Page 33 of Dagger

I stood on her porch, pacing back and forth. My body radiated with anger and worry while I waited for her to get her ass home. My hands were balled into fists just thinking about how scared she must’ve been, being chased down the highway and then rammed from behind. When her car pulled into the driveway, I stopped pacing and watched, waiting for her to exit the car.

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding when she finally stepped out. She was here and she was safe.

And she was apparently angry.

“What are you doing here?” Her tone was ice cold and clipped. She brushed past me, or she tried to, but her legs gave out. I took a step forward and wrapped my arms around her. “I’m fine,” she snapped, smacking at my hands.

I held her close, refusing to let her go because I needed to feel her in my arms, to assure myself that she was safe. That’s when I looked at her, really looked at her, and what I saw pissed me off. Her face was red and was already starting to bruise. “Yeah,” I snorted. “You’re fine, Sinclair. Your face is gonna beblack and blue tomorrow, but yeah, fine.” The swelling had already started and tomorrow she would be in even more pain. “Are you okay?” It was a dumb as fuck question, but it was what you asked people in this situation.

“Yeah,” she sighed. “I’m fine.”

Fine. Wasn’t that just the worst fucking word in the world when it came to women and their feelings? Fine, in my experience, usually meantnot fine, but hey, what did I know? “You’re not fine.” I refused to argue with her because I had eyes, and my arms were the only things keeping her upright.

She tried to swat my hands away, but the effort was half-hearted at best.

I grabbed the keys that dangled from her fingers, opened the door, and helped her inside. I walked Sinclair to the sofa and sat her down before I went back to lock the door. She looked so fucking small, exhausted, and still scared as she curled her body as small as possible. I didn’t want to stress her out, but I needed answers. “Tell me what happened.”

She shrugged. “You’re here, so I assume you already know.”

“Cross called to tell me someone I knew had been in anincidentand that was it.”

Her eyes went so wide I thought they’d pop out of her head. “You’re close to the sheriff?”

I shrugged. “I wouldn’t say close, but we often have the same objective, which is to keep Steel City safe.”

Sinclair nodded. “Okay, so you know.”

“No, I don’t. All I know is thatsomethinghappened.” I sat down beside her on the couch, turning to face her with my arms folded. “Tell me. Please.”

She nodded and stared at a spot on the wall just past me, and then with a heavy sigh she started talking. “I decided to take myself out for dinner instead of staying inside jumping at every sound. It was a good time. I never go out to eat by myself. Anyway, I was carrying my tiramisu for tomorrow back to my car when I started to feel eyes on me.” She shook her head, and her gaze met mine. “I rushed to my car and started home when I saw a dark car following me.”

I nodded. “Any description?”

She shook her head. “Dark car, gray or blue with four doors. That’s all I could see. The windows were too dark to make out any details.”

“How did you end up on the highway?”

Her lips stretched into a humorless grin. “I thought I had a better chance of getting away, but that was after taking erratic turns just to be sure I wasn’t being paranoid. They toyed with me, staying on my ass and then slowing down to make me think I was getting away.”

Damn, that was smart, and it only made me appreciate her more.

“I knew I needed to call the police, but I was going too fast and shaking too hard to call while driving, so I pulled over and called 9-1-1. He slammed into me while I was on the call.” Her eyes slammed shut and her shoulders hunched over.

“You hit the steering wheel?”

She nodded. “I was stopped completely and the airbags didn’t deploy.” She rubbed the back of her neck and then looked straight at me. “I’m fine.”

“You know, Sinclair, I’m really starting to hate that fucking word.”

She blinked. “You don’t like hearing that I’m fine?”

“I’d love to hear it if that was the truth, but it’s not, is it?” I shook my head. “You’re not fine, but you keep saying it, and I’m just trying to figure out if you’re trying to convince me or yourself.”

Her eyes flashed with something I couldn’t quite name before she looked away. “I said I’m fine, Dagger. And I’m not your problem.”

I smiled at her words, the determined tilt of her head. She really was trying to put distance between us, so damn used to doing everything on her own. So used to having nobody in her corner, no one to rely on but herself. What she didn’t know was that I wasn’t like all the other assholes in her life, happy to let her handle life on her own. “Okay, Sinclair, if that’s how you want it.”

It was imperceptible, that small moment of hesitation, that flash of fear mixed with resignation. She expected me to bounce just when she needed someone. “Good,” she replied, her voice smaller and less sure.

---