Page 78 of Beyond the Blue Horizon
“I’m going to take care of you, Scarlett.”
He didn’t know why he felt compelled. He just knew he found her for a reason.
She warred, her fingertips just barely scratching into his chest as she snuggled closer. “His name is Jimmy. He let me sleep on his couch, but the next night, he told me I owed him…that I had to work for him.” Her voice creaked with horror. “When I refused, he did this.”
It was exactly as Theo had feared. Fuckin’ scum preying on innocent girls who came to this city.
And that scum was fuckin’ dead.
FOURTEEN
PIPER
I stoodin front of the main lobby entrance of The Sanctuary, hands stuffed into my pockets to guard from the blustery cold, shifting back and forth on my feet as I waited for an Uber.
Wondering what in the world I thought I was doing.
If I was actuallydoing this.
Taking steps to stay here the way Nelly had asked me to do.
Planting roots when I was sure there was zero chance of survival.
The only outcome was they’d wither and die.
Almost a week had passed since we’d been in Moonlit Ridge, and today, Nelly had finally coerced me into taking action.
Fear and anticipation buzzed through my being, and I swore that I could feel the tattoo on my forearm glow.
In sorrow we must stand.
It was time.
It was time.
Nelly was right.
I hadn’t seen my son so happy in all his life. His sweet little face aglow every time he woke up in the same place, as if this tiny cabin had become his happy place.
In it, my mind had begun to whirl with the possibilities I’d once thought inconceivable. Each morning as I drank my coffee, my gaze would drift out on the blue horizon that rested above the crisp, placid lake surrounded by the frozen forest.
Its peace murmuring that maybe…maybe if I just reached out beyond it and took it in my grasp, it could be ours.
A promise that we might be able to keep what this town hummed and whispered.
I stood in its promise now, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t completely shaking with trepidation at the same time.
That shaking gave way to an earthquake when the lobby door swished open.
His fierce, unrelenting energy swallowed me from behind.
I inhaled a shattered breath.
I’d halfway managed to avoid Theo Mallin for the last four days. I’d only caught peeks of him from out the windows as he continually prowled the vicinity, like he was one of the hired guards rather than the owner of this random motel that appeared to have more security than Fort Knox.
This menace of a man who never seemed to rest, stalking both night and day.
I couldn’t help but find some comfort in it. Resting within those cabin walls.
