Saving Her (Her Protector Book 2) Read online

  He’d been given tickets to one of my recitals from his new boss and decided he had to go, even if he’d never had any interest in classical piano. After the show, he introduced himself to me. It wasn’t until a few years later that he told me that I had mesmerized him. He hadn’t been able to tear his eyes off me as I’d played on stage.

  We started dating and then, time passed. I finished college thanks to my scholarship and traveled, playing, performing. Elliot worked eighty hour weeks to climb the corporate ladder at his job. And we just kept dating. It was so easy with him. Undemanding. He worked so much we only really saw each other on weekends, and that was if I was in town.

  But those moments we had together had been so simple. Uncomplicated, when it felt like the rest of my life was a constant whirlwind of chaos.

  Elliot’s hands moved beneath the hem of my dress. His fingers were smooth and soft, sliding against the skin of my inner thighs, sending shivers of delight through my body.

  I let my eyes drift shut and I could feel the warm light hitting my eyelids as I sank into pleasure. Elliot’s kisses were as smooth and soft as his touch, and the warmth inside me slowly heated to a gentle simmer beneath my skin.

  I gave my body over to him, over to the delicious sensations. I’d always loved sex. That feeling of freedom, of falling, of being so connected to another human being.

  His hands parted my thighs but there was no resistance in me. I moaned into his mouth as his fingers teased me, sweeping up to the most secret part of me. I was already wet and ready for him.

  First, just one finger dipped inside me, testing, before another joined and my hips arched up to meet them all on their own.

  I rocked against him, against the pleasure until I could feel the shock waves starting to crash over me. Little electric shocks of joy starting at the tips of my toes and tingling up and across my trembling body.

  But as the ecstasy started to crest, and dark shadow fell over me. That golden light was doused as if it had never been and when I blinked open my pleasure-heavy lids, Elliot was gone. My park was gone. The sun was gone. All that was left was the darkness, and the music that haunted me, and a feeling. A feeling of being watched. Of being caught in a trap that I couldn’t see.

  The hair on the back of my neck stood stiff on end and fear choked me, drowning out the last of my pleasure.

  He was here. My monster was here. He’d found me.

  I woke with a gasp, the dream dissolving instantly into cold, hard reality. I didn’t wonder for a moment where I was, there was no confusion between past and present, dream and waking. My mind snapped instantly back into survival mode, the same mode I’d been in for almost eight months.

  I looked up at the cracked, yellowed ceiling. I knew exactly where I was. And I knew why.

  It didn’t stop the pang of regret, bitter sweet, from rising up inside me as I thought about the dream. I had dreamed of Elliot less and less as the months passed, as I drew further and further away from that life. My old life.

  My hand rose on its own and I stared at the third finger, my ring finger, where for two years I carried around the heavy weight of Elliot’s engagement ring. I never realized just how heavy it was until I took it off.

  Sunlight was just starting to pour through the gaps in the plastic blinds that hung haphazardly over the windows, telling me it was time to get up. It was time to get moving. Always moving. Never staying in the same place long.

  My stomach growled in hunger, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon at that diner off of the bus stop. The stack of pancakes had been cheap and filling, but they were already a memory.

  I dragged myself out of the bed, feeling just as rumpled as the rest of the dingy motel room. With a sigh, I combed my fingers through my hair before tying it up in a messy bun. It was getting too long now, the inky strands hanging nearly halfway down my back but I couldn’t afford a trip to the salon.

  It was just another one of those luxuries that I had left behind, when I had left my old life.

  I didn’t have a choice. I reminded myself fiercely. I could have stayed, and gotten hurt, or killed, or worse. I knew it was the truth. In my gut. In my bones.

  After that night at the concert, the last time I ever performed, I hadn’t just broken down on stage. My whole life had shattered that night, even though it took me a little while to feel the sharp edges.

  That night, with the police and Elliot both giving me the same looks of disbelief, I knew things wouldn’t be the same. How could they be?

