Page 69 of To Hold and Protect

“No! I hate you. I was happy, and you made me not happy.”

“Everly Isabella Church, we do not tell people we hate them. Apologize to Miss Willow.”

“No.” She pushed against Parker’s chest. “Put me down, Daddy. I want to go home.”

He lowered her to the floor. “Wait for me by the door.”

“I feel so awful, and she hates me now,” Willow said as she watched Everly run through the living room.

“She’ll get over it. I’ll talk to her, make her understand. After she’s asleep, I’ll come over, and we can talk.”

What was there to talk about? “Maybe it’s for the best this way. A clean break before she and I get even more involved.” That was true for Everly’s father, too. “And you said it was better if we weren’t seen spending time together.”

He stepped in front of her and put his hand on her arm. “What are you saying?”

“That it’s been fun, but our time is up.” Her bottom lip trembled, and she sucked it between her teeth. She would not cry, not in front of him, anyway.

“Willow,” he whispered.

She put her finger over his mouth. “No, don’t say anything. Just go.” Before she did cry in front of him.

He leaned his forehead against hers. “I’ll never forget you.” And then he left.

When she heard the door close behind him, her knees gave out, she sank to the floor, and the tears came. She’d fallen in love with him. So much for her vacation from men. Should she have told him she loved him? Would he ask her to stay if he knew?

She might have offered him her heart—the one that hurt so hard right now—if he’d asked her to stay. He hadn’t, so tomorrow she’d call a Realtor. The house was close enough to being finished to put it up for sale. Really, there was no reason to stay any longer. Buddy knew what needed to be done and didn’t need her here, and a Realtor didn’t need her here to sell the house.

It was time to go.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Parker held his daughter until she cried herself to sleep. He’d tried to explain to her that Willow had never planned to stay, but that she’d always be Ev’s friend. Everly wasn’t buying it. It was all or nothing with his little girl.

Would Willow stay if he asked her to? He’d wanted to, but his history of thinking he was in love when he really wasn’t had waved red flags. He might have if she hadn’t put her finger on his lips and told him to go.

He thought he loved her—or was getting there—but he’d thought that about other girls and women too many times. Willow had a dream, and he couldn’t ask her to give that up if he wasn’t sure if his feelings for her were real.

But if they weren’t real, then why did his heart hurt worse than it ever had before, even after Simone’s betrayal?

“Keep her safe,” he told Ember as he eased his arm from under his little ladybug. He kissed her cheek, then slipped out of her room and went straight to his studio.

They needed to find Crystal/Cassandra. The woman was like a ghost. Other than the day she’d appeared at Fanny’s, no one else shown his drawings of her had seen her. Tristan had even sent his officers to different businesses to review their security videos to see if she showed up, and she hadn’t. Not even at the grocery store. Where was she eating or getting her food? Where was she staying?

Skylar had talked to Fanny, and the woman calling herself Cassandra hadn’t bought the sweater, so there was no credit card on file. Chase Talon had traced the knife they found pinned to the tree to a store in Atlanta. The knife was one of a kind, made by a local who sold his knives to the store. The store owner remembered the knife as one that had been purchased from his store some ten or so years earlier. He’d agreed to search back through his files to see if he could find a record of the purchase.

Bottom line, other than finally knowing what their arsonist looked like, and maybe a first name, they had nothing. Not for lack of trying. Every police officer and sheriff’s deputy were searching the motels, vacation cabins, and campsites in the county. So far, no sign of her. Parker had notified the state fire investigator that Marsville had an arsonist, and Tristan had run Parker’s sketch through a facial recognition database but hadn’t found a match. That told them she’d never been arrested. As soon as they had a last name for her, Nick Talon would do his thing and see if she’d been registered at the hotel during the conference. Kade had gone to the Atlanta hotel with the sketch of her, but neither the bartenders nor other staff recognized her.

It was frustrating and worrisome. Where would she strike next? He’d been keeping an eye on the town’s Facebook page, but no one had posted that they’d be out of town. Because the last target had been Willow and her car, Parker feared she was closing in on people close to him. His brothers agreed. What was her endgame? That was the question.

He didn’t have answers, so for tonight he shoved his worry to the back of his mind and painted. A few hours later, he stepped away from his easel and frowned at the abstract painting. Abstract wasn’t his thing, and he’d never attempted it before, but he recognized his confusion and anger in the dark colors slashed on the canvas. The anger was with himself for not knowing his own mind, for his past behavior and the one-night stand that was now threatening Willow.

He walked to the window and looked up at hers. The light was still on in her bedroom. Was he making the biggest mistake of his life by letting her go without telling her he thought he was falling in love with her? He wanted to go to her, but he had his little girl to think of, and she had to come first. Everly was already hurt, and it would only confuse her if he started seeing Willow again while she was still here and then she left.

After Simone, he’d decided he was done with wanting to be in love. What did that even mean? For him, it had meant nothing more than getting it wrong over and over. It had meant a lot of hurt. You’d think he’d learn. Willow wasn’t Simone or any of the others he’d loved. He knew that. It was himself that he didn’t trust to know his own damn heart. Was he still that little boy who needed—yearned for—someone to love him?

The light went out in Willow’s bedroom window, and with a heavy heart, he turned away. He took the finished canvas to the fireproof room, set it on an easel to dry, and deciding he wasn’t in the mood to paint more angry slashes tonight, he headed to bed.

Before he could crawl between the sheets, his phone chimed an alert. “Marsville Fire Department. Respond to a fire at 28 Main Street. Repeat. Fire at 28 Main Street.”

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