Page 44 of Fighting for Valor
“I want to ask you for something,” she says quietly as I close my eyes. “But if you can’t do it…”
“Ask.”
“Will you…um…if you’re not busy…could you walk me home from the bus stop tomorrow?”
“I’ll be there.”
Chapter Twenty
Cara
My muscles are all loose and warm under the weighted blanket. And then I remember…it’s not just the blanket. Ripper’s wrapped around me, sleeping on his side, his breath tickling my neck. The thin curtains let in the first of dawn’s light. It can’t be much later than 5:00 a.m.
Three times in the night, he started shaking, whispering words in a language I’ve never heard before. But as soon as I drew his arm tighter around me, he settled.
The last time I had a man in my bed, we didn’t sleep. Too bad that guy turned out to be a jerk and had sex with my sous chef two days later.
With Ripper, I feel safe. Despite barely knowing him, the valor running through his veins shines so brightly, it’s almost blinding. Closing my eyes, I try to eke out a few more minutes of sleep before I have to face the day, but before I drift off, the solid band of muscle wrapped around my waist disappears. By inches, he slides out of bed, and the sound of him shedding the borrowed shorts and donning his jeans leaves me sorely tempted to turn over and pretend I just woke up.
But I don’t. I’m shocked he stayed this long, and though my eyes burn a little when he creeps from the room without so much as a whispered goodbye, I understand. Some secrets are too painful to face in the light of day.
With more than five hours until I have to leave for my shift at the diner, I start my weekly deep-clean of the apartment only minutes after he walks out the door. I’m about to crush the paper pouch from the peach tea bag when the black scrawl catches my eye. A phone number. And a single word. Ripper.
We’re not friends. Not lovers. He’s just a man who was in the right place at the right time to make me feel safe. Special Forces. And at one point…a prisoner. The thick scars around his wrists, the way he doesn’t like to be touched. His response to the scent of cardamom tea. Something very bad happened to him, and my mind wanders to all sorts of dark places.
I shouldn’t care that he left me his number. Yet, I rush to enter it into my phone. Not the burner Leland called me on last night, but Cara Barrett’s phone. The one I splurged on when I’d passed the six-month mark in Seattle.
I’ve been so careful. Lindsey is the only person I’m close to, and she thinks I ran away from a cult when I was in my early twenties.
After I finish the wash—and the repeated trips up and down the stairs to the basement laundry room, I make myself a cup of instant coffee—a sacrilege in Seattle, but it’s all I can afford—and then rifle through the industrial size box of assorted teas.
Every single packet of the orange-cardamom blend goes into a plastic sandwich bag and then into the trash. I don’t know if I’ll see him tonight—or ever again—but if I do, I won’t take the chance that something in my apartment will hurt him again.
Pulling out my precious notebook, I write down every word Leland said to me last night. Every word I remember, at least.
“Cara, I need you to listen very carefully…”
And then, a little over an hour later, another call.
“Cara, I’m sorry. I was driving through a tunnel, dropped the phone, and then my battery died. I’m going to send you some extra cash. I don’t want you to have to worry about every penny. Keep this phone on. I’ll call you in a day or two and tell you how to access the money.”
Closing my eyes, I try to replay everything that happened. Giving Ripper the lasagna. Sitting down next to him. Seeing his tattoo. My burner phone’s ring tone.
Times like this, I hate my broken brain. The meds that help keep my raging ADHD in check wear off by 10:00 p.m., and my thoughts wander. I’m not as observant as I need to be.
I can’t remember Leland’s voice. What it sounded like. Was he worried? Calm? All I remember is hearing my heart pounding in my ears.
By the time the coffee’s gone, I’m on the edge of a panic attack, and the only way I can think to diffuse it is to snuggle into Ripper’s sweatshirt with my phone clutched in my trembling hands and send him a text message.
It’s Cara. I wanted you to have my number too. Just in case.
I don’t know what I expect him to say, or how I’ll pull myself out of this panic spiral if he doesn’t respond. Burrow under my weighted blanket in the bed that smells like him? Probably. At least until I have to leave for the diner.
Before I have to find out, my phone beeps.
I’ll be at the church when you get off the bus.
It’s enough. Knowing that despite how he snuck off this morning, he won’t go back on his promise.