  My monster had been there, in the audience, watching me. Threatening me. And still there was nothing they could do. No fingerprints on the box. Troubling, but there was nothing they could do.

  After that night, I couldn’t play anymore. I couldn’t go on stage because all I could see were his eyes, I could feel them on me and I would freeze. I couldn’t perform. I stopped going out. But still the presents came, becoming more and more grotesque. He had photos of me in my home, through my windows, drinking a cup of coffee in my back yard.

  I told Elliot I wanted to move. I wanted to get away. I told him I didn’t feel safe there anymore. And he’d looked me in the eyes, and told me I was over-reacting.

  I shut my own eyes at the memory of the fight we’d had. Our first, and our last. Not even much of a fight, really. He’d just calmly told me that I had changed, that I was paranoid, bordering on delusional, and needed professional help. He told me that the wife of the Director of Development and Marketing would need to be charming, and graceful, and normal. He told me I was hurting his career. He told me he couldn’t move, not now when he’d just gotten his promotion. No, not that he couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

  I had packed my suitcase and left that day. I had moved in with Charlotte, a friend that I had gone to college with and things had seemed fine for a week. Two. I began to wonder if Elliot hadn’t been right after all, maybe I was just being paranoid. But then I’d come back to her apartment from practice to find it sitting there. A tiny, perfectly wrapped box. I could see the blood seeping from the bottom and soaking into the concrete step. He had found me.

  I didn’t touch it. I just grabbed my suitcase and I ran again. But everywhere I went, he would follow. It might take a week or two, or just a few days. I was losing my mind, losing my sanity. Not sleeping, not eating.

  And then there was nowhere else for me to go. No one else for me to call. I didn’t have any family. It was only me. And I was all alone with a madman hunting after me.

  I learned, though. I learned not to get too comfortable. I learned to keep my distance from people. I learned not to use my credit cards because he seemed to be able to track them. I couldn’t figure out how else he was doing it.

  I learned how to live with fear, how to be terrified to my bones and still get up in the morning, still get dressed, do the laundry, eat breakfast when I could.

  For nearly six months, this had been my life. Waking up in a new, dingier motel every day, living out of my single suitcase. Six months with no awful packages, no threats, no photographs. I had adapted. Because I’d had too. Because I didn’t have anywhere else to go.

  I shuffled into the bathroom and turned on the tap. It creaked for a moment before water fell from the shower head.

  “At least there was hot water.” I whispered gratefully to no one. There wasn’t always.

  I took a shower, trying to wash away the feeling of fear from my dream but no amount of soap and water could cleanse the dark shadow that seemed to always hang over me. At least I felt slightly more human when I was done.

  I grabbed the semi-fresh pair of jeans and t-shirt I had washed as best I could in the tiny bathroom sink and threw them on.

  The red suitcase sat on the edge of the bed and I turned it over, my fingers searching for the small seam I’d ripped open and the envelope I had hidden there. It was all the cash I could get my hands on before running again. I hadn’t dared to touch the money in my bank account, too afraid he would be able to
track me again.

  Before I even pulled the envelope out I could feel how depleted it was. My stomach sank, dread mixing with hunger as I pulled out three hundred dollar bills and a few random twenties.

  “Shit.”

  I counted the money but it was still the same. I knew exactly how much money I had left, almost none.

  Enough for another week or two at the motel at most, a little left over for food. It had cost me nearly a hundred dollars just to get the bus out here from Salt Lake City. It was as far as it went.

  I had traveled by bus and train mostly from California, across Nevada, and into Utah. Every mile I put between me and my monster helped me breathe a little easier but I still looked over my shoulder. I still looked for prettily wrapped packages left on my doorstep.

