I pushed against the arms that held me even though the part of my brain that kept time knew he wasn’t there anymore. I knew he was gone, but I was back-one-two steps behind, catching up when Carter asked if it had been Vince.
You’re safe, one side of my brain said to the other as if calling behind.
Something about a black BMW.
Red. Marked. An X of ownership over my heart.
How could he?
How did he?
Did he not hear me?
Of course not. I wasn’t supposed to talk to him.
Don’t chase him.
What did bodyguards do? Chase or stay? Arrest them? Beat them up? I had no idea.
Please stay.
I wanted Carter to stay with me, but I didn’t want him to see me. I covered the red gashes as if they were my naked body and looked at the floor.
Stay with me.
His arms went around me. He spoke, but I didn’t know what he said. I covered the red X. I couldn’t let Carter see. I was marked. I knew it was just Sharpie. I knew it wasn’t me or anything about me, but if he saw, he’d be disgusted. He’d think Vince owned me.
I knew the fear that Carter would think I was marked and owned by Vince wasn’t rational. But my rational mind wasn’t in charge. People would think I gave up. I didn’t want to be the girl who gave up.
Carter took off his jacket, exposing his holster and gun. He put the jacket on my shoulders. I closed it around me, covering the X.
“Don’t tell Darlene,” I heard myself say.
Carter picked me up, and I let him carry me down the stairs like a child. Not having to hold myself up broke something in me. Some defiance about letting another human being see who I was and what I’d been through. I didn’t have to be strong for that minute. I took my hands away from the marks and put my arms around him.
They were just red lines, after all. Not a tattoo. Not a permanent smear about who I was or what I was worth. They were just a madman’s marker.
“Tell Jamal we’re getting in a cab,” he said. I thought he was talking to me, but I could hear a garbled response from his earpiece.
Cabs hung around outside the clubs on most nights, and Carter had me in one in a few seconds.
“She sick?” The cabbie looked at him from the rearview mirror.
“No,” I said.
“She’s fine.” Carter closed the door behind him.
“You puke, you pay,” the cabbie responded.
“Deal.” He gave the guy my address, and we pulled into Sunset Boulevard traffic. He turned his body around to face me and looked right into my face. I was vulnerable and frightened. Even in the dark with the cab jerking to a stop at a red light, I found strength in his eyes. A calm in the storm. A stability when everything around me was unsure and dangerous.
“Thank you,” I said.
“I shouldn’t have left you alone.”
“You can’t be on top of me all the time.”
His eyebrow raised slightly as if he wanted to disagree but couldn’t. I got the joke and let myself smile.
“Can you make sure I’ve locked up before you go? Just check everything?”
“I’ll stay with you.”
Was he staying? It was too much. Where would he sleep? Would he keep his hands off me? Would I keep my hands off him? In my emotional state, I didn’t think I could.
“You can go home. I have the best security system money can buy.”
“Yeah. And his name is Carter Kincaid.”
He said it with such confidence, I let a few more layers of fear and insecurity drop off me. We were in a tight space together, behind locked car doors. I leaned into him and let myself relax, watching the night city streak by the window.
“I feel so stupid.”
“Why?”
Going to the bathroom. Letting my guard down. Buying a white dress.
“Everything.”
“What happened tonight is seventy-five percent my fault.”
I turned away from the window to look at his profile.
“I went to the bathroom without telling you.”
“Doesn’t matter. I thought the back hall was secure, and that was lazy and stupid. Now it’s personal. Now if anything happens to you, it’s on me. Trust me, that marker he put on you? It’s not harmless. It’s where he wants to hurt you next.”
Suddenly exposed and weak again, I closed his jacket over my dress.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t trying to scare you.”
“Yes, you were.”
“These guys, they go quiet for a while, then they pop back up like ducks on a shooting range.”
“Ducks on a shooting range?”
The comparison struck me as funny. It poked me in just the right place, or wrong place.
“Yeah, they go around and come back and . . . What? What’s so funny?”
“That’s the worst analogy I’ve ever heard.”
“Why?”
“The ducks just, I don’t know. Move across slowly. They’re a little more predictable.”
“All right, well . . . It’s not that funny.”
I couldn’t stop laughing.
“Poor ducks.” I spoke between breaths. “Not bothering anyone and . . .” I tried to catch a breath. “Evil, deadly ducks. A horror movie of poultry. Donald . . . Donald . . .”
“Did you eat a brownie?”
I shook my head and rubbed the tears from my eyes. “Donald Duck. Evil mastermind.” I made a throaty quacking noise.
He smiled and did something shocking. A perfect squicky Donald Duck impression.
“Kill them all.”
We both laughed all the way to the house, and it wasn’t even funny.
CHAPTER 17
CARTER
She was releasing tension. Her nervous laugh was no more than a response to being strung too tightly. So that was what happened when she let go a little.
It was all right. I loved watching it get released. I figured by the time we got to her house, she’d be thinking straight.
I needed her to have her head on her shoulders, because mine was getting spun around. Seeing her hurt and humiliated had awakened feelings. Admittedly, I’d been attracted to her before. Not a big deal. I’d been attracted to plenty of women. I’d even dated some of them.
But she was my principal, and she had an active stalker.
Feelings kept a bodyguard from thinking clearly.
Feelings got in the way of good judgment.
Feelings made a guy look in the wrong direction.
Most of all, feelings could rearrange a guy’s priorities. That couldn’t happen.
“Can you check the back?” she asked as we went up the three steps to her gate. “I get nervous going outside.”
I was going to do more than check her back door.
I was going to stay for the remaining two hours of my shift. We could talk or whatever. Then I’d lock her in the house and away from danger.
She punched in her code and opened the gate; I followed her in, covering her back and snapping the gate closed behind her. Walking behind her, I could take in her perfect shape. She was insanely feminine. Graceful even when doing something as simple as stepping up her pace. The motion-sensitive light went on as if applauding her presence, and the camera clicked on, following her as if it couldn’t help itself.
I could almost sympathize with Vince’s obsession.
Almost.
She pressed her thumb to the glass pad in the door, and it opened. The lights in the house went on automatically. She looked at me over her shoulder.
“I’m going to change. Kitchen’s over there if you want anything.”