Page 57 of Her Devoted HERO

“You saw the call come in. You had the tracking device, hell you probably listened in. You knew everything, Clint. I trusted you to do your part. I didn’t have time to take your call, I had to make sure Austin and mom were okay!” She was shaking.

“When you weren’t taking my calls, what were you doing?” he demanded.

Kenna explained exactly what was said, and then told Clint how she’d arranged for Austin to stay at his best friend’s house for the weekend.

“God save me from amateurs,” Clint said looking up at the ceiling. Then he looked down at his watch. “Just two and a half hours and I’m off duty.”

“What are you talking about? I took care of everything,” Kenna asked, confused. She started toward the door; Clint stepped in front of her. He ran his hand through his hair.

“Point one, you agreed to call me as soon as the whackjob called you again. You didn’t. Then when I tried to call you, you didn’t answer. When I tracked you to this place, they wouldn’t put me through to you, they said you were in a conference with Lundquist. I hauled ass to get over here. I knew Austin had been threatened, I wanted to come up with a game plan with you. If you had called me or taken my call, I could have picked him up immediately and gotten him someplace more secure than his friend’s house. Let’s face it, if this whackjob knows the name of Rosalie’s teacup poodle, there is a good chance he knows about Austin’s best friend, Denny.”

Fear slammed into her. She couldn’t take in air. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing would come out. He was right.

Clint saw the problem and put his hands gently on her shoulders. “Let’s get into my truck and go pick up your son from Denny’s house, okay?”

She nodded. It was all she could do.

***

“Who owns this place again?” she asked Dex.

“Jack Preston and his wife Beth normally live here. They’re visiting his folks in San Antonio for ten days, so we’re staying here.”

“And he’s a SEAL? Just how much do you guys make?” she asked as she opened the Sub-Zero refrigerator.

Dex smiled. It was the first sign her sense of humor was returning. When he had arrived back from maneuvers, Kenna had been a mess. He didn’t know whether to thank Clint or punch him for scaring the bejesus out of his girlfriend.

It had been Clint’s idea to ask Jack to use his house. They’d arrived five hours ago. Austin had eaten half of the fridge’s contents, and Penny had sucked down almost a whole bottle of wine, so both of them were now in bed. At last, he had Kenna alone, and he wanted to take her emotional temperature.

“Jack comes from money. A few years back he invited me and some of the other guys from our team to his ranch in Texas. It’s a huge operation.”

Kenna went back to putting dishes in the dishwasher.

“You can leave the dishes for tomorrow. I’ll do those when I get back from taking you to work. I have the next couple of days off.”

“I like doing dishes, it’s soothing,” she said as she rinsed off another plate. He noticed she was taking pains not to look at him.

“Kenna, talk to me.”

“I don’t want to talk. I want to do something normal. I want to do something that doesn’t include taking phone calls from psychos, being lectured by your friends, having to talk to the police or moving out of my house, okay?” Her voice raised at the end as she slammed a mug into the dishwasher rack.

Dex winced. “Kenna, I think we need to discuss what the police said.”

She shoved another glass in the rack. “No, we don’t.”

As she grabbed a bowl off the counter, he tugged it out of her hands. She finally met his eyes. “I don’t want to talk. If I talk, I’m afraid I’ll fall apart, and my mom and my son need me to keep my shit together.”

He grasped both of her hands, and pulled her out of the kitchen, into the small sitting room that had a loveseat. He sat and drew her down close beside him.

“Dex, I told you I didn’t want to talk.”

“Then don’t talk, just rest here for a little bit.”

Her stiff body eventually began to relax into his, then her head tipped up so that she could look into his eyes. “I’m scared.”

He nodded for her to continue.

“When Sanchez told me that they were wrong about who they’d thought the killer was, it scared the hell out of me. Especially when they said they think my calls could be coming from the same guy.”