"Damn it." He stood there, hands on his knees, gulping air. His feet were screaming now, cut and bruised from the chase. But the pain was secondary to the cold fury building in his chest.
Someone was watching her. Someone was coming onto his property in the middle of the night to watch her.
This wasn't nothing. This wasn't a tourist with bad boundaries or a teenager taking shortcuts. This was a threat.
He made his way back through the woods, slower now, picking his path more carefully. When he emerged into the backyard, the motion light had clicked off again, leaving the cottage dark except for the soft glow of the porch light they'd left on.
Tessa was standing on the deck.
She had her arms wrapped tightly around herself, her blonde curls loose around her shoulders, wearing the flannel shirt she slept in. Even from across the yard, he could see the tension in her posture, the way she was holding herself together by sheer force of will.
"That was him," she said as he approached. It wasn't a question.
"Yeah." Brian climbed the deck steps, wincing as his cut feet protested. "He got away. Lost him in the woods."
She looked down at his feet and sucked in a breath. "Brian. You're bleeding."
"It's fine."
"It's not fine. Come inside." Her voice had shifted, the fear giving way to something more focused. The doctor emerging. "I need to look at those cuts."
He let her lead him inside, too tired to argue. She sat him down on the edge of the bathtub and filled the sink with warm water, her movements quick and efficient. He watched her gather supplies from the medicine cabinet: antiseptic, gauze, and medical tape. She'd found everything in under a minute, like she'd already catalogued the contents.
She probably had. That was who she was.
"This is going to sting," she said, kneeling in front of him with a cloth soaked in antiseptic.
It did. He hissed through his teeth as she cleaned the cuts, but he didn't pull away. Her hands were steady, her touch gentle despite the necessary roughness of the task.
"You shouldn't have chased him," she said without looking up. "You could have been hurt. Really hurt."
"He was on my property. Watching my house." Watching you, he didn't say, but they both heard it.
"And if he'd had a weapon? If he'd decided to stop running and fight?"
"Then I'd have dealt with it."
She looked up at him then, her green eyes bright with something between anger and fear. "You can't just deal with someone who might be dangerous, Brian. You're not invincible."
"Neither are you." He held her gaze. "And I wasn't going to let him get away without at least trying to stop him."
She was quiet for a moment, her hands stilling on his foot. Then she let out a breath and went back to work, wrapping gauze around the worst of the cuts with practiced precision.
"I'm calling the police tomorrow," he said. "First thing. This has gone beyond suspicious. Someone is stalking you, Tessa. We need it on record."
"I know." Her voice was small. "I was hoping... I don't know what I was hoping. That it would just go away. That I was imagining things."
"You weren't imagining anything." He reached down and caught her hand, stopping her work. "This is real. But we're going to handle it. Together."
She looked up at him, and he saw the fear she'd been hiding beneath the competent doctor exterior. The same fear she'd carried from Chicago, the fear she'd come here to escape.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I brought this to your door. Literally. You were living your quiet life, and I showed up with all my baggage, and now?—"
"Stop." He tugged her hand gently, pulling her up from her knees. She rose, and he shifted to make room for her on the edge of the tub beside him. "You didn't bring anything. Whatever this is, whoever this guy is, it's not your fault. You don't get to take the blame for someone else's choices."
"But if I hadn't come here?—"
"If you hadn't come here, I'd still be rattling around this cottage alone, pretending that was what I wanted." He turned to face her, their knees touching in the small space. "You showing up was the best accident that ever happened to me."
