Page 23 of The Anchor Holds

“Or the work of a woman who is trying to act as if she doesn’t care about anything but will go to strange lengths for a stranger.” I verbalized what I’d been stewing on for days.

“You read too many fairy tales, Elliot Shaw.” She kept hold of the door, unblinking, but I swore I detected a chink in her armor. “And you’ve got too much faith in people if you think that’s anything but a coincidence.”

She tried to close the door in my face, but I’d been waiting for that since the moment she opened it.

My boot caught it, and I gripped it, pushing it back open.

Her eyes flared in fury and her body visibly stiffened as if she was about to square off with me. I didn’t miss the flicker of fear in her eyes, though hidden quickly, betraying something else about her. That she understood she had to fear men. That there might’ve even been a tangible, personal reason for that. Anger, rage, built in my body at the sheer thought that someone mighthave hurt this woman. I was not a wrathful man, but I instantly wanted to tear apart anyone who dared hurt her.

“Do I need to call the police to get you removed from my property?” she asked curtly.

“Do youwantme removed?” I challenged, forcing my fervor down. “Or are you scared I found you out?”

My words had their intended effect.

Her lips parted on a gasp, her eyes thinning to slits. “To insinuate that I’m scared of a small-town fisherman is laughable.”

My cock pressed against the zipper of my jeans again. The way she insulted me somehow turned me on. “It’s just the truth you’re afraid of, then.”

She tilted her head, studying me with a shrewd intensity I didn’t just feel in my cock. I felt it in every atom. “Everyone is afraid of the truth, Elliot.”

Another cock twitch. My name coming out of her mouth was quickly becoming one of the hottest things I’d heard.

“And the truth is, you somehow tracked down my estranged sister-in-law and had her … beaten or scared into submission to come here and save her daughter’s life.” I didn’t bother masking my emotions, my words harder then.

Because although the gesture in itself was remarkable, the violence I suspected it was orchestrated with unnerved me. Calliope Derrick was dangerous. I’d suspected as much when I first laid eyes on her but not to the extent I was rapidly coming to understand.

Her gaze fluttered just a little at the mention of the violence, and surprise, distaste, maybe even panic, flashed across her expression. Though it all happened quickly, making it hard for me to decipher since I didn’t know her as well as I intended to.

She finally let go of the door to fold her arms across her chest. It was with great difficulty that I didn’t follow the gesture to examine the outline of her tits—no bra.

“Considering what little I know of that woman, I don’t have any sympathy for her getting a little roughed up in order to convince her to do the right thing.” She shrugged. “Call it karma, though a very mild version of it.”

Her words were convincing, and there was plenty of distaste for my sister-in-law that was genuine, but I couldn’t help but think she was as unnerved by the violence as I was.

“So are you going to say you’re just like everyone else?” I questioned. “Afraid of the truth? You’re going to stand here and lie to me?”

I watched her emotions battle on her face … her lips forming a flat line, the twitch in her ebony gaze, the indentation on her left cheek to suggest she was sinking her teeth into the flesh inside her mouth. “I have nothing to prove to you,” she replied. “And I can lie as easily as breathing. Have to people much more important than you.”

I waited, not rising to the bait, not shifting my gaze. A stare off with this woman might’ve been unwise since I sensed she was well practiced and could outlast me, but for whatever reason, I couldn’t leave there without trying my hardest to get to the bottom of it.

She let out an audible exhale. “You know, letting sleeping dogs lie is the best way to avoid getting rabies.”

I smirked at her, surprised and delighted that I’d won this round, though I certainly hadn’t suspected I would.

“I don’t think that is the term. Generally, dogsdon’thave rabies.”

She smiled, showing all of her teeth. White, straight, gleaming. “The broken ones don’t, the wild ones do.”

Though I was tired of dancing around the issue, I didn’t get lost in the metaphor, no matter how attractive I found it when Calliope showed her teeth.

“You found Naomi,” I said flatly.

When she didn’t answer right away, I watched her look at me, scrutinize me, calculating her response.

“I didn’t personally,” she conceded. “I called in a favor.”

Though I’d suspected as much, it still hit me the same. I assumed Calliope Derrick was someone who did not like asking for help. I wondered what the price of that favor was. I might’ve been a small-town fisherman, but I understood that the world Calliope lived in was one where nothing was done for free.

---