But, as she felt the warmth radiating from his body, she knew she didn’t have it in her to ask to be left alone. He was the reason she had come to this place. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, she needed him. It would have been a whole lot easier if she could just forget about him, but that was never going to work.
“You mind if I sit with you?” he asked, and she shook her head.
“No.” She sighed. She missed this, his closeness. There had been a time when they had known everything about each other—or so she’d thought.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
Her shoulders slumped slightly. “About as well as I can be, given that I was just beaten up by a bunch of dirty cops.”
She felt the air shift between them at once. Was he expecting her to say that? Hoping she wouldn’t? She didn’t have a clue. She stole a look at him out of the corner of her eye, wishing she could just ask him what was going on in his head, but she had to be more careful than that. She had let this man close to her once before, and it had ended with her getting burned. She wasn’t going to hand him the chance to do that to her again.
“What happened?” he asked her.
Rubbing her hand over her face, and trying to ignore the sharp twinge in her ribs, she reasoned with herself. She came to this place to find him, ask for his help. She had to tell him at some point so she could get answers. So, why not here? Why not now?
Chapter Six
Aaron’s mind was reeling as he took in what she had just said. Dirty cops? The same ones he had dealt with? They had to be, right? There was no way she could have encountered anyone else. His skin crawled when he thought about what they might have done to her, but the best he could do right now was listen.
“I… I finally got out from under the curse you put on me,” she snapped back. She was still defensive, but at least she was talking. It was a start.
“What do you mean?”
“When you got me sent out to the middle of nowhere to be stuck behind a desk all day?” she reminded him sarcastically, as though he might have forgotten. “I just spent the last six years there. Trust me, I’ve been counting every day.”
The bitterness in her voice was obvious, and he hated hearing her so angry at him. But she had a right to be. He needed to give her the time to come to terms with it, because six years still hadn’t been enough.
“I finally worked hard enough to convince them to put me back out in the field,” she explained. “And there was only one place I wanted to do it. Kings Mountain.”
His heart sank. So she had walked right back into all of that? With no warning? And he was sure Ziegler and the others would have gotten bolder with what they were doing, willing to push the boundaries even further than they had when he was there.
“I got a warm welcome, let’s just say that,” she remarked. “From Ziegler in particular.”
Aaron felt a flare of rage in his system, as he thought about how vulnerable she must have been, and how quick they had been to make a move on her.
“How long were you back before it started?”
“It was the first night,” she replied. “I wasn’t set to work until the next day, but I was excited to be back. Dropped by the station to check in and say hi to everyone. They were the first ones who greeted me and asked me out for a drink to celebrate my return.” She paused, and shivered like she was reliving it in her mind.
He clenched his fists at his sides to keep from reaching for her. “What happened?” he asked again.
“Everything was fine, at first. Then they started talking smack about you. It caught me off guard and when they turned the questions to me…how far I was willing to go to keep my job, stuff like that… I panicked and rushed out. They didn’t hold back. I thought they were going to kill me,” she whispered.
She paused again and wrapped her arms around herself, her gaze distant. Aaron slid closer to her, offering his warmth and silent support.
“I barely remember the attack,” she murmured. “They had followed me out of the bar and ganged up on me in the parking lot when I was trying to leave. I had just made it to my truck when they shoved my head into the side of it. I vaguely remember hands tugging on me, someone yanked my head back, I think. The glint of a knife…” She trailed off and shuddered. “I woke up in a lot of pain and bleeding on the ground.”
Aaron winced but didn’t say anything, allowing her to continue.
“When I regained consciousness, I jumped in my truck and took off. I didn’t even really know where I was going. I just wanted to put as much distance as possible between myself and those guys.” She took a shaky breath and shrugged. “I drovehome, threw some things in a bag, then I ended up here looking for you…and you know the rest.”
“I’m so sorry this happened to you, Bailey,” he said softly.
She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “You knew about it, right?” she asked.
He nodded. No point in trying to hide it now. The truth was out, and she was in danger. No matter how much he wished he could undo what had happened to her, there was no walking away from this.
“Yeah, I did,” he replied apologetically. “I was looking into them, trying to collect evidence to take to the captain. Apparently, they had their own suspicions about me and confronted me. Anyway, I’m glad you found me, but how did you know where I was?”
