Secure Location - By Beverly Long Page 0,2
she said.
He didn’t limp. Not even a little. She felt insanely glad for him. He’d always been an athlete. If he hadn’t been riding his bike or running along the lake, he’d been catching a quick pickup basketball game with whoever happened to be at the courts. “Congrats on the rehab,” she said. “You must have been pretty diligent.”
He stopped but didn’t turn around. “I had a lot of time on my hands,” he said, his delivery stiff.
After you left, she added silently.
She didn’t need his contempt. She had plenty of her own. When he started walking again, she let him get a little farther ahead. Even so, when he stopped very suddenly, she almost rammed into him.
“Wha—” The words caught in her throat as he grabbed her arm, yanked her behind one of the stone pillars that supported the roof, and pressed her body against the cold, rough concrete.
She could feel his back against her back.
She twisted her neck to look. Cruz had pulled his gun and his arm was raised, level with his shoulder. He rotated in a half circle. Then, with his free hand, he pressed against her side, to shift her. In tandem, they sidestepped halfway around the pillar. Once he’d done a three-sixty inspection of the garage, he lowered his arm and moved away.
“You okay?” he asked.
What the heck? She was about to demand an explanation when he pointed in the direction of her car.
The front and back windows on her red Toyota were smashed and it looked as if someone had taken a baseball bat to the hood. On the rear bumper, BITCH was sprayed in white paint. The passenger-side window, which was facing them, had been almost completely knocked out, just a few shards of glass remained.
Her heart, already racing in her chest, kicked up another notch.
“You’re close enough,” he said.
Like hell. She started walking. He didn’t try to hold her back, just fell in step next to her. “Don’t touch anything,” he said.
As they got closer, a raw and disgusting smell made her gag. They peered inside. Two dead fish, already deteriorating, had been tossed onto the driver’s seat. Cruz turned his head. There was violence in his eyes that would have scared her if she hadn’t known him so well. And for just a minute, she thought he was going to yell at her, perhaps throw her casual remark about how safe the garage was in her face.
Instead, he said, “I’m going to assume that wasn’t the rest of your lunch?”
In spite of it all, she wanted to smile. She’d missed his wicked sense of humor. No one would ever make her laugh the way he had. “I prefer my fish frozen and shrink-wrapped.”
“Good plan.” He straightened up, pulled a cell phone from his shirt pocket, and handed it to her. “Call the police and your security department, too. Let’s hope the camera wasn’t broke today.”
When she didn’t protest, didn’t make any noises about him not being the boss of her, Cruz figured she was as shook as she looked. After he’d seen the damage and the dead fish, he’d been this close to losing it but then he’d seen her pale face and her pinched lips and figured she didn’t need him to be an ass.
She was too thin. She’d always been in good shape, had worked out regularly, eaten right. But she’d lost at least ten pounds off her frame. She seemed almost fragile. Shiny dark hair with hazel eyes, flawless skin, she still looked very much like the girl next door, even at age thirty-five. He suspected at fifty she’d still be beautiful. At seventy, she’d be lovely. At ninety, she’d be radiant.
He had thought he would see all those ages with her. But then suddenly a year ago, after six years of marriage, she’d kicked him to the curb. And followed her boss to San Antonio.
Wasn’t he some kind of stupid fool for thinking more than once in the past year, that just maybe she’d find her way back to Chicago, back to him? But people didn’t come back. They moved on. His father had. Moved out and moved on. Started a new family and never came back to his old family. Even though they’d desperately needed him.
His mom had been a rock even though he’d done his very best to make her life miserable. He’d been angry and defiant, determined to prove to everybody that his dad was justified in leaving. But somehow his mother had