Come Back to Me

Chapter 10 Present Day

The only piece of helpful information I was able to give was his description and the name of the high school in Houston where he taught geometry. Hopefully, the school could clue us all in to his address. Boyd seemed somewhat appeased with that and sighed again, giving me a slightly less irritated look.

"Okay, Regan, that's it for now. I'll see what I can come up with to track this asshole down."

Beth sauntered into the room with a fresh cup of coffee for me and gave Greg one of her sweetest smiles. "Thanks, Officer Boyd. I think she should rest now."

He obviously loved that Beth addressed him with the proper title. His barrel chest puffed up a little and a blush crept over his cheeks. "No problem, Beth. I'm sure she'll be in good hands with you."

As I freed one of my hands from the comforter I was cocooned within, Beth barely gave me a glance as she winked at Greg. "My hands are very good."

The front door slammed open, startling all of us.

"Reggie!" Noah shouted, racing down the hallway. "Reggie!"

"Here," Beth called back, poking her head out into the hall so he could see her. "She's in here."

Noah skidded to a stop when he turned the corner, seeing me wrapped E.T. style in a comforter and shaking on the couch freezing, dirty, and wet. Definitely not a Best in Show moment for me. No one said anything in the seconds he took in my appearance from head to toe, frowning extra hard when he saw one of my feet was bare and the other encased in a dingy, no longer pink and fuzzy, sopping wet slipper.

I burst into tears at the sight of him. No one knew what to do.

Noah took a hesitant step into the room. "Reggie?"

Like a crying child desperate to get into the arms of her protector, I fought to get my other hand free of the comforter and Beth jumped forward to grab the coffee from me before it ended up on the floor. "Noah," I gasped, a shaking hand stretching out for him.

He was on his knees in front of me in an instant, taking my hands in one of his own, careful not to disrupt the bandages on my palms. "I'm here, beautiful. Right here."

His hand was shaking almost as badly as mine when he brushed the comforter off my head and over my shoulders. More bandages and bruises were exposed, causing a low curse to escape from him. He ever so gently brushed his fingers over the dark goose egg forming near my right temple, then traced them down my cheek to my throat, outlining another bandage peeking out from beneath the collar of my sweatshirt.

Joshua came thundering into the room next and stopped short when he saw all the exposed bandages. Without taking his eyes off me, he addressed the others in the room. "Someone needs to tell me what the fuck happened to her."

Officer Boyd cleared his