Torren heard the doorbell ring and ran to the front entrance to try to answer it before it woke up Tana. The guy looked like a deliveryman, but Torren never saw the uniform he was wearing. “Can I help you?” he asked, swinging the front door open.
“Sure, buddy.” The guy’s southern accent was thick, throwing him off. Not many people in Harvest Ridge had accents that sounded like that besides Tana and the twins. “I have a delivery for Mrs. Cahoon.” He handed Torren a big envelope and a box that he assumed contained flowers. He nodded and took the delivery, signing his name on the guy’s delivery form. “You have a really nice day.” The delivery guy turned and made his way down Tana’s front steps, but Torren didn’t shut the door. Something about the guy seemed off. He even looked familiar, and that made Torren pay attention.
The one thing that Dane taught him and Tag was to be aware of your surroundings and everyone around you. His grandfather had many rules when it came to his and Tag’s safety, and Torren took every one of them to heart. It was probably what kept him alive to this point, having quite a few close calls while out on the side of a mountain or barreling down a river on a raft. He watched as the delivery guy walked around the corner to an unmarked vehicle and got into it. All the alarms were going off in his head, telling him that something just wasn’t right. The guy drove by in a beat-up old red Chevy Camaro that had seen better days. He smiled at Torren and gave him a mocking salute, then sped off down the road. Torren took note of the guy’s license tag number and wrote it on the flower box with a pen Tana kept on the table by the front door. He went back to the kitchen to check on the twins, tossing the box on the table to finish up breakfast.A part of him wanted to open the box, but he also didn’t want Tana to think he was snooping. From the story she told him about her ex, she had had enough of overbearing assholes to last her a lifetime. He found the girls and was about to call them in when Tana came yawning into the kitchen. Her hair was mussed, and it made him hard just remembering how she liked to have it pulled from behind.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” he growled, pulling her into his body. Tana yawned again, trying to swat him away.
“The first thing you need to know about me is that I need coffee before talking,” she grumbled.
“Duly noted, honey.” Torren pointed Tana to the nearest chair and crossed to the coffee pot to make her coffee. As soon as he handed it to her, she sipped it, closing her eyes and leaning back into the wooden seat. For a moment, he worried that he hadn’t made it right.
“Is it the way that you take it?” Tana nodded and pointed to her mug and then held her finger up to her lips, shushing him. He couldn’t help his chuckle.
“You take your morning Joe pretty seriously, baby.” She gave him a sideways glance and took another sip of her coffee. “Oh, before the girls come in with Tucker and all chaos explodes, you had a delivery this morning.” Tana sat up, putting her mug on the table, and pulled the box towards her.
“Who was it from?” She asked as she opened the envelope that was addressed to her and turned as white as a ghost while she read it. Torren couldn’t help himself—he looked over her shoulder
and read the note. It looked like something out of a horror film, as if someone sent her a ransom note. Tana gasped and covered her mouth with her shaking hand, passing the letter off to Torren as if it burned her skin.
“Oh my God, Tor—he’s found us,” she sobbed. Torren looked over the letter, and a wave of panic washed over him. He didn’t have to ask who—he was pretty sure that she was talking about her ex-husband. All the alarm bells that sounded earlier were telling him that something wasn’t right. He wished he had listened to his gut and stopped that guy from leaving because now he was pretty sure that asshole was Tana’s ex.
“Call my girls in. We need to pack and leave before he comes here.” Tana stood and started gathering random stuff from her kitchen cabinets.
Torren re-read the note out loud. “You can’t run. You know what I will do to the three of you. No one will have you, bitch.” He whispered the last word, not wanting to upset Tana any further, but he had a feeling he was too late. Tana grabbed onto the countertop as if trying to steady herself through her sobs. “Tana, why do you think it’s your ex?” He was guessing that she was right, but he needed to be sure before he called in the cavalry, getting Sawyer and the rest of the sheriff’s office involved. There was no way that asshole was getting anywhere near Tana or the twins. As far as Torren was concerned, they were his now.
“Open the box. The roses are dead, right?” Tana asked. Torren cautiously opened the long white box as if something was going to pop out at him.
He sighed at the sight of the dead roses and nodded. “Yeah, honey. They are all dead. Is this something that he usually does?”
Tana nodded, “It’s his calling card to let me know that he’s watching me and the girls. He told me that he was going to kill all three of us so that we couldn’t leave him.” Torren crossed the kitchen to where Tana stood sobbing and wrapped her in his arms.
“You aren’t running this time, baby. I’m not going to let him anywhere near you and the girls,” Torren growled.
Tana shook her head. “You can’t make me that promise, Tor. He’s sneaky and mean, and he always wins.”
Torren turned her in his arms, so she was facing him. “Not this time, baby. This time, he loses because the thought of letting you and the girls go is not one that I can stand.” He quickly kissed her lips. “Go get dressed and pack your and the girls’ bags. I’m moving you into my place for the time being. I’ve got excellent security installed by Sawyer and Tag, and your ex won’t be able to even step foot in my yard without us knowing.” Tana nodded, seeming defeated. He hated seeing her this way. It was killing him that he let that fucker get away. “I need a picture of your ex, baby.” Tana looked at him as if he had lost his mind.
