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I was just about to get out when the front door opened. A tall man with jet-black hair stepped out. Lyndsey followed close behind him. They exchanged a few words, both too close to one another to be in a professional relationship. She leaned forward to kiss him, whether on the lips or the cheek, I couldn’t tell. I was too far away to see clearly. Though the intimacy between them was unmistakable, regardless.
So, there was a man. Good looking and fit. Just the sort of man I’d expect a woman like Lyndsey to be with. All this time, I thought she needed me for support, needed someone to rescue her from her feelings and the problems overpowering her.
She already had her knight in shining armor, though. Someone to lie beside her at night when the monsters started to descend.
The thought should have comforted me. I didn’t have to worry about her being alone here, having to face some unknown assailant by herself in the middle of the night.
But it didn’t.
I wanted to be the one Lyndsey ran to for help—not this man. Despite all my coaching to believe otherwise, I wanted Lyndsey for myself.
In other words, I was screwed.
Chapter Fourteen
Lyndsey
“Ican’t arrest someone solely on the basis that you think they’re evil,” Flynn said, glancing up from the note I received the night before.
He tossed it down onto the table with a flourish to emphasize his point. “Though no one thinks Kyle or Vanessa are innocents, I also don’t think they’d be capable of doing something like this.”
I closed the distance between us, refusing to back down. There was no way Flynn would convince me my suspicions were unwarranted. Not now, after this letter all but proved there was more going on than an accidental fire. “Someone broke into my house.”
“It was a raccoon.”
“Someone else, Flynn.” I glared down my nose at him. “I suppose the next thing you’re going to tell me is that this note was also written by a raccoon.”
“No. But Hummingbird Hollow is kind of a big deal. People will have read about the fire, and you’re bound to get all sorts of crazies sending you strange letters like this.”
“This wasn’t sent to my home,” I said, unable to hide my frustration. “It was placed among my files. Which means someone either slipped it into my things while I was at the office or had access to my home.”
“Or they were close by and added it to your things when you weren’t looking.”
I waved my hand in a flippant gesture, turning my back to him to disguise my tears. “Yes, because that’s supposed to make me feel better. Someone creepily stalking me and hiding threatening letters in my things.”
I was slowly losing control of my emotions.
This was not me. I didn’t cry when I didn’t get my way like a child throwing a tantrum. I didn’t crumble when someone didn’t agree with me. But after a week of dealing with all this stress, how else was I supposed to feel?
I shouldn’t be taking all this out on Flynn.
Especially since the poor man was doing me a favor after not even seeing me in almost three years. Yet, he had to know I wasn’t crazy. Because I wasn’t crazy.
Was I?
“Lynds,” Flynn’s calming voice came behind me. His hand touched my shoulder and turned me to face him. “Why is this such a big deal right now?”
“How is this not a big deal to you?” How could he not see it was a big deal tome? “Someone set my house on fire, then threatened worse if I don’t leave town. I could barely even sleep last night.”
Though, that was partially due to my roving thoughts about a sexy fireman.
Meeting Hunter had done even less to calm my nerves. If anything, he was the reason everything felt like it was falling apart. I could handle one crisis, dealing with the horrible hand I’d been dealt when it came to the fire. I could even deal with my parents cutting me off, with their horrible scheme to make me prove myself. But I couldn’t handle all of it knowing how I felt about Hunter. Knowing he was as far away from me as the sun and yet, feeling his presence every day.
“This is not the Lyndsey I remember,” Flynn said, drawing me out of my thoughts. “You’re fearless. You’d never let anything like this upset you so much. You’d just laugh it off and see it for the nonsense it is.”
He wiped a tear from beneath my cheek, a quick, innocent gesture. Nothing like how Hunter held me. It was like I was precious cargo in his arms, like I meant something to him. Flynn was more like a brother to me, the one who led me into trouble more than he helped me out of it.
Though at the moment, he was right. Old Lyndsey would have rallied. She would have lunged back with a vengeance. She would have poured herself a whiskey sour, seated herself with a baseball bat beside the door, and posted a sign in the yard that said, “Come get me!”.
