CHAPTER 3
November
Tyler watched Cara’s anxiety increase in her large, wide-set eyes as Ram and Ali left with coffee in hand for the garage, taking a little private time with each other. Her hand had trembled as she placed cream and sugar in her mug earlier when he set the tray down in front of her on the coffee table. He focused all his intuition on Cara. As a former SEAL, his sensing was heightened, almost psychic. How badly he wanted to wrap her into his embrace and just hold her, allow her to feel safe. There was a part of him, right or not, that felt a man should always protect women. He was hardwired for that and there was nothing he could do about it.
But to try to hold her was a fool’s errand, he told himself sternly. The last thing Cara wanted was to be held by a man—men had hurt her. However, he could broadcast quiet confidence to help Cara ratchet down her fears. Could they get along well enough for him to help her recover from her traumas?
“I don’t know which of us is more anxious right now,” Tyler admitted wryly. When he took off his coat, his shoulder harness and the pistol in it became visible. There was a flare of fear in her cinnamon eyes as she stared at the weapon, and he decided to take it off and cover it up with his coat that lay across the coffee table. The fear disappeared from Cara’s gaze and he wondered if she was even aware of her reaction. “Ali and Ram are good friends of mine, Cara. We’ve worked with each other off and on throughout the years when I was a SEAL,” he said, sitting down again. “We’re kinda like brothers and a sister, but I think you already know that?”
She gave a jerky nod, her hands wrapped around the red mug resting in her lap. “Y-yes.”
“Did Ali and Ram tell you a little bit about me?” He forced himself to pick up the coffee and appear at ease, taking a sip.
“They did. Ali showed me some photos she’d taken of you back in Afghanistan. She said you were with another team, but often, you went out together on missions.”
“Yes, that’s true. How did that make you feel?” he asked, trying to ignore her beauty, the way her black hair shined and fell in soft waves over her shoulders, the thick strands covering her breasts beneath the gray knit sweater she wore.
“Better. Right now, I’m skittish of any man, Tyler. I never used to be, but I can’t stop my emotions from blowing up on me.” She waved her hand in a helpless gesture. “My mind keeps telling me that every man is out to hurt me. I’m sorry, because you don’t deserve that kind of reaction on my part. I wish . . . oh, Dios, I wish with all my heart I could stop that reaction and those thoughts, but I can’t.”
Nodding, he sipped more of his coffee, highly aware that his own body language was either going to relax her or spike her into an unconscious survival reaction. “I don’t take it personally. In fact, I’ve worked with Afghan women who were raped or beaten by the Taliban.” He watched the tension in her face reduce markedly.
“Ali said you were a wonderful healer, a combat medic who had saved many lives on the battlefield. Mama comes from a long line of medicine women in her tribe. When she heard Ali tell her that about you, she cried.”
His brows rose. “Oh? Why would she cry?”
“Mama said that you were a medicine man in your own way. That you were a healer, too. She thought it was a good sign that Ram and Wyatt had chosen the right bodyguard for me.”
“How did you feel when you heard that, Cara?”
She managed a quirk of her lips. “Better. My family is centered on healing from nature and from our medicine people. Ali and I rarely went to a medical doctor’s office. Mama always took us to a medicine woman on the reservation, first. We grew up with a very different way of getting healed. There were times when we did need to see an MD, but it was a rare thing.”
“That’s interesting. My mother, Dawn Hutton, is one-quarter Blackfoot through her mother’s side of the family.” Instantly, he saw Cara straighten, her full focus on him, excellent eye contact for the first time.
“Oh, that’s so good to hear!”
Hearing the sudden wobble in her voice, he asked, “Why is that?”
“Because I’m sure your mother taught you some ways of her people? Her Blackfoot heritage?”
“No, she never mentioned I even had a relative who was Native American until I went through the top-secret clearance report from the US Navy. When I went home after graduating from SEAL training I asked her about it. She had only fuzzy memories about it, but it was better than nothing. I still think she has that gene, though. She loves nature, and from the time I could remember, I was always going out into the mountains around Philipsburg, Montana, where I was born. My father is a gem miner, a hunter, and fisherman. Mom hikes to this day. She’s very much an outdoors person.”
“That’s a wonderful way to grow up in the wilds of the mountains.”
