He didn’t know why he was gruff with her. Sure, he didn’t want people bugging him, but she didn’t count. She could bother him any way she wanted and he would deserve it. The scary part, the part that made him scowl, was that he’d probably enjoy it anyway.
“I thought maybe we could talk.” She bit her lip and her eyes flicked over to the leaning-sideways shanty that he now called home.
“Fine.” He wanted to say no, to tell her to leave, but he couldn’t. He led her inside without another word, shoving the gun onto a high shelf.
She sat on the lumpy futon carefully, as if it might give in any second. She probably didn’t realize that he slept right there every night, and if his 200-pound frame couldn’t do the thing in, her dainty self wasn’t going to do the trick either.
She had definitely gained weight from the gaunt figure she’d been in the hospital bed, but she still looked too slim. Fragile. What was she doing driving through the mountains alone?
“What do you want?” he asked, too loudly.
His heart squeezed as she winced. He should be able to control himself better than that, but he’d misplaced his control after seeing her broken and begging and hadn’t found it since.
She looked down at her folded hands then back up at him. “I need to thank you. My parents told me what you did for me. I know that you saved me. I also know you stayed beside me at the hospital before my parents got there.” She frowned. “I can’t remember most of it, but just knowing that someone cared enough to do that… well, it means a lot to me.”
“I got paid for it,” he said. “That’s why I did it.”
“You didn’t get paid for sitting with me,” she reminded him without missing a beat.
She misunderstood. She thought he meant her parents paying him to locate her. “That was just—” He cleared his throat against the thickness. “I’m the reason you were chosen.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m a… well, I was a DEA agent, investigating some of the men involved. The trafficking thing wasn’t our jurisdiction; we couldn’t touch it.” He shook his head, trying to explain how it had killed him to turn over the evidence to the FBI and watch them do nothing. “So I forced their hand: I planted evidence that the head office couldn’t ignore. They green-lighted a raid, and so we went in.”
“But I was already there. So you couldn’t have had anything to do with me getting chosen.” She looked perplexed, hopeful—and without an ounce of recognition.
“It was a trap. They were fucking with—” He caught himself. “Pardon me.”
She gave him a small smile. “It’s okay. My dad’s a cop, so I’m used to it.”
“That’s right. Drug task force.”
Her smile slipped. “How do you know that?”
“I worked with them. We do a lot of crossover stuff. Local intel contributing to the larger cases, that sort of thing. Your dad was part of a major bust two years ago, but I’ve been working with him since before then. I even met you once, when I happened to be in town for your big July 4th party. You were younger then, and I didn’t have this.” He waved at the beard that had grown in since he’d stopped giving a shit.
Abruptly, she stood and went to the door, but he got the idea that she needed air more than escape. “You think it’s related,” she said in a thin voice.
“I know it is. There was a note left in your hotel room saying so.” There had been no written note, just a leather whip laced with blood, but she didn’t need to know that detail.
“But if you and my dad helped catch the guys two years ago, then how…”
“These men are like insects. You destroy the hive and they just build another, only bigger. That combined agency taskforce caught the low-hanging fruit, while everyone important got away. This time was even worse. Between the FBI blocking us and the usual red tape, they couldn’t get permission for a raid.” He shook his head, pushing away all the illegal shit he’d pulled just to get her location, trying to forget the pain of arriving there only to find it empty. Luckily he’d had some basic skills in tracking and had found the trail of a single person, barefoot—her.
“If this is all true, then why didn’t my father tell me?”
“He doesn’t know. That was years ago, there was no reason to link the two except for the note. Then you were free and he needed to be there to help you heal. It’s up to you, but I’d prefer you don’t tell him. The guilt…” It was like ice, cutting him open and keeping him that way, frozen. But how could he complain to her after what she had been through? He couldn’t. “…it wouldn’t be good for him.”