And when she looked up at him again, something was burning behind his eyes. "I have to know. Did someone hurt you?"
She clutched the edge of the sink. "He tried."
"Who?" He was still holding on to her, steadying her, and somehow that made it easier.
She clutched the counter edge harder. Hard enough that her fingers hurt. "I dated this guy a couple of times. Two. We went on two dates."
Toby had been charming enough, but they were missing that magic spark. At least she felt that way.
She raised one shaky hand to touch her lips, breaking Cord's hold. "I tried to let him down easy. Told him I didn't want to date anyone at all."
She shrugged, her fingers pressing against her lips. "Some of the other girls on my floor date around. I thought it would work. But he started appearing outside my classes. He'd wait in his car outside the restaurant where I waitressed."
She shook, remembering it. He'd cornered her in the stairwell at her dorm room once. He hadn't harmed her, but the wild look in his eyes... it had scared her.
She exhaled noisily. "He started making threats. Saying things like I belonged to him. That I couldn't leave him."
She was shaking so badly now that her legs weren't going to support her. She lowered herself to the floor right there, putting her back to the cabinets.
Cord sat next to her, careful that they weren't touching. "Did you tell anyone?"
She nodded. One hot tear spilled over her cheek. "My dad. He didn't believe me. I w-wanted to go home."
She brushed the tear away. Her dad had remarried when she'd been a sophomore in high school. Her stepmother, Sandy, had only waited a few weeks before she'd started manipulating Molly's father. She used every tool in her arsenal to turn him against Molly.
It had been five years of Dad slipping away, falling further under Sandy’s spell.
When Molly had been crying on the phone with her dad, she'd heard her stepmother in the background."She's probably making it up. She's an attention-seeker, you know."
She'd known then that she wasn't going to receive any help from that quarter.
She took a shaky breath. "I filed a restraining order. He disappeared for a few days, and I started to feel safe again. I took my finals."
She inhaled a shaky breath. "And then he came back. Trapped me in the bathroom of the little cafe where I worked."
He'd hit her once across the face. She'd fought back with everything in her, and the commotion had brought a manager in.
Toby had fled. The police had been called.
"The policeman couldn't find him. And if the restraining order hadn't protected me in the first place, what was I supposed to do?"
She'd called home again. She'd had to try. Her father had flat out refused to let her come home without finishing the semester.
"I left in the middle of the night." She'd left most of her stuff in the dorm room. She hadn't dropped any of her classes. She'd just run.
Molly had a stalker.
Cord was surprised at the strength of the fury burning inside him as she revealed the truth.
He didn't know her well, but he saw her gentle spirit with Hound Dog. Had seen the way her eyes lit those first hours when she'd looked around the ranch.
Someone was targeting her. Had assaulted her. Had threatened her.
No wonder she'd had such a strong reaction in town.
He was just as furious with her family. Why would her father refuse to help her? He didn't have to know the answer. Some people—like Mackie—didn't deserve to be parents.
He had the weirdest urge to grab her and hold on. He hadn't felt anything like it since he'd been a boy and West had gotten into a scuffle on the playground at school.
