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I drew my lips back and snarled at Horace. “You heard what she said. You need to leave.”
“Or what?”
I covered the distance between us and grabbed a fistful of Horace’s shirt. “Or I’ll make you leave.”
Horace snorted. “You can’t make me do anything. I’ll do whatever I want.”
I released Horace and pushed him away. “Get out of here before you do something even more stupid.”
In the distance, the sirens wailed, but it did nothing to quell the anger in my heart. Instead, with each passing moment in his presence, it grew worse and worse. I was tempted to grab Horace and put his face through a wall for terrifying Martha. But I knew that doing that was only going to make things worse.
Martha was clearly terrified of him, and I had no idea why.
All I knew was that I had never been more frustrated in my entire life.
Having spent the past few hours trying to come up with a plan to win Martha back had been exhausting, especially when I was no closer to a solution. I’d paced the entire length of my hotel room, trying but failing to figure out how to approach the woman of my dreams, only to come up short. In the end, it had been my desire to see her and hold her in my arms that had driven me here.
And I had nearly walked away again when I saw Horace in the doorway.
For a brief moment, I’d convinced myself that it was too good to be true, that Horace was the real secret Martha was hiding from me. Unable to bear the thought of seeing her with another man and one who was so familiar with her, I had all but made up my mind to leave when I heard the struggle and heard the fear in Martha’s voice.
I had never crossed a front lawn so fast in my entire life.
It had taken me a minute to glance over at Martha to realize the truth.
Her pale face and the square of her shoulders told me everything I needed to know about the man standing a few feet away. Unfortunately, dragging Horace out wasn’t enough. Although he could clearly hear the sirens in the distance, it was clear that he didn’t care and believed he had every right to be there.
Bastard.
Horace made a low noise in the back of his throat and lunged at me. I caught him halfway and held him in a headlock. Together, the two of us spun in circles, with Horace struggling and squirming against me. When I released him, he used the back of his hand to wipe the sweat away from his face. Then he drew his head back and spat at my feet. I scowled at him but didn’t say anything.
Once he lunged at me again, I waited until the last second before stepping out of his way and landing a punch to his stomach. He skidded to a halt, released a shaky breath, and wheeled around to face me, a murderous gleam in his eyes.
“I told you to leave before you did something stupid.”
“As far as I can tell, you’re the only stupid one here. This is between Martha and I. If I want to see Jimmy, I should be able to see him.”
I stepped in front of her again and folded my arms over my chest. “I don’t think so.”
Horace made another noise in his throat and charged at me. I punched him squarely in the face, and the sickening crunch sliced through the air. He howled in pain, cradled his nose between his hands, and staggered back. Bright red blood poured out of his nose and stained his hands and the floor below his feet.
“You want to try that again?”
Horace removed his hands and spat out a mouthful of blood. “This isn’t over, Martha.”
With that, he spun on his heels and hurried off, limping as he did. As soon as he rounded the corner, I heard Martha exhale sharply and place a hand on my shoulders. I wheeled around to face her and caught her before she hit the floor. Wordlessly, I carried her inside and set her down on the couch. Tremor after tremor moved through her when I went into the kitchen and filled up a glass of water.
Martha swallowed before she took it from me. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. Are you okay?”
Martha took a few sips of water and blew out a breath. “Yeah, I’ll be okay.”
“He’s a real piece of work.”
Martha took another long sip and grimaced. “He really is.”
“Who is he?”
