Bear My Heart: A Small Town Paranormal Romance (4 page)

Was Troy a monster...like
him
?

“What happened in your
old life?” Dot whispered before she could stop herself. She
bit her lip hard. If she didn't want people asking her about her old
life, she shouldn't ask about theirs.

“No. Don't answer
that,” she said, jerking away. “I...I'm sorry. I was
out of line. I have no right to know...”

“You have every right
to know,” Troy said in a low voice.

Dot's breath caught as she
tried to compose herself. “No I don't,” she said firmly.
“I don't even know you.”

The corners of Troy's eyes
crinkled in gentle amusement. “You do now.”

“Th-that's not the
point,” she stammered.

The smile was still playing
on his lips. “The point is, you don't trust me.”

Dot winced. “Look, I'm
sure you're a nice guy...”

“I'm not.”

She froze.

“I
was
a nice
guy,” Troy said, his blue eyes flashing. “I was nice,
and foolish.”

Dot stared into his deep,
blue eyes. “What happened?” she whispered.

Troy leaned forward and took
her trembling hand in his. “Look at me, Dot. Look at all of
me. Tell me what you see.”

Dot let her eyes trail down
his handsome face to his neck and shoulders. She stared at the
jagged scar on his neck and gasped. It was an old scar but it looked
like a savage bite mark. She looked down and noticed the old faded
scars down his arms.

“You were attacked,”
she whispered.

Troy nodded slowly.

“For years, I blamed
myself for what happened to me. I kept thinking, if only I hadn't
stopped to help, if only I had run faster or fought back harder...”

“It's not your fault,”
Dot said immediately.

“No. It took me a long
time to see that. The worst part was that for years, I kept
punishing myself. I lived in fear, anger and hate. I hated myself,
hated life, hated everything. I didn't want to let anyone in, but
being alone made everything worse.”

Troy sighed and said softly,
“Talk to me, Dot. I'm on your side. I will protect you.”

Dot swallowed and said sadly,
“No. You can't protect me.”
Even the police can't.
“No one can.”

CHAPTER
TEN

Troy watched Dot turn away
and hug herself tightly. Her jaw was clenched and the doubt, rage
and sadness in her eyes broke his heart.

He wanted so badly to hold
her and comfort her. She wouldn't believe him if he told her how
much he cared about her. To her he was just the town handyman. She
hadn't even spoken a word to him until today.

He was just a stranger to
her. But she was...important to him.

Troy knew he couldn't very
well tell her that he often drove past her house on his way to work
and on his way home. And on most nights, he would find himself
strolling down her street just to make sure that the light was on in
her house. He didn't like to think of her driving or walking home
alone after dark. The streets were usually very quiet and deserted
at night.

He didn't tell anyone that he
was keeping an eye on her. Yet Megan knew. His sister always said
that she could read him like a book. It's an occupational hazard,
she said. She was a librarian, ha ha.

Well, if his sister could
read him so well, maybe she would have an explanation for all these
irrational, powerful feelings that were flooding his heart and
flushing away his brain cells.

Troy tried his best to find a
plausible, acceptable reason for his actions and emotions. But for
the life of him, he just couldn't explain why he should feel so
strongly for this mysterious, secretive newcomer. Which was why he
had tried to mask his attraction to Dot as suspicion and anger. He
knew that Megan saw right through him but at least she stopped
questioning and teasing him.

He should be feeling
suspicious, not protective of Dot.

His behavior and feelings
baffled him. He had never done or felt anything like this before.
He wasn't a lovesick teenager. He was thirty-one years old. He had
never ever felt so drawn to a woman before. He knew nothing about
her, yet he wanted to know everything about her.

Troy had heard some people in
the diner referring to Dot as “that shy, pretty writer in
town”.

Dot was a writer. And now,
Troy knew that she was a writer with some dark, terrifying secrets.

He wanted to shield her from
her terrors and nightmares, and share her burdens with her. He
wanted to guard her, protect her and love her.

But why would he want to do
that? Logic and reason told him that she was nobody to him.

Yet deep inside, even as he
tried to deny it, he knew that she was everything to him.

From the instant he saw her,
his heart had whispered that she was his. He knew that he would do
everything in his power to keep her safe. His wary, analytical,
human
mind wanted to find out the woman's secrets, but his
heart just wanted to love her.

Troy
leaned across the table and
took
her chin very gently between his thumb and forefinger. Lifting her
face, he pressed his lips softly,
tenderly
to hers.

Dot
gasped but she didn't resist. Her eyelids fluttered shut as Troy
kissed her. The kiss was sweet, slow and lingering. Dot's lips
parted when his tongue stroked across her lower lip, teasing and
encouraging her.

Troy could feel her tremble
as his mouth moved over hers. She moaned and he deepened the kiss.
He could feel the passion and heat deep inside her, straining to be
released. She was a beautiful, passionate woman with so much love to
give. But she was holding back, hiding herself from everyone.

Reluctantly, Dot finally
pulled away and lowered her head. The color was high in her cheeks
and she was breathing hard.

Gulping, she lifted her eyes
and looked frantically around the diner. Only two booths at the
other end of the diner were still occupied. The other patrons
continued eating and talking quietly, paying no heed to them.

Lilly was in the kitchen and
Daisy was busy with some paperwork behind the counter. No one seemed
to have noticed their kiss.

“I shouldn't...”
Dot mumbled.

She grabbed her wallet and
slapped the dollar bills on the table. “I should get going,”
she said in a clearer voice. “I have a deadline to meet.”

