pretend nothing happened. You need to get checked out, make sure you aren’t hurt, file a report. The police are on the way.”
Sure enough, everything about her hardened, from her expression to her posture. “I’m fine. It was bound to happen sooner or later with me running alone out here. As for the police, shouldn’t that have been my decision?” Kristin tried to push past him.
Lucas refused to budge. “You can take care of yourself. Got it. What about the next woman he targets? He left his mountain bike behind, and there are bound to be fingerprints. Don’t you want the cops to find him before he tries again on a woman who can’t shove him into a world of hurt?”
“He won’t target—” Kristin turned her head and stared into the pine trees weaving gently in the wind. Finally, she sighed. “Fine. I’ll wait in the parking lot.” Without looking at either Lucas or Travis, she jogged away with only the slightest hitch to indicate she suffered any pain.
His instincts said she was hiding something. Lucas started to go after her but stopped. They might have formed a friendship, but it wasn’t strong enough to force her to let him in. He’d wait until she put some distance between them then follow to make sure her attacker didn’t swing around to try again.
Travis whistled low behind him. “We could’ve used that kind of grit in the platoon on this last deployment. She’s got serious cool under fire.”
Lucas kept his back to his buddy as he started a slow jog after Kristin, keeping her in sight. Sure, she was handling this well right now, but what would happen later?
And what was she not telling him?
Kristin’s heart pounded, and it wasn’t from exertion. That man had known who she was...had known who her brother, Kyle, was. This wasn’t random, and until she figured out why, she wasn’t telling the police or anyone else.
Kyle had spent his life in trouble. They’d spent the past decade apart, estranged after tragedy ripped their family into pieces, but he’d returned when he was stationed at Bragg, physically present even though his heart wasn’t always in the game. He’d grown more distant after he deployed, though. Kristin had thought it was the stress of being overseas, but when he’d come home on R & R a few weeks before he died, something else was going on. He’d roamed the house at all hours, doing projects and generally not speaking, stoic like their father.
Their father.
Everything in her wanted to duck behind a tree and curl into a ball, maybe even lose what was left of the breakfast bar she’d crammed down before her run. No one had manhandled her in years, not since the night her father had pulled a knife on her mother, held the blade to Kristin’s throat, then slashed his own wrists.
Cold sweat sheened her hot skin. Her attacker was no threat. She wouldn’t let him be. Kristin had enough confidence in her physical condition to take on most men who didn’t suspect her of being capable. But the memories? They threatened to bring on a full-fledged panic attack.
And she didn’t panic. Ever.
Drawing in lungfuls of cool morning air, she tried to find comfort in the rhythm of her feet on the trail. Left, right, left, right. Breathe. It was over. If this guy returned, she could handle him.
And her father was dead. He couldn’t hurt anyone anymore.
But he sure did have a way of reaching out of the grave to reignite her grief. Grief that had intensified when a sniper’s bullet found her brother in Iraq.
Kristin scanned the trees, trying to find something, anything to focus on. The sky, the breeze, the chilled morning air...anything but what lay behind her, emotionally and physically.
Without turning around, Kristin knew Lucas and his friend would be close. From the brief couple of months they’d been running together, she had no doubt. Lucas was the kind who would protect even when he wasn’t wanted.
She absolutely hated the comfort she felt. Knowing someone had her back unwound the tension. The smallest sliver inside wanted to stop and let them catch up, to not be alone.
That was scarier than anything else. In the face of the morning’s events, seeing Lucas without time to prepare herself had sent a shudder through her insides. Every time they ran together, she’d had to school herself not to notice the way he made running seem effortless, the way his biceps peeked out from the sleeves of his T-shirt.
Man, she hated reacting to him. She usually didn’t have a reaction to any guy at all. She’d always managed to stay detached, never engaging emotionally. She’d never had the dream of getting married, not after watching her parents claw and fight their way through their nasty, alcohol-fueled relationship. They’d stayed together out of some twisted kind of passion for one another. It was good in spurts. But when the passion flamed into anger, it was ugly for everybody within fist’s reach.
Things in their family had grown uglier after her mother got sober and walked out when Kristin was sixteen, fighting to make life better for her children. But her father came at them again and again, was arrested and released over and over. Not even the law could save them. Her father had violated restraining orders until the day he ended everything.
That was all the proof Kristin needed. Being on fire for anybody was a bad thing. Emotions out of control led to lives out of control. She’d never wanted any part of feelings like those, had always avoided them.
But when it came to Lucas...he was a tough man to resist, and she’d tried her best. Those deep brown eyes had seen something inside her from the moment they’d crossed paths during a local half marathon and silently battled to the finish. Kristin had edged him out at the tape, but the conversation with Lucas after—and the realization he was responsible for the moving truck on her street a few days earlier—had solidified a friendship played out in long runs through their neighborhood when Kristin didn’t run solo on the trails.
Runs that gradually grew longer as they started to talk. Surface things at first, but lately she’d come dangerously close to feeding him information about her past. He’d layered something soothing over her heart, something that touched her insides every time she talked to him, edging closer to things she’d never shared with anyone else. They’d never done anything but train together, yet he made her feel like allowing someone else inside her head was a good thing.
And everything had to stop. The morning’s brutal reminder of her father’s cruelty coupled with the mention of her brother tore at her, chased her, drove her heart into hiding. Her feet pounded harder, her breathing growing more ragged as emotions drove the pace until she couldn’t think anymore, couldn’t even hear the outside world over the thumping of her pulse in her ears. By the time she hit the parking lot, her whole body hammered in time with her heartbeat. She’d pushed too hard, but the emotional and physical cleansing had been worth it.
Slowing to a fast walk, Kristin scanned the area, glancing under her car in the distance to make sure no one was beneath it. She shook it off, glancing at the head of the trail.
Two military police vehicles stood blocking the entrance.
Kristin wanted to turn and run into the woods. Since the night her mother had been murdered, she’d avoided the police, even drove like a grandmother to wipe out any possibility
