“With you? With you, where?”
“My home,” I said.
I hadn’t even decided that when I spoke, but it was the natural thing to do. It was the only safe place I knew, away from prying eyes. And most importantly, close to me, where I could protect him no matter what while I looked for that dickhead and put the fear of God in him like he had done with Zach.
Because one thing was for certain. When I found Victor, he would pay for everything he’d done to Zach and then some.
SIX
ZACH
It was all too much.
Victor being back. My bakery truck gone. Dare taking me away from my apartment. It was all too much, happening too fast. I just needed time to slow down and give myself time to process everything. To figure out the best next move.
Though admittedly, was there a better next move than holing up with an ex-Navy SEAL who could protect me against the likes of Victor?
I glanced at Dare, who was too focused on driving to notice me and bit my lip. I’d never, in the past year, seen him be so angry, so possessive. So masculine. Not that he wasn’t, but he always appeared to me as this soft teddy bear who could do no harm. This side of him was different but not bad-different. Just different.
It was slightly intimidating, because the last man who’d shown these kinds of traits was the man I was running away from. Yet I knew deep within me that Dare didn’t have the capacity to be that evil. I didn’t think many people in this world did.
As intimidating as this macho energy was, however, it was also much more attractive on Dare—something my mind tried to refuse, to laugh at, to protect me from, but my body was a traitor. Because it wanted nothing more than to crawl up in his lap and stay there forever surrounded by his big grizzly bear energy.
“Are you okay?” he asked in a deep tone that sent shivers down my spine, and I flinched and looked away. Outside the window, the houses of Mayberry Holm were giving way to massive undeveloped fields.
“Yeah. I’m…I’m fine,” I mumbled.
“Are you cold?” he asked and immediately pressed a button that had the vents roaring to life.
I wasn’t cold. I wasn’t hot either. I was numb and that was probably worse, but I thanked him anyway and focused on the road.
I’d heard so much about the blueberry farm, but I’d never had the pleasure of seeing it. I’d always planned to visit, to pick fresh blueberries myself and to make something delicious with them, but work had gotten in the way of that. Work and shyness. Any time I thought of suggesting it to Dare on his daily visits, something caught in my throat, and I couldn’t do it. As if he’d think I was suggesting that he bend me over backwards and not something innocent like picking fruit. Yet in my brain it was one and the same.
Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.
I never said I’m not.
How was I going to share a space with this mountain of a man and keep myself in check when I’d known him for so longalready and still couldn’t be fully myself around him? And how long would I have to do this for? A day? Two days? A week? A lifetime? How long would I have to stay in hiding before I could resume my life? Would I ever be able to go back to the semblance of a life I’d built here? To any kind of life beyond Victor and the fear of his presence?
I closed my eyes and tried to breathe. It was the only thing I could do. The only thing I had any control over.
Just breathe, Zach. Breathe and take it one step at a time.
“Hey,” I felt a nudge on my shoulder, and I tried to open my eyes, but my lids felt heavy and impossible to lift.
“Wh-what happened?” I muttered as a big yawn overcame me.
A chuckle—his chuckle—gave me goosebumps that woke me right up.
“You dozed off,” he said. “Come on. Let’s get inside. We’re here.”
I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my palms and sat up in the car seat to look out the window, and I had to blink several times before I could believe what I was seeing.
We were surrounded by trees. I didn’t know the type. I was entirely clueless on anything to do with flora, but I was sure if I’d asked Teddy’s boyfriend, Wesley, he’d know. What I did know however was it wasn’t every day one saw colorful trees. While some brandished more traditionally fall colors like orange and red, others had purple and pink foliage, though even those seemed to be changing as well.
Despite that, they were beautiful and they gave the small house they surrounded an almost fairy-tale vibe.
“This is your home?” I asked as Dare offered his hand to help me out of his Chevy truck.
