Page 38 of Chased

For once they took the hint, so it was just him and Madison heading over to her place. Unfortunately, now that Sanchez wanted to think of something bullshit to talk about, he couldn’t.

Madison walked close, so that their arms brushed once or twice. He thought about taking her hand, but then that seemed like a date thing, and they weren’t on a date, and anyway holding hands was for fucking teenagers.

As they got to her front steps, he saw her looking up past the garden, to the place where his wolf sat and watched her every night. He’d wondered if she knew he was there.

Apparently that was a ‘yes,’ because she turned to him and said, “Is that you who’s been watching my cabin at night? Your wolf, I mean?”

Busted. He said, “Sometimes I might pass by.”

“Or lurk,” she said. “You get paid to lurk, isn’t that what you said? So up there in the woods, is that official lurking, or pro bono?”

Shit. She just went right for the jugular, didn’t she? But he was the master at that shit. He countered with, “I hear you have a fiancé back in Colorado.”

She stepped back, her eyes going wide. “Where the hell did you find that out?”

“It was announced in your local newspaper.” It had taken all of three minutes to track down the article. “Which is a quaint little custom. Most towns don’t even have newspapers anymore.”

“Shady Valley is old-fashioned,” she said. She was still tense, still keeping space between them.

“The kind of old-fashioned where the rich people have arranged marriages?”

She pressed her lips together, and then finally gave a sigh. “Yes. And the kind of old-fashioned where if the little woman gets mouthy, you’re allowed to beat the crap out of her. As many times as necessary to make sure she knows her place.”

Fuck. He’d thought maybe she was running from an abuser, but it hadn’t occurred to him that the abuse might be systemic—or worse, condoned. He felt a growl rising up in his chest.

“He hit you?” Sanchez immediately started thinking about ways to kill the fucker.

She shook her head. “He didn’t get the chance. But my father did it to my mother, and if I hadn’t left when I did, Henri would have done it to me. He’s a sadistic son of a bitch who told me he couldn’t wait to make me submit.”

Her voice broke on the last sentence, and she shook her head. “Dammit,” she said. “Henri Levesque does not get to make me cry.”

Her courage broke something inside him too. She was a survivor—something that wasn’t easy in a place where everyone told you, and showed you, that you didn’t matter. She shouldn’t have had to go through that.

Sanchez stepped in, putting his hand on her shoulder. Not too fast, not too close. The idea of men hurting her was still too near the surface.

He said, “Only Richard Gere gets to make you cry?”

She gave a little laugh, just this side of being a sob. “That’s different. It’s romantic, how he sweeps his girlfriend off her feet and carries her right out of the factory into the life she’s always dreamed of.”

He stepped closer. She didn’t step back. “Is that what you always wanted?” he asked.

She snorted. “I was never going to get that. I knew from the time I was twelve that I had to save myself. And I did.” He could hear the pride in her voice. He didn’t know how to tell her he was proud of her too.

He moved in closer, both hands on her shoulders now, looking down into her face. “Are they coming after you?” he asked quietly.

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Last I heard they’re looking for me, but I don’t know if they can find me. I changed the license plate on my car, and I used cash all the way across the country so I wouldn’t leave a trail.”

“But you’re still using your real name.”

She bit her lip. “I had to, for the job. I didn’t have the contacts to get a fake ID. Do you think they could still trace me somehow? My bank account is from a national online bank, and the address on it is a PO box in Colorado.”

“It depends how good they are,” Sanchez said. “I could find you, with that much information.”

“Yeah, but you’re the best.”

“Damn straight.” He found himself caressing her shoulders, trying to soothe her, wanting to hug her except he didn’t do that, and he didn’t know if she’d like it if he tried.

Instead he said, “If you want, I can talk to the guys that do our undercover IDs. See if there’s a way to scrub your trail if we need to.”