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“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t even know why I’m calling to ask you this.” Her tone alights something primal within me.
“Ask me what?”
Wind sounds across the line as if she’s on the move.
“Did you… You didn’t by chance rough up a trucker?”
My chest expands. “Are you asking or seeking confirmation?”
“I don’t know. I guess confirmation. I wouldn’t have called if I didn’t suspect it was you.”
“He threatened you,” I state plainly to conceal the contempt. Thinking back to finding Dan in her space injects anger through me. Comfort only comes by reliving the crack as I connected my knuckles with his haggard face.
“I was okay. He left me alone.”
“Not originally.” My tone darkens. I cross the room and shut the door to my office. “He lingered. I gave him a little motivation to get out of town.”
She snorts. “A lot of good that did because I just saw him.”
I lean back in my chair and gaze at the ceiling, focusing on the steady thrum of my pulse. “Did he approach you?”
“No.”
“That’s because I told him if he got close again, I’d make sure he was never found.”
“Why would you do that?”
That’s the million-dollar question.
She keeps at me. “He looked pretty bad, even though the bruises have aged a few days. How’s your hand?”
I flex my fingers and feel only a lingering ache. “It’s fine,” I answer softly.
“I don’t understand why you didn’t just kick his ass that first night. Why wait and seek him out when I already made my point?”
“Witnesses and cameras,” I answer honestly. “If my ex-wife got wind, she’d label me as violent before I could blink.”
“Exactly!” she spouts off. I start talking before she can get too wound up. Though she’s sexy when riled, and I wouldn’t mind the entertainment.
“I’m the only one you have here. I couldn’t let it go without making sure you’d be safe if I wasn’t around. And I’m glad I did because when I spend time with my son, I have to leave you alone in that parking lot.”
“I told you I’d be fine.”
“Say thank you and let it go,” I plead, not wanting to dig more than surface deep.
A beat. Then a whisper. “Thank you.”
My shoulders slump as the tension eases, but her breathy thanks directs the tension to the place below the belt.
“I can’t just let it go, though.”
“Evie,” I groan. “Leave. It. Be.”
“When will you be back?” The creak of her car door sounds across the line.
Lowering the phone from my ear, I check the time. “A couple of hours still. My office is a forty-five-minute drive out of town, and I have a stack of work on my desk I’ve been avoiding.”
