I should come clean, but how? That’s why I need to walk away and end this. I got what I wanted. Hell, I even rescued her. Saved her from getting her purse stolen. Talked with her, got to know her a little bit and see that she’s doing all right. She will be all right. I know it.
“Thank you for agreeing to come with me,” I say, taking a step back like I desperately need some space between us, glancing across the street where I parked my car in front of the Mexican restaurant. Like a miracle, it’s still there, though I think I see a ticket clamped under the driver’s-side windshield wiper, fluttering in the wind.
“Thanks for the coffee. And thank you for helping me earlier, with the purse situation.” She sinks her teeth into her lower lip and I want to groan. It’s like she’s so damn sexy and doesn’t even know it. I know she doesn’t know it. That’s part of the reason she’s so damn appealing. “That could’ve gotten really . . . ugly. I can’t say enough how grateful I am that you did.”
I take a step closer, forgetting my earlier thought about needing space. Fuck that. I need to be close to her. “I wasn’t going to let those guys hurt you,” I murmur, taking her hand and squeezing gently. It’s like a jolt of electricity passes from my palm to hers and I know she feels it. I see it in the widening of her eyes, the way her fingers curl around mine and tighten just the slightest bit. Like she can’t help herself.
When we’re around each other, that’s exactly it. We can’t seem to help ourselves. The need to touch her, stand near her, breathe her in, is so strong I can’t fight it. I don’t think she can either.
She tilts her head back, her gaze meeting mine. She doesn’t say anything and neither do I. We just look at each other, the wind swirling around us, golden-blond tendrils slipping from her ponytail and flying about her face. The sun is lower in the sky, casting her in a pinkish-orange glow, and the words slip past my lips without thought.
“Can we exchange numbers so you can text me when you’re home safe?”
Her hand doesn’t stray from mine. “Yes,” she whispers.
I slowly—reluctantly—release my grip on her hand, reaching into my front pocket to pull out my phone. I open up a new text message and she hesitantly repeats her number to me, which I enter into my phone along with a quick message before I hit send.
Her phone dings and she pulls it out of her purse, smiling when she sees the message.
Hi.
Her fingers flash over the screen of her phone as she sends a reply, and my phone chimes within seconds.
Thank you. For everything.
My heart cracks. This girl. She’s burrowed right into it. She tucked herself in the depths of my heart years ago, when I first found her on that dirty mattress, bruised and filthy and so scared. It tore me up, what my father did to her, and I wanted desperately to help her, as if my good deeds could make up for that.
I don’t think it came close to making up for what he inflicted on her, but I tried my best. I rescued her, yet I was still somehow made out to be the bad guy. Is that what she thinks of me—the old me? That I was involved in my father’s sick, twisted games? That I played a part in all of it? Theories abound over what I did. One is that he used me as a way to lure the girls in. Another is that I gave my dad up so I wouldn’t have to go down with him.
Those two theories hurt the most. To think she might believe it?
Just about tears me apart.
“Enough with the thank yous,” I tell her out loud, making her smile. “You’d better get on the road. How long does it take for you to get home?”
She hesitates as she returns her phone to her purse, almost like she doesn’t want to tell me. I wait patiently, shoving my hands in my front pockets, watching her. “A little over an hour,” she admits.
It still blows me away that she lives so close to the so-called scene of the crime. It’s as if she wants to test herself on a daily basis.
“Then you’d better text me in about ninety minutes.” I give her a stern look and her smile doesn’t waver. In fact, it grows even bigger. “Okay?”
Katie rolls her eyes in exaggeration. “Okay, I will.”
“Promise?” The word slips out of me, the one word she always used to repeat to me, and her eyes widen as shock washes over her face.
“I promise,” she murmurs solemnly, her gaze as wide and blue as the ocean behind us.
I know without a doubt she won’t break that promise.
“So let me get this straight.” The detective paused, his gaze locked on mine with cool blue eyes that reminded me of ice.
His attitude was icy, too. We’d been going at it for a couple of hours. Question after question, the same one asked a different way, again and again, until I felt like I was going to break. Which was exactly what they wanted to do.
Break me.