Reading Online Novel

His to Protect: A Fireside Novel(5)



I still held out hope, though, that I would soon be in a new place, an apartment slightly better than the hotel, so I saved my money.

I might not own anything besides my dog and my car and the few belongings I brought with me, but I did have a brain and a college degree.

I did have a plan on how to start over once I was in Canada, far past the border.

It was that thought that made my lips tilt into a smile as I pulled a snoring Boomer from the front passenger side of the car.

Grunting as I tugged, I looked up at the hotel and froze just as Boomer let out an annoyed yawn.

“Shh,” I hissed and looked back up at the second-floor walkway. All the rooms could be entered from the outside, and I quickly counted the doors from the stairway inward, hoping I wasn’t seeing what I thought I was.

The door to my room was ajar and a low light leaked from the opening.

Ice flooded my veins and I shivered.

“Boomer,” I whispered and gave him a firm tug on his leash, pulling him out of my car.

I looked around to see if there was anyone outside, or any cars that looked like they didn’t belong, but I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. The same run-down vehicles that had been there all week were still there. My car was the only one that stood out.

I swallowed while I watched the blinds in my hotel room for movement. I already knew the front office was closed. I had no one to ask to check on my room for me.

The business card that Declan handed me just a while ago was in my back pocket.

He seemed like the kind of man who would come to a woman’s rescue, but if there was someone inside my room, it could take Declan too long to get to me.

Besides, he was a nice stranger, but he was still a stranger. I couldn’t pull him into my drama.

Deciding against calling a man who just fed me a meal and offered to help, I dug through my small purse to find the pay-as-you-go phone I’d picked up from a RadioShack just before the Ohio border. No one had the number and I hadn’t used it yet, but I knew it wasn’t smart for a woman to travel alone without an emergency phone.

I felt the cool plastic with my fingertips and pressed it into my palm, before my shoulders fell and I dropped it back inside my Michael Kors bag.

If Kevin or someone he sent was inside my room, getting the police involved would only create more trouble for me.



My heart thumped wildly and I could feel my pulse beating in my wrists and at the base of my throat. I had waited by my car for what felt like hours to see if I could detect any movement in the lit hotel room before making the trek up the metal outside stairs, careful to step slowly and not make a noise.

The person was either still as a statue or the room was empty.

As I reached for the door with one hand, the thought briefly flickered through my mind that perhaps I didn’t lock the door on the way out.

This hotel was so old it didn’t use plastic key cards, but regular locks. Yesterday, I went for ice and didn’t lock my door.

Perhaps I had done the same thing again.

Yanking my hand back from the door, I stayed out of sight and closed my eyes, trying to remember how I’d left it earlier.

But no, I vividly remembered turning back to lock the door. Boomer had caught sight of a pigeon at the end of the walkway and tugged so hard on his leash that I had to yank him back.

“Okay,” I whispered, wishing that Boomer had a mean streak to him. Something more akin to an angry rottweiler than a dopey boxer.

His tongue hung out of his mouth and he slobbered.

I shook my head. “Some guard dog you are,” I muttered and pushed against the door with my free hand. It creaked as it opened, and I stood against the outside wall waiting for any sign of life inside.

With my heart pounding in my chest, I took one large step and stood directly in the doorway, quickly surveying whatever I could see.

I gasped as I took in the room. It could have been declared a disaster area.

The mattress had been flipped over and all the bed coverings were thrown on the floor. My duffel bag, which had been at the side of the bed, was now emptied, and my clothes and meager belongings had been tossed all over the place.

Little hairs stood up on my arms and the back of my neck as I took a slow step inside the room.

“Hello?” I called out, glancing behind the door and then toward the bathroom. The door was open and the light was off.

Someone could still be hiding, so I left the door to my room wide open and took another step inside. If someone came out of the bathroom, I wanted to be able to escape quickly.

Dropping Boomer’s leash, I moved toward the small table at the side of the bed.

His ears perked up as he sat, back straight, and my lips twitched. The crazy dog must have sensed my tension because he was as alert as I’d ever seen him.

“It’s okay, Boom,” I whispered and watched his left ear twitch in acknowledgment.

