“Josie and Noah think that you can make her feel safe. She has driven almost everyone else out of her life,” Ryan said.
“Yeah, I’m on that list too. Only I shoved her out months ago. I don’t think she’ll welcome me back.”
“You’re a ranger—”
“Was,” Dominic cut in. He wasn’t fit to help Lily now. And yeah, that fact hurt more than the bullets through his chest.
“I think she’d feel a lot safer with you watching her back than relying on your dad and his deputies. Your father’s a good police chief, but he can’t have cops patrolling Lily’s street all night.”
Dominic nodded. Before he’d enlisted, he’d been a cop in Forever. And he knew the department wouldn’t protect a woman twenty-four/seven from a criminal they didn’t believe had the first clue about where Lily lived.
The air force officer, the only one of the three of them still serving, pushed off the ground and adjusted his uniform. “So are you going to get off your ass, put on some pants, and get on that plane? Or do I need to tell my commanding officer that I won’t be there Monday morning because I need to go hunt down a navy SEAL to watch over my best friend’s ex because he was too chicken to do it himself?”
“I’ll go.” Dominic reached for the jeans, shook off the pieces of broken mug, and started pulling them on. “Lily doesn’t need a SEAL.”
And I’d bet the use of my left hand that she doesn’t want me.
But he’d go. He’d look out for the woman he’d loved in what felt like another lifetime. Before a bullet had busted his hand . . . Before he’d lost his place with the rangers . . .
Once he knew that she’d found a way through her fears, he’d disappear again. He didn’t have a clue what the future held for him, but he refused to screw with hers.
And hell, while he was home maybe he’d find the scumbag who’d taken a knife to his beautiful, perfect Lily.
Chapter Three
LILY TURNED THE lock and flipped the sign indicating that the cows were home and Big Buck’s Bar was closed for the night. Through the bar’s front window, she saw a few college-age patrons lingering in the parking lot and waiting for a cab. She’d personally placed the calls to Forever’s lone taxi service ten minutes before closing. She might be serving drinks to keep busy until school started again—and to keep her mind off the attack—but she couldn’t escape her instinct to look after students, whether they were five or twenty-five.
“Would you like to have a drink before heading home?”
She glanced over her shoulder. The damaged skin on her neck pulled taut. Her wounds had scabbed over and healed. Mostly. The place where he’d slashed her neck had run deeper than the cuts to her forearms. And the wound on her side looked as if he’d tried to cut open her stomach and missed. The doctors had promised a quick recovery, going so far as to smile at the fact that “the crazy random stranger” had stopped short of doing permanent damage.
Lucky me.
But standing in the closed bar, she didn’t feel lucky or healed.
“Sure,” she said to the dishwasher. Drinking with the reclusive Caroline sounded better than walking through the empty house she’d lived in her entire life. If she went home now, she would spend the rest of the night checking the locks and peering behind doors.
“Good. Wait here. I’ll be right back.” Caroline offered a curt nod then headed for the swinging door that led to the back room. The Employees Only space housed the bar’s office, spare liquor, the kegs, and the dishwasher.
Why did Noah’s friend always sound like she was giving out orders? Lily wondered as she headed to the bar. She’d asked Josie and Noah about the quiet, petite woman who avoided the bar’s front room whenever there were customers present. But Big Buck’s owner and Dominic’s little sister, who had somehow found their way to love and a baby after Noah returned from the army, hadn’t revealed a word about Caroline.
Lily filled a clean pint glass with water and turned to the whiskey. She heard the door to her left swing open. “What would you like to drink?” she called to the other woman.
“What goes with marionberry pie?” Caroline asked.
Lily glanced over her shoulder and spotted Caroline holding what looked like a homemade pie with a lattice-top crust. Caroline moved surprisingly fast, barely making a sound as she crossed the bar’s wooden floorboards, despite wearing what looked like black steel-toed boots.
Who wears combat boots to wash dishes?
But Lily forced the question aside and focused on the bottles lined up against the back of the bar. “I think an Oregon pinot noir would be best. Unless you would prefer whiskey.”