This guy isn't here by accident.
“You okay?” I ask, though I already know the answer.
“Yeah,” she says, but her hands are shaking as she adjusts her glasses again. “It just… ended badly.”
Whatever happened between them, it was bad enough that she's terrified.
“You want to get out of here?”
She nods, relief flooding her face. I keep my hand on the small of her back as we move through the crowd toward the exit. She leans into the contact slightly, and I realize she’s not just shaken.
She’s scared.
Outside, she takes several deep breaths of the cool night air.
“Better?”
“Yeah. He just…catches me off guard sometimes.” She’s hugging the book against her chest like armor.
“How long since you two broke up?”
“Over a year.” Her voice is quiet, defeated. “He’s not supposed to be here. I mean, there’s no reason for him to be in Pine Hollows. He lives in Creeksprings.”
“But he seemed to know this town pretty well.”
I watch her face when I say it, and I see the moment she realizes I caught that detail too. Her eyes widen behind her glasses. “Yeah. I don’t know how.”
I do. He’s been watching you.The black SUV. The one that ran her off the road. I'd bet my badge that was him.
We walk to our cars in tense silence, but my mind is working overtime. Ex-boyfriends don’t show up at random events in small towns they don’t live in. They don’t casually mention their ex’s living situation or talk about sticking around to “get to know the community.” And they definitely don’t look at their exes like they still own them.
At her car, I stop. “Alice, if he’s bothering you—”
“He’s not. Not really.” The response comes too fast, too practiced. “It’s just awkward running into an ex, you know?”
I don’t buy it for a second, but pushing won’t get me answers tonight. She’s already spooked enough. “Okay. But if that changes—if he shows up again, if you feel unsafe, anything—you call me. I don’t care what time it is.”
“Thank you.” She’s fidgeting with her keys, still jumpy. “Rain check on that coffee? I feel like the mood got completely derailed.”
“Of course,” I wait until she looks at me. “This was still the best part of my week.”
A small smile finally breaks through her worry. “Mine too.”
I wait until she’s safely in her car and the engine starts before walking to my truck. As I follow her taillights at a careful distance—close enough to make sure she gets home safe, far enough not to seem like I’m following her the way Lance probably does.
I’m already planning my next move.
Tomorrow, I’m having Chris run Lance Carlston’s name through every database we have access to. Because whatever game he’s playing with Alice, it’s not over. And the way he looked at her tonight? Like she was something he’d lost and intended to reclaim?
That’s not how normal exes behave.
Lance Carlston just made a very big mistake. He showed up in my town, made Alice feel unsafe, and thought he could walk away without consequences. But what he doesn't know is that Alice isn't just some woman I'm interested in.
She’s under my protection now.
Whether she knows it or not
Chapter 18