With another look at the bathroom, I slid open the drawer.

My heart sank straight from my chest, down my body, and into the horribly worn shag carpet beneath my feet.

“Crap,” I muttered, feeling tears well in my eyes.

They spilled down my cheeks before I could wipe them away. My hands shook as I opened the cover of the Bible in the drawer. I already knew what I would find.

Or wouldn’t.

I never should have been so stupid as to leave my things inside the room.

Because where I had stored my passport and my remaining cash except for the twenty dollars I had in my wallet, there was nothing.



“Ugh.” I flipped down the front visor and cringed at my reflection. A night of sleeping in the car, if you could call all the tossing and turning I did sleeping, left my eyes red and swollen.

It also could have been from the tears I shed off and on throughout the night.

After realizing that everything I needed to get to Canada was gone, I quickly threw the rest of my belongings in my bag, and took off from the hotel. I drove around the Detroit area for hours, alternating between tapping my thumb on the steering wheel and chewing the side of my thumbnail.

Eventually, I pulled into a park near Latham Hills and flicked the business card I removed from my back pocket.

Declan James.

Owner of The Fireside Grill.

One helluva decent cook.

And hopefully, the decent man I assumed him to be.

Although my ability to judge someone’s character was highly questionable, given who I had married.

It didn’t matter now, though.

With the sun beginning to rise, I was now parked outside the Fireside Grill, debating what to do for the next several hours until it opened.

I barely had enough cash to get breakfast, and there wasn’t enough change in my cup holder for a decent cup of coffee.

Without a shower, my hair was soon going to be a greasy, tangled mess, and no amount of dry shampoo, which was packed in my duffel bag, would tame it.

This was certainly not how I wanted to look when I took Declan up on his offer.

But I had to.

I had no other choice.

No other options.

Perhaps if he could give me a place to crash for a night or two, I’d be able to think clearly and figure out what I needed to do next.





Chapter 4


Declan


Friday mornings were my busiest mornings at the restaurant. That morning, I was more tired than usual as I sifted through my accounting program, doing payroll.

I fully understood how to cook a burger and take care of a kitchen and keep a restaurant stocked with alcohol and food, but payroll was a bitch. All of this office shit I had to take care of myself until I could hire someone to do it for me made my head pound like I’d spent all night with a bottle of tequila in one hand.

The headache was worse today, though, and it wasn’t just from payroll problems and a printer that was currently refusing to print the checks correctly. I needed to upgrade to direct deposit, but again…expenses.

“Fuck it,” I muttered and dropped my head into my hands, elbows propped on my desk. Rubbing my head, I squeezed my eyes closed and tried to erase the memory of Trinaand the way she looked so vulnerable as she pulled away from me last nightfrom my mind.

It’d been a fruitless endeavor ever since I climbed into the cab of my pickup and made the short drive home.

I pressed my fingertips against my closed eyes, trying to push her out of my memory, but when I opened them, I saw the stool she’d sat on and the menu she’d perused and tapped with her finger.

Pushing back from my desk with more force than necessary, I snagged the inventory clipboard hanging from a nail on the wall, and decided payroll could wait.

I needed to be focused and I was anything but.

“Hey, Declan,” one of my prep cooks, Matthew, called out as I walked by him.

“Yeah?”

He tilted a green basket in my direction and frowned. “Almost out of tomatoes.”

I made a grunting noise and scribbled a note on the spreadsheet in front of me. We didn’t have enough to last us the day if I was judging correctly. “I’ll get you cash and you can head to the store to pick some up.”

Matthew’s eyes widened briefly with concern before he set the basket back down. “Sounds good.”

Normally, I had the art of inventory and ordering down to a science, but there were always weeks where something randomly came up short.

If only I were psychic and knew what customers would order. I never would have guessed we’d have a surge in lasagna orders this week. I chalked it up to fall setting in, and the cooler days and chilly nights making more customers want comfort food.

Then I made a note on the inventory sheet and I wished I could hide in the dry-foods closet until the Friday afternoon lunch rush, when I could lose myself in cooking instead of planning and worrying.