Page 49 of Colton's Secret Weapon
“One or the other, Dove…” His tone had grown all boss-like.
“Neither, Mitchell.” Suddenly filled with a surge of energy, she sat up straighter. “You’re crossing into my autonomy here…” She started in with the fight. And then, just as quickly depleted, told him, “I’m safer without a gun. I’ve never held one in my life,nor have I ever so much as pulled the trigger on a plastic squirt gun.”
When he said nothing, she added, “Or on the handle of an arcade game.”
No shooting. None. Period. Her spirit spoke silently inside her, and Dove welcomed the communication. Wanting to hold it within her.
Needing to be hugged.
“You think I’m weird,” she said, for no good reason, which meant she should have held her tongue.
“I’m thinking I’d feel a hell of a lot better if you knew how to shoot a gun.”
She believed him. The response was so Mitchell. Practical. Logical.
The thought left enough of a positive tail that she asked again what she really wanted to know. “Why have you put your own life on hold to watch over me?”
She didn’t really expect an answer. But she deserved the chance to pose the question. To try to find understanding about something that pertained to her directly.
She knew full well why she was trusting him.
But…what was in it for him?
Sex?
She’d already intimated that he could probably get that just by asking.
It certainly wasn’t the money. There wasn’t going to be much anytime soon.
“You remind me of someone.” His words fell softly into the darkness. Startling her. And ringing with a truth, a depth, she hadn’t expected.
“An ex-girlfriend?” He’d never been married that she knew of.
“No,” he told her, then, as though making up his mind that telling her was better than not, he sighed and said, “My aunt.”
“Spence’s mom?” She didn’t get the likeness. Not even a little bit.
He shook his head. “My dad’s and uncle’s younger sister.”
The words carried a wealth of grief. It came to her slowly. Heavily. And stifled any question she might have asked. He pulled into his garage. Turned off the engine. Pushed the button for the door to shut behind them and sat there with both hands on the wheel.
“Eli met her. Parker, too, though he probably doesn’t remember. I never did. She was killed before I was born.”
Her sharp intake of breath had been completely involuntary. She stared through the garage’s dim light, wishing for the glorious sunset that had just been beginning to appear outside to infiltrate their midst.
If he opened his car door, she’d follow him inside and never speak of the topic again. But she’d remember, for the rest of her days, the grief she’d felt emanating from him.
A man who’d always seemed so…emotionally sedentary.
“She was seventeen. My grandparents were upstairs in bed. She was found on the couch with her stalker…”
Suffused with a sudden urge to cover her ears, Dove physically forced herself to remain open by sliding her hands beneath her thighs. Sitting on them.
“Eli was around five at the time. He and our dad came in and found them there, both dead. The killer had never actually met her in person prior to that night, but thought of himself as her boyfriend. He killed her and then himself.”
“What about your grandparents?”
“They were murdered, too. Probably before Caroline was.”