“It was. Mom used to call me her ‘wild child.’ I always liked going home and visiting my folks when I came in from a deployment. My dad and I would go trout fishing, which I always looked forward to, and as a kid I hated wearing shoes. I’d go barefoot unless it was winter. I didn’t like the loss of freedom. I preferred the contact I had with the earth through my feet.”
Cara’s face reflected a bit more calmness. Maybe this was the way to introduce himself to her: to remain vulnerable and let her get to know him personally, not just as a bodyguard. All those dry rules and information he had to share with her could wait for another time.
“Ali and I were the same way! That’s an amazing coincidence, because we all hated wearing shoes—and we all have Native American blood in us!”
He smiled a little, setting the mug on the coffee table. “I know you’re a kindergarten teacher. Do you have any rug rats who hate shoes or don’t want to wear them when they’re in your class?”
“Rug rats? What’s that?” she asked, tilting her head.
“Sorry, it’s a military term for children. A nice one. It’s not an insult.”
“Oh.” She frowned. “It doesn’t sound very nice.”
“I agree, but military parents love their children just as much as civilian ones do. I’ve only been out of the Navy for two years, and where I work, at Artemis, it’s full of ex-military people. My military lingo is still strong in me but I’ll try to translate that into civilian language for you.”
“You don’t have to do that. When Ali comes home, she starts talking in an alphabet soup of weird acronyms and oddball words.” She managed a hesitant half smile. “My parents and I get a lot of laughs out of some of them.”
“It’s a kind of shorthand,” he agreed. Little by little, Cara was relaxing. She was now leaning against the pillow on the chair. As a SEAL, he had been taught to recognize subtle variations in body language because it could save his life in certain circumstances—and it had.
Seventy percent of human communication was non-verbal and through the body—gestures, tonal inflection when they spoke, and facial expressions—not the spoken word. When Cara first sat down in the chair, she had crossed her ankles beneath the coffee table. Now, her one leg was across her knee in a much more relaxed pose than before. Locked up legs or arms meant she was feeling threatened—which was the last thing Tyler wanted as a response to him.
On the other hand, he tried to ignore her in certain ways. She was gorgeous in person, and the living room’s skylights cast hues of gold on her skin. The light sifted through her eyes and dappled on the strands of her hair. On top of that, her every gesture was ultra-feminine and graceful.
“Speaking of language, Ali thinks it’s funny,” Cara added, “when Mama, Papa, and I sit there at the kitchen table during dinner, and we’re talking about something, and then Ali will take off in her own language.”
“We call it ‘mil-speak’,” Tyler offered. “And if I drop into it, stop me and I’ll rephrase, okay?” Cara nodded and perked up. No one liked being spoken to in a language they didn’t understand. It created barriers, not doors that could be opened between the two parties.
“Like medical doctors talking to us in ‘medicalese’,” Cara said, wrinkling her nose with distaste. “I don’t like the drugs that doctors use on us. Never did. I know they can be useful at times, but we were raised on herbs, ceremonies by our medicine people, and natural remedies.”
Tyler was a paramedic and wondered if she would hold that against him. Wisely, he decided not to go there. “Engineers have their own mysterious language, too.” He smiled a little. “I like people who are honest and forthright, and I think you’re built that way, too.”
She grew serious, studying him. “I don’t know how else to be but honest, Tyler. Ali says what you see is what you get with me. I love children because they are completely honest, too. Maybe that’s why I love teaching so much: what you see is what you get with each child.”
“I’ll always be up front with you, Tyler. Ali said she’s worked with you, and that she felt you were the right person to replace Ram.”
“I know you don’t trust me yet and that I have to earn that right from you, Cara. But I know you trust Ali’s experience and insights. She and I worked together off and on for years when we were still in the military. In our business of black ops, we can die in a second. The people we worked with always had our back and we had theirs. Ali saved my life more than once, and so did Ram. What we share is far more than just friendship. We’re sort of like a cosmic family.”
“She told me a little about that. I mean, she doesn’t tell us about top-secret aspects of her job, but she gave me a peek into who you were out in the field. I think she wanted me to know that in combat, you were someone she or Ram would turn to for support and help.”
“Yes, that’s right. That’s what it means to have the other person’s back.” He hesitated for a moment, his voice going low with feeling. “Cara? I have your back. We need to work as a team to keep you feeling safe.”
She looked away for a moment, her lips compressing. Finally, she met his gaze. “I’m just not myself, Tyler. I thought I knew who I was until I got kidnapped. Those three weeks of hell on earth changed me so much, there are hours or days when I don’t recognize this new self.”
