Blacklisted (Loveless, Texas #3) - Jay Crownover Page 0,34
chose to be a medical examiner because I couldn’t handle the thought of being the person trying to delay the inevitable. I’m not strong enough to fight the battle for life and losing it. The idea of not being able to save someone…” She trailed off and I saw her shoulders slump. “It’s too much. I remember how my mother cried when she was told she was going to die no matter what the doctor did. I will never forget how helpless and hopeless I felt when we got the news. I never wanted to be in a position to bring that disappointment into someone’s life. Instead, I picked a field where I get to tell people that I’ll make sure their loved one didn’t die in vain. I don’t go up against death, I make sense of it for those who are left behind because I understand it so well.”
She stopped at her car. As she beeped the door open, she asked, “Did the situation you ran into recently have anything to do with the shooting in the parking lot in front of my apartment?”
I wasn’t shocked at the subject change, since things were getting pretty intense for such a short walk in the dark. “More than likely.”
I still wasn’t a hundred percent certain Jed Coleman was behind that incident. Regardless, he was no longer a threat to either of us, which meant anything that occurred in the future was undoubtedly because of her friend turned enemy. It would make keeping her safe a tad bit easier. “But that doesn’t mean you can be any less vigilant. Your plan is to purposely trigger a psychopath. You have to take extra precautions when it comes to safety now that you’ve decided it’s time to take your life back.” Which I assumed meant she was going back to her apartment and work.
She lifted her chin in a sign of agreement. “I feel like I haven’t been able to breathe since my mother died and I found out who my father was and the Lawtons all came charging into my life with guns blazing. The walls have been closing in, and sometimes I feel like I can’t move.”
I glanced over my shoulder into the darkness around the parking lot to make sure nothing seemed out of place. The only thing that didn’t fit was the elegant woman in front of me. She wasn’t the usual type to frequent Kody’s rowdy bar. I knew instinctively that Presley Baskin wasn’t a jeans-and-cowboy-boots kind of woman. I doubt she knew how to two-step or the words to “Cotton-Eyed Joe.” She tended to dress in all black, and she always seemed to be more covered up than the Texas heat called for. The mystery of what she looked like underneath all the fabric was one I dreamed about solving. Her tendency toward darker clothes also made her pale skin and coppery hair seem brighter and more vibrant than they actually were. I felt like I could find her in the darkest corner of the world without even trying. She was pretty in a different way than I was normally attracted to. She wasn’t about flash, but when I looked at her, it seemed like she was lit from within.
I reached out and brushed a piece of coppery hair away from her pale cheek. It was a silk ribbon wrapping around my fingers, and I knew if there was enough light to see her clearly, she would be blushing. I grinned as she practically jumped out of her skin. One of these days she was going to stop starting like a frightened doe when I got close enough to touch her. Even if she wanted to pretend that the chemistry that sparked to life whenever we were together didn’t exist, her body and addictive reactions couldn’t help but betray her. I bent my head so I could put my lips next to her ear, grinning as she jolted when I spoke softly.
“The walls haven’t been closing in, they’ve been knocked down, and you can see far and wide. Your world is so much bigger now that it’s a lot to take in. That’s why you can’t breathe. It’s all a matter of perspective.”
She blinked up at me and I could almost see her searching for the right words, or any words, really. She said I was walking all over her boundaries, and maybe I was a little bit. But from what I saw so far, she could