Page 30 of Her Guarded Hero

“Number one, I handled it.” She moved her face away from his hand, and stood up, then placed her palms against the table. “Second, it’s not him. Do you know how I know? Because he’s currently doing time in Folsom for assault.” Her legs buckled and fell back into her chair. “He hurt someone, and it’s my fault.” Her gut twisted just thinking about it.

Dalton was around the table in an instant, he crouched down beside her, one hand on the top of her chair the other on the table, effectively blocking her in. “Tell me,” he coaxed.

“Darryl hurt someone on my watch. He hurt a girl while he worked for me.” She bit her lip, attempting to hold back those old feelings. She started again. “I tried to get Renee to press charges, but her mom talked her out of it. I told Brody about it, but he said without her filing a complaint, his hands were tied. That left Darryl off to do the same thing in California.”

“I don’t understand. Tell me what happened.”

“The Henderson family is one of our clients. Darryl was supposed to deliver their horse. Renee was the only one that was home. She was seventeen at the time. After the delivery, I called to make sure that the mare was settled, and Renee sounded funny. I asked if everything was all right, and should I come over. She freaked at the idea that I would have Darryl come with me, which just set me on red alert. He’d always seemed a little smarmy with me, but nothing to overt. I immediately went over to see her.”

“What did you find?”

Aurora pushed Dalton out of the way as she jumped out of the chair. She charged to the sink and clawed the remains of the dessert down the garbage disposal with her fingers, but she didn’t’ turn it on. Even with the door closed to the kitchen she was afraid the noise might wake up Gunnar, instead she looked out the window. The night was pitch black. She couldn’t look at Dalton to answer his question, but she could speak the truth into the vast inky night sky.

“I found a teenager with all of the doors and windows locked. It was in the middle of summer, and she had on a t-shirt, hoodie and jacket. It took me fifteen minutes to convince her to open the door.”

Aurora jumped sideways when Dalton touched her shoulder. “Shhh, I’m sorry I startled you.”

“It’s all right,” she said. She looked up at him wearily.

He stared down at her. “How bad was it?”

“Not as bad as it could have been. When Darryl was making a grab for her, the mare got fractious, and Renee took off at a run.”

“That’s really good.”

“Nope.” She shook her head, then pulled at the hair that caught in her mouth. “It should have never happened. I should have been there.”

Dalton put his hands on her shoulders. “Did you know that he was delivering the horse to a house where a teenage girl was alone?”

“Of course not. When I’d set things up the day before, Lowell had said he’d be taking delivery. That day he got called into work on an emergency and he figured Renee could handle things.”

“Lowell should have called and given you a heads up,” Dalton bit out.

“No!” she glared up at him. “This was on me. I should have had better instincts.”

“Did you check his references? Did you have any other complaints before this?”

“Of course, I checked references,” she whispered fiercely. “There had never been any complaints. And if there had been one whiff of a complaint I would have checked it out. But Dalton, I should have done something about the fact that he made me feel icky.” She rubbed her arms, trying to fight off the cold.

Dalton grabbed her up in his arms and she snuggled into his heat.

“Unfortunately, that isn’t cause for any kind of employee action,” he sighed.

“But still-”

“Uh-uh Sunshine, you’ve got to stop beating yourself up about that. Tell me what you did when you got to the Henderson’s.”

“It took me about twenty minutes to coax Renee to open the door.” She said into his flannel shirt. She took a breath and took comfort from being wrapped in his strength. “It made my heart ache when I saw her all bundled up. It was summer, and it had to be eighty degrees in the house. I got her to the couch, and it took me another twenty minutes and a glass of lemonade before I could talk her into taking off her jacket. She was in shock. It wasn’t until I said I had to call her parents and get her to the hospital that she started to talk.”

Aurora could picture the young girl. She’d looked like the awkward teenager she was, tear streaked face, glasses and long brown hair that she used to hide her face.

“Tell me,” Dalton prompted.

“She didn’t want to take off her hoodie. I was so worried. When she finally did, I could see his handprints on her arms. They were already bruising.”

“What else?” Aurora appreciated the warmth in Dalton’s eyes, the softness in his voice. She really believed he cared. He made it so much easier for her to talk.

She wrenched out of his hold, and he let her go. “I don’t know why I’m acting like a victim. For God’s sake, it was that poor little girl. Her mother was out of town.” Aurora took a deep breath, then continued in a steady voice. “It took me almost an hour for her to tell me that Darryl had grabbed her arms and held them above her head, shoved her up against the horse trailer and rubbed himself against her. She said it went on and on, and if it weren’t for the horse kicking the side of the trailer, she wouldn’t have gotten away.”