“Follow me back into the barn,” I urged as I picked up the wheelbarrow. “I have a few more that’ll need attention before we can head inside.”
She fell into step beside me, but looked over at me every once in a while as we made our way back to the barn.
“I’m not going to fall out dead,” I told her, guessing where her mind was going.
She snorted. “If I was worried about that, I wouldn’t be letting you do this.”
My brows rose. “You wouldn’t let?”
Her lip quirked up at the corner as if she had a secret that she wouldn’t be sharing.
Not yet, anyway.
“I wouldn’t let,” she confirmed. “Everything that we’ve done with each other so far, I’ve allowed you to do.”
Amusement laced my tone as I said, “And you think you could stop me if I wanted to do something?”
She raised her hands in front of her in a fighter’s stance.
“I’m not saying that I could kill you. Or hurt you permanently before you hurt me permanently. But I could make you think twice. I could defend myself long enough to get something that I could use to kill or hurt you permanently,” she explained. “I was raised by a man that saw the bad in the world. My mother…” She hesitated. “My mother was nearly killed when she was younger.”
I dropped the wheelbarrow and raised a suspicious brow. “Really?”
She nodded once. “Really. When she was a teen, her father woke her and all of her siblings up in the middle of the night, tied them to chairs, and then shot them while doing the same to their mother. Two of their siblings didn’t survive. The rest that did only did because my father had taught my mother how to escape from zip ties one day. Shot and hurt, she helped her remaining brothers escape from that house and the fire after their father shot himself in front of them. Needless to say, my dad thought that teaching us how to survive was a good thing. I know how to hunt for my own food, shoot, survive in the wilderness over an extended period of time. Hot wire a car, evade someone that’s following me, and protect myself if I need protecting.”
My lips curved up into a small semblance of a smile.
“What?” she asked, her brows lowering so that she was all but scowling at me. “You think I’m lying?”
I grunted out a ‘no’ and then moved to the next feed bucket. The cats came running from all corners of the barn and from outside.
The moment I had the large trash can lid filled up with food, I set it on the ground for the eight cats to eat from.
It was only after they were fed that I said, “I was thinking I should’ve let you drive home. I had no clue you could take care of yourself.” I paused. “And I was also thinking that instead of stealing that person’s car keys, I should’ve just let you hotwire a car.”
Belle sort of collapsed in relief at my words. “I thought you were going to tell me that you didn’t believe me.”
I snorted. “Hardly. If I thought you were soft, you wouldn’t be here right now.” I turned to face her fully, my hands going to my hips as I said, “The next week, or two depending on how long it takes for these morons to figure out what’s going on and what happened to me, or for my brain to finally get with the program, are going to be filled with danger. I don’t think that we’re going to be able to stay here indefinitely without someone finding it. I’m hidden out here, and there are a lot of hoops and tunnels, but eventually I will be found. We’ll be found. And you’ll need to stay strong throughout it all. So, what I’m saying is, this will likely be a lot of work on your end to make sure you can keep yourself safe. I should feel bad that I invited you into my world.”
“But you don’t?” she asked.
I shook my head. “But I don’t.”
CHAPTER 13
Back in my day, it was during a game of dodgeball that you found out who really didn’t like you.
-Text from Belle to Booth
BELLE
His house was amazing.
I’d never gone into someone’s house and felt instantly at home like I had with Bruno’s.
I didn’t even feel this particular sense of calm when I went into my parents’ house. I walked in the door, and everything had a place. There was no clutter. No messiness. No bright colors. No weird smell.
It smelled masculine. Like cedar and pine.