She needed someplace she could sleep without being disturbed, or thinking someone was coming after her.
“I want to take you back to the ranch. You need to rest. Your mother is frantic to see you.”
She pressed her lips tight. “I have to turn in my paper and take one last test, so I can graduate. I can’t let him take that away from me, too. The dean mentioned something about the press, too.” Her breathing picked up after she said that last part.
Cody didn’t like that she feared the press hounding her. He wouldn’t let that happen. “You’re not talking to the press, or giving them a statement. I don’t want you to talk to anyone, including the governor and police, about what happened without me present.”
Her gaze went back to the wall. “Okay.”
“Okay? That’s it? No argument? You wouldn’t rather have Doug Wagner handling things for you?” Hurt tinged those bitter words.
“Doug was very helpful, but I don’t want to take advantage, if you’re willing to help me.”
“I would have helped you through all of this if you’d said one single word that made me even suspect you were in trouble. I’m here, Brooke. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll keep you safe and everyone you don’t want to see away. I promise.”
He needed her to trust him. He needed her to believe he wasn’t going anywhere. He’d be right by her side. Forever if she’d have him.
“I don’t really care what the press wants, what the governor wants, what the police and the school want. None of it matters. They can’t bring her back.” She stood from the desk chair and managed to lower herself onto the bed behind Cody. The heavy brace on her leg made it difficult to manage, but she settled on her side facing the wall, grabbed their daughter, brought herto her chest, and held tight. “I just want everyone to leave me alone.”
She kept her back to him, her shoulders shaking as she cried.
He gave her some space, seeing the exhaustion on her face and in how hard every move seemed to be for her.
But he couldn’t help offering comfort when she needed it so badly. He sifted his fingers through her soft hair and brushed it away from her cheek. “Get some rest, honey. Mindy Sue will be back soon with the food. You’ll eat, and you’ll feel a little better.”
He hoped so anyway, because he couldn’t stand to see her so broken and in pain, lost to her anguish and unable to really hear what he was trying tell her, let alone believe in a future for them.
He just needed to be patient.
And have that long-overdue talk with Kristi.
Chapter Nine
Cody’s temper simmered beneath his grief as he thought about what Adam had done to Brooke and how the governor had swooped in to cover it all up. He wanted to know why Brooke went along with it, instead of calling for Adam’s head on a fucking platter.
Maybe it was as simple as she just couldn’t deal with it right now. As he’d seen, just breathing was all she could manage some moments. Her emotions seemed to be all over the place.
Not surprising given the hormones she was probably dealing with because of the pregnancy and birth, plus the trauma.
He remembered the way she’d drifted off while he tended her wounds, how the light literally went out of her. She wasn’t in any frame of mind to make sound decisions right now.
He'd keep a close eye on her.
The governor had the advantage, took it, and ran with it.
Cody wouldn’t allow him, or anyone else, to harm Brooke in any way.
Brooke was lost in overwhelming emotions and pain. Nothing would bring back their little girl. She needed time to grieve. To heal. To find her way out of this dark and devastating time.
Adam Harris was locked up—in a hospital for now, jail soon if Cody had anything to say about it.
Brooke wanted to be left alone. That might change, but right now, she needed time to sort out her feelings about what happened while mired under grief and depression. Soon, she’d get angry. It was an inevitable emotion and part of the grieving process.
As a lawyer, he’d seen enough tragedy hit his clients and their families. Sadness and depression gave way to not believing the event could have happened and bargaining with the universe to change things. Inescapably, somewhere in those stages came the anger. Brooke would go through all of that, and he would be there to help her through it until she came to accept what happened and find a way to move on with her life, absent their daughter.
He’d have to find a way to do the same. Again. He’d focus on Brooke, and in helping her, he’d help himself cope.
First he needed to know what information was out there, so he’d know how best to keep Brooke safe. He opened Brooke’s laptop and logged in with the password she’d shared with him years ago. For the next twenty minutes, he mined the internet for information on the attacks on campus and Adam Harris’s attempted suicide. It didn’t surprise him that very little information made the news. Mostly the information gave a vague description of the attacker and an account of what happened to each of the unnamed women. Police and campus security were at a loss in identifying the attacker and most of the articles ended with warnings to women on campus to always stay in groups.
