Page 115 of Archer

She let her focus move to the water.

“From now on, protecting me can’t always be your top priority,” she said. Her gaze snapped back to me, voice even and certain. “If this is going to work between us, then what we are to each other has to come first. We can’t control or predict Webb. But we can keep choosing each other. We were in the right that night. He was in the wrong, and we could’ve just as easily been sitting on the couch watching a movie when that happened.”

“I would’ve caught him then.”

Her brows shot up. “Would you? Are you sure? Or do you not know, because you can’t know.”

I stared at her.

“I need private protection until Webb is caught,” she continued. “But I’m getting very attached to you. If you have to choose one role over the other, I hope you’ll choose to love me. I can get someone else to be my bodyguard.”

The deep clenching in my heart unfurled. She wanted me to love her. “Can’t I do both?”

“Not if you’ll blame yourself for not being omniscient.” Harper stepped closer. “What happens when this is over and I don’t need private protection anymore?”

The question had been sitting in my chest for days. “You’ll return to Nashville, live out your dream of being a big country music star.”

“What about you?”

I wet my lips and said the thing I’d been waiting to say. “I’m not interested in being anywhere you aren’t. Not anymore.”

The tension in her face eased, and a small smile graced her sweet lips.

I stroked her cheek with the backs of my fingers. Apparently, all my secrets were coming out tonight, when I’d only planned to deliver an apology.

My heart said it was time to see things the rest of the way through.

“I’m going to be by your side in whatever capacity you’ll have me until you order me to go. I’m committed to this. To us. To you.”

She turned a curious look on me, lips curving into a smile. “You sure about that?” she teased. “You might not know this, but I come with a stalker and high-stress career.”

I pulled her close, desperate to feel her in my arms. “I’m falling in love with you, Harper. I will catch your bitch-ass stalker, and I will champion you in everything you do. Always.”

“Well,” she sighed. “This works out well for me, because I’m falling in love with you too.”

Chapter 38

Harper

By four o’clock, the dock behind Island Adventures looked nothing like it had two days before.

Colton’s equipment cases were stacked against the kayak rental shed, his screens glowing in the shade. A folding table held a tangle of charging cables and two open laptops. He’d wired a portable router to a backup cellular connection, insurance against the livestream crashing under the weight of too many simultaneous viewers. Because there would be many. Alexis had promised me that.

She was the best manager I could ask for, and she’d fully delivered.

I could see it in the number of watercrafts already bobbing offshore. Kayaks and pontoon boats, standard vessels and small motorized skiffs. People had started arriving hours before my announced time, staking out their spots on the water, angling for the best view of the dock’s broad end where I’d perform.

Nash’s deputies managed the parking lot and the road leading to the marina. Some were in uniform guiding traffic, others in plain clothes near the boat ramp for my protection. I was trying not to catalog every precaution and every weapon in the arsenal being quietly deployed around me, but it was hard not to notice. Somehow the presence of so many protective measures managed to increase my anxiety instead of lessen it. Probably because all of this wouldn’t be necessary without serious risk and danger, and I didn’t need to be reminded of that.

I looked skyward and recentered myself. If I focused on anything other than the music, fear would win before I ever touched a guitar string.

Knox jogged past me, drawing my eyes back to earth. Then, he disappeared into the dunes along the southern approach. Here and gone in a moment. A ghost.

“How’s your signal?” Colton called from behind me.

I turned and lifted my phone. “Four bars.”

“Good. Keep it on you.” He turned back to his screen.