The Promise He Made Her. Tara Taylor Quinn

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      He made a mental note not to underestimate her again.

      “I’ve got the rest in the car.”

      Picturing the backseat of the Jaguar, he wondered what she’d put there. Wanted to know what she couldn’t live without.

      Crazy. Other than Lucy, he wasn’t even sure what he couldn’t live without.

      “You ready, then?” He didn’t want to admit to a case of nerves. You had to have nerves to get nervous. But there was no kidding himself. Getting her out of there was the easy part of this day.

      “I’ll follow you,” she told him. She had to follow him. She couldn’t very well lead when she didn’t know where he was going.

      And she could turn off at any point, which was why Chantel was a half block down, waiting to follow Bloom in the old Mustang Chantel insisted on driving even now that she was engaged to a millionaire. Chantel was as adamant as Sam that Bloom get moved to a safe house.

      Sam always had a backup plan. It was the only way to stay alive in his business.

      * * *

      BLOOM WASN’T AS unsettled as she probably should have been. Leaving the home she loved...

      She’d return soon enough. And appreciate it all the more. Absence made the heart grow fonder.

      “I’m having an adventure,” she said aloud to the Jaguar’s interior. And wondered if, in the spirit of adventure, when she got back, she should get a bird. Something that would talk back to her on occasion.

      Probably not, though. A bird would need care and company and Bloom gave everything she had to her job.

      Keeping the detective in sight was proving a bit more difficult than it could have been. There was no way she was going more than five miles above the speed limit—being led by a cop or not. The law was the law.

      She’d have expected him to be a bit more thoughtful, though. To be aware that if the light was soon to turn yellow, he should stop, because she’d have to do so. Or wait until there was enough of a clearing in the traffic for both of them before making a turn.

      He got better at it, though. After he’d twice had to pull over to wait for her. She almost smiled, but then worried that he’d see her in the rearview mirror and find her odd, smiling alone in her car.

      She didn’t really care what he thought about her.

      Ah...ah...ah. Her internal companion butted in. So yeah, okay, she cared a little bit. She was entrusting herself to his care for the next brief window in time. And would be trusting him with her life when she became Ken bait.

      The idea didn’t scare her as she’d have assumed it would. Pausing in the thought, Bloom waited for the small voice inside of her to chime in. Surprised when she was met with only silence. She really wasn’t afraid of Ken as much as she was driven to take this step. To stand up to him. Free herself of any power he’d ever had over her, free her heart from that last vestige of tenderness for having once loved the man so completely.

      With the help of Sam Larson. That internal voice of honesty that was what she placed her trust in now added to her thought.

      And she knew it was right. Without Sam Larson’s backup, his protection, his willingness to do what it took to get Ken back in jail, his drive to make Ken pay for his crimes, she wouldn’t be able to face Ken and succeed.

      Not because she thought she’d cave in. But because she wasn’t powerful enough. Ken had the superior physical strength. Friends in low places. And he had friends in high places where the court was concerned, as well.

      Not high enough to defeat the law, though. Or a detective set on upholding the law. Especially not in Santa Raquel. While Ken was busy building an army of thugs in prison, the Santa Raquel police force had been cleaning up house. Some people with money had been getting favors, to the point of a privileged son getting away with rape and, with the help of an undercover beat cop, a way of life that had been going on for decades had been stopped. The commissioner had been exposed. A rapist was awaiting trial. And Chantel Harris, the cop, was now a detective.

      Like everyone else in Santa Raquel, Bloom had followed the whole thing on the news. Perhaps not everyone had followed as closely as she had. The rape hadn’t been the only cover-up. A powerful man had been getting away with raping women within his society. One of them was now one of Bloom’s patients.

      Bloom wasn’t Sam Larson’s compliant, needy charge anymore, though. She wasn’t going to sit back and let him take care of her as she had in the past. Which was why she wasn’t telling him about the number that had shown up on her caller ID that morning. The call she hadn’t answered.

      Ken had called her a few times from prison. The first time she’d taken the call because she hadn’t recognized the number. The second time, she’d taken it because she’d still been under his manipulative influence. And probably still a bit in love with the man she’d thought him to be.

      She hadn’t actually spoken with him, other than that first time. After that she’d just answered the calls and as soon as she’d heard his voice she’d hung up.

      This most recent time she’d just let it ring. He hadn’t left a message.

      And Bloom wasn’t telling Sam. The detective already believed that Ken was a threat to her. That he wanted her. And she was giving him no reason, no excuse, not to use her as the bait that would reel him in.

      Sam Larson turned his nondescript SUV. Bloom turned the Jaguar. They weren’t far from her house. A few miles, maybe. But the meticulously manicured landscape that stretched along all of the roads around her part of town had disappeared, giving way to tangled growth, underbrush with thorns, weeds and as much roadside trash as there ever was anywhere in Santa Raquel city limits. Because this area, on the outskirts to the north of town, was last on the day’s cleanup schedule.

      Curiosity rose inside her. Maybe even a hint of excitement. She was a thinker. And like Ken—worse than Ken—a planner. Her mind never rested.

      Which left very little room for anything akin to adventure.

      Still, north of town? With beaches that were more rocky than sandy and cliffs that prevented easy access to the water, the area was only popular with those who could afford no better.

      On the coastal road, she sped up as the speed limit increased, thinking about pushing the button on the steering wheel that would allow her to make a call and find out just where Detective Larson was taking her.

      She’d stressed to him her working hours. Her need to be close to the office. And as far as she knew, there were no other habitable places in this direction until they came to the next town, more than ten miles away. She saw nothing but roadway ahead, lined on the right by brush and trees and on the left, hills and cliff face that fronted the ocean down below. He signaled a left turn.

      There was no road to the left. He slowed, anyway. Almost to a stop. Heart pounding, Bloom wondered what was wrong. And wondered why she was overreacting so much since she wasn’t afraid.

      She saw the two dirt tire track paths as he turned onto them. And because he was Detective Sam Larson, the man who’d saved her life, figuratively if not literally, she followed him. The СКАЧАТЬ