  I had just grabbed the first bus I’d seen on my way out of Salt Lake. There had been too many people. Too many opportunities for him to find me. I had ended up in a little town in the middle of Utah. I’d seen the sign when the bus had driven past. Welcome to Solace, Utah. Pop. 2,100 people. Solace, I’d thought to myself, is exactly what I need.

  I had felt safe enough for stay for nearly a week already, longer than any other place I’d been so far but there was something about the sleepy town that put me at ease.

  But I was running out of money, and I didn’t have anything else to sell…except. I bit my lower lip as I dug back into the hidden compartment in the back of the suitcase and pulled out a balled up piece of paper. Slowly, I unwrapped it. Elliot’s engagement ring.

  It was worth a couple thousand at least. It was the last thing I had of any value and something had stopped me from selling it before now, but I had passed the little pawn shop in downtown Solace. It was a cute little strip of shops and storefronts that looked plucked from a different time. A combination of wild west and fifties charm. An odd combination, but it worked.

  I packed my suitcase back up. I didn’t go anywhere without it. I never knew when I would have to run again. It was everything I had left in the world, I couldn’t just leave it behind. I balled the paper back up, ring still inside. I had to adapt. I didn’t have a choice. There wasn’t anything else. I should have felt worse at the thought of selling it, but I didn’t. As I left the motel and started walking the half mile towards Main Street, I just felt the same as I had for the past year, longer than that if I was being honest with myself. Numb.

  But underneath that, a fire still burned inside me. A fire that pushed me to survive. That pushed me to keep fighting for my future. It was small, dampened by fear, but still burning. I clung to that tiny spark as I walked into the pawn shop, the diamond engagement ring clutched hard in my hand.

  2

  Beth

  “Come on now, Bentley. It’s not that bad. I swear it’s not. Now, if you would just cooperate, I could get your temperature taken and you’ll be all done. I swear. I won’t poke you or prod you anymore.”

  I stared into the Saint Bernard’s big, sad eyes and I know I didn’t just imagine the accusation in them.

  “I know buddy. It’s the worst part…and, it’s all over now.” I gave the dog a scratch between one shaggy ear but he still looked suspicious. Not that I blamed him. The last time he came in it was to get neutered. He was still feeling a little salty about the whole thing.

  I wrote down his temp, and then pulled out a bone shaped biscuit from the pocket of my lab coat. Bentley’s ears perked up, his tail started wagging, and he gazed up at me adoringly as he happily chomped the treat.

  “Here you go big guy.” If only all guys were this easy to please, I thought to myself with a snort. “Bentley’s doing just fine, Mrs. Petherick.”

  “Thank you so much, Doctor Gallagher.”

  “Please, Beth is just fine.” I said, sneaking Bentley another treat. “You’ve known me since elementary school.” Mrs. Petherick was the fourth grade teacher at Solace Middle School. And she had been my fourth grade teacher when I’d gone there. She was past retirement age, but she loved teaching and always said she’d rather work than just while a way at home.

  “Yes, I have.” She nodded, her gray curls bobbing along with her. “And I’m so glad you’re back, dear. We’ve missed you here.”

  I smiled at her and I hope she couldn’t see how forced it was. I had moved away when I’d gone to Veterinary School, and had moved back to Solace a year and a half ago, though most town residents still treated me like I’d just walked through the door and started my own Vet practice yesterday.

  I had never imagined myself back here in the small town I grew up in, the small town where everyone knew everyone else and no one ever changed. But then Jake had called me. And my whole world had tipped sideways.

  Peter Gallagher, our father, the giant of a man who could shout down storms and ride in the saddle all day even at sixty three, had died. A stroke, out in the fields. I didn’t believe Jake at first. I’d never met anyone as alive as dad. Or as damned stubborn.

  But then Jake had started talking about the funeral service and how I’d need to come back to sign some things for the lawyer and I knew he was telling me the truth. I knew that I’d never come back to the ranch and get the big bear hug dad always greeted me with. He had since I was a little girl.

  I’d packed my things up, quit my job, and left to come home. To come back to Solace.

  I knew that Jake would need me. I knew how much he was still struggling, trying to juggle it all after taking over the management of the Ranch and realizing just how much in the red it had been in while their father had owned it.

  And I knew I needed him. My big brother. The only family we had left in the world was each other and after dad died, I’d felt so restless, so unsure. So suddenly unmoored.

  It was easy enough to take over the Veterinary clinic after John Schumacher retired, especially because everyone in the town already knew me and trusted me. For the most part, anyway. Old Agnes Lockley didn’t trust anyone. She even looked askance at the concrete gnomes she’d put in her garden twenty years ago.

  “See you in six months for his next checkup.” Mrs. Petherick said, dragging me back out of my thoughts. I sent her another smile.

  “Perfect. I’ll walk you out. Sammie can set up your next appointment.”

  I gave Bentley another pet for being such a good boy as I led them out of the examination room.

  I handed Mrs. Petherick and Bentley over to my assistant, Sammie as we made our way to the small lobby. Sammie was a senior at Solace High School, with a mile wide streak of sarcasm and bright blue dyed hair that was pulled back into a bun. She had already been working here when I took over for John and I’d just kind of kept her on.

  I waved goodbye to the fourth grade teacher before shrugging out of my lab coat and throwing it over a chair behind the desk. My stomach felt a little hollow but what I really needed was a cup of coffee. Strong, black espresso. My one vice. Well, one of many, but the one that I let myself indulge in regularly. Others were just far too…dangerous.

  “I’m going to run over to Drip. You want anything?”

  “My regular would be awesome.” Sammie said, gracing me with a rare smile. I knew I was slowly winning her over. Just like Bentley with the bone. “Thanks, Beth.”

  “One dirty Chai tea latte, coming right up.” I tossed a wave over my shoulder and walked outside. The sun was shining brightly overhead and I paused for a moment just to soak it in, to let the warmth sink deep inside my bones.

  Drip was a local coffee shop on the other side of Main Street and I made my way there, taking my time as I looked up and down the quiet corner. I had grown up here, had ridden my bike with my friends down to the pharmacy to get candy and soda.

  We would ride down the street to the train tracks, and hang out under the bridge. There hadn’t been anything else to do in this small town. Nothing ever happened here. I had ached to move away as a child, bored and stuck doing chores at the ranch.

  But things felt different now, and with everything Jake had gone throu
gh, I was glad I was close.

  “Hey, Brenda. Large espresso for me, and a dirty chai latte for Sam.”

  “You got it honey.” The woman behind the counter said, her southern accent still strong even after living in Solace for as long as I could remember.

  “How’s Ned doing?” I asked absently as Brenda brewed the espresso and steamed the milk. Ned was her nine year old, nearly blind cocker spaniel and he’d gotten into a wrestling match with a bramble patch. It had taken me hours to get all the thorns out but I had much more worried about his allergic reaction.

  “Oh, he’s doing just find, the daft old dog. He can’t see worth a damn, that’s the real problem. Keeps running into walls.”

  “Just make sure you keep him out of the bushes.” I said with a small, wry smile and Brenda laughed, that robust, full-bodied, knee-slapping laugh of hers.

  “Don’t you worry, Doc. I won’t let him into the garden at night anymore.”

  “I’m sure you…” The words trailed off as a turned at the sound of raised voices coming from just outside the coffee shop.

  “Well, what the hell is that racket?” Branda asked, slapping a dish towel over her shoulder, shaking her head. “I hope it’s not Dominic causing more trouble. I swear he gets meaner and meaner the drunker he gets.”

  I glanced at my watch. It was barely eleven o’clock in the morning, not even Dominic Castle, the town’s resident bad bow and drunk, didn’t hit the Solace Tavern this early. And besides…

  “It sounds like a woman.” I said, tilting my head to get a better lesson.

  “What?”

  “A woman’s voice.”