“Why would you want a picture of Matt?” Torren held up the note that accompanied the box of dead roses, and Tana seemed to catch on. “God,” she cried. “He was the one who delivered them?” she guessed. Her lips trembled, and Torren wanted to stop everything and comfort her—she had already been through enough with her asshole ex. But he also knew that they needed to act quickly. “I have a picture of him in the family room. I kept it in one of the girls’ baby books, thinking they might want to have it someday.” Tana shrugged.
“I’ll bring the girls and Tucker in and feed everyone breakfast. You go find that picture and meet me up in your bedroom,” Torren ordered. Tana nodded and left the room. Torren knew that he was possibly barking up the wrong tree, but he also knew that every stone needed to be overturned; Tana and the girls were too important to leave things to chance. He called the girls in and smiled at the way they ran into the house with Tucker trailing behind them, his tongue hanging out. Tana and her girls were becoming his new normal, and he was settling into an existence with them that he never thought was a possibility.
Tana found the picture of Matt that she had stuck in Sarah’s baby book. She quietly crept upstairs to take a quick shower, leaving her ex-husband’s picture on her nightstand. She heard the girls cheering when Torren gave them the pancakes that he had made and couldn’t help her smile. They were completely smitten with him, and she had to admit that she was too. She was falling in love with him, but there was no room for that now with the possibility of Matt being in town. That thought alone scared the hell out of her. The last time she saw Matt face-to-face, he was at her mother’s house being dragged away by the local cops. He showed up earlier that day, trying to get to her and the girls. Her mother told him to hit the road, which earned her poor mom a backhand to the face. They called the police and locked themselves in the master bathroom, hoping that the cops would reach them before Matt could get to them, but they weren’t that lucky. The girls were screaming, and she could still see the terror on their faces when she closed her eyes to remember that day. She was thankful that her mother was able to pull them out of the room and keep them safe until the police got there. It felt like an eternity that Matt kept her up in the bathroom, barricaded in, not letting the police talk him out. He told them that he was going to use a razor and slit her throat, and she believed him. Tana saw the conviction in his eyes—he wanted to kill her, and all she could think about was that she wasn’t going to see her girls graduate from high school or marry the man of their dreams someday. She was going to miss it all because she made the mistake of taking Matt back after the twins were born. Matt grew even more agitated and distracted as the hours passed. When she saw her chance, she took it, quietlyremoving the lid from the tank on the back of the toilet and hitting him across the head as hard as she could. The porcelain lid cracked and broke in two; she hit him so hard. For a moment, when he slumped to the ground out cold, she thought that she had killed him. But she saw his chest rise with his shallow breaths and decided to unlock the door and make a run for it. She ran right into the arms of a waiting police officer and collapsed, sobbing. That was when she decided to leave, knowing that sooner or later Matt would get out of jail and come after her and the girls again. While he spent his few months behind bars, he sent her notes like the one she received today and dead roses. Matt wanted to remind her that he was still lurking, and it was only a matter of time before he would have the chance to get to her again. She told her mother that she needed to take the girls and leave, and her mother agreed. They decided that it would be best for Tana and the girls to find a safe place to land with a good neighborhood for the girls to grow up. Her daughters already went through so much; they didn’t need their father to be able to pop up whenever he wanted to cause them more turmoil and grief.
Tana stepped into the warm spray of water and was startled by Torren coming into her bathroom. She was so deep in thought, trying to figure out her next move, that she didn’t hear him come in. “Sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to startle you.” He held up the picture of Matt that she left in her bedroom. “Is this him?” The grim look on Torren’s face told her everything she needed to know. The guy who delivered the dead flowers and note was Matt.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I take it that’s who you saw today?” Torren nodded. Tana started crying, unable to control her emotions that seemed to slam through her defenses. Torren stripped out of his jeans and T-shirt and stepped into the showerwith her. He pulled her into his body, and she willingly let him encase her in his arms.
“What do I do now? The last time we saw him, he tried to kill me.” Torren’s arms tightened around her, and his whole body stiffened.
“He did what?” he growled.
Tana nodded against his chest. “I didn’t quite tell you everything, I’m sorry.”
“How about you tell me now?” he asked, still not letting her go.
“He came to my mother’s house to scare me and the girls, but my mother was able to get the twins out. He held me hostage for hours until I was able to get the upper hand and knock him out with the toilet lid.” Torren remained silent as if trying to process her story. She told him about the few months that Matt was in prison and how he sent her dead roses and notes regularly, telling her that she and the girls would be his or they would all be dead. Tana could feel the anger pouring off Torren’s body, and she wondered if she told him too much. At some point, he was going to have enough of her crazy life and decide that she wasn’t worth the trouble. She worried that Torren would look for a good time elsewhere, leaving her and her girls broken-hearted.
“The local police department couldn’t do anything but place him under a restraining order. They were short-staffed and couldn’t patrol my mother’s house at all hours of the night. My mom and I agreed that the girls and I would be safer if we just left and started over somewhere. So, we ended up here.” Torren nodded, still processing her story. “Listen, Tor, I know you didn’t sign up for all this crap. The girls and I are a lot to take on, and now with my crazy ex in the mix, you probably don’t want to get tangled up in my mess. I would understand if you walked away, but please do it now. I don’t think that my heart could take it if you decided to walk away later because I think that I’vebroken my rule about light and casual, and I’m falling for you.” Torren pulled back from Tana. She wanted to hide, but she knew that Torren wouldn’t let her shy away from him. He tilted her head up to face him, placing his finger under her chin.
