He continued to talk, saving her from her embarrassment. “Seriously, Jenna. Just getting to spend a little time in your company was enough of a reward for me to want to help you. So let me help you now.”
She thought of something. “You can help me by fixing my car.”
“The parts won’t be in until tomorrow, at the earliest.”
“Can’t you do some work on it before then? I don’t know, take out the broken parts or something?”
“I can, but it’ll only save about an hour. Is that really going to make a difference to you?”
She thought of Garrett following her, tracking down the last place she’d gone online, or used a bank card, or had taken money out of her account. He’d received a two year driving ban, together with his jail sentence, but that wouldn’t stop him borrowing or even stealing a car and coming after her. She imagined leaving town just as he’d pulled into it and started asking questions. She could be more than an hour any direction from here before he’d even realized she’d left.
Of course, he could be here already.
Quickly, she glanced around. He might be standing in the road, hiding behind a car. Or standing in a shop window watching Ryker put his arms around her. Garrett would never put up with that. He’d kill Ryker just for laying a finger on her. Ryker might look like he could handle himself, but Garrett had a mean streak, and that made all the difference. She’d seen men twice Garrett’s size go down in a fight because they’d underestimated him.
“Yeah, an hour could make all the difference,” she said.
She should have thought of this, should have planned for what she’d do if her car broke down. She briefly considered abandoning the car and getting a bus to the next town, but she’d be easier to track if she used public transport. Garrett would be able to ask around and someone would recognize her, then he’d know exactly what direction she’d headed in and what towns were on that route.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on with you?” Ryker asked. “It’s to do with a guy, isn’t it?”
She sighed, finally giving in. “Yeah, an ex-boyfriend who is a nasty piece of work. I’m trying to stay ahead of him.”
“He’s following you? Can’t you get a restraining order or something?”
She almost laughed. “He won’t pay any attention to restraining orders.”
“The police would.”
“Only if they caught him before he killed me.”
“You really think he’s that bad?”
She nodded, miserably. “I know he is.” She wanted to tell him that he’d almost killed her once before and she still had the scars to prove it, but she didn’t want to go down that route. Ryker seemed to have some starry-eyed idea about her, not even caring that she was thirty pounds overweight or that she acted like an over-emotional crazy person. But she knew she’d never be able to reveal that ugliness to him, even more so now. She couldn’t stand to see the way he looked at her change. Even if she walked away from him now, she’d cherish the few memories he’d unwittingly given her. She didn’t want to put the thought in his head that if someone could do that to her, then what sort of person did that make her?
“So stay with me,” Ryker announced out of the blue. “Stay with me until this creep catches up with you, and we’ll see if my fist works better than a restraining order.” His eyes were hard, his muscles tensed. His fists had balled by his sides, and Jenna realized he was furious.
“I can’t ask you to do that. This isn’t your problem.”
“I’ll make it my problem. It makes me fucking crazy to know you’re terrified and running away from some jackass who wants to hurt you.”
“No, Ryker. This is exactly what I didn’t want.” She meant what she said, but she couldn’t help a small part of her inside dancing with delight. Did he really want to protect her, look after her, take care of her? It had been such a long time since anyone had wanted to do such a thing. “Anyway, you have Mikey to think about. You wouldn’t want to put him in any kind of danger. Especially not for some girl you just met. He should be your priority.”
His face grew serious. “Jenna, I would never put Mikey in any kind of danger. He’s always been my priority and always will be. I gave up a lot of my own life for that kid, but I don’t regret a second of it, even if he can be a pain in the ass. But listen to me about this as well, you are not just ‘some girl.’ You’re important, too.”
Tears bubbled up inside her again, but she pressed her lips together and swallowed hard, holding them back. When she managed to speak, her voice came out strangled. “I’m nothing. I’m a nobody.”