Identity Crisis(94)

‘I can’t protect you when you do things like you did tonight,’ he said. ‘If I come clean and we get you out of here, I don’t know, maybe somewhere abroad for a few weeks, maybe longer. Maybe we could change your appearance before you come back. Clearly that’s easy enough for you to do.’

She sat down on the edge of the tub next to him. ‘This is my home, Garrett. I don’t want to be anywhere else. I don’t want to run away again. And I don’t want to be anyone else either.’

‘You’re being Tess,’ he said.

‘I’m being Tess because that’s my job. You hired me.’

‘That’s my point, Kendra. I hired you. I put you at risk because I didn’t have the balls to own up to being Tess.’

‘Damn it, Garrett!’ she gave the bloodied washcloth a hard lob into the sink. ‘You know what you are? You’re a coward. You don’t want to be Tess and you don’t want to be Garrett Thorne either. Who the fuck do you want to be?’

‘Well, I’m not very good at being either, really, am I?’

‘Who on earth told you that? Where did you get such a stupid idea?’ She held his face in her hands, forcing him to look her in the eye. ‘What? Is it because you’re not a very good Ellis? Well, guess what, Ellis would make a lousy Garrett. The very thought makes me cringe, and he’d make an even worse Tess, so stop feeling sorry for yourself and stop blaming yourself and let’s just get on with it. Let me do what I do best. That is what you hired me for, isn’t it?’

He pulled her to him so hard that the vertebrae in her neck popped and she offered a little gasp. ‘I need you safe, Kendra. I need that more than anything else. I need you safe.’

‘I’ll be safe, Garrett, and I’ll be a lot more likely to stay safe if you stop feeling guilty for protecting Tess, for doing what you felt you had to do.’

Galina had hot chocolate waiting when they were both cleaned up and dressed. Harold, Ellis’s butler, had built a fire in the fireplace, and they joined Dee and Ellis around it. It was high summer. They didn’t need the heat, but it warmed places that had nothing to do with anything physical. Garrett sat with his arm wrapped around Kendra possessively. He’d been that way ever since he found her in the woods. She was never in any real danger. At least, she hadn’t thought she was, but if it had been him, if she had lost him, even for a minute … She shivered at the thought and settled still closer to him. Tomorrow she would worry about that, about how she couldn’t let him go into the woods alone, about the cold knot she’d felt in her chest at the fear of him going in and not coming back.

They had told Ellis and Dee about Kendra’s shower experience and the police had been notified, even though it was clear there was nothing they could do. Ellis had more faith in his security teams and the detectives he always used when he needed that sort of help.

‘God, Kendra.’ Dee shivered. ‘I can’t believe this guy was right in the house with you, right in the bathroom. What stopped him? What made him leave? Do you have any idea?’

Kendra shook her head. ‘I thought it was Garrett. He just stood there for a few seconds, watching me, I guess. Obviously I couldn’t make out the details of his face or I would have known it wasn’t Garrett. Then, after a little while, he turned and left.’

‘Security has searched the house and the back yard as best they could in the dark,’ Garrett said. ‘So far they’ve found no evidence of the man.

‘But he was there,’ Kendra said. ‘He was there all right.’

‘If this is the same man you saw in the woods,’ Ellis said, ‘I just can’t imagine how anyone could have known that you were here.’

‘He could have made a guess,’ Kendra said. ‘I mean, Garrett’s your brother and this is a place where we’d have more privacy. It wouldn’t be a difficult deduction to make.’

‘Through the woods is the only way onto the property without security knowing it,’ Ellis said. ‘And that’s not an easy route unless you know it. I never wanted that kind of protection,’ he added as an afterthought. ‘I never wanted my home to be a fortress, but I’ve made some pretty powerful enemies in the past few years, and both Beverly and Wade insisted. I never expected that it would ever really be necessary.’

‘I’m sorry I brought this to your home,’ Garrett said.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Ellis replied. ‘You’re family.’ He shot Kendra half a smile. ‘You both are, and the main thing is that you’re both safe.’ He held Kendra’s gaze for a second, then said, ‘Harris knows and so does Stacie. We felt they needed to know. Besides, I wouldn’t have wanted to deal with either of their anger if they thought we’d kept it from them.’