Page 117 of Tender Heart
I can’t let anything happen to Cal.
I won’t.
Settling into the cabin, I send my gaze around the marina. Cal starts the engine, and we glide from the slip. We clear the last row in the marina, and I glance back toward the Coast Guard building. The oversized windows reflect the day’s sunlight. I swear I make out a figure under the overhanging watch room. The figure holds something to their face.
My gut sinks, churning like I imagine a gazelle’s does when they get their first sniff of lion.
Shit.
Has he been here all this time?
The festival.
The signing.
The week we came to Iris’s for Em’s birthday dinner?
Oh my lord.
Fear shrouds me for the second time today and I grip my bag tight, setting my eyes on the horizon.
The boats that were tampered with... Were they a warning?
Surely, he wouldn’t venture out to the island.
But what if he does?
If he is keeping tabs on me, the only way to keep Cal safe is to leave.
Teeth gritted, I breathe through a curled lip as anger flings through my veins like wildfire.
Fine. He wants me, he’s going to have to come and damn well get me.
In the heart of the city.
When I’m ready.
Surrounded by people.
With the trap baited and set.
I may be just a nerdy author, but my research is extensive. My FMCs have been through much, much worse.
Game on, T.
Cal won’t look at me. He’s been that way since the marina.
“Spill it, McCreary.”
“Nope.”
“Urgh, will you just tell me what’s eating you?”
Now, here in the greenhouse, I stab the soil in the bed for tomatoes with the trowel.
He continues to shovel fertilizer into the new bed he’s prepping for the last half of summer. He’s tense and far too quiet. Already a man of few words, he’s now down to single syllables. Short of seducing it out of him, which would be a gross abuse of power on my part, I am left with begging for an explanation.
“Come on, talk about it before it starts taking chunks out of that handsome heart of yours.”
