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Guilt swirled in her gut, and she dropped her gaze to the heaps of marshmallows at the top of her mug.
“I actually have some more things to go over with Izzy, Mrs. Sterling. I’ll be awhile. I promise I won’t leave her alone. I’ll take care of her.” Beau flashed a smile that would have made her knees weak if she’d been standing.
Sue bounced her gaze between the two of them then slapped her hands on her thighs before standing. “Well, if you’re both sure. I’ll be home around nine tonight. Paxton is off in an hour. Call if you need anything.”
“I will,” Izzy said.
Sue leaned down and pressed her lips to Izzy’s cheek. “I love you so much.”
“I love you, too.”
Izzy waited for her to slip on her shoes by the door and grab her keys from the hook mounted on the wall, disappearing outside, before setting down her mug on the end table and melting back against the couch cushion. “Thank you for that.”
He shrugged. “No problem. You kind of had a deer in the headlight’s thing going on. My parents can be a little overbearing sometimes, so I get it. Even when they’re coming from a good place.”
She grabbed the edge of the blanket and wrapped it around herself again. “She gets so upset, and I don’t blame her. But I don’t want to feel guilty for showing her how upset I am. I don’t want to hold things back right now because of how they’ll affect her.”
“That’s understandable.”
Swallowing past the wedge of terror lodged in her throat, she prepared the question she’d held back while her mom had been in the room. “Do you really think someone is after me specifically? Is targeting me?”
“I do,” Beau said. “My guess, someone is afraid you’ll point a finger at them. You’re a loose thread they want to snip.”
Her shoulders gave an involuntary shiver, and she hugged the blanket tighter.
A grimace twisted his features. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so harsh.”
“But it’s the truth, and that’s what I need to hear. If we’re going to stop this person, I don’t need anyone tiptoeing around me. Trying to spare my feelings. So what’s next?”
He ran a hand through his shaggy, dark hair. “Cruz is searching areas around the retreat with a handful of officers and a few trackers. If he finds something, I’ll get a call. You didn’t get a good look at the guy, but his build and the little we could discern—the dark blue baseball hat and bulky frame—are being broadcasted over the county on the off chance it strikes a chord with someone.”
“Do you still think we should talk to my sister?”
“It couldn’t hurt. She has a different perspective than you, and she spoke with the woman who was apprehended more than you did.”
Izzy took one more long sip of her cocoa, savoring the way it burned all the way down her throat. The humming in her veins told her more than just a drizzle of alcohol had been added to her drink, and she was beyond grateful. “Mom mentioned Paxton would be off work in an hour. Why don’t we go to the Chill N’ Grill now? Then she can chat with us when her shift’s over.”
He leaned forward in his chair, dark eyebrows pulled low over his hooded eyes. “Are you up for that? It’s close to dinner time. That place will be crowded.”
The idea of countless sets of eyes watching her made the chocolate in her stomach sour, but anything had to be better than sitting in a quiet house twiddling her thumbs. “You’ll be with me, right?”
The half-smile that turned her heart to a throbbing pile of mush lifted the corner of his mouth. “As long as you want me to be.”
Heat enflamed her cheeks. “Then no one stands a chance of hurting me.” Because if history had proven anything, when it came to Beau, she was the only person capable of inflicting pain.
* * *
After shooting off a text,Beau laid his phone on the square table that separated him from Izzy in the busy restaurant. The only instruction he’d been given from Cruz when he’d left the retreat was to keep Izzy close, but he wanted to keep the other officer abreast of his plans. Sticking to Izzy like glue wasn’t a hardship but keeping himself in check and professional was growing harder by the second.
“I don’t see Paxton,” Izzy said, shifting to the side of her chair as she searched for her sister.
Scanning the room, he spotted Izzy’s older sister leaning over the scarred wooden bar, probably asking Wade—the owner and current bartender—for drinks. He jutted his chin in her direction. “She’s on the other side of the couple at the end of the bar. Looks like she’s still working.”
Izzy blew out a long breath. “She’ll see us, and she’ll be all over me. Mom called to let her know what happened earlier. I’m surprised she didn’t run right out the door and come home.”
He raked his gaze over the stone hearth at the center of the room and mounted buck head above the fireplace as he watched Paxton weave through the mismatched tables and chat with customers. Her smile was wide but worry lined the corners of her eyes that looked so much like Izzy’s. “It’s nice to have family to support you.”
“Support yes,” she said, anchoring her chin on her fist. “Fret day and night, not so much. I’m freaked out enough for the three of us. I don’t need them constantly hovering over me. Afraid that I won’t finish school or get back to the carefree girl I once was. How do I tell them that girl is gone?”