“You nearly died,” he said gently. “I read the report that Ram wrote up, and I was given the report from the CIA who debriefed you at the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base after you were rescued.” He saw her cheeks blaze pink, realizing how ashamed she was that he knew everything that had happened to her.
“You know, because of my own injuries, my PTSD, I understand exactly what you’re saying. I returned home and my parents didn’t recognize me, either.” He saw her face fill with sympathy, her lips parting. “I’m telling you this for a reason. I remember I was the same way as you are right now. It took me time to work through all the things that had happened to me and come out on the other side of it. I’m more like my old self nowadays, but in some ways I’ll never be exactly the same person I was before I joined the SEALs.”
She placed her hand against her throat, staring at him, the silence thickening. “Were you up and down emotionally? Happy one moment and sad the next? Did you suddenly start crying without any reason?”
“Yes, all those things happened to me—and a lot more. I had pretty ugly flashbacks and nightmares.” And it was those last two that had destroyed his marriage.
“I-I just don’t feel normal, Tyler. Sometimes I want to crawl out of my skin and hide. I feel so much grief sometimes that I can barely breathe. And the anxiety—it’s always there, always lurking around like some kind of uncaged monster prowling around inside me. And I have absolutely no control over it.”
“I’ve gone through all of those phases, too,” he assured her. The tears sparkled in her eyes and he sensed she was very close to crying. He pulled out a white linen handkerchief from his back pocket and stretched his hand outward. “Take this. I got a lot more in my suitcase.”
“Thank you. I’m so ashamed for crying so much,” she said, her voice barely a tearful squeak, as she pressed his white handkerchief against each eye.
“Don’t be,” he urged. “I’ve lost count how many buckets of tears I went through. It’s better to let it out than sit on it, Cara. I’ve seen too many people fight it, and they ended up killing themselves months or years later. It’s not worth it.” He knew of her depression, knew that at one time, Ali had emailed him and told him that Cara had talked about dying because it was simply too painful to go on that way.
She gripped the handkerchief between her fingers, looking down at it. “I was afraid that you would think I was crazy. My poor parents have never seen me act like this. If Ram and Ali hadn’t been here through the worst of my ups and downs, I’m not sure my parents could have handled it as well as they have. They’ve suffered so much for me. They want me well . . .”
“It won’t always be like this, Cara. You’re less than six weeks into your recovery. Most people I know aren’t as far along as you are, you need to know that. Keep your hope up, okay? If you think it’s a good idea, I can share some stories of my own walk with PTSD with your parents. I can tell them that you’re much further along in your healing process at this stage than many others. I think hearing it from someone else who has walked the same trail will be helpful. Do you?”
She sniffed and then blew her nose. “Yes, I think they need that. Ram was really good at explaining what was going on with me. They love Ram. And we’re all hoping he and Ali will get married someday. They’re so right for one another.”
Tyler grinned. “Yes, they’re a good fit for each other.” He saw Cara fighting to lift her head and meet his gaze. So many abused children and women feared looking into a man’s eyes. To meet his gaze meant so much to him because it was her first step toward trusting him.
“Do you have any questions for me, Cara? Do you want to tell me the boundaries that make you feel safe? What you expect from me? We can go over what I need from you later.” He watched her expression remain calm, another sign that he’d passed the first step in their exploratory session with each other.
“I do, but right now I’m so exhausted that I need to go lie down. Stressful meetings tire me out terribly. And I have twenty-five sweaters I’ve knitted as a Christmas present for my kindergarten children that I have to gift wrap.”
“Maybe I can help with wrapping them when you’re ready? I’m pretty good at it.”
“That would be wonderful,” she said, giving him a hopeful look. “I wasn’t sure what you were allowed to do as my bodyguard.” She warmed as she saw him smile, his blue eyes glinting.
“I need to be in your general vicinity, Cara, and I’m more than happy to help where and when I can. Wrapping gifts sounds like a lot of fun.”
“Ram and Ali went out and bought the paper, ribbons, and tags last week.”
“I’ll wrap if you’ll do bows, okay? I’m not very creative,” he offered, holding up his two big hands.
She managed a slight smile. “We’ll get along fine, then.”
“I’m going to go get my luggage from my vehicle and settle in. I’m sure Ali and Ram will take me around and acquaint me with the house and the outdoor area while you nap.”
“Good . . .” She blotted her eyes one more time. “If I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t be looking forward to caring for a person like me.”
