Page 19 of The Bodyguard
They would find somebody else to distract them.
Tomorrow, though, I would head back to The King’s Land and start to get my shit straight.
I was young. I was maybe or maybe not rich. There wasn’t anything I couldn’t do.
So, why can’t you figure out what youwantto do?
I shook my head at my inability to answer my own question, and that’s when I saw him.
He was thirty, maybe forty feet ahead of me. Not walking. Just stopped at the end of the trail. His face was covered by a black hoodie, but I got the sense that he was young. Lean, but definitely a guy. I don’t know what it was—the lack of dog, the lack of a map. No phone, no buds in his ears.
Just a stillness. A sense that he was watching me.
Every hair on the back of my neck went up and without even thinking I turned and started running as fast as I could down the trail. I looked over my shoulder and saw he’d started to run after me. I didn’t think then. I put my head down and sprinted as fast as I could.
I saw two women with some preschool kids around their legs walking farther along up the trail and I screamed.
“Help me!”
Immediately they stopped and turned. The one woman picked up her child, the other moved her kid behind her.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry but he’s following me…”
I turned and pointed behind me, but when I did he was gone.
“He was…he was running after me.”
The two women seemed stunned but as soon as they realized there was no immediate threat they patted my arm as if to comfort me.
“Do you want us to call 911?” the woman holding her child asked me.
I took my phone out of the armband where I wore it for jogging. I could do that. I could call 911. But what would be the point? A man in a black hoodie had been on a running trail, running, and then he disappeared.
I was letting the stalker get to me. There was no way he would have followed me to Dallas. I was being jumpy.
I shook my head. “No, I must have…overreacted. Sorry if I scared the kids.”
“It’s all right, honey. Better to be safe than sorry,” said the other woman. “Do I know you? Because you look very familiar to me.”
“Oh, wait,” the other woman said. She had put down her child now that the coast was clear. “You’re the Cowboy Princess! Oh, my gosh! Tammy, it’s her. Sabrina King. We watch your show all the time!”
I smiled.
“Can we get a picture?” The woman named Tammy was already taking out her phone.
Sure. Why not? After all, I hadn’t really been chased by a threatening man in a dark hoodie. Had I? I gave them my best TV smile and held my pose as they snapped a selfie with me.
I couldn’t get back to The King’s Land fast enough.
* * *
GARRETT
Pine’s Ranch
I walked through the door to the clean scent of lemon. It was my cleaning lady’s day to visit and I always loved how the place smelled after she’d been here. I took off my utility belt and firearm and laid it down on the table in my foyer.
The plan was to grab a shower, have a cold beer, and heat up whatever Juanita had left me in the fridge.
