I growled unimpressively. “This is not the time for you to try to be sweet.”

“But you’re pint-sized, you are adorable.”

“And you look like Lurch.”

He laughed loudly before everything stopped at once. Eli stopped walking, there was no sound coming from him, and even though we were out near the ocean air, it suddenly felt thick with tension . . . and I knew it was all coming from the man holding me.

“Paisley,” he sneered my name, and my body froze. “Get back in the bar and stay with Kristen. Have Jason come out here.”

“What’s—”

Eli stopped my head from turning to look behind me as he let my body slide down his. “Please just go inside until I come get you.”

I was looking up at Eli, but he was staring directly past me—his blue eyes were dark and his body was vibrating.

“Who’s behind me?” I asked hesitantly.

“No one,” he answered. When I tried pulling away, he looked directly into my eyes. “Please, Pay.”

“Why can’t I look? What is it?”

He took a large breath in before releasing it through his nose; his eyes never once left mine. “You’ll see it later anyway, but right now I don’t know if he’s still here, and I will beat the shit out of him if I see him. And that is something I really don’t want you to see. So, please, just trust me that going inside would be best right now.”

Eli said he. At that moment, I could only think of one person who that might be. If what had gone on in the bar had barely fazed him, then I couldn’t begin to imagine what Eli was looking at that was having this kind of effect on him. “If you honestly think Brett had something to do with whatever is behind me, then I need to see it even if he is still here, which I doubt he is after what just happened in the bar.”

His arms didn’t loosen, and the worry on his face seemed to multiply. His lips pressed into a firm line as he watched me, and he began shaking his head slowly.

“Don’t try to protect me from this,” I whispered my plea. “And don’t make me leave you right now because I will go crazy in that bar wondering what is happening out here.”

After a few more seconds of silence, Eli released me with a heavy sigh, only to loosely wrap an arm around my waist as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. I waited long enough to see him text Jason, then dial a nine and a one before I turned around, and my stomach sank.

All the windows on Eli’s truck were smashed out, as were the windows on the cars on either side. But for those cars, it was only the windows that were directly next to Eli’s truck.

He couldn’t have. Brett wasn’t vindictive like this. I knew he was hurting . . . but he wasn’t violent. He wasn’t this guy.

“I need police,” Eli said calmly. “Yeah, I’m at O’Malley’s on H Street, someone broke all the windows on my truck . . .”

I blocked out what he was saying as I tried to understand what was happening. As I turned around to see if any other cars looked like they’d had the same fate, the sinking feeling in my stomach only seemed to double when I didn’t see anything else out of the ordinary.

Brett wouldn’t do this, I told myself. But, then again, I wouldn’t have thought that he would come looking for Eli to punch him either.

“That fucker,” Jason sneered when he and Kristen joined up with us.

“Oh my God! How did no one see him do this?” Kristen asked.

Apparently everyone thought it was Brett.

Searching for my phone in my pocket, I tapped on the screen until it was calling Brett’s number, but it went straight to voice mail.

“Of course,” Eli gritted out, having heard. “How convenient.”

A few police cars pulled up minutes later. Two officers began checking out the truck while another questioned Eli.

“Is there anyone you know of who might do this?” he asked a couple minutes in.

Eli eyed me warily and his grip on my waist tightened. “Her ex showed up tonight and tried to start a fight. Pulled me off the bar stool and punched me before I was able to stop him, security walked him out not even five minutes before we came out here. If it was him he would’ve had to have done it beforehand.”

“Name?”

“Brett Oswell,” I answered. “I tried calling him and his phone went straight to voice mail.”

The officer nodded. “I’ll need any information you have on him, ma’am.”

“Of course.”

We talked to the cop and security guards from the bar for thirty minutes before Eli pulled me in for a short kiss. “Go home with Kristen and Jason, and I’ll come get you when all this is taken care of.”

“No, I want to be here with you.”

“And I want you safe while this is happening. After what happened with Rachel and my dad, I don’t want you alone and I don’t want you out here now that it’s getting dark. I don’t know Brett, but I know he’s pissed and has already shown it in one way that we’re positive of—that alone makes me want to keep you from him. If he did this?” he said, gesturing toward his truck. “I’m not leaving you alone ever again. My buddy who owns a window repair shop is on his way. By the time I come get you tonight, my truck will look like nothing happened. All right?”

I glanced over to Eli’s truck and the two cars on either side, and my eyes drifted over the officers and owners of the other vehicles. “Okay,” I conceded, and shook my head in disbelief.

Kissing me harder this time, he held me close to his chest as he spoke to Jason. “Keep my girl safe. Anything happens to her tonight—”

“I’m dead, I figured.”

“Give me your phone, Pay.” My eyebrows drew together as I handed it to him, and he placed his cell in my hand. “If Brett calls your phone, I’m answering. I’ll call you when I’m coming to get you.”

“See you soon,” I whispered as I backed away with Kristen and Jason, but it sounded more like a plea.

If Brett had done this, I didn’t want to be away from Eli at all. But I didn’t want him to have to worry about me while trying to get things straightened out here. So with one last look, I turned and left.

Chapter Ten

September 27, 2013

Eli

I KNOCKED ON Jason’s door a few hours later, and looked around at the dark street—trying to see anything that seemed off. I couldn’t prove that Brett had been the one to vandalize the cars, but it would’ve been stupid for me to think for one second that it could’ve been anyone else. And while I knew it was just paranoia from what had happened with Dad and Rachel, I was afraid if I let my guard down for a second, something would happen to Paisley.

“Hey, so what all happened?” Jason asked before the door was even fully open.

I stepped in and looked around for the girls as I responded, “Got asked the same questions a few more times. I tried calling Brett twice but it still went to voice mail, but I heard two of the cops talking about cameras that were on the lights in the parking lot, so hopefully they find something. Where are the girls?”

He nodded his head in the direction of the bedroom. “Kristen’s sitting with her on the bed . . . Paisley’s kind of in shock about what happened. She kept saying on the way home that Brett wasn’t an angry or violent guy. I think the fact that she was with someone who would do this is really getting to her.”