Page 211 of Mangled Memory
It’s that moment when Eleanor releases everything in her bowels onto the cold earth below.
“Me too, girl. Me too. Come on. Let’s go home.” We start to walk toward the car. “We’re not telling your dad about this, right? Mums the word.”
It’s the sound of a boot crunching ice that spikes my adrenaline again. The question is from where… and from whom. Eleanor alerts again and moves to stand in front of me. Until, like a traitorous bitch, she turns on her tail and bounds away.
“Now you go,” I grumble. “Couldn’t have let me save your life earlier. Noooo. Too stubborn, but now you move out.”
Shit. I’m talking to myself and there’s a very real threat out there. It’s a real-life bear or man debate. After my encounter, I’ll choose the man.
At least until I realize who it is.
Fitz.
“What are you doing here?”
“My job.”
“Your job is to walk in the woods and scare me? Odd.” It’s not odd. It’s worse. “No, that’s fucked up is what it is.”
“Protect you, Mrs. Barone. My job is to protect you. And that—” He nods toward where Eleanor and I were just up close and way too personal with a bear and her cub. “That’s why I’m out here.”
“To watch a bear encounter and do nothing to prevent it. And later to scare me worse than the mama with her cub?”
His stoic face shows no emotion.
“You’re fired.”
“All due respect, Mrs. Barone, I can’t accept that termination.”
“So you take orders from my husband and only he can fire you?”
He dips a chin a single time and crosses his arms over his chest, his impressive forearms bunching and rippling.
“How long have you been following me?”
“I’ve been with you every time Mr. Barone hasn’t been.”
Fuck my life. “Nothing says creepy stalker vibe like you not even telling me.”
He shrugs.
“How have I not known?” I wave a hand dismissively. “You know what? Never mind. I don’t want to know. I trusted you. Past tense. Run back to your boss and tell him everything. But don’t bother ever feigning respect for me again. I’m no one’s ward. I’m not a child and don’t need you silently creeping me when I leave the house.”
He looks over my head as I slide past him. “That wasn’t nothing out there. You could’ve been killed.”
“And you would’ve watched silently from your safe little perch.”
He taps his hip before lifting his coat to show a very large pistol. Like Clint Eastwood make-my-day kind of large.
“Glad you didn’t need it.” I mutter and click my tongue for Eleanor.
“Me too.” His muttered reply is joined by his boots clunking along behind me.
“Have you always been this loud?” I throw over my shoulder. If he had been, I’d have known immediately.
“Obviously not.”
“Then why now?”