He managed a wry smile. “I’ve found that we all need help and support from time to time. Right now, it’s your turn. Nothing to be ashamed about.”
“I’m not a strong leader like Ali, but I was so confident, super positive, and idealistic. I could look people in the eye, too. I loved life, I loved living it, and my dream of being a teacher meant everything to me.”
“Then,” he said, slowly standing up, “you’ll get those pieces of yourself back again, Cara.” She looked skeptical.
“Is the real you back, Tyler? The person your parents knew?”
He picked up the emptied mug and placed it in the tray. “For the most part, yes. My storm of emotions took over my life for a while, but with the right help, I’m pretty much back to who I was before it happened. It took me a couple of years.” He took her empty mug and placed it next to his, picking up the tray. “You have that to look forward to. Go get your sleep. I’ll either be outside or somewhere in the house.” He didn’t want her to have to look for him under the present circumstances. Even going outside was a big deal for her right now and he didn’t want to stress her even more. “I’ll see you after you wake up,” he said.
“Yes, see you then . . .”
*
How the hell was he going to shut off his libido? It hadn’t been this active since the divorce! There wasn’t anything about Cara that he didn’t absorb like a thirsty sponge. She was attractive, intelligent, and built like a gazelle. Ali was taller than her sister and medium-boned, not slender like Cara. As he rinsed the cups in the kitchen sink and placed them in the dishwasher, he kept one ear cocked in Cara’s general direction. He heard the soft swish of her footfalls coming his way from the living room and glanced up as she headed down the hallway where her bedroom was located. She was walking with her arms around herself, a sure sign of feeling unsafe.
Well, damn.
On the plus side, he felt as if he’d made a good initial connection to Cara. Reminding himself that she had unexpected cortisol hormone surges brought on by her condition, she could be having one right now that had nothing to do with the fragile link he felt they’d established. Tearing his gaze away from her, he finished up his kitchen duties and headed off to the garage to talk with his friends.
Opening the door, he saw Ram on a stool, carving what looked like a raptor, and Ali was on a stool opposite, watching him. They both lifted their heads in unison as the door opened, swiveling their attention toward him.
“Well?” Ali asked, pulling over a third stool for him to sit on. “How did it go with Cara?” She looked at her watch. “Thirty minutes is good, Tyler. Normally, she finds talking tiring and throws in the towel about ten or fifteen minutes into it. Since I’ve been home with her this is the longest she’s chatted with anyone, including our parents.” She grinned, holding out her hand toward him after he sat down. “Major congrats. You must have magic with her.”
“Yeah,” Ram said, wiping his hands off with a nearby towel. “We never talked that long. Must be your bedside manner coming online, Hutton.”
Rubbing his palms slowly down his slacks, Tyler said, “I’m not sure.”
“Can you tell us what you talked about?” Ali pleaded.
“Sure.” He launched into a brief review of the topics they’d discussed. Afterward, he saw hope shining brightly in Ali’s golden eyes.
“I didn’t know you had Native American blood in you!” she gasped.
He gave Ali a wry look. “I never thought it was important.”
“Well, it sure is to us! Mama’s tribe originally came from northern Mexico. Many of them left because Mexican soldiers were killing the tribe and forcing them to move out of their ancestral lands. The Pascua Yaqui came to what was later known as southern Arizona. They have a huge reservation south of Tucson.”
“It seemed like her Native American background was very important to Cara,” he agreed.
“Half her kindergarten class is comprised of Yaqui children and the other half is Hispanic,” Ali said. “She knows the language of our people and is a fluent speaker. She also speaks Spanish. She’s teaching her kids to speak English well so they can go to college, get good paying jobs, and have a life here that fulfills the American dream.”
“That’s commendable,” Tyler agreed. “In my family the Native American lineage was sort of a skeleton in the closet. I didn’t even know about it until it was uncovered in the FBI investigation to award me top-secret clearance. It was from my great-great grandmother, on my mother’s side of the family.”
“A lot of people in the US hid that information until around 1990 because they were ashamed of it,” Ali agreed sadly. “But Mama celebrates our lineage. She’s one of the stewards of our nation. Did you know that?”
“No. I have a lot to catch up on, don’t I?”
