Page 13 of Return to Me Always

Tyler stood by the door with his backpack in his hand. "Are you ready?" he asked.

My jaw dropped. "Uh, ready? Ready for what exactly?"

"You know, to get out of here. We're sort of being hunted down for murdering a man."

This was crazy. I needed to stop, slow down, and figure out what to do.

"We don't have a lot of time here, Ryder." He drummed his fingers on his thigh.

"Could you just give me a minute? I have to... I don't know. This is all moving too fast, and I don't think well under pressure." I felt the tears threatening yet again.

He sighed and placed the backpack on the floor. "Right. What's the problem then?"

Trying to even out my erratic breathing, I stared at him. "I need to figure out what to do."

"You mean whether to turn yourself in or not?"

"Yes. And—and the biggest thing I need to figure out..." The adrenaline pumped through me as I knew what I had to ask. "Are you the one that stabbed that guy?"

His jaw gaped open. "What? You think I killed that guy behind the pub?"

"It occurred to me. Yeah. You could have done it right before you ran into me." Maybe it wasn't the brightest idea to confront him like this if he really was the murderer. But I continued on. "What were you doing anyway? Why were you there, right in that area, right at that time?"

He gave me a lopsided grin. "So you think I'm capable of murder?"

"You think it's funny?" I didn't appreciate him smiling during my panic.

"Aye. A bit. If you knew me, you might think it was funny. But I can assure you, I didn't do it." Those blue eyes stared into mine, his expression unreadable.

"So I'm just supposed to take your word for it? And go running off with you to God knows where?"

Sighing, he said, "Look, I know this whole thing is insane. But think about it. If I stabbed someone as many times as this guy was stabbed, there'd be a whole lot of blood, right?"

I nodded.

"So where are my bloody clothes? Wouldn't there be blood all over me? On my shoes? Under my nails?"

He held out his hands, and I edged closer to inspect them with the light on my phone. They were clean.

"But you could have changed and scrubbed off the blood," I argued.

"Don't you think the man would have fought back? Do I have any bruises or cuts on my face, my arms, my hands?"

He spread out his muscular arms as I studied them and then checked out his face. Well, he certainly didn't look like he had just brutally stabbed someone.

"Did you see any blood in my car?" he asked.

"No." He definitely had some persuasive arguments.

"Besides," he said, "what does your gut say about me? Your intuition ended up being right about Malcolm. So clearly, you have good instincts."

He did make a great point that I could trust my innermost feelings.

"Do you really think, deep down, that I'm a murderer?" he asked, those blue eyes searching mine.

As scared as I was, I realized that he hadn't done it. My feelings told me I could trust him. My dreams told me I could believe him. And I felt like I had known him my whole life. Even though he was different in so many ways from the man in my dreams, I still felt safe around him. And safe was just what I needed right now.

"No. You're not a murderer," I admitted, releasing a breath.

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