Page 52 of A Lonely Road
Before she could protest, I was gone, running between rows of cars and peering in windows. There was no way for the guy to reach her without going through me, but a whoosh of relief washed over me when I heard Nora slam the door behind her and hit the locks.
The guy was a ghost. I wove in and out of the parked cars in that row, then the next, listening for another car door, an engine, a footstep—but there was nothing.
I rubbed a hand over my face and decided it was more important to get back to Nora than to chase aimlessly after theman. By the time I returned to the truck, I was breathing hard and cursing.
“Did you get a photo?” I asked after she unlocked the door for me. Nora stared back at me for a moment, so I said, “Nora, honey, you had your phone out to take a picture of him. Did you get it?”
“I didn’t even realize I was doing it.” Frowning, she pulled out her phone, swiped over to her camera roll, and opened up the picture. As she zoomed in on the figure from the parking lot, she grimaced. “This is a shit photo, but that’s definitely the same guy that I ran into at the bistro. I recognize the glasses.”
I studied it closely. “And it looks an awful lot like our friend from The Mermaid,” I said grimly. “I’m going to send this over to the chief. We’re making one more stop on the way home.”
Nora nodded and slipped the phone back into her pocket. For some reason, she didn’t look afraid so much as resigned. I reached over and touched her cheek with my fingertips. Even as the rush of adrenaline faded, the relief I felt in knowing she was safe made me dizzy.
“What’s going on in that beautiful head of yours?” I asked, shifting the truck into gear.
“If it’s the guy from The Mermaid, then it’s not Shawn,” she said simply.
A rush of breath left my lungs. “Oh, honey.”
As we pulled out of the parking lot, I found her hand on the seat between us and clasped it tight. After she told me Milton wasn’t the reason she moved around somuch, I'd all but dismissed any chance of the man’s involvement in this, especially when Chief Roberts voiced his assumption about the guy from the bar.
“I didn’t realize that was still weighing on you. I’m sorry.”
She offered a rueful smile in response. “Logically, I knew it wasn’t him. Or that it didn’t make sense for it to be him, at least. But I must have still thought, in the back of my mind, that it might be. Shawn Milton is a monster, Jake. That guy from the bar, whoever he is, he’s just a man.”
A man with a grudge,I wanted to point out, but I simply squeezed her hand.
When I pulled into another small plaza halfway to the house, I leaned over, kissed her swiftly, and said, “I’ll be right back. Lock the doors behind me, I’ll leave the engine running.”
She nodded and I waited for the locks to click before I jogged into a storefront that looked more than a little questionable. If I didn’t know better, I would've assumed it was the kind of adult video store one might find along a desolate highway.
A few minutes later, I came back out with an unmarked brown paper bag and passed it to her as I climbed in. From the expression on her face, she’d had the same thought about the store. The anonymity of the bag did nothing to contradict those assumptions.
“What is this?” she asked, looking almost afraid to peek inside. “Surely calm, steady Jake Lincoln wouldn’t react to a surprise run-in with a stalker by buying sex toys, right?”
I shot her a quick wink, relieved that she was joking again. “A few cans of pepper spray, a rape whistle, a couple pocket knives, and an air horn.”
Nora stared at me, her lips parted in shock. Apparently the sex toys would have surprised her less—a fact which I filed away for the future. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Nope. I don’t own a gun, so we’re going to err on the side of caution. Your kung fu skills are impressive, Nora, but I don’t want that son of a bitch getting close enough to grab you again. We need some things you can use from a distance.”
“I already have pepper spray,” she said calmly, finally rifling through the bag. “The can is much smaller than these, though.”
“Why does that not surprise me in the least?”
A giggle welled up and bubbled out of her. “I kept it in the bag with my laptop once I started walking back and forth to The Mermaid. I was afraid I might have to use it on you, actually, when you walked me home the next time after my panic attack. God, you made me so nervous, you and your damn combustibility.”
I looked over to see her shoulders shaking with silent mirth, her fist pressed to her lips to try to stem the laughter. “Did I, now? Here I thought I behaved like the perfect gentleman. I even kept my hands in my pockets so you’d relax.”
That only made her laugh harder, until eventually she was wiping tears from her eyes. “Oh, believe me, I noticed. I think I fell a little bit in love with you right then and there.”
Silence descended over us both as soon as the words left her mouth, broken only by the catch in Nora’s breath. I was sure she’d spoken the thought without realizing its implications, but now that it had been said, we were both tangled up in the revelation.
A rush of tenderness made my chest ache as I reached over to touch her cheek, a light sweep of my fingertips that she immediately leaned into.
“Is that so?” I whispered.
Nora didn’t respond—not in words, not yet. I didn’t need verbal confirmation, however, so I just slid closer along the bench seat and captured her mouth, pouring my every emotion into the kiss and slowly, carefully drawing them from her in return.