“Mary will take care of that,” Ram assured him, chuckling. “She’s proud of her blood and tribe. I think Ali got her mother’s fierce warrior genes and Cara got Diego’s artistic genes. You’ll like their father a lot. He’s soft-spoken, gentle, and kind—just like Cara. He dotes on his daughters and worked his ass off ten to twelve hours a day to give them the education they received. And,” Ram gestured to the carving tools near his hand, “he’s an incredible artist and furniture maker. I’m going to miss being here because we had this man cave of ours where he showed me some tricks of the trade for making good furniture pieces.”
Holding up his hands, Tyler said, “I’m no good at those things. I can fix a car, though.”
Ali laughed and patted his shoulder. “My father will adore you. He’s pretty mechanical himself, and will always welcome someone like you to help around the house.”
“That’s what I did,” Ram told him. “I looked for things that needed to be fixed, painted, cleaned, or picked up. The girls’ parents both work hard five days a week. Cara moved back in with them full time after college and until her kidnapping, she did a lot of cooking at night for them, performed major housework, weeded Mary’s garden, and helped them with bills.”
“I see. Has she always been close to her parents?”
“Yes,” Ali said. “I had the wanderlust, the need for risk-taking and excitement. Cara is just the opposite. When we were little girls, I wanted to be some kind of heroine who saved people’s lives and she wanted to settle down, be a kindergarten teacher, have a brood of kids of her own, and be happy with our parents nearby.”
“Too bad childhood dreams don’t always come true,” Tyler murmured.
“Don’t go there,” Ram growled. “You’re right. But having been around Cara for over a month, I’ve found her to be one of those people who is perfectly happy with getting married, having kids, and being a teacher. That’s all she wants out of life.”
“Unlike us,” Tyler said, giving Ram a black-humor kind of look.
“Yeah, unlike us, for sure. But we need people like Cara because they become anchors for tumbleweeds like us. We become tethered to them and orbit around them.”
Wincing inwardly, Tyler thought of his ex-wife, Lisa and how much she had been an anchor to his life until it spun out of control. “We all need an anchor,” he agreed heavily.
“Ram will leave shortly and I’ll remain here for two or three weeks until I’m sure leaving won’t upset Cara,” Ali told him, changing the subject. “We’re trying to make this an easy transition for Cara, although I know she’s counting the days and doesn’t want Ram to leave at all.”
“Right now,” Tyler said, pushing his fingers through his short hair, “she’s like a child who has just had her safety net torn away from her.”
“She’s come a long way in a short amount of time,” Ram said, pride in his tone. “Cara’s just as strong as Ali, but in a different way. She’s digging deep and making, what we think, is good progress.”
“I’m hoping to win more of her trust, and I’ll try a little pivoting to smooth over the fact that you two are leaving soon. At least she has her parents here and I think that’s valuable.”
“It is,” Ali assured him. She gave Tyler a worried look. “I don’t know what you have up your sleeve, but Cara needs to be distracted.”
“How often does she go out on the back porch and swing?” he asked.
Ram rubbed his jaw. “Maybe three or four times a week. Why?”
“Movement lulls humans into a calm. A rocking chair will do it, a cradle swinging a little, or a porch swing moving back and forth, has the same effect on our parasympathetic nervous system. It’s a little thing, but an important one. I’m going to try to maneuver her in that direction.”
“Yes,” Ali whispered, “I think that’s a great idea. She does love to sit out on the porch swing and knit. Next to weeding Mama’s garden, that’s her second favorite activity.”
“Cara mentioned she had just knitted a sweater for each of her kids at school. That’s a lot of knitting, isn’t it?”
“She does this every year because the kids are growing like little weeds and she wants them warm for the winter. Most of the children come from very poor families. Maria, her teaching substitute, gave her each child’s size. The sweaters are all done and Cara wants to start wrapping up the presents tomorrow. I told her we’d all help.”
Brightening, Tyler said, “We just discussed that and I told her I’d be happy to help, too.”
“How did she react?” Ali wondered.
“Positively. She said she was good at ribbons and I volunteered to do the wrapping.”
“Then,” Ali said coyly, “I think that kind of activity is a trust-building opportunity for both of you. Ram and I will take off for a few hours to give you more time with one another. It may help Cara settle in with you.”
“I agree. Has she wanted to go back and start teaching?”
“Not yet,” Ali warned. “She’s afraid of that two-block walk. That’s where she got kidnapped, about a block away from the school when she was going home after class in the late afternoon.”
