Page 18 of The Sniper

He paused, then his voice softened. “We’ll get through this, Hallie Mae. You’re strong. Stronger than you know.”

“I don’t feel strong right now.”

“That’s all right. The Lord does.”

We hung up, and I sat there for another long minute, towel clutched tight, water dripping from the ends of my hair to the tile below.

I’d changed clothes when I arrived home, but now I felt the need to change again. I pulled on jeans and a soft, long-sleeved blouse—something modest, somethingMama would’ve approved of. Then I sat down on the edge of my bed and picked up my phone again, scrolling without thought, without direction.

Deputy Mendez had said the sniper’s name.

Dane.

But was that his first name? His last?

All I knew was the sound of his voice. The weight of his hands. The fire he’d left in my mouth.

I touched my fingers to my lips, still sore from the kiss that hadn’t asked permission, hadn’t waited.

It should’ve made me furious. But it hadn’t. It had made me burn.

No one had ever touched me like that. Not in high school. Not in college. Especially not the good Christian boys who’d taken me to dinner and asked about my favorite Bible verse.

None of them had looked at me like that man had. Like I was already his.

And none of them would’ve known how to hold a rifle steady through a storm and pull a trigger with perfect aim while the whole world fell apart around them.

He scared me.

But not the way I’d expected.

Not like those other men—men with fists and threats and bruises behind closed doors.

No, this man scared me because he made me want things I’d worked so hard to bury.

Desire.

Curiosity.

A hunger I didn’t have a name for.

I shouldn’t have let him kiss me. I don’t let men kiss me. I’ve gone twenty-seven years without crossing certain lines—not even a real date in over a year, not so much asa second glance at the wrong kind of man. I was raised to save myself for marriage. And I have. Every part of me. But then he looked at me like that … said my courage was real … and I hadn’t known how to breathe.

Now he was behind bars.

Because of what he’d done.

Because he saved us.

I stood slowly, glanced once in the mirror. I didn’t recognize my own face. Still pale. Still damp. But something was different in my eyes.

Sharper.

Wilder.

Like something inside me had been struck by lightning.

And I couldn’t help wondering?—

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