He glanced at his watch. “Do you have plans for today?”
“Just some errands, nothing that can’t wait.”
“Okay. Good. I…I need a little time to think about all of this, but I don’t want to leave you hanging. Let me run down to the barn and take care of what I need to do. Can you meet me back here at noon? We’ll finish this talk and decide what to do next.”
“Sure.” All her trepidation came out with that single syllable.
“Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me, Cody. You need time. You can have it. I want you to be sure.” With that, she kissed his cheek and walked out of his room.
He quickly showered and dressed, then snapped up his phone.
CODY: Can we talk?
She didn’t respond right away, so he headed downstairs and to the stables. Halfway across the pasture, his phone chimed.
BROOKE: We said everything we needed to say.
CODY: Maybe there’s still a chance for us to have a relationship.
BROOKE: I’m having enough trouble with someone else. I can’t handle any more Kristi drama too.
Cody stopped in his tracks and stared at the message for God knew how long.
She’d moved on. She had someone new.
He was too late.
“Was that him?” Mindy Sue asked, as they both stared at the Polaroid she’d just found stuck in her textbook. She’d left it on the library table yesterday while she combed the stacks for another text. When she got back, she hadn’t noticed any of her things disturbed. She really shouldn’t leave her stuff unattended, but she’d only been gone a couple of minutes.
The picture showed her sitting with a classmate. Billy had asked her to tutor him for an upcoming test.
He'd left and she’d stayed to finish some other schoolwork.
“No. That was Cody.” Distracted by the latest picture from her stalker, she hadn’t really had her head on straight when she answered Cody.
He wanted to talk about them being friends while he lived in bliss with Kristi. She had a guy who wouldn’t leave her alone.
One problem at a time.
Anyway, he must have gotten busy, because he hadn’t said anything after her text.
She needed to figure out who was doing this to her.
“That’s a threat, Brooke.”
The stalker had written her a very clear message.You’re mine! Not his!
She barely knew Billy. They saw each other in class. They had a couple of group projects together. That was it.
“You know what you need to do.”
“I’ll take this over to campus security. They’ll contact and update the police.” For all the good it would do. They never found any prints or figured out who was doing this to her.
Still, she’d add this to the trail of evidence. Maybe one day it would be useful.
Hopefully before this guy did something worse to her.