Tyler felt hopeful. “The good news is that she’s still connected with her kids, Ali. That could prove to be just the push she needs to make herself go back to school. I realize she isn’t ready to teach just yet, but I’ll bet the kids love and miss her, right?”
“Oh, indeed they do. They worship Cara. She’s like a second mother to them. Do you really think the pull to get back to her kids might help her break this self-imposed prison she’s put herself in? Even my parents, when I talk with them, say Cara is resisting a return to her regular life. I agree with them. But I didn’t go through what she did. I might feel the same way. I just don’t know. Do you?”
“It’s a double-edged sword,” Tyler said. “If she’s not pushed out of the parental nest, at a certain point in her recovery she might regress.”
“Meaning?” Ram asked.
“Meaning she might settle for remaining at her parents’ home and avoid a return to teaching.” He gestured toward the door that led to the kitchen, “She might choose to settle for less because the world has become too frightening and overwhelming. But in my book, that’s not living.”
Ali cursed softly. “You’re right. That’s not good, Tyler. I wish you’d known Cara before the kidnapping. She was so idealistic and caring, loved being a kindergarten teacher. She was just in love with life.”
“What about a boyfriend?”
“Ugh,” Ali muttered. “Yeah, she had a couple of them over the years. All dirt bags in my opinion. Cara’s idealism attracted the wrong kinds of guys into her life, if you ask me. Not that I was around a lot to get to know them.”
“What about the last one? Did she have a relationship before her kidnapping? That’s the one I’m interested in,” Tyler said. He really didn’t want her to have a relationship, which was very selfish on his part, but Cara was far too lovely not to draw the eye of every man who saw her.
Ali slid off the stool, crossing her arms as she slowly walked around the garage, frowning and in thought. Finally, she stopped, turned, and looked over at him. “I met Colin Stein twice, Tyler. When I came home from deployments down in Mexico while working for the CIA, I met him. He’s twenty-six, Cara’s age. A jerk, if you ask me.”
“In what way?”
“He’s a civilian,” she began, “a creep, someone who’s jealous, mouthy, and immature. He treated Cara like a slave. Finally, I stepped in. Then, he tried to manipulate the situation and make it look like I was the one at fault. He kept repeating the same thing three times in a row, that stuff was my fault, that I was reading things the wrong way. Like he’s going to convince me if he keeps saying it?” She snorted and glared over at Tyler. “If that blond douche bag comes crawling back into her life, just shoot him.”
Ram laughed. “Come on! You don’t really mean that, Ali.”
“I guess not,” she fumed. Giving Tyler a hard look, she said, “Cara sees only the good in people, she’s not a realist. She doesn’t see a wolf in sheep’s clothing like Colin.”
“Did he show up after she was kidnapped?”
“He called over here and my mother answered the phone. She told him she’d been kidnapped.”
“And?”
“He just hung up.”
“What about since she’s returned home?”
Shaking her head, she said, “No one’s heard from him, but don’t put anything past him. He gives me a really bad vibe, Tyler. But for whatever reason, Cara doesn’t pick up on it. It drives me crazy. I can see an idiot like him coming from a mile away. Why can’t she?”
“Maybe she sees the goodness in him, instead, and not his manipulative side?”
Ram managed a sour grin. “I never met him, so I can’t help you out here, Tyler.”
“My take on Colin was that he was chasing Cara down to get her into his bed and that’s the brutal truth.”
“Okay. But given his personality, Ali, if he does come here to see her, what should I do?”
“Beat the shit out of the little turd.”
Bursting out into guffaws, Ram laughed just as hard as Tyler did. “Ali!” the men said in unison.
“You asked,” she snapped, her hands on her hips, glaring at both of them. “He’s not honest or up front with her, Tyler. Cara is my baby sister.” She poked her chest with her thumb. “It’s my responsibility to keep guys like Colin out of her life.”
“So,” Tyler teased, “if he comes to the house door and I answer it, I’m supposed to drop kick him off the front porch. Right?”
“Damn straight,” Ali spat. “Because I’ll make sure he never gets close to Cara again.” She went over and poked Tyler in the chest with her index finger. “And your job is to protect Cara from him!”
“Don’t worry,” soothed Tyler. “I’ll make it happen. But what if she wants to see him at some phase of her recovery?” Given Ali’s readout on Colin, he really wanted to keep him away from Cara.
Ali stared hard at Tyler. “If I find out you let Colin see her again I’ll fly back from Virginia and shoot you myself. Does that answer your question?”