CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
PAIGE
The temperature in the house dropped twenty degrees as I sat on the couch. I was telling myself not to freak out but it was pointless.
I was totally wigging out. The guy covered in tattoos and black standing next to Beaux looked menacing, like he could kill a guy in five seconds. Snap their neck before they saw it coming.
“This is Jaxon Hayes,” Beaux said, pointing his thumb at the guy. “He’s head of a security firm in Raleigh.”
“Security?” Dad re-adjusted himself in his recliner and his eyes went alert. “What happened?”
“Nothing yet,” Jaxon said. “And we’re going to keep it that way.”
“Jaxon, man,” Beaux said, but Dad cut him off.
“No. No pussy footing around with this. You got something to say, spit it out.”
I’d thought we were past the time frame when I had to worry about Dad aiming a gun at Beaux.
I might have been wrong.
“Go ahead,” Jaxon said.
Damn. Beaux’s look went forlorn and he flinched. He rubbed his chest like he was in pain and didn’t look at me. Like he couldn’t. His guilt was heavy and all of it sent a sinking weight to my stomach.
“I found out this morning that apparently, I have a stalker. A recent development.”
“A what?” I jumped to my feet and rushed him. “Oh my God.” My hands landed on his chest and he flinched again.
“Yeah.” He gripped my forearms and pushed me back. He pushed me away. The heck? “But it’s not me I’m worried about. It’s you.”
“Me?”
“Yeah.” He looked at Dad. Then he explained.
And every single word he spoke shot that terror through me, chilling me straight to the bones.
Behind me, Mike shouted and paced back in forth in front of the fireplace.
Dad’s face turned to stone.
Melanie had come and stood next to me, holding my hand, but I barely felt it.
The longer he talked, explaining the notes and photos, Dad and Mike cussed more and more, in volumes and in phrases I’d never heard my dad say around me.
When Beaux mentioned the police being involved, Melanie gasped.
I’d turned mute. I couldn’t say or do a damn thing except absorb everything Beaux was explaining. I also knew by his flat expression and cold tone he was hiding more.
“So why are you here?” Dad said, looking at Jaxon, and interrupting Beaux for at least the tenth time with questions. Who could blame the guy for being worried and pissed the hell off?
“Beaux hired me. I’m Paige’s new security guard.”
“You don’t go anywhere without him,” Beaux said, his tone abrupt.
“What?”
“Miss Halloway,” Jaxon said, his voice was firm. Warm, comforting, with a bite of viciousness. “I promise you, I’m the best there is. While the police do their job, mine is to keep you safe.”
“Safe?” My head whipped to Beaux. “You think I need protection?”
Had I not been listening? I might have blocked it all out. This wasn’t happening. Yesterday I was just a girl dating a guy who played football.
Today I had some crazed fan taking photos of me and sending threatening letters.
Of course I needed protecting. Or a safe house. Or a new name. A new life.
Maybe someone to slap some sense into me.
“I’m not about to risk anything happening to you, the fact she’s followed you to work, or at least knows where you work, scares the shit out of me. I’m not going to lie, Paige. And there’s no way in hell I’m playing this off. Not with you.” Beaux’s voice sounded broken, harsh and thick, filled with shards of glass. The effort it was taking him to explain all of this, was obvious.
I still couldn’t move toward him. I couldn’t comfort him. His eyes went glacial blue and he scanned the room. “Not with any of you. You’re in this mess because of me and I will take care of it. Starting with a security system. Jaxon will have his team here first thing tomorrow to install it.
“Security,” I murmured. “Security and safety and stalkers.” Oh, my. I was losing my mind.
I’d been photographed in the last month. I’d noticed them. Traffic had picked up at the garage. All of it was an annoyance but it hadn’t terrified me. This went beyond terrifying and I fell back a step, away from Beaux.
He reached for me but I held up my hands. “No. No, I just, I need a minute.”
“Paige,” he croaked. “I’m sorry.”
“I know.” He was. I knew it. I could feel it rolling off him along with his fury.
It didn’t matter. I loved him. Had fallen in love with him. But I didn’t realize in doing so, from what they were saying, my life could be at stake.
All I knew was I needed space. A place to think and organize my thoughts, lay everything out that he’d just told me, what it meant for me in the upcoming days or weeks.
Was Beaux worth it?
Of course he was. A thousand times yes.
Was I strong enough to handle it?
I had no answer for that one.
“Excuse me,” I looked at my dad. “I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about, sweetheart. We just want you safe.” He sounded as torn apart as I felt, as Beaux looked, as equally torn up as Mike was clearly fuming pissed.
I squeezed his hand and let him go. “I need some time alone,” I said to Beaux. “To think.”
“To think?”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my fear clogging my throat and making the words bounce.
