Page 21 of Soldier Cowboy
“Do you…think we were followed here?” She pulled on that pinky finger again.
“Probably not. But we can’t be too careful.”
Colton sat on the edge of the bed and picked up his phone.No service.Not a surprise there. Still, he was due to check in with her father. He picked up the handset on the nightstand. There were several of these around the house and they also served as intercoms. Not that he would need one in this small house.
“Walker,” said the gruff voice on the other end of the line.
“It’s Henderson.”
“I didn’t recognize the number. How is she?”
“We arrived before dawn and had no issues.”
Horace whistled. “You made good time. Is she giving you any trouble yet?”
“Whatkindof trouble?”
“She might want to go off plan. Take off without telling you, that kind of thing. Always been a bit of a free spirit, pain in the ass.”
Free spirit.And probably a free thinker. Horace wasn’t a fan, and in this situation neither was Colton, so he’d be sure to be aware. There were times to go off script and there were times to follow the plan.
“No trouble at all. And I think she’s subdued now. My brother accidentally surprised us this morning when he thought someone had broken into the house. He carried a rifle with him.”
Horace chuckled. “I imagine she’s going to be fairly quiet for a while.”
Colton hesitated letting Horace in on their fake relationship situation. This was on a need-to-know basis, too, and he didn’t mind falling on the right side of that command for once.
“We still have no Wi-Fi on the ranch, so this is the number to reach us. I’ll have my phone on me because it works in the downtown area. Have there been any additional threats?”
“Not that I know of, but I will alert you if there are. For now, I’ve been driving by and the apartment is clearly unoccupied, which is what we want her stalker to realize.”
“You have her phone. Have you turned it off?” He hardly needed to remind Horace, but one never knew. Colton liked to cover all angles.
“Yes.”
After a few more particulars and promising to get in touch with any changes in location, Colton hung up.
Then he slept. Like the dead.
While Colton napped,Jennifer unpacked. She’d taken everything she could fit in three suitcases when her father informed her she’d be going out of town for a while. For her protection.
If only she’d never agreed to go out with Dan. Maybe none of this would have happened. He seemed so nice, so normal, and then like a flipped switch, he became someone else. She should have known someone who had asked her out ten times and wouldn’t take no for an answer was not normal.
But then one of her friends would remark, “Derek asked me to marry him seven times before I finally said yes.”
Or “At first, I thought Tom was a jerk and that he had to be conceited with those good looks, so I turned him down. Four times. Thank God he never gave up on me!”
So, it wasn’t unusual for a man to press if truly interested. Jennifer hadn’t dated much since her college boyfriend, and she kept thinking maybe it was time to get started again. Mistake number one: she agreed to one date.
Dan was handsome in a Ken doll sort of way and put together in his suits and wingtips. Perfect hair, perfect straight white teeth. Completely unthreatening and about as far from a military man as possible. He worked at a local real estate brokerage firm and drove a BMW. Not that she cared about money, but he obviously had the ability to function in the world.
Only later would she wonder how.
On their first date she learned he was a fan of her podcast and confessed that’s the first time he’d heard of her. It should have been a wake-up call. He’d looked her up on social media, and the fact they’d run into each other at her regular coffeeshop was no coincidence. But she did not realize any of this at the time.
“What you do is a service to the community,” Dan had said.
She was flattered he appreciated her up-and-coming podcast.