Grabbing her bag, she
scrambled out of the booth. “I...It's nice meeting you, Troy.”
Then she was gone.

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

Dot looked up from her laptop
and rolled her shoulders. She'd finished her short story, but she
wasn't ready to submit it just yet.

Grimacing as she gulped down
her bitter, cold coffee and finished the rest of her sandwich, Dot
pushed away from her writing desk and went to the kitchen. After
rinsing her cup, she leaned against the kitchen counter and glanced
around the neat, simply furnished house. It was a really nice house,
she realized. The real estate agent told her that the owners, Mr and
Mrs Yong had gone to live with their daughter and decided to rent out
their house. They would sell it if they received a reasonable offer,
the agent hinted.

She would love to live in a
house like this—for the rest of her life.

Dot shook the whimsical
thought out of her head. She was a writer. Her imagination was
better used on her stories, not on herself.

Her job as a freelance writer
allowed her to earn a good income even while she was on the move.
She could write anywhere and with an internet connection, she could
submit her stories to her publishers and the magazines anytime,
anywhere.

No one could pinpoint her
exact location.

Dot went to the window and
looked out. She had worked steadily through the evening and it was
now past midnight. She'd tried hard not to think of Troy, but...who
could forget a kiss like that?

She could remember every
detail, every nuance of the kiss. She had heard, or imagined, a very
low growl as his lips brushed against hers. The sound had thrilled
her, making her skin tingle and her pulse race.

Her body had trembled and all
her nerve endings had come alive as Troy's mouth moved over hers.
She had never experienced a kiss like that before. It was achingly
tender, yet filled with so much promise and passion.

She'd had a few very
short-lived relationships over the years, but she had known that
those relationships were doomed right from the start. She had never
wanted to stay in a place for long. And she never even told those
men her real name.

She never promised anyone
anything. She didn't promise a future, and she never told them she
loved them.

Love 'em and leave 'em. It
was better for everyone.

“Oh Troy,” she
whispered, hugging herself tightly. “I wish...” She
stopped abruptly. Nothing good would come of this. “I can't
love you,” she hissed.

Glaring past her ghostly
reflection in the window, Dot saw that the lights were still on in
her neighbor's house. She had met her neighbors only once. Casey
Kelly lived next door with her young son, Timmy. Casey was a timid,
soft-spoken woman who had uttered only three words to Dot in as many
weeks.

Dot didn't think she was
unfriendly. She was just scared and broken. Dot had heard from
Lilly that Casey's husband was a no-good, freeloading, sorry excuse
for a man who was serving time for drug offenses. “But I heard
Jim might be paroled soon,” Lilly had sighed repeatedly as she
talked about Casey. “Poor Casey and Timmy.”

Dot jerked when she heard a
muffled scream coming from Casey's house. She pressed her hand to
her window and stared hard at her neighbor's house. What was going
on in that house?

Dot saw Casey's front door
slam open suddenly. Casey lurched down the steps, clutching her son
to her bosom.

The woman was crying and
there were bruises on her face and arms. She scrambled fearfully
away from the house, dragging her son with her but they didn't manage
to get very far.

Even before she cleared the
bottom step, a man charged out of the door and grabbed Casey by her
hair.

“Help!” Casey
shrieked just before the man's knuckles landed on the side of her
face.

When Timmy began to yell, the
man backhanded him so forcefully that he flew backwards and landed on
the grass.

Stunned and sickened, Dot
yanked her front door open and ran out. She couldn't believe what
she was seeing. Everything was just happening so fast.

Dot charged out of her house
and ran barefoot down the street towards Casey's house.

“Hey!” Dot
shouted at the man. “Stop that! You leave them alone!”

CHAPTER
TWELVE

Dot ran to pick Timmy up.
The boy was in shock, and he was too terrified to cry. He just clung
to Dot and buried his face in her neck. His thin, small body was
shaking badly.

“Let her go,” Dot
said, carrying Timmy in her arms.

The man yanked a fistful of
Casey's hair and snarled, “Mind your own business.”

“Stop! You're hurting
her,” Dot cried out as the man kicked Casey's legs viciously
and forced her to her knees.

“I can do whatever I
want in my house. This is my family. Who are you anyway?” He
glanced towards her house. “You live in the Yongs' house now?
Have the two old folks finally kicked the bucket? Good riddance! Mr
and Mrs Yong were meddlesome, irritating busybodies.” He
laughed nastily. “You the new owner?”

Dot didn't answer. She
stared into the man's glittering, hard eyes and refused to back away.

“I'm calling the
Sheriff,” she said, reaching into her pocket for her phone.

“You do that, and she's
dead.”

Dot gulped. He wasn't
bluffing.

“You just stay out of
this, bitch. If anyone comes up to the house, I'll bash her head in
before they can even get in the door.”

The man grabbed Casey's face
savagely in his huge, hairy hand. He smirked as his fingers clawed
towards Casey's eyes.

“Don't mess with me,”
he snarled. “I can dig her eyes out of her sockets with just
one hand.”

Dot swallowed rapidly.
“I...I'm sorry for bothering your family. I'm new in town.
I'm your new neighbor, Dot. I, um, just came over because I heard
something. I didn't catch your name...”

“It's Jim. I'm the man
of this house. I've come home. I've been away, you see,” Jim
smiled, looking Dot up and down.

Dot shuddered, wishing she
was wearing more than just track pants and a thin t-shirt.

“You're a pretty little
thing.” Jim gave her a nasty, leering smile. “You live
next door, all by your lonesome? Maybe I'll pay you a visit some
time, eh?”