Another cackle from the stalker. “Your father really is a heartless motherfucker, isn’t he? Selling you just to get himself out of the mess he created. Alas, I’ve seen worse.” He throws me up against the Chevy, and I hit the bodywork with a metallic clang. “Of course, it comes as no surprise that your father is thinking about money. But does he really think I have the time for that? My client has done some unspeakable things in his time, things that are way out of even my depth, but he still wouldn’t sell his own daughter if he had one.”
“You know I’m innocent in all of this,” I say, trying to survive the force of my temple being crushed into the car. “You’ve been watching me long enough to know.”
“Yes. But witnesses love opening their mouths and saving the day.”
He presses the side of my head evenharderinto the car. I swear I’ll die from the pain of this alone. Give it another minute and I’ll have a deformed skull.
I feel a tear trickling down my face, the salty residue making it onto my tongue.
I spent so much time avoiding Caleb, stopping myself from sinking into that sweet place of surrender with him, that I didn’t fully appreciate the time we had together.
But I was right about one thing. Everything we had over the past month was temporary. Just not in the way that I thought it would be.
I’ll never get to see Caleb and Sonny interact, each knowing who they are to one another.
I’ll never get to see Sonny’s face light up when I tell him who his father is.
I’ll never get to pretend to avoid Caleb again.
Nor feel him inside of me.
His lips on mine.
I’ll never taste him again.
I’ll never see any of them again.
“I won’t say anything,” I promise. “You can hold it against me. I have a family, and they need me. You ever had one of those?” I’m hoping for that big villain realization, like in the movies where they pull away and fully understand their actions.
But this guy had no mercy on my father, and he definitely has no mercy on me.
He doesn’t think I’m capable of keeping a secret…
I hold my breath, not out of fear, but because I thought I heard blaring sirens. Maybe it’s just my delusional, dehydrated self speaking. But Idefinitelyheard something.
There it is again, louder this time.
“Shit,” the man cusses under his breath as the sirens get closer.
The pain in my temple lessens. The stalker is no longer pressing me into the car.
I drop to the ground, exhausted from the pain, and see the guy take off into the forest. While that’s happening, a fire truck is coming to a shrieking halt next to the Chevy.
And Caleb is jumping out of it, scooping me up into his arms.
“Stay here,” he orders, shutting me up into the back of the truck.
He goes on a bounty hunt into the trees. I watch him go after the man, but I can barely keep my eyes open. Too much has happened in such a short space of time. I’m pregnant with Caleb’s child again, my father tried to sell me, and I almost died today. And, I finally came to the realization that I’m disgustingly in love with Caleb Rourke, and that denying my feelings was the worst thing I could have done.
I’m woken out of my daze by the slamming of the truck door as Caleb throws himself back in.
“Where did he go?”
“He won’t be going very far with two black eyes.” Caleb shows me a photo of him, taken before he punched the other eye. “This will be going straight to the police.”
He starts the engine, and we’re back on the road, driving to safety, just me and him.
I’m lost for words, completely. The only thing I manage to ask him is “How did you know where to find me?”
