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“What happened?” he asked. “Why are you so afraid of him?”

For a long moment she didn’t answer. He wouldn’t ask again, wouldn’t push for answers. He just wanted her to know she could talk to him if she needed to. If she wanted to.

“He lied to me,” Gabi said as they rounded a curve in the gravel road. “About who he was, about what he wanted. Everything he ever told me was a lie.”

A knot formed in Silas’s gut. He couldn’t ask Gabi to stay without telling her the truth. About Mystic Springs; about him. More lies. Was it possible she’d see it any other way?

“The short story is, he swept me off my feet. For a while I thought his possessiveness was love, but it wasn’t. He wanted to own me, to control every aspect of my life. I thought he was insecure, that if I loved him enough, if I pleased him, he’d relax and trust me, and we could have a happy life, a good marriage. I wanted him to smile more, the way he did when we were dating. I wanted him to not check on me every ten minutes, as if he was always expecting me to leave him.”

Silas already realized what kind of man her husband had been.

“We’d been married a year when he hit me the first time.”

His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Gabi, I’m so sorry.”

“As suddenly as he lost his temper, he apologized. He kissed me, and swore it would never happen again. It did. There was never any warning. It was as if he had a hidden trigger. I never knew what would set him off. His outbursts were sudden and explosive. The last time he hit me, he put me in the hospital. That’s where I found out I was pregnant. That’s when I knew I had to leave him.”

Silas had a pretty good picture of Blake, by this point. “I’m surprised he let you go.”

“He wouldn’t have, but his mother still controls a big portion of the family business. Since I asked for nothing in the divorce, not a dime, she insisted he sign the papers. I didn’t tell him I was pregnant. Maybe that was wrong, but I knew what kind of life she’d have with Blake in it, and… All I wanted to do was save her.”

“Mia.”

“I don’t want her to ever know what kind of man her father is.”

“He knows about her?”

Gabi nodded. “He signed the papers, as his mother instructed, but he followed me. First across town, then to another city. I’d turn around and he was there. Just… watching. Eventually I couldn’t hide the fact that I was pregnant. I kept expecting lawyers to show up at my door, but they didn’t.”

“He had other plans,” Silas grumbled.

“Yes. When Mia was almost three months old Blake turned up at my apartment. He broke in. He tried to kill me, and he said he’d take the baby, that he’d make her pay every day for being my child.” Gabi looked at him then, as he turned onto a Mystic Springs street. “I fought back. He didn’t expect that. A neighbor heard the noise and came to check on me. Blake panicked, shoved my neighbor aside, and ran out of the apartment. I grabbed Mia, loaded up my car with whatever I could, and hit the road. All I knew to do was drive north.”

“And you ended up here.”

Gabi nodded.

“Where are we headed?”

“Mia is with Cindy. I need to see my baby, need to get my hands on her and make sure he hasn’t found her.”

Maybe Judge wasn’t protecting Gabi and Mia from him, after all. Maybe the bloodhound’s instincts had led him to Mystic Springs to keep them safe from another threat. Blake Pierce. Was it really a coincidence that the dog had shown up about the same time Gabi had found her way to town? Was there some unknown magic at work?

Judge wasn’t the only one who’d protect Gabi and Mia. Silas wasn’t going to walk away from either of them. Not now, not when they needed him most.

* * *

The B&B parlor was empty, but for Blake and his new friend. Jenna was flirting with him but the truth was, pretty as she was the ballsy bitch wasn’t his type. She was too confident, too strong for his tastes.

And she was full of questions. Why was he here? Where was he from? He wasn’t about to tell her that he was here to kill his ex-wife and take his child. He didn’t yet know if she would help or try to stop him.

She didn’t strike him as the helping type.

“What do you want?” he finally asked, as she continued to ask probing questions. What the hell did his mother’s maiden name have to do with anything?

“I’m about to turn your world upside down.”

He was beginning to regret asking her in. Still, he needed to know if he could trust her not to tell Gabi, or anyone else, that he was squatting at the B&B. “I don’t need or want…”