He’d stayed with her there, standing outside the shower room as she scrubbed herself clean. He’d known she was washing away any evidence but there had been no stopping her.
What followed next had nearly destroyed his career as thoroughly as it had destroyed his confidence in the system and in the people he’d respected and served alongside.
“I did.” It was all he could say.
“I get why you won’t want to let anyone get close to you again,” Samantha said, this time reaching out and touching his arm.
He pulled back and crossed his arms. He didn’t have to be a shrink to know it was a classicback offsignal. He was being an ass and he didn’t care.
If Samantha was fazed by his move, she didn’t show it. “Logan did the same thing when we started to get close. It scared the hell out of him and he thought he was protecting me by pushing me away.”
“It was stupid.”
Kaeden turned to see Logan standing behind them. The other man carefully moved around him to stand next to his wife and Kaeden had a feeling he was being careful to make sure Kaeden didn’t feel trapped.
Logan ran a nonprofit that helped veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Injury and Traumatic Brain Injury. Though they had several counselors, Kaeden would guess that Logan had seen and heard a lot of the methods they used there to help people in crisis.
Well, that wasn’t him. He wasn’t in crisis. He didn’t have PTSI or TBI. He was fine.
Logan wrapped his arms around Samantha from behind, pulling her tight against him and Kaeden was struck with the near debilitating desire to wrap himself around Joy like that.
“When you’re ready to move on from what happened,” Logan said, “we’re all here for you. Or you can come over to my office and meet with Ernie. He’s our head counselor and he knows what he’s doing. He’s a veteran himself so he isn’t going to blow smoke up your ass.”
Samantha elbowed Logan. “Language, baby. We’re not back in the military.”
Logan grinned at her.
Kaeden wanted to run. Needed to run.
As if the couple saw that, they both turned back to the fire.
“When you’re ready,” Logan said as they walked closer to the fire, leaving him standing alone again.
Chapter 23
Turner watched his stepdaughter make her way down the hall. Two days of showing her picture to front desk clerk after front desk clerk and he’d finally found her in one of the lodges on the bus route.
When he walked into this lodge, he hadn’t even had to ask for her. He’d seen her in an ill-fitting housekeeping uniform, pushing a cart down one of the hallways that led off the main lobby.
He looked around the building, knowing there would be cameras in a place like this. It wasn’t a very big lodge, but it was the type of place that would take the security of its guests seriously. He couldn’t take a chance being caught on camera talking to her. Not with what he had planned for her when he got her alone.
That was okay. Now that he knew where she was, he could wait to get her alone. Then he’d grab her and they would have a nice private talk about what happened to people who tried to take what was his.
Chapter 24
Evan didn’t like the fact that the auburn-haired woman smiling at him was a warm and welcoming person. She was beautiful in an understated way. She didn’t wear makeup and her hair was streaked with silver, but her brown eyes danced and her smile was genuine.
She was thin and had a frail look that he had a feeling came from the car accident.
When he’d approached the woman he was sure was Turner Carson’s wife, she had turned and smiled without any hesitation. She’d also bought his story that he was touring the facility for his mother.
“I like the art classes the best,” she was saying as she gestured at the easel in front of her. She was sitting in a wheelchair, but he knew she had some mobility. He’d read it in her file, but she’d also moved her feet several times since he’d started their conversation.
Debra Carson had introduced herself as Emma Lawson, though.
“They have pottery and sewing,” she said, “and a lot of exercise classes for old farts like us, but the painting and sketching classes are my favorite.”
“It’s really beautiful here,” he said, looking at the garden they were sitting in. “Are you from the area?”