m curious, of course. “What you found in the box, it doesn’t affect you? It’s not every day that bodyguards are sent roadkill.”
Security hasn’t discovered who dropped the package via a drone, but the anonymous delivery included a mutilated squirrel and a note:
For the tall bodyguard.
Fuck you.
That was all.
Omega thinks it must be a vexed suitor from earlier this morning. Someone Thatcher must’ve accidentally angered.
His expression darkens. “I’ve seen a lot worse than a dead squirrel.” He ends there. Cut and dry.
I hesitate to prod. “Can I ask you something more personal?”
He looks readied. “Go ahead.”
I rest my elbows on my knees, my mint-green tulle skirt splayed over them. “Have you seen worse while you’ve been in security or before this job?”
“Both,” he answers without pause. He checks over his shoulder for a millisecond, and I track his brief glimpse to the fireplace. To Farrow.
Farrow is holding Maximoff’s cheek and whispering in the pit of his ear. Less serious, I think, since Farrow smiles wider and wider with each word he murmurs.
I frown. “It involves Farrow?”
He gives me a serious look.
Nate.
The realization strikes me cold. The night that Nate was apprehended, there were only two bodyguards on the scene: Farrow and Thatcher. And he’s telling me that night was more horrific than a dead mutilated squirrel.
I want to express my guilt for trusting Nate, but it’ll open a dam and I’m not ready to drown in those feelings.
“Turtle?” I offer, holding up the tin of caramel pecan chocolates.
Thatcher has never rejected one before, and he doesn’t now. We eat turtles and face the room together.
