Rage flooded me, but fear swamped me even faster. Hot, sharp, and completely irrational. My mind jumped ahead—locks, cameras, routes, and worst-case scenarios all mapped out before history could repeat itself.
There was more to this story, yet I didn’t understand. Had she been threatened? While she lived here, on my property?
She came down the stairs smiling a few minutes later, her hair damp and loose, and padded to the coffee maker.
“You okay?” she asked, refilling her mug.
My mind warred with itself. What do I say? And how?
Rather than speaking, I just pushed the card across the table.
Her smile fell slowly. “Where’d you get that?”
“I wasn’t snooping. I saw it on a stack of paperwork.”
“It’s not,” she said, putting the mug down. “It’s not what you think. It’s old.”
“It saysfound you, Celine. You’ve only lived here for a couple of months.”
She snatched it from the table and shoved it into the folder it had fallen out of. “It doesn’t mean anything anymore.”
I gritted my teeth and exhaled loudly. “It means everything, Celine. I could have helped.”
“I handled it.” She lifted her chin, her tone defensive.
“You could have told me.” I wanted to grab her and make her understand.
How much I cared. How much I worried. But I kept my hands to myself. The last thing I wanted was to scare her. The thought of that man coming here pummeled me, making it hard to see straight.
“Someone who hurt you, who hurt your kids, was still contacting you, threatening your safety and you just, what? Figured you’d handle it on your own?” I sounded unhinged, and it disgusted me, but I couldn’t control myself.
Her spine straightened as she stared at me. “Yes.” She was bracing, not listening, on the defense, protecting herself.
Fuck, I wanted to reach for her, to pull her into my arms and magically fix everything.
But since that was impossible, I worked on lowering my voice. “That’s not okay,” I said.
Her eyes flashed with anger. “You don’t get to decide what’s okay.”
“I do when it puts you and the kids in danger.”
She stiffened. “I was not in danger.”
“Really?” I quipped. “Was this the onlyincident?”
She lowered her head, her focus dropping to the floor. “No,” she said softly. “There was more.”
I threw my hands up, my lungs so damn constricted I could barely breathe. “We could have taken steps, precautions, changed routines. Made sure?—”
“How?” she cut in. “By locking the doors? Pulling the kids out of school? Hiding in the house constantly? I won’t live like that.”
“I’d have done whatever it took.” There was nothing I wouldn’t do to keep her safe. Why didn’t she understand that?
“That’s the problem,” she said quietly. “You don’t understand how that sounds to me.”
I snapped my mouth shut, searching for the right words. I was trying to protect her, not erase her. Couldn’t she see that?
“You kept something serious from me,” I finally said.
