“I’ll call my dad,” Twila says. “Not official yet. A welfare check can be quiet if it comes from the right mouth.”
Whiskey glances at her. “Sheriff Dix does quiet?”
“When his daughter tells him loud will make things worse.”
Their eyes meet.
Heat there.
Bad timing.
Good tension.
I file it away for later because right now my world is Sophie turning toward the door with her shoulders straight and her heart cracked in front of me.
“I’m going home,” she says again.
This time, I don’t tell her no.
I hate myself for it.
I also know if I cage her now, I become the kind of man she has spent the last couple days saving other women from.
“Then I’m escorting you,” I say.
Her eyes lift. “You just said…”
“I said we postpone the wedding. I did not say I stop protecting you.”
“That is exactly the kind of sentence that makes me want to scream.”
“Then scream in your car.”
“I’m taking my own car.”
“I know.”
Her eyes narrow, suspicious of the concession.
I hold up one hand before she can cut me with that look. “Not because I decide where you go. Because somebody just sent a photo of your dad, and I don’t want you alone on the road. Take your car. I ride behind you.”
She breathes hard.
Then nods once.
A compromise.
A poor one.
The only one we can manage without tearing more skin off each other.
The room behind us shifts before either of us can say another word.
I hear Becki before I see her. Not because she is loud, but because Royal says her name in a tone I have never heard from him before.
Careful.
Almost pleading.