Page 16 of Secrets Along the Shore
I stared at the form silhouetted in the night’s sky.
Hestood there.
Right there.
For all my bravado, for all my good intentions, for all my safeguards like bear spray and tasers, I went numb. My body failed to respond the way I’d banked on it reacting.
I fell against the steering wheel and everything went black.
CHAPTER
FIVE
I was laying on a bed.The instant I saw the ceiling, the light fixture overhead, and smelled the scent of burnt coffee, I started to scream.
“Noa!Noa!”A man’s voice shouted from down the hall.
Footsteps clapped on a wood floor and I sensed the man’s presence and scrambled to my knees. I wasn’t bound. This was good. I pushed off the mattress, sprinting for the door just as he rounded the corner and caught me.
Two hands on my upper arms.
A hard chest.
I hauled back with my right arm, balling my fist, and its forward momentum was stopped by a man’s palm.
“Noa!”
His voice ripped through my subconscious.
Reuben.
Reuben?
I shoved off his chest which was void of his typical Oxford shirt and instead was covered by a T-shirt with the most unexpected screenprint of a fluffy cat smoking a pipe. Not even attempting to comprehend what that was about, I scowled at him. Confusion rippled through me—and a lot of panic. I managed to stay standing, eventhough everything in me wanted to crumple to the floor in a trembling heap of relief and tears.
“How’d I get here?” I demanded, hearing the rough accusation in my tone and not feeling a bit of remorse for it.
He braced his left arm against the doorway and eyed me. “You were at Stillwater, in your car, having a full-blown panic attack. When I found you, I could hardly snap you out of it and when I did, you wouldn’t let me go.”
I couldn’t picture myself clinging to Detective Walker, let alone seeking safety in his presence. Although, reason said he was a solid bet if I did need protection. The problem was, when there was that level of panic, that is when I blacked out. But I had curated my life carefully these last years, and it hadn’t happened in so long, I’d banked on it not happening again. Not to mention, I hadn’t expected to experience panic tonight.
But I’d been wrong. And I had blacked out. The moment I saw him.
“That was you—at the lake?” I managed to temper the blame in my voice.
“Yep.”
“And you saw me?—”
“Yep.”
“So you know I was?—”
“Yep.”
He was irritating. He’d seen me there, probably heard me mumbling to Sophia, and then watched me sprint to my car where I entered whatever full-blown breakdown ensued.
“And my car?” I asked, trying to attempt some manner of collectiveness by smoothing my wavy hair back and repositioning it in its messy bun.
