Page 9 of Guarding Her Love

“Do you have proof? Can you put it online and out him?”

“I had proof,” I sigh, slumping back on the couch. “On a USB drive. But that’s gone now. It was in my car.”

“Do they know it was in your car?” Dawson asks quickly. “Because they were both chasing us.”

Quickly, I sit up and look at him. The thought hadn’t even occurred to me. I simply assumed Senator Bryant knew I had the drive and where to find it, but he might just think I have it on me…or that I’d hidden it somewhere.

“I—I don’t know…”

“Because if they don’t know,” Dawson continues, “and if your car has been towed to a lot by now, then the drive might still be there and I could go get it.”

“You?” I say quickly. “No, I can’t let you—”

“Are you kidding me?” he laughs, placing a hand on my knee. “You think I’m going to save your life and then just abandon you? I’m involved now, Joy.”

“I can’t let you do that, Dawson,” I tell him as my heart starts to race. But he quickly stands up and sets his mug aside.

“You can’t stop me either.” He grins as he puts his shoes on. I’m on my feet in an instant, blocking the door.

“No!” I tell him. “I can’t let you. If—if anything happened to you—”

“Don’t worry,” he tells me. “Nothing’s going to happen to me. I’m a Marine, remember? I fought terrorism in Afghanistan; a couple of Russian mobsters aren’t going to be the ones to take me down.”

“Please,” I tell him, wrapping my arms around him. “Don’t go. I’ll never forgive you if you do.”

“And I’ll never forgive myself if there was a chance for us to finish the work you did, Joy – a chance to expose that son of a bitch and save all those women he’s harmed.”

My heart sinks. He’s right. Of course he’s right, and I should be thankful for his help, but I’m even more terrified that he’ll end up getting hurt because of me.

“Where is the USB drive, Joy?” he asks me. For a second, I think about not telling him. But I know he’s just going to go anyway, and if he doesn’t know where to look, he could end up in even more trouble.

“A pocket under the seat,” I tell him, barely able to find the words. “It’s part of the fabric; it’s hard to notice. It’s on the left.”

“Got it,” he says. There’s not an ounce of fear in his voice. I can feel the strength in his body.

“Why are you doing this, Dawson?” I finally ask him. He just looks down at me as though I should already know the answer to my question.

“Because, Joy,” he says softly as he gently drags the backs of his fingers across my cheek. “I’ve been missing something in my life for so long, and now I think I finally found it.”

My jaw drops, but before I can respond, Dawson slips out of my arms and out the door into the night.

Please come back to me, Dawson. Please.

6

Joy

The next three hours are the longest three hours of my life. I try to entertain myself in the cabin, but it seems like Dawson has been spending all his free time working on the place and there’s only a couple of magazines and a few books on woodworking for entertainment. He doesn’t have a TV or a computer or a laptop, or anything to play music on, so I actually start thumbing through one of the books and reading about how to do something called a “dove-tail joint,” which is a way of joining two pieces of wood together.

But my mind just won’t sit still; I can’t stop thinking about Dawson out there with those two men after him – or maybe more by now – and the terrible things that could happen to him (or could already have happened).

A couple of times I actually think about calling the police. But I don’t know how many of them the senator might have on the payroll, and I also realize I don’t have my phone either. All I can do is watch the minute hands on Dawson’s wall clock slowly tick by as I listen for the sound of his car engine coming home.

Home? Did I just think that? The thought frightens me; there’s no denying that Dawson is a gorgeous dreamboat, but how am I already thinking about his cabin as home?

“Already!? Gah!”

Exasperated, I hop up off the couch where I’ve been trying to relax and start pacing around the room.

---