“Not really.” A slight shake of his head.
“But you were thinking something.” She swallowed. “Care to share?”
“Later.” He did a quick check of their surroundings. “I don’t like you being out in the open like this.”
Her chest became heavy from his words. Following his watchful gaze, Cassie noticed the once-thick crowd had vanished. Besides her and Archer, Russ’s parents and another couple they were speaking to were only ones left.
“Yeah, let’s go.” She didn’t wait for him to start walking toward the parking lot.
Archer’s long legs allowed him to catch up to her with ease. Placing a protective hand on her lower back, he kept his body close and his head in constant motion.
They were almost to Archer’s all-black SUV when she heard a man’s angry voice shouting at her from behind.
“How dare you show your face here!”
The furious voice had both Cassie and Archer spinning around. A giant pit filled her stomach when she saw Alistair Montgomery storming angrily toward her.
Walking several feet behind him was his wife, who appeared to be doing her very best to catch up.
“You have no right coming here after what you did!” Fury seemed to fuel the sixty-five-year-old man as he marched his slightly bowed legs across the lot’s smooth pavement. His light gray hair had thinned even more since the last time she’d seen him.
Archer’s entire body turned to stone beside her, but Cassie refused to wilt beneath her father-in-law’s rage. Calling upon her experience in the courtroom, she forced herself to maintain a calm and collected demeanor.
“I didn’t kill Russ, Alistair,” she stated truthfully. “And like it or not, I was still his wife when he died, which means I haveeveryright to pay my last respects.”
Alistair’s eyes burned with hatred unlike any she’d ever seen as he brought himself closer. “My son didn’t just die.” The older man seethed. “Youkilledhim!”
“No.” A firm shake of her head. “I didn’t.”
“You lying bitch!”
He surged forward, raising a hand high in the air as if his intent was to strike her. Cassie gasped, reflexively lifting her own arm to shield her face as she ducked down to avoid the blow.
“Alistair, no!” Barbara cried out to her husband.
But Cassie couldn’t see the other woman. She was too busy squeezing her eyes shut and bracing herself for the pain she knew would come. Only…it didn’t.
“You’re going to want to think long and hard about what you do next.”
Archer’s lethal tone sent a rush of shivers racing down her. Peeling her eyes open, Cassie lowered her arm and stood tall once again, her wide-eyed gaze taking in the shocking scene.
While she’d been ducking to avoid getting slapped in the face, Archer had put himself between her and the man intent on doing her harm. He held Alistair’s forearm steady in a tight, white-knuckled grip.
Towering over Russ’s infuriated father, Archer was the epitome of strength and control. And as he kept himself in the protective stance, his tall, muscular form exuded the deadly promise he’d just made.
“I don’t know who the hell you are, but you have two seconds to get your hand off me, or I’ll?—”
“You’ll what?” Archer kept that hand right where it was. “Sue me because I kept you from committing first-degree assault on an innocent woman?”
His masculine shoulders shook with a sarcastic huff. “Innocent?” Alistair scoffed. “She doesn’t know the meaning of the word. This murdering bitch deserves to?—”
Archer yanked on the other man’s arm, forcing Alistair to step directly into Archer’s personal space. Leaning forward, the former SEAL dropped his tone to a level so deep, so deadly, it scared even her.
“Call her a bitch again and see what happens.”
“Wha…y-you…you can’t do this. You are holding me against my will, and that’s?—”
“Me being generous,” Archer bit back. “You come at her, call her names, and then try to hit her?” His dark head moved fromone side to the other. Slowly. “The only reason you’re not lying flat on your back is out of respect for those who are buried on this land. But make no mistake…” He got right in Alistair’s face then. “You come at her like that again, you so much as look in her direction, and you’ll be the one defending yourself in front of a judge.”