Shielded In The Shadows

Out of fear? Or something else?

Emma had texted before she’d gone to sleep the night before, as he’d requested before he left, to give him the results of the MRI. The findings corroborated the preliminary brain scan: other than the concussion, she was fine.

There was no reason he had to get her clothes, but he wanted to. Wanted to help her in ways that he’d never imagined. “I’m staying with you,” he told her. He wasn’t going to change his mind, even if she had a houseful of friends getting her clothes. “Or another trained officer is. That’s Chantel’s edict, not mine. It’s either that or move you to a safe house.”

“I’m not going to stop working,” she told him, sounding like the woman he knew—and was hesitant to admit, even to himself, he cared for. “Whatever it is I’m supposed to leave alone—and I know it’s Suzie’s case—I’m not doing it. Bullying is wrong.”

So was her possibly dying at the age of thirty-two at the hands of a maniac.

“No one’s going to stop looking for whoever is behind the threats, Emma. But it would make a lot of us feel better to know you’re safe.”

“I thought we had that handled with you staying with me.”

Well, yes, they did. So she wasn’t reneging. Doing a quick look-back on the conversation, he could find no place where she’d said she was changing her mind.

Nope, he’d conjured that one up on his own. Due to the damned fear that had been attacking him like a plague. Fear that she meant too much to him.

Fear that he couldn’t do anything about it.

Fear that he was going to hurt her somehow.

“And your friends and the clothes?” he asked.

“I told them I had that covered.”

Oh. Seemed like the sun had just come out from behind a cloud. Maybe it had.

Glancing toward the sky as he drove, he didn’t see a single cloud. Hadn’t noticed any that morning, either. But he still felt like smiling.

“They think I’m seeing someone.”

She dropped the bomb on him right when he was starting to feel better. And yet...he didn’t feel himself exploding. He just felt...still okay.

“What did you tell them?”

“Nothing, which is why they think that. What was I going to say? I’m in a sexually responsible situation?” She paused. “Frankly, I’m just as good with them drawing their own conclusions for now. It’ll keep them off my back for a while. They mean well. And I love them dearly. But if I want to be single for the rest of my life and raise a family that way, then that’s my business.”

He agreed. Completely. Was glad to hear her say the words aloud—confirmation that they were both still on the same page. A little bit of disappointment was to be expected. In his world, with the choices he’d made for himself, it was a given.

“But, Jayden? Just so you know...if I ever was going to change my mind about the single part, which I haven’t, it would be with you.”

She disconnected before he could get words past the constriction in his throat.

* * *

Emma was on edge, filled with too much energy to be comfortable lying around after less than a day at home. She’d begun working from bed while she’d still been in the hospital, having a coworker submit an emergency motion to put off her trial a week, and going over other hearings that had to be postponed, or turned over to someone else.

Once she got home, she took her computer to bed with her—other than at night when Jayden climbed in beside her. Just to sleep, he announced. No sex for at least another forty-eight hours. His wishes, not doctor’s orders.

She’d wanted to ask for a postponement of the previously agreed upon date for the end of their fling, but didn’t.

It seemed like her accident, as horrible as it had been, might have had a great gift hiding in there, too. When she’d woken in her hospital room to see Jayden there, sitting alone with her, holding her hand...

He’d let go after that one squeeze, but he’d been there. Holding her hand.

Like she mattered to him.

And she’d known, opening her eyes and seeing him, that she’d felt better just seeing his face.