Swallowing carefully, he looked back up into the furious expression of the beautiful woman before him. “Beef or chicken?”
She moved away from him, using her hands to punctuate her thoughts as she moved around. “At first I didn’t think Stokes would really try to hurt me. But then he did. He had me on my back. The rain was running into my nose. I couldn’t breathe.” Her hands had formed fists held at shoulder height, as if she might need at any second to protect herself.
“You’re a warrior.” Kye spoke in a casual tone as he filled one of the plates he’d brought to the stove. “Win or lose, a warrior goes down fighting. If you’re alive you’re surviving. That’s what they teach you in the service.”
She stared at him, as if trying to absorb his words despite the turbulence he could see swirling inside her like an offshore hurricane. “I would have killed him, Kye. I wanted to.” Saying the words seemed to intimidate her, but she continued. “One second I was scared. I knew he was going to hurt me if I don’t stop him. I was screaming. Oleg was going mad, hurling himself at the windows because he couldn’t get to me. All at once this crazy mad anger just boiled up out of me. All I could think was I mustn’t lose this fight. Whatever it takes. Then the hammer was in my hand. And I would have done anything, anything to win.”
He put down the plate and approached her slowly. “Yard. That bastard deserved anything he got.”
“No.” She shook her head, fists flying open as if to hold him off. “I train my K-9 teams to be the best. That means being in control of a situation. But I wasn’t ready. He came at me before I could think. I should have been ready. I train my K-9s every day to be certain they are ready. I shouldn’t have let him get the better of me.”
He took her gently by the shoulders and ducked his head to make her glance up. “Now listen to me. You were about to—” His heart shifted into overdrive at the thought of what might have happened if he hadn’t arrived, but he didn’t let it show. “You were fighting for your life. You were doing what you had to do to protect yourself.”
She looked past him suddenly toward Oleg, who stood silently watching them from the doorway. “Oleg knew Stokes was out there. He was trying to get to the door before I went out. I thought it was just the storm upsetting him. That’s why I wouldn’t let him out with me. I should have trusted him. He knew something was wrong. I made a rookie mistake.”
“You made a decision based on the best information you had.”
He steered her toward the place where he had put the plate down and pushed her into the chair. Then he bent down on a knee in front of her. “I saw you fighting Stokes. And I believe you when you said you had it. Maybe I should have waited for you to prove it. Then Stokes would have to explain in court how he got beat by a girl.”
He watched her try to smile at his small joke. But it was as faulty as a shorted lightbulb. She twisted her arms together under her breasts. He had to use every ounce of control not to look down. “It’s over now, Yard.”
“It doesn’t feel over.” Her expression was rigid, as if the pressure of holding back her emotions had tightened every muscle in her face. “I’m still so angry. Like I want to explode. And I don’t know why.”
Kye nodded, in sync at last. This wasn’t about Stokes, exactly. Being vulnerable frightened her more than being attacked. He supposed that made sense. For a person who thought she had to fight every battle alone. “What do you want, Yard?”
She glanced as one of his hands curved tightly on her shoulder. She saw that the knuckles were slightly scraped. He’d fought Stokes, too, until she’d been able to release Oleg.
One sight of the wolfdog baring two rows of gleaming teeth had been enough to bring Stokes under control.
He’d actually whimpered and groveled in the mud as Kye secured him. “Don’t let him bite me. Okay? Please don’t let her sic that dog on me.” Stokes, the man who’d set one of her K-9s on a fellow officer, was terrified of being bitten.
Yardley whipped tendrils of hair back from her face with her hand, bewildered by her own memories. “Stokes was a coward. I was fighting a coward.”
“Bullies often are cowards when they find themselves the victim. Let it go, Yard.”
“I can’t.” She stared at him, her dark eyes gleaming with angry tears she would never shed. “I want the anger to stop. But it’s stuck here.” She thumped her chest with a fist. “Maybe I should get stupid drunk and pass out.”
“I don’t think that’s what you need.” Kye’s voice sounded strange even in his own ears. That was because her thump had caused her breasts to jiggle very provocatively behind her shirt.
His tone brought her head up. “What do you think I need?”
His smile was slow and deliberate. “Something physical, something that will make you sweat and your heart pound and—”