Blacklisted (Loveless, Texas #3) - Jay Crownover Page 0,18
like my skin was paper-thin and too much of myself was being exposed. My emotions were already stretched to their breaking point, and I simply needed a breather to get my head together.
Shot dug a knuckle into his eye, and I reached up to knock it away without thinking about the familiarity of the gesture. “Stop touching it. I told you that you’ll just make it worse.”
Black eyebrows lifted in amusement and his mouth twisted into a grin. Belatedly, I realized that maybe it wasn’t the best idea to act so forward with the president of a biker gang. I’d already watched the man face down a barrage of bullets without being fazed, so there was no telling what he was capable of.
“You said you started to take self-defense classes when your life went sideways. What exactly happened that made you think you have to be able to take someone out with whatever weapon you can find?” His voice was deep and smooth. The low rumble didn’t have any trace of an accent or a twang, letting me know he wasn’t a Texas native. In fact, I couldn’t pinpoint what his origins were.
I sighed and pulled open my bag of cheesy puffs. “It’s a long story.”
One strong shoulder lifted and fell as he slowed his pace to stay next to me. “We got time.”
The walk wasn’t the longest, and the need to rush wasn’t as pressing as it had been when I got dropped off in town. That eerie feeling of being followed and watched was no longer making the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, but I wasn’t sure if that was because the threat was gone, or because of the man walking next to me. He was big and intimidating; however, his presence was surprisingly comforting. I felt safe when I was around him.
I sighed again and licked the tip of my finger. “I like routine and predictability. I was always focused on school and then on work, so I never had time for friends or things that are frivolous and fun.”
I gave him another look out of the corner of my eye to see what his reaction was. His expression didn’t change much, but it was hard to tell if he didn’t have a reaction or if he was just in pain from the bug spray.
I squeezed the bag of snacks in my hand and heard the remaining few crunch into dust as I thought about how things had gone sideways so fast.
“My best friend and I were both candidates for the chief ME position of our county. It was a huge opportunity, and it was unprecedented to have two female candidates for the job. A few months before they officially decided to offer either of us the job, strange things started happening with the cases I was assigned. The evidence went missing and turned up mislabeled. Some of my rulings surrounding cause of death came into question, and more than one court case relying on my testimony was suddenly dismissed. It was a huge deal, caused a media circus and a whole internal investigation, because my record was pristine. I wasn’t ready to walk away from my career and all I’d worked for just yet. But then on top of the trouble at work, someone started stalking me and making me think I was losing my mind. I really began to wonder if I’d actually made those kinds of mistakes and risked setting criminals and killers free.”
I took a shaky breath and let it out very slowly as all the missteps and mysterious mishaps replayed in my mind.
“I went to stay with my friend, the one who I was going up against for the promotion, because I didn’t feel safe alone. While I was at her place she kept mentioning to me that maybe now wasn’t the best time to advance my career if I was the one offered it.”
I shook my head at my own cluelessness. “I should’ve realized how badly she wanted the job then, but I didn’t. I was naive and too trusting.”
A bitter, broken laugh escaped, and I missed a step as Shot turned his head to look at me with obvious concern.
It took a minute for me to get my head around the rest of the words because they hurt to say. “While I stayed with her, she also kept mentioning my mother’s health, which wasn’t good. I didn’t realize it at the time, but she