He nodded. “The guy is Bradley Flowers, age thirty-six. He has an assortment of arrest warrants, three convictions for some fairly nasty crimes. Just his being here is a violation of his parole. The attempted kidnapping won’t help his case, either. He’s in jail, waiting extradition back to Colorado. The D.A. is still figuring out the best way to charge him. He’ll probably be tried here, serve out his sentence there, then come back to finish up with prison time for kidnapping.”
“How much time does he have left in Colorado?”
“Fifty years.”
“Oh.”
The thought of an eighty-six-year-old stalker was a little less frightening.
He stroked her cheek, finally staring into her eyes. “Try not to think about it. You’ll have plenty of time to deal with it later.”
She nodded. “I’ve never had anyone come after me like that. Some of my fans are intense, but they’re not scary. A lot of them are cops.”
“So I should make sure I stay in line.”
She smiled. “Probably.” She held up her free hand. “At least I’m not shaking anymore.”
“It’s okay if you are. You’ve been through a lot.”
She sipped her wine. If she wasn’t careful, she could find herself reliving the moment. Not exactly the best way to spend an evening. The doctor at the hospital had given her a short-term prescription to help her sleep. Normally she wasn’t big on prescription drugs, but this time she might make an exception.
“Everything happened so fast,” she murmured. “I wasn’t prepared for him to attack me.”
“Why would you be?”
“I guess I wouldn’t be, but it was weird and so quick. He creeped me out. I guess it’s good I paid attention to that.” She thought about the flying handbags and zealous hits of pepper spray. “It must have been surreal to see the old ladies go on the attack.”
“Not something I’m going to forget.” He shrugged.
She noticed something intense in his expression. “What?”
“I wanted to kill him.”
The words were spoken evenly, calmly, but with a certainty that told her Ethan wasn’t kidding.
Before she could react, he continued.
“Tyler nearly went crazy trying to get to you.” There was pride in his voice now. “He wanted to take the guy down.”
She felt a little warmer on the inside, knowing the men in her life wanted to protect her. That there were…
Wait a minute. Men in her life?
“Maybe it’s not so bad here,” Ethan said.
“Maybe not,” she admitted, turning her attention back to the stalker and away from Ethan.
She wasn’t sure what would have happened if her crazed stalker had struck in a big town. While the police would have still dragged him away, she wasn’t sure she would have been so well protected by other people who just happened to be there.
“We should stop talking about this,” he suggested. “You need to relax, not relive the event.” He rose. “I’ll leave you to your bath.”
Not sure if she wanted him to stay or not, she watched him leave. After placing her glass of wine on the tile surround, she settled back in the water and closed her eyes.
As she did, she remembered the feel of the man’s hand on her arm, the rush of air as he barreled into her, pushing her to the ground. She reached up and lightly touched the left side of her face. It was painful and swollen but not too bad. It could have been a lot worse.
She drew in a deep breath and tried to relax. This time when she closed her eyes, she saw Ethan, which was a much better picture. She smiled, thinking about him smiling. She thought about how he was with both Tyler and her nieces. How he looked after his mom and sisters. He had a strong sense of family. A need to belong to a community. He was his father’s son.
He’d gotten Rayanne pregnant and had done the right thing. That’s who he was. He would do the right thing now. She knew the character of the man and was willing to admit that twelve years ago, he’d still been a kid. Not mature enough to stand up for the woman he claimed to love. Or maybe he hadn’t loved her enough. But that was the past and if they were to work anything out, she had to be willing to let it go. The fact that he might not have cared about her as much as she’d cared about him didn’t change the fact that they had a son together and decisions had to be made.
It also didn’t change the fact that she loved him more now than ever. Time had allowed her to pretend it was over, but she’d been fooling herself. So what was it to be? A second chance with the only man she’d ever loved? Did she allow pride and mistakes to keep them apart forever? There was no guarantee that Ethan felt the same way, but maybe it was time to find out.
She pulled the plug on the tub and stood. After drying off, she wrapped herself in the bathrobe he’d left for her and walked out into the master bedroom.
Ethan stood by the fireplace, staring at the flames. He didn’t hear her, didn’t turn. She was able to study the handsome lines of his face, the stiffness in his body, as if he were forcing himself to do something he didn’t want to do.
Or preventing himself from doing something he did.
“Ethan?”
He visibly shuddered, but didn’t turn to look at her. “I’ll drive you home.”