LITMIR.BIZ

       TWO

      Headlights swept through the windshield of Wyatt’s police SUV as a car turned onto Barnett Street and cruised past the light where Jenna and Wyatt were stopped.

      She turned her head away from the light, toward Wyatt, away from whoever was driving the car. She’d been spotted tonight. Recognized. If the intruder in her shop had called in reinforcements, it was only a matter of time before she was surrounded and dragged to El Paso and the man she feared, the life she despised.

      Logan Cutter had appeared to be everything a girl like Jenna could want. Well, everything a girl like Genevieve Brady—her birth name—could want. After never knowing who her father was and growing up with a mother who tried to live a fantasy before she eventually committed suicide, there had never been a father figure, other than one man, Anthony Reynolds, her mother’s boyfriend when Jenna was seven. He’d treated Jenna and her twin sister, Amy, as his own...until her mother had abruptly booted him from their lives in less than a year.

      Desperate to be loved, she’d given Logan everything she had and had accepted his jealousy and anger as the price of being with him. Then she’d discovered evidence of his unfaithfulness, of the levels of his depravity...

      One night, in confusion and grief, she had packed a bag and fled. He found her before daybreak. Beat her. Apologized. Held her as she cried.

      She stayed.

      The second time was worse.

      And the third... Jenna glanced at Wyatt and squeezed herself tighter against the seat. She’d nearly died after the third time and still bore scars that sometimes ached in the cold.

      That night, Genevieve Brady had disappeared from Del Sol Medical Center with Anthony’s help. Three days later, Jenna Clark became the newest resident of Mountain Springs, North Carolina. Thanks to her mother’s ex—who had built an underground business out of making both the innocent and the guilty disappear—every link to her past was severed and she had the paperwork to lend credence to her new identity. All she had left of her old self was her love of art and a “go bag” hidden in the attic crawlspace at her apartment, insurance in case Jenna Clark ever needed to disappear as well.

      The scars on her back ached at the memory, and Jenna clamped her teeth on a whimper she would never let Wyatt Stephens hear. It was bad enough he’d already seen her at her weakest. Her cheeks were still hot with embarrassment in the midst of her fear. He’d likely saved her life tonight, and the minute he’d returned for her, she’d collapsed in a heap like some weak woman in a 1940s melodrama. She was stronger than a fainting starlet.

      For the moment, though, embarrassment was probably a whole lot less detrimental to her mental health than fear would be. Thinking about Wyatt having to haul her into his arms and carry her into her office was easier than coming to grips with the truth. Her logical next move was to be gone by sunrise.

      The best thing to do was to keep her focus on the man beside her, not on the one who hounded her nightmares.

      “You didn’t have to drive me home.” His presence made escape harder. Her apartment was across the street and two blocks away from the shop, above Higher Grounds Coffee Bar, another former town watering hole.

      The light turned green, highlighting his face with shadows that deepened the blue of Wyatt’s eyes and sharpened the cut of his jawline. His dark brown hair was tousled from his earlier scuffle. For the briefest of moments, he looked at her almost as though he might feel a bit of compassion, but then he turned away and made the left onto Main Street. “First of all, after what happened tonight, nobody’s letting you walk home by yourself, especially not in the dark.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, where Erin and her fiancé, Jason Barnes, followed in Jason’s pickup. “Second, I’m not interested in the lecture I’d get from Erin if I even dared to suggest you walk home unescorted.” He held up three fingers before resting his hand on the steering wheel. “Third, I have to ask some questions in order to do paperwork. And a bonus fourth thing, you promised me coffee. I don’t turn my back on free coffee. Ever.”

      “Not even from me?” The man had never liked her. While Erin was her closest friend, and also happened to be Wyatt’s cousin, Wyatt had always kept Jenna at a distance, eyeing her with the kind of suspicion that made her feel like he could read all of her darkest secrets...and there were definitely plenty of those. Jenna avoided him, didn’t talk to him if she could help it. Something inside her rankled at the sight of him.

      When she was forced to speak to him, her words always came out antagonistic, even when she tried to be nice. Even the shortest conversation with the town’s most popular police officer made everything worse. Wyatt Stephens unsettled her insides. There was no other way to say it.

      His grip on the steering wheel tightened, and his jaw quirked to the side as though he’d tensed it until it ached. Finally, he relaxed and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “You’ve been through the wringer tonight, okay? We’ve got every available officer out looking, even the ones off duty. You have a lot of friends in Mountain Springs who want to see this guy caught. Until then, let’s concentrate on getting you home, where it’s safe.”

      Safe. The word no longer had meaning. Jenna sighed and stared out the window into the side mirror at Jason’s headlights behind them as Wyatt cruised slowly along the street. He had no idea what he was talking about. Nowhere in town was safe. She hadn’t flown far enough from Texas. Somehow, after three years, Logan’s men had found her in the town she now called home.

      She’d grown to love this place in a way she’d never imagined possible. The local bookstore, staffed by volunteers from the library, glided past. The co-op where local artists consigned their paintings, pottery and other art. Higher Grounds Coffee Bar...

      She leaned closer to the window so she could see the second story of the building. Her apartment. The place where she’d once felt safe. She’d been taught to defend herself after all...and she’d failed. “I should have been able to handle the guy tonight.”

      “What?”

      This was what bothered her, the slight shame that had dogged her for the past hour. “My mom had a boyfriend, Anthony. He—he took care of me and my sister, taught us how to take care of ourselves.” She smiled slightly at the memory. “Taught us how to break away if a guy ever tried to grab us. Said the worst thing we could do was kick or knee, because it would throw us off balance. ‘Poke him in the eye,’ he said. ‘Fight like a girl.’ He said girls are tougher than most guys think they are, so fighting like a girl was a good thing.” Jenna sniffed, Anthony’s voice clear in her head, even though everything he’d taught her had flown right out of her head in the panic of reality.

      “‘Fight like a girl,’” Wyatt murmured, making the turn into the alley by her apartment. “I’ll have to remember your story, maybe teach it to Erin.”

      “I’m sure Erin can take care of herself.” The way Jenna was going to have to as soon as she could flee.

      When the SUV came to a stop, Jenna shoved out the door, keys in hand, mind focused on getting away from her protectors and into the attic so she could grab her packed bag and get out of town. Her heart pounded, her feet desperate to carry her up the metal stairs on the outside of the

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