Page 95 of Protect My Heart

Her beautiful eyes turned serious. “I will. But not today.”

He nodded. We all process in our own time. Doc was no different.

The house was quiet without Tigger bouncing around. He needed to pick him up from his brother’s house today. “Are your parents joining us?”

“Nope, they caught a nine a.m. flight back to Tennessee.” She continued to the counter. “Have a seat. Coffee?”

He nodded. “I thought they were staying for another week?”

“I might have asked them to go.” She bit her lower lip. “In a good way.”

Maybe she was planning to go to Virginia sooner than he thought.

She came over with two mugs. She handed him one that said, I see guilty people then sat next to him. His eyes tracked her motions as she lifted the coffee to her lips. Her mug had a cop saying he didn’t recognize.

“My better half wears a badge” His brows peaked as he read it.

A sexy as hell smirk peeked out from behind the mug. “It’s new. You know you can get just about anything shipped overnight these days.”

“Were you doing a little online shopping in the basement of that cabin? Or maybe you had Sampson order it when he was under your spell?”

“I actually ordered it before he…” She swallowed hard. “Kidnapped me.”

He reached out and clasped her hand in his. “I’m amazed by you. In another minute, you would have talked him into untying you. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Davis was conflicted. He’s not really evil deep down. He did what he thought he had to do to save his family from his past shame. It didn’t take much for him to bend to the power of my suggestion.”

“Well, it was freakin’ awesome to watch. And scary as hell. Promise me you won’t do that to me?” He raised her hand to his lips. Doc had a hidden strength that had him beaming with pride.

“The power of suggestion and hypnotics only works if the subject is willing and open-minded. Some part of Davis wanted to let me go. He let me put him in a trance.” Her gaze traveled to the unopened letters on the other end of the table.

He didn’t need to be a psychologist to see this one was thinking about her father and if she misjudged him. He couldn’t fight that battle for her. God knows he wanted to. Gliding one hand across the table, he entwined his fingers with hers.

“If you’re willing to write up a statement based on your professional opinion, it could go a long way to reducing his sentence. If that’s what you want.” Jim wanted the man to rot in a cell for the rest of his days for what he did to Doc. But Doc had a compassionate heart and saw the good in people. If she wanted to help her abductor and believed in his virtue, then who was he to piss on her unicorn dreams.

“I’d like to see a full assessment done on him. I can recommend an excellent professional to conduct it.” She stared into her mug. “After seeing the results, I might be willing to recommend counseling and a reduced sentence.”

“You already did one on him, didn’t you?” Jim watched her brows furrow and the answers flash in her eyes. “You did. When you used that bewitching hypnosis stuff on him. You just need an official report to back up what you already know.”

She lifted a brow. “Maybe.”

Unbelievable. “Well, good thing you won’t need to use your superpowers of persuasion on me. I’ll follow you anywhere.”

A whole pond of frogs were hopping around in his stomach. Yes, she loved him, but was it enough? Time to find out.

“About Virginia.” Man was it hot in here? He wiped his palms on his thighs.

“Jim, what you heard wasn’t—”

“It doesn’t matter, because I’m going with you.” The words rushed out.

“That was always the plan.” She smiled at him.

“It was?” He hated the thought of moving away from his family, but for Doc he would move to Antarctica.

“I’m not taking the job.”

His brows flattened. He blinked away his confusion. “You’re not? Why?”