The Broken Protector Read Online Nicole Snow

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I so don’t need more drama with him right now.

Tomorrow, I’m moving back into the murder house.

It’s less than ideal and a lot crazy, but I’m determined to make it mine.

I try to focus on that so I don’t dwell on the last cryptic remark he threw at me.

Already there.

What the actual hell does that mean?

At least Lucas won’t have such an easy time keeping tabs on me in public once school starts, whatever his motivations might be.

By nightfall, I come to my senses, watching the lazy fireflies darting around outside. Their little lights always make this place feel cozier at night.

Okay, yes, maybe I was a tad harsh to Officer Horsedick.

He’s not Roger Strunk.

I know he’s not Roger.

I also know my gross ex left scars that keep me easily triggered, spitting mad at other people, and I hate it.

Curled up in the window seat of my suite, I hug my steaming mug of chamomile tea to my chest and sip it slowly, watching the quiet outside now that the whole town has gone to bed.

Out there, it’s just the fuzzy glow of lamps.

I’m a little warm in the muggy evening after showering off the sticky coffee from earlier, but Lucas was right.

Miss Janelle—Janelle, dammit, I’m even starting to think like him—leaped into action the second she saw me, attacking my shirt with baking soda and her stain stick before I could say one word.

Now that’s customer service.

I need to talk to Lucas and grind out an apology, though.

I’m still not sure why he sets me off so much and makes me a little volcano of emotion.

Maybe it’s his lazy sarcasm. His slow drawl. His razor-sharp looks, powerful and handsome and too toned to ignore.

There’s also that expression he always wears, somewhere between announcing I have a severe allergy to smiling and cockiest man alive.

Deep down, I feel like he’s secretly laughing at me all the time, when I really want him to just shut up and—

No, not that.

No.

I want him to take me seriously. I know that’s hard when the first time we met I was a shaking wreck, and he’s probably labeled me as some big-city damsel in distress.

Well, if he’s Hercules, I’ll be Meg.

I’m a damsel and I’m in distress, but you’d better believe I can handle this.

God, I loved that movie growing up.

I drove my first set of foster parents nuts spinning around singing off-key songs. They bought the DVD, and they were thrilled to let it go with me when they sent me off to another foster family without a goodbye.

Defective out of the box, return to sender.

I still have that DVD somewhere in the moving boxes.

Maybe once I’m unpacked and moved in, I’ll have a little solo watch party to welcome myself home.

Even if I won’t really be alone, will I?

I’m worried I’ll always feel like Emma’s there in the house, looking over my shoulder, watching everything I do.

I hope ghosts like Disney musicals and my godawful singing. Otherwise, it’s going to be a hell of an afterlife, stuck there with me.

I should get to bed.

Once school starts, it’ll be an early to bed, early to rise situation. I won’t have the luxury of brooding out of my window like a gothic heroine until midnight.

I toss back the rest of my tea, letting it soothe my nerves—right up until they jerk like snapping violin strings.

I gasp.

There’s someone standing under my window.

They’re creepily still, carefully positioned to avoid the light from the streetlamps.

Nothing but a man-shaped shadow, his head tilted back, looking up at my window.

It’s hard to make him out when he’s standing too close to the house, partly obscured by crisscrossing shadows and light that won’t quite reach far enough.

Fucking Lucas Graves.

But it’s not, I realize coldly.

Then I discover a different kind of stillness.

The horrible insta-freeze that glazes your entire body over when your heart just stops.

That shape... it’s wrong for Lucas.

Tall, yes, but thin. Stooped.

The shoulders are narrower than his, the body language all wrong. It’s more like watching a scarecrow or a ruffled raven than a lion-man.

Who?

I don’t think.

I’m just gripped by fury and confusion and desperation.

This sick feeling like Emma won’t wait for me to move back to the house. She wants to drag me outside by the ear right now because that shadow, that wraith, has something to do with her death.

In my bare feet and pajama shorts, I bolt out of the room.

I’m almost airborne, pouncing down the stairs.

I only slow down when I hit the front door, trying not to wake Janelle or any of the other renters left here when most of the tourists have gone home.

My breath turns to lead, crushing my lungs as I pop outside, peering across the lawn.

Of course, there’s no one there.

Did I imagine it? The whole thing?

Inhaling slowly, I walk carefully across the lawn, feeling the cool grass crunching under my feet and poking between my bare toes.


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