Lena Diaz - Secret Stalker

Even with the window rolled up, she could hear the anger vibrating in his deep voice.

“Go away.”

He shook his head. “Open the door, Bex.”

She gave him a very unladylike gesture and reached for the gearshift, fully intending to drive across the lawn back to the road.

“Gonna run again, Bex?” he taunted. “You’re good at that.”

She stiffened.

“You drove twenty miles over the speed limit. I can arrest you for that.”

“There was a maniac following me. I was in fear for my life.”

If his jaw tightened any more his teeth would probably break.

A long breath huffed out of her as her anger drained away. This wasn’t how she wanted things between the two of them. She’d blindsided him by coming back and deserved a little consideration. He’d also saved her life today. Repaying him by pushing his buttons and making his job difficult wasn’t right. She cut the engine, grabbed her purse and waited.

Looking suspicious at her sudden change of heart, he seemed to almost reluctantly step back, just enough for her to open the door and get out of her car.

As she headed toward the wide, covered front porch than ran the width of the cottage, he was hot on her heels, so close she could feel his body heat against her back. And just like that, her skin prickled with awareness and her belly tightened, her body’s natural response to Max being that close.

She couldn’t believe he still had this kind of impact on her, after all these years and after everything that had happened. It was irritating, and made it really hard to keep her raw emotions at bay.

“You don’t have to hang so close,” she told him as she climbed the steps.

“Just making sure you don’t run again,” he taunted.

She stopped, then whirled around to face him. But he was too close. She had to climb two more steps to be able to meet his gaze without craning her head back.

“Was that supposed to be funny?” she demanded.

“Not even a little bit.”

He arched a brow, daring her to bring up the past, to go down a road she had no intention of traveling. Down that road lay too much hurt. And danger. For both of them.

She let out a pent-up breath and turned around, climbing the rest of the steps and crossing the wide porch. After unlocking the front door, she turned the knob. And suddenly he was pushing past her into the living room.

“Please, won’t you come in,” she muttered behind him, closing the door and flipping the dead bolt.

He did a quick turn around the room, glancing through doorways into the kitchen, the hall, the bathroom, all while keeping his hand on his holster. She supposed it was second nature to do things like that, the instincts of a cop automatically checking the security when they went anywhere.

When he returned to the entry, he eyed the dead bolt but didn’t say the obvious—that she’d never have locked a door when she was growing up here. Most people in Destiny didn’t lock their doors. Bex’s mother certainly hadn’t. The dead bolt had been frozen when Bex had arrived and she’d had to spray it with oil to get it to work.

Feeling silly now for having locked it, she flipped the bolt again, leaving the door unsecured, even though her big city instincts had her fingers itching to flip the bolt.

For a man who’d been all bent out of shape about wanting to talk to her, Max didn’t seem to be in any kind of hurry to talk now. Instead, he strolled around the room, examining the stacks of boxes containing her mother’s things, reading the labels on each one. When he reached the fireplace, he stared in silence at the dark square above it where a picture of the two of them from their senior prom used to hang. She expected him to ask her what she’d done with it, perhaps in a sarcastic or accusing tone. She’d die before she told him that she’d carefully packed it away and put it in a box to go back home with her to Knoxville. But he didn’t ask.

Instead, he turned around and headed toward the archway that led into the eat-in kitchen on the front left side of the house.

“Got any coffee? I sure could use some even though it’s inching toward dinnertime now,” he said.

She frowned and hurried after him. “I thought you wanted to interview me about what happened at the store? Show me some pictures or something?”

He hesitated, then pulled his phone out. A moment later, he flipped through pictures of five men, holding each one up for her.

“Recognize any of them?”

“No. Are those the gunmen?”

He didn’t answer, just put his phone back in his pocket. After opening the cabinet to the right of the sink, he took down two coffee cups, acting just as familiar and comfortable with the house as he’d been as a teenager. As if the years between had never happened.

A few minutes later he had the old-fashioned coffeemaker spitting and gurgling a thin stream of dark coffee into a carafe.

“Cream and sugar still?” He took the creamer out of the refrigerator, which Bex had topped off just this morning, and grabbed the sugar bowl from the kitchen table.

“Yes. Still.” She pulled out one of the chairs and plopped down. “I’m surprised you remember where Mom kept everything.”

His lips thinned. “I practically lived here in high school. Your mom was like a second mom to me. We kept in touch. I didn’t write her out of my life just because you wrote me out of yours.”

She sucked in a breath, old hurts washing over her. The last time she’d seen Max suddenly felt just as fresh and painful as it had the first time around—as if all the years in between had never happened. She should apologize, explain. He deserved that. But how could she?

Especially now that he was a cop.

He set the cup of creamy white coffee in front of her and a cup of strong, black coffee in front of himself before finally sitting across from her.

He rubbed his neck and let out a deep sigh, stretching his long legs out in front of him. He looked so tired, as if the weight of everything that had happened today had drained the fight right out of him.

“Why did you come back, Bex? After all these years, why come back at all? It’s not like you went to the memorial service.”

She almost choked on the coffee she’d just sipped. She forced the now tasteless liquid down her throat and shoved the cup away. She rose from her chair, fully intending to order him to leave.

“Bex. Please. I’m not trying to fight. I really want to know.” He watched her intently, waiting for her to make the decision.

She drew a deep breath then sat down again. “I had a private funeral for her in...outside Destiny.”

He nodded. “I figured. Which is kind of my point. Why come back? You didn’t have to. You could handle everything remotely. From wherever you live now.”

Silence filled the room, his unasked questions hanging between them. Where did she live? Where had she gone? Where would she go once she left again?

She considered telling him. It wasn’t exactly a big secret anymore, as it had been when she’d fled. Privacy was a fantasy these days. Finding someone was as easy as doing a search online, even if they’d changed their name—which she hadn’t done.

If Max really wanted to find her, he could. Especially as a police officer. He’d be able to track her down. And yet, all these years, he’d never once tried to find her. Had never walked up to her condo or visited her little shop, asking for answers. So she wasn’t going to give them now.

“I needed to settle her estate, go through her things, pack up the house.”

He didn’t say anything, just waited.

She glanced around the kitchen, at the fading yellow drapes hanging above the sink. The horrible red-rooster wallpaper on the wall above the stove, wallpaper that she’d hated while growing up here but that somehow seemed perfect now.