Page 35 of The Dark Stranger
Later That Night…
Steam still clung to her skin when Becca stepped out of the shower, wrapping a towel tight around herself like armor. The house was quiet in that way that made every sound feel louder — the tick of the clock, the hum of the refrigerator, the soft creak of wood settling around her.
She poured herself a glass of wine and didn’t sit right away.
Instead, she stood at the counter, condensation slick against her palm, and let the night catch up to her.
Everything replayed at once.
The lilies at her door — fresh, deliberate, placed like a message instead of a gift.
The shop — gone, secured, put in her name by someone she’d never met.
The stranger — the one she couldn’t remember, only the feeling he’d left behind.
She turned the glass slowly, watching the wine swirl.
No bruises.
No fear in her body when she woke.
No sense that anything had been taken.
Only the certainty that someone had brought her home. Safely. Carefully. Like she mattered.
That was the part that unsettled her most.
She’d fought her whole life alone. Built everything with grit and silence and refusal to ask for help. Trust had never been her instinct — survival was.
So why now?
Why the timing?
Why the protection?
Why her?
Someone was helping her. Not loudly. Not for credit. Not even in a way she could confront.
Someone was watching.
Someone was intervening.
Someone wanted her attention.
The thought tightened her chest instead of easing it.
She didn’t trust it.
Didn’t trust gestures without faces. Didn’t trust kindness without cost. Didn’t trust men who moved in shadows and called it care.
Her gaze drifted to the front door, half-expecting to see something waiting there again — petals, proof, another unanswered question.
Nothing.
Just darkness and quiet and the low hum of a life that no longer felt fully hers.
Becca took a slow sip of wine.
