Page 69 of A Brambleberry Summer

“I’m not going to do that. We love each other. She’s just being stubborn.”

Rosa stood in front of him on the porch, Fiona growling at her side. “You cannot see her now.”

She could see his talkative mood shift to anger again.

“Get out of my way,” he said slowly and deliberately, and moved a step closer.

“No,” she said, gripping the rock more tightly.

“You think I’m going to let some stupid little bitch keep me away from the woman I love after I’ve come all this way?”

Always, it was about him. Not about the woman or the child he had displaced from their home, forced to flee his unwanted obsession.

Rosa was shaking and she realized it was a combination of fear, pain and anger.

“Get out of my way. If you think I’m leaving, you don’t know a damn thing about me.”

Rosa lifted her chin. “I know all I need to know about you, Aaron Barker. I know you are a coward, a bully, a despicable human being. You have terrorized Jenna, one of the kindest women I know, who has already been through enough, because you refuse to believe a woman is not interested in you.”

“Shut up. Jenna loves me.”

“Then why did she move eight hundred miles to get away from you?”

His face turned red with anger. “Move. Last warning.”

“I am not going anywhere.”

He reached to shove her aside and Fiona lunged again. He kicked out at the dog, but she would not let her sweet canine protector be hurt again.

Rosa lifted the rock with both hands and, with every ounce of strength she had left, she slammed it into the side of his head. He stared at her in shock, dazed, then staggered backward, stumbling off the porch.

Rosa stared at him for only a second before she rushed to the door. She was fumbling to punch in the code when she heard sirens and a door slam, then a voice yelled out, “Don’t move!”

Wyatt!

He had come.

Vast relief poured over her and Rosa, shaking violently now, sagged to the ground, her back pressed against the door and her arms wrapped around her brave, wonderful dog.

Chapter Fifteen

Wyatt restrained the son of a bitch, who seemed groggy and incoherent, and was mumbling about how much he loved Jen and how she had to talk to him.

It took every ounce of control he had not to bash the man’s head against the porch steps, especially when he saw blood trickling out of Rosa’s mouth.

This man had hurt Rosa. And not just physically. She looked...shattered. He wanted to go to her, but he needed to secure the scene first before he could comfort her.

“Where are Jen and Addie?” he asked. He had been at his sister’s house when Jen had called, her voice frantic. He hadn’t been able to understand her at first, but had quickly surmised through her distress that her stalker was there and he was hurting Rosa and Fiona.

She had hung up before he could ask any questions and he had assumed she was calling 911 as he heard the call go out of an assault while he was en route, screaming through town with lights and sirens blazing.

The door opened. “I’m here,” Jenna said. “I sent Addie into our apartment. Oh, Rosa. You saved us.”

She wrapped her arms around her friend and Wyatt didn’t miss the way Rosa winced. She had more aches and pains than just the bloody lip he could see.

The bastard was bleeding, too, from what looked like a nasty contusion. Wyatt looked around and found a large rock with blood on it. Had Rosa hit him with that? Good for her.

He finished handcuffing Barker and read him his rights, all while the man kept babbling about being a police officer and how this was all a big mistake.

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