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“Suddenly?”
“Yeah. Too suddenly. He thinks they received threats. His uncle does, in fact, have ties to some pretty unsavory characters in addition to his military connections.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. Most people know Travis Yoder is involved in illegal activities. They know it. They can’t prove it.” Her fingers rubbed against the metal of the necklace.
Jax found himself focused on it, wondering what it would be like to have her fingers rub against his cheek. Agitated by the thought, he directed his mind elsewhere, to another problem. “That necklace can’t help you, Seyla. You should learn self-defense and rely on that training and the Lord. Leaning on a necklace for strength turns it into an idol.”
Her brows snapped down. “What?” Her hands dropped to her hips again. She winced and readjusted her posture.
She probably hadn’t taken her pain medication. Her side must hurt.
“Shouldn’t you be taking it easy with those sutures? Are you taking any pain medication?”
Seyla’s eyes narrowed. “What about my necklace?”
Jax sighed. She wasn’t going to let it go. He pointed at it. “Every time you get nervous, you grab hold of that necklace like it’s gonna protect you. To help you somehow. It won’t. You have to learn to defend yourself. You wouldn’t have come close to drowning the other day if you had the skills to protect yourself instead of focusing on a piece of jewelry that can’t help you.”
Seyla crossed her arms. “You’ve got it all figured out, huh?”
“Yeah, and that’s why this town needs the training facility I want to build. So people like you can learn to protect themselves.”
Her mouth compressed into a firm straight line. “I hate to ruin your selling point, but I already know self-defense. Regardless, all the defensive training in the world wouldn’t have saved me. Unless you know of a self-defense technique that deflects electricity.”
Jax recoiled. She’d had training in self-defense? Why hadn’t she ever used it? Then it hit him. “If you’re focused on that necklace, you’re not focused on using the skills you have to defend yourself. That’s why you haven’t used what you’ve learned. If—” He stopped, tilting his head. “Wait. Electricity?”
“Yeah. Whoever attacked me used a stun gun. That’s why they cut my side. To disguise the burns so people would believe I committed suicide.”
His stomach twisted into a hard knot. They’d come close to getting away with it, too.
“If it hadn’t been for you locking me in at your uncle’s ranch, I might have already discovered who’s doing this,” she said, waving a hand in the air.
“Locking you in?” She was mad about his uncle’s security system? Now that she mentioned it, Jax did remember thinking she appeared irritated. “My goal was to keep you safe.”
“No, you were preventing me from uncovering who’s behind this by keeping me under lock and key. I don’t want another babysitter. I had the perfect opportunity to catch the culprit in the act of damaging the fence by staying at your place. But not if I can’t even get outside. They nearly killed me the other day, and they’ll continue their attacks unless I uncover who they are.”
A familiar pain crept up within Jax. Pain he’d thought dead and buried a long time ago. And it hurt. A lot. “You used me?” He felt like she’d sucker-punched him.
“No, I didn’t use you.”
He backed away from her. “Yes. Yes you did. I thought I was protecting you. Instead, you were using me to get what you wanted. To protect the thing you truly care about.”
“What? No, that’s not true.”
“You’re just like her.”
“Like who?”
Jax turned away from her. “Do you know why I came to live with my uncle when I was a kid?”
Seyla didn’t answer.
“My mother fell apart when my dad died. She kept every single item of his and added to it things that reminded her of him. One problem—everything reminded her of him. In fact,that’s the only reason she kept me around. I was another thing that reminded her of him. Unfortunately, she didn’t take care of her things.”
Jax felt Seyla’s hand on his shoulder but shook it off. “After a while, the stuff filled our house, and we had to live in one room. Until that room filled up. Eventually, we had to climb over stuff to get anywhere. Dad loved cats, so she accumulated those, too. Since she’d become too depressed to work, though, she didn’t have the money to take care of them. She didn’t clean up after the cats, either. I tried, but I couldn’t keep up.”
“That’s a lot for a kid to handle with no support.”
“My uncle attempted to help out, too, until he discovered she used any money he gave her to buy more stuff. I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone about the condition of our home, or she’d accuse me of betraying her and my dad. My uncle finally had no choice—he reported her to Child Services. A teacher had told him I kept falling asleep in school, and he saw how much weight I’d lost from having no food. What I did have I shared with the cats. I didn’t want them to starve.” He paused to get his emotions under control.
