He held his eyes to mine.
“You didn’t answer me,” he pointed out.
My mouth curled up into a smile.
“Ask me again in two weeks when you’re cleared from the hospital.”
“Why?” He was back to snapping.
“So I can ride you until you die.”
His head dropped, and he brought his hand up to the back of his neck while still managing to hold both crutches in place.
“Two weeks is all you get.” He finally brought his head back up. “It doesn’t matter if they clear me or not. In two weeks, you’re mine. All of you.”
That ‘all of you’ was quite ominous, but he was gone before I could ask him to be more specific on what he meant when he said ‘all of you.’
***
Two weeks later, I was practically bouncing out of my chair as I waited for Tobias to get back from not only his doctor appointment where he would be cleared to go back to work, but also his re-entrance test for the highway patrol.
He’d scheduled both for the same day so that he could get back to work immediately, and now I was waiting for him at one of our favorite restaurants in town, a tiny little taco shop that was about a half a mile from Tobias’ house.
My favorite thing about this taco shop was the way that the owner, a woman named Dali, used movie titles as the order numbers. They were three by five inch cards with the name printed on them in bold print, and on the back had a description of the movie.
“Black Hawk Down, your order is ready!” Dali called out.
Today, my movie title was one of my favorites: The Proposal with Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock. I’d just started reading the movie’s description on the back of the slip she’d handed me when I froze.
I’d thought I knew the movie until I started reading the description, and at first, I was confused.
But as I continued to read, understanding began to dawn.
Women are a lot of trouble, especially one in particular. Tobias knows this, yet that knowledge doesn’t stop him from doing the one thing he knows that he shouldn’t do—fall in love with the woman that he’s been repeatedly warned away from.
All he was supposed to do was retrieve a friend’s sister from a fate that will surely mean her death.
Yet, when he arrives, he can’t help but fall for the defiance that Audrey exudes with every single word that leaves her mouth.
Audrey is tired of being scared. It’s been six years since her assault, yet it feels like it just happened yesterday.
She tries to be normal. She tries to have a life. She tries and tries and tries, but she always seems to fail, and she’s ready to take that first step that’ll help her heal. She’s done hiding her head in the sand.
With Tobias’ help, she slowly comes back to herself. She gets a job that she adores. She finds a place in this world, and she finds herself falling further and further in love with a man who sets butterflies fluttering through her belly every time she looks at him.
The only problem is that somebody is out to get him. Someone is trying to take away her chance for a happy life, and she’s not going to stand by and watch it happen.
It’s time for her to show everyone that she’s not some freak show any longer. She’s a warm-blooded woman who’ll do anything for her man, even face death to save him.
After showing him what she’s willing to do to protect him, he feels that there is no other choice for them. She has to marry him.
I looked around, surprised by the words on the page, and froze when I saw that familiar dark-headed form standing in the open doorway to the taco shop.
And before my eyes, and everyone else’s in that little taco shop, he dropped down to one knee.
“Audrey Morrison, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
My breath hitched in my throat, and I got up to walk to him.
“Will you buy me tacos every Tuesday for the rest of my life?” I asked him, tears starting to spill from my eyes.
He reached for my hand and slid the ring onto my finger. A perfect fit.
“Yes,” he rumbled. “And if I ever get too old to go out and buy them for you, I’ll make them.”
A sob caught in my throat and I threw myself at him.
He let out a soft ‘oof’ but didn’t otherwise protest as I hit him hard enough to rock him backward.
“Yes,” I said, peppering his face with kisses. “Yes, yes, yes!”
He growled in triumph.
“I love you, Audrey Morrison, soon-to-be Hail.”
I squeezed his neck tighter. “I love you right back, Tobias Hail.”
Chapter 23
I don’t have a sense of humor anymore. It’s literally just sarcasm and a general hate of the majority of the human population.
-Fact of Life
Tobias
“I can get you maybe five minutes inside with him,” Ghost said. “My guard buddy is going to take a break and leave his post. It’ll get suspicious if he’s gone more than five minutes, though.”
I nodded.
“Make sure that you stay toward the front so the cameras won’t be able to pick you up,” Ghost continued. “You want the handcuffs on or off?”
I grinned at him.
“Let’s make this at least a little bit fair.” I said. “Off.”
Ghost nodded and left, leaving me at the entrance to the cell that held the man who had hurt the woman I loved.
I may not have been with her at the time that the assault had happened, but I was there for the aftermath, even if it was six years later.
I opened the door to the cell without knocking, and I smiled when I saw Josh sitting on the john.
“Hello, mate,” I called out. “Do you know who I am?”
I was in uniform.
I just wasn’t in the right uniform for the facility I was in, at least not in this section of the building.
Josh didn’t even bother to get up, nor reply. He only stared at me with a bored expression.
His cellmate, however, swung his feet over.
“You might want to sit up there and stay out of my way,” I told him. “I have to deal with this…filth.”
I took a step into the room and glanced up.
The cameras were there, but they were pointed at each other, just like Ghost had said they would be, giving me the ability to move around the room as long as I didn’t go all the way to the front where the window was, and the shitter that Josh was currently sitting on.
“You might want to finish up,” I told him. “I’d hate to beat the shit out of you while you’re on the john.”
Josh sighed and pulled up his pants. Without wiping.
“Gross,” I bared my teeth. “At least wash your hands.”
He didn’t, and I crossed my arms.
“You didn’t answer my earlier question,” I said.
Josh grunted. “And what was that question again?”
I bounded across the room in two strides, latching my hand around Josh’s neck and lifting him clear off the ground.
“I asked,” I said slowly. “If you knew who I was.”
He shook his head, or at least tried to.
“No,” he gagged.
He couldn’t get much air due to my tightening grip around his neck, but he didn’t need it. At least not right now.