And I’d missed it all.
The one bright spark in my day had been that one of my favorite Piersville residents had come in for stitches – Jarrod Kline. He was one of the first residents I’d met when I’d moved here, having literally walked into him in the store, and I loved the guy to pieces. I especially loved his voice. I had the first audiobook he’d narrated sitting on my phone, waiting for Raoul to go back onto nights. That man’s voice…
And that reminded me of something else - I had two recordings of him singing on my phone. So, while I tipped a can of wet food into Rex’s bowl and mixed it with some dry stuff, I unlocked my phone and shouted for my Alexa.
“Alexa, connect to Rose’s phone.”
Her verbal confirmation followed the normal bing bong noise, but for some reason it sounded Australian. The fact that he’d probably done it to piss me off was neither here nor there as the tension left my shoulders and neck.
Over the last week – in fact, if I was honest, it had been for the last year at least – Raoul Evans had made bad days better. Yes, undoubtedly, he’d done it all to piss me off, but the laughter, the distraction, even the need to get revenge, had all made me feel freer and happier than I’d ever felt before in my life. I loved that we still played pranks on each other after the change in our relationship. I loved that he spooned me even though I beat him up. I loved that he knew just what I needed, and the bare truth was – I loved him. Hell, I even loved his brother, although in a totally different way. And I really liked his family and was sad that they’d had to leave this morning because Catalina needed to get back to work.
Absolutely I was still worried about Chad going after Tana, even though I knew she was safe where she was. I was also still pissed that he’d punched me in the face. And, admittedly, I was scared that no one had found him yet, and had to constantly distract myself from thinking about what he was doing or how close to me he might be. That’s what was responsible for the tension in my shoulders that Raoul’s tampering with my Alexa had helped.
See? He just made it easier to breathe, and I desperately wanted to be able to do that for him, too. I could only imagine the things he dealt with on a daily basis because law enforcement personnel saw things that would scar you for life, so I wanted to be the person who made him feel like he made me feel without even trying. That was my goal, and I was going to work on it.
Placing the bowl down on the floor and wincing when Rex bolted out from his hiding space and shoved his face into it, I went to walk to my room when someone started hammering on my door.
“Shithead. I told him I’d be ok while he went and got Ranger,” I muttered. Yanking it open, I snapped, “There’s no need to break the freaking d…”
But the person on the other side wasn’t who I thought it was. Nor was it my brother, or even a guy holding a pizza because I’d won the pizza lottery. No, this guy was turning into a bigger pain in my ass than the blister’s on Garrett’s were to him. But at least we knew where to find Chad, right?
Faster than I figured a man like him would be able to move, he lifted his hand and shoved me backward. I want to say I put up a good fight, and that I fought like I’d always planned I’d fight if I was attacked in the shower. The problem was that I’d never factored in a man the size of a fucking rhino being the one who’d be attacking me, so I ended up tripping over my own feet and hitting my head on the floor. This was ironic because I fought like a kung-fu master when there was a spider web in front of me, but a guy built like a brick shit house? If I survived this, I was going to have to do something about that.Chapter EighteenRoseWhile I’d been lying on the floor – you know, as you do – he’d dragged an unconscious Garrett inside and had ordered me to go through to the living room. Maybe I should be scared, but I felt like I’d been put in the naughty corner as Chad paced back and forth in front of me, telling me all the reasons why his life had gone to shit and how I was to blame.