***
I went to my room, pulled a pillow to my chest, curled up against my headboard and stared out my window.
Then I jumped off the bed, looked outside, and slammed the blinds shut.
Was she out there? Watching us now? Was she hiding in the trees? Behind my neighbor’s fence? Was she using the garage? Did she know I worked at Ride’Em Rough? Was she doing anything other than turning my life and my safety upside down?
I didn’t want to think about her, what she was doing, but until she was caught or stopped, it would be the only thing I did.
Knowing someone was threatening your life and following you didn’t exactly scream comfort.
A knock tapped on my bedroom door and I ignored it. It wasn’t locked, but I was still too stunned to speak or move.
It didn’t matter how many times I rearranged what Beaux and Jaxon had said downstairs.
I didn’t know how long I’d been in my room when the knock happened again.
I stared at the closed blinds.
The door creaked open and it was Melanie’s sweet and concerned voice I heard. “I think you need a drink.”
She only had her head and arms sticking in the doorway, but she was also holding two bottles in one, glasses in the other. A white wine and tequila.
We didn’t have tequila in the house. She must have gone and got some.
I needed to chill out and calm down, but I didn’t need to be puking in the toilet. “Wine, please.”
She grinned, a sad and lopsided and understanding one, but she still skipped into my room, closing the door behind her.
“She could be out there,” I whispered, going back to watching my closed window blinds.
Melanie poured the drinks and climbed on the bed next to me, handing me one.
“She won’t hurt you.”
“You can’t know that.”
“Pshh.” She sipped her wine and bumped her shoulder into mine. “Yeah, I can. Did you even look at Rambo Sexy Pants down there? No way is some two-bit crazed chick getting past him.”
Leave it to Melanie to lighten the mood. “Rambo Sexy Pants?”
“Yeah. Give the guy a mullet and a bandana and he’s totally Sylvester Stallone circa early eighties.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“That’s because you don’t have a brother. Mine loves all those eighties, bad-ass guy movies. Anyway, Rambo. Green Beret. Vicious killer and sexy as hell. That’s the dude downstairs.”
“Hmmm.” I sipped my wine. I couldn’t lie and say Jaxon wasn’t sexy. He just scared the crap out of me more. “Rambo Scary Pants.”
She snorted. “Rambo I-wanna-get-in-his pants.”
I laughed. “You’re a nut.” Our giggles passed and we drank our wine. Melanie left me to my quiet, tormented thoughts and when my glass was empty, she refilled it. “I’m scared.”
“I don’t blame you. This is scary shit, but what are you thinking?”
“That I’m scared and it’s Beaux’s fault, and mine for dating him. And now I have to worry about my dad and Mike and the guys at the garage and wonder how insane or desperate this person is and is she following me all the time, or only at work, and does she know where I live? Has she followed me home? Does she know where Beaux is? What will she do to keep me out of his—”
A hand slammed over my mouth and silenced me. “Woah, woman. And you called me a nut?”
I flashed her wide eyes and shrugged. The fact I was a neurotic nutcase wasn’t news to anyone.
“Biggest fear,” Melanie said and with her hand holding her wine glass she held up a finger. “And you only get one.”
Biggest? Most serious? There was only one.
I pulled her hand off my mouth. “Losing Beaux.”
“And his greatest fear is losing you. So I’m not sure why you’re up here hiding when you could be with him figuring out the best way to make sure neither of those two things happen.”
She had a point.
I was a runner by nature. I didn’t handle stress well, didn’t like changes to routine.
The fact I had a nurse-turned-friend practically living with me now and was soon to have my life thrown into a crazy mess was enough to make me need some Xanax.
“I see your point,” I admitted, and took a drink. It was warming, but still sweet. I would have drunk the tequila she brought at this point. I didn’t care what alcohol burned my throat, I just needed it do its job and mellow me out. “Is he here?”
“No. He said he wanted to meet another dude of Jaxon’s at the garage to go over security there. I’ll tell you what though, your sexy guy is taking this incredibly seriously. He said he’ll be back soon and you’re not supposed to leave.”
“Beaux said I can’t leave?”
“Not without Rambo.”
“Jaxon.”
“Potato, po-tah-to.”
We dissolved into a fit of giggles, and I hugged her. I needed this. Needed someone who could make me laugh when all I wanted to do was curl into a ball and ignore life around me.
But I had good friends.
Protectors.
Family.
I had Beaux.
And while we hadn’t said that we loved each other, I knew I had Beaux’s heart like he had mine. And I knew with how protective he was on a normal day, Melanie was right.
He’d do whatever he could; throw any cost and time and resources into keeping me safe.
And for the first time, without arguing about his help first, I decided to let him.
I needed him to do that for me, to be the guy who would do that for me.