Page 25 of Colt
I narrowed my eyes, crossed my arms over mychest. “How did you even find me?” While it wasn’t ridiculously hard to find someone who had a job, a medical license, a lease, a bank account, and other details that couldn’t be hidden without being in some kind of spy movie, I’d thought I had more than a short few weeks before she caught up with me.
“You were the medical examiner on a case that made the papers.”
Fuck. The Mann case.
I pulled my keys from my pocket, clicked the locks open and climbed in my car. Locked them. I was never, ever going to escape Missy. For the past few days, I’d kept away from Colt to keep him safe. The only other way to do that was to leave Devil’s Ditch. Missy would follow and wouldn’t give Colt a second thought. She was like a dog following someone holding a treat. That treat to her was money.
But I was tired of running. I’d fled to college out of state to escape her. Residency in another, but she’d left me alone because I consistently gave her money. Only when I settled in Denver and started working in an ER there did things escalate. I’d fled to Cheyenne, then to Devil’s Ditch.
It wasn’t going to stop. She wasn’t going to stop. She’d impersonated me to get an all-access badge to a hospital. She wasn’t just dangerous to me.
Colt needed to know the truth. He needed to know how I felt about him, that he was worth sticking around for. That I wanted to finally have it all instead of basing my life on reacting to Missy’s mental health problems and addiction.
I peeled out of the lot to head to the sheriff’s office. I tried to protect him by staying away, but it was time for him to protect me. I’d give him my problems, and I knew he’d take them.
Because from that very first night at the rodeo, what we felt was real.
And this week, since we found each other again, I submitted to him and he took care of me. Sure, that was in bed, but if I trusted him with my body, I could trust him with this, too. Right?
17
COLT
I knockedon Molly’s apartment door. The building was two stories, four units in total. It was newer, brick and the entrances to each apartment were on the outside. I knew someone in the department who used to live here before he got married. Decent place.
She’d be asleep after her night shift, but I needed answers and I wasn’t waiting until she woke up this later afternoon for them. Cam was beside me. Between the two of us, we made a wall, so she wasn’t going to run off past us. Not that I expected her to run. Hell, what did I even know of her? Maybe she wassneaking out a window right now. He looked to me and I knocked again.
The door to the other second floor apartment opened. We turned.
“Hey, Colt. Cam.” It was Andy who ran the Feed and Seed. Our family had been doing business with the place for as long as I could remember. Andy had only been there a few years, but knew all of us because he’d been in Hayes’s class at school. Decent guy. We’d both been part of a group that went on a river float trip last summer.
We met by the exterior stairwell and shook hands. He was dressed casually in jeans and a gray canvas jacket.
“You here for Molly?” he asked.
“Got some questions for her,” I said, not offering up much.
“I was surprised she told me you broke up,” he said.
My brows shot up but I remained silent. Only years of training kept me from wanting to ask him all sorts of questions. It was better to stay quiet and let a suspect fill in the quiet. Even though Andy wasn’t a suspect, the concept worked.
“Heard around town you two were pretty serious,but she told me it wasn’t like that. That you were a fling.”
My jaw was clenched so tight, I was sure Cam heard my molars crack.
“Oh yeah, why’s that?” Cam asked for me.
Andy glanced away, flushed. I couldn’t miss the sly smile on his face. “‘Cause she came onto me yesterday.”
What the actual fuck?
“Knocked on my door and asked for sugar,” he explained. “I know little old ladies do that, but she wasn’t looking for sugar. She was looking for something else.”
He winked.
Winked!
I wanted to punch his face in. Beat him to a pulp. Cam set his hand on my shoulder and it was the steadying gesture I needed.
