Kathryn pulled into her designated parking lot at her condominium. She loved living in the small complex, though in the last couple months she’d felt like she was missing something. Of course she knew exactly what that feeling was.
She missed Daniel.
But she had to stop thinking about him. On instinct, she pulled out her house keys and the attached pepper spray. Both her brothers were in law enforcement, and Carson—the oldest—had drilled taking protective measures into her head at a young age. He’d made it clear that she shouldn’t have to protect herself—that he was pretty disappointed with the male gender in general—but that she still needed to. It wasn’t like she needed him to push her; she lived in the real world.
She knew she had to be able to take care of herself.
Grabbing her purse and laptop as well, she slid out of the car and pressed the key fob to lock it. A cool January breeze rolled over her as she stepped up onto the sidewalk. The many palm trees lining the entire place rustled with the wind. Since summer was on the way—Florida just skipped spring and went straight to humid summer—she was enjoying the respite from the heat.
As she turned the corner of the building onto the connecting sidewalk, a shadow to her left caught her eye. Her breath caught in her throat as a big male figure peeled off the building.
Her instinct was to freeze up, but thanks to a whole lot of defense training from her brother, she let out a scream when she saw a masked man rushing toward her. She jerked her hand up and started spraying wildly at his covered face.
“Shit,” the guy growled, clearly surprised. Then he started clawing at his eyes and screaming along with her.
Kathryn kept spraying until he fell to his knees.
As he hit the ground, she sprinted in the other direction, her shoes snapping loudly along the sidewalk. Her phone was somewhere in the depths of her giant purse and she didn’t dare stop to try and find it.
Heart in her throat, she sprinted as fast as she could until she made it to the stairs to her building. She risked a glance over her shoulder as she raced up the stairs. No one was chasing after her. As she reached the top, she let out a scream as two big hands steadied her upper arms…
Wait, Daniel? She stared up at him, eyes wide.
He continued to hold on to her, his expression concerned. “Kathryn? What’s wrong?”
“A man in a mask jumped out at me. I pepper-sprayed him,” she managed to rasp out even though she was breathing erratically and couldn’t stop trembling. She couldn’t believe something like this had happened again—after being mugged a couple weeks ago, this felt like life was just taking a crap on her.
Moving into action, he grabbed her keys from her hands. “Inside, now.”
She was grateful he was steady because she didn’t trust herself to even open the front door because of how badly her fingers were shaking. How was that for a good getaway? She couldn’t even get herself to safety she was trembling so bad.
He shut and locked the door behind them even as he held his cell phone up to his ear. “Yes, this is an emergency. My name is Daniel MacArthur and I’m at…” Daniel spoke quietly into his phone, clearly talking to emergency services.
He was calling the police, of course. Her reaction time was far too slow right now. She moved to the security pad and disarmed her security system as he continued talking, her fingers unsteady on the buttons.
Feeling almost numb, she walked into the kitchen and dropped her purse and keys onto the center island. Her place wasn’t big so she could easily see him through the open bar area facing her living room, looking like emperor of the world in his expensive business suit as he spoke in clipped, efficient tones to the operator.
“I’ll be waiting outside for the officer,” he said before ending the call. Then he strode quickly into the kitchen.
Meanwhile she felt as if she was on autopilot, as if someone had pressed the pause button on her brain. What had just happened felt surreal, as if it had happened to someone else. And it had all gone down so fast. First she’d been thinking of the nice weather and then a monster had jumped out at her from the shadows.
Scanning her from head to toe in a clinical fashion, he frowned. “Did anything else happen?”
She shook her head, wrapping her arms around herself even as her cat, Mr. Twinkles, appeared out of nowhere, meowing up at them. “No. I…it all happened so fast. He jumped out at me like a ninja and I just reacted and started spraying. And screaming.”
His frown didn’t let up even as he glanced down at Mr. Twinkles. “Smart thinking, pepper-spraying him.”
“I can thank my brother for that.”
Daniel’s mouth curved up slightly as he picked up her whining cat. “Your brothers do have some uses.”
She snorted softly because he’d always butted heads with her brothers—probably because he’d been dating their little sister. Her gaze narrowed as Mr. Twinkles cuddled up to him, nuzzling his head against Daniel’s chin. That little traitor!
“Did you want to call anyone? Your brother? Your…fiancé?” He practically spat out the last word even as he gently petted her cat’s head.
Fiancé? It took a moment for her to realize what he meant. She looked away from him and shook her head. She still needed to return the ring to her boss and couldn’t believe she’d forgotten to this afternoon. “I’ll call my brother later and let him know what’s going on. But not now. He’s already off work and I don’t want him to call up our parents and worry them.” Her parents were divorced but the one thing they could agree on was that they loved their kids. And her mom would be over here in minutes, quickly followed by her father. Then it would somehow devolve into them arguing and she simply couldn’t deal with that now.
Daniel nodded, still watching her closely. “It’ll take the cops a few minutes to get here if you want to change into something more comfortable,” he said quietly. “Or I can pour you a glass of wine?” The concern rolling off him was palpable and it shook her to her core.
Why was he even here? She wanted to ask him, but decided to wait until after she’d dealt with the cops. One problem at a time. She rubbed a hand over her face and shook her head. “No, but thank you. I’ll need to make a statement and I don’t want any alcohol on my breath for that. Hopefully they won’t make me go down to the station for something like this. Or I don’t think they will.”
“Okay, then I’ll head outside and wait.” He gently put down a now annoyed Mr. Twinkles before he strode out the front door, looking like a warrior going into battle.
She could admit that she felt better with him being there. He’d reacted to everything so quickly and efficiently, just taking charge. Sometimes it had annoyed her when he’d just taken over when they’d been together, but in times like this, in any sort of crisis, he was definitely the man you wanted on your side. He never seemed to lose his head.
Though she didn’t feel like drinking, she did decide to change out of her dress, so she hurried to her room and slipped into a comfortable pair of lounge pants and a pullover sweater. It had actually been a gift from Daniel, and she thought about taking it off when she realized that, but screw it. He’d given it to her and it was one of her favorites. Right now it made her feel better. Once she was dressed, she opened up a can of food for Mr. Twinkles—who forgot everything else existed when food was concerned—and left him to it.