“I will.”
“Liv! Oh my God! What is happening?” Thea scurries through the door and drops to her knees in front of where Liv is on the couch. Her palm goes to Liv’s forehead as if she’s checking for a fever. It strikes me as odd, but this is a new mother, maybe it’s instinct.
“Someone tried to break in,” she utters to her friend, revealing herself fully for the first time since I’ve been here.Her chin trembles, letting herself break.
Jesse is sprinting up the stairs before anyone can stop him, only returning a minute later with a ghostly expression on his face.
“She’s fine,” Thea murmurs to him when he’s close. “Liv kept her safe.”
He kneels next to her, and their foreheads meet, exchanging a brief but deeply intimate moment in a room full of people, so they don’t fall apart.
“Are you okay?” He turns his attention to Liv, squeezing her shoulders and examining her with concern.
“I’m fine,” her voice cracks, and Jesse pulls her in for a hug, but not before looping his wife in. Warmth blooms in my chest.
These people love her.
“I don’t think you should be alone tonight, Liv,” Jackson says from the doorway. “This wasn’t random. Whoever did this had to seek you out; they unscrewed the light bulb so you wouldn’t be able to see them, and the only thing that kept them out was the dead bolt. They might get bolder next time, especially if they’re angry they missed out this time.”
“You told me you’d keep me in the loop about creepy flower guy,” Thea scolds her as if she suspected this guy would be an issue.
“I have been. This is the first time anything like this has happened. I swear.”
Unlike some of her earlier responses, I can tell she’s telling the truth. She might be withholding the truth from Jackson, but she won’t lie to her friend.
“How do you know it’s a guy?” Jackson asks.
“The handwriting was definitely from a man,” Thea admits,and Liv squeezes her eyes shut.
“You said there were no notes,” I call her out, and everyone’s attention falls to me suddenly as if they just remembered I was here.
“There was one note,” she admits. “It said…Choose me.”
Whatever warmth there was in my soul earlier ignites into a fiery rage.
Chapter Seven
Liv
“Stay here tonight,” Thea insists.
“No, I am not screwing up my life because of some weirdo. I’m going to sleep in my own bed and continue like I would normally.”
“I can call one of my deputies in and have them sit in front of your house. At least for tonight,” Jackson offers. This is a small county, and I know they don’t have people like that to spare. Besides, I don’t want to draw any more attention to this. I don’t know his deputies, and they might spread my business through the gossip mill.
“No. I’ll be fine.”
“You’re going home to pretend as if nothing happened?” Thea asks, and I can tell by her tone that she’s annoyed with me. “This is serious, Liv. And, scary.”
“I know…” I exhale slowly.
“I’ll take her home, I’ll stay,” Hayes says from his spot on the wall.
I’ve done my best to ignore his brooding presence until now because I know it’s more than that. He’s fuming with his need to protect me.
It’s always been that way.
When we were young, it was loud, and he’d throw caution to the wind if someone even looked at me the wrong way. But this is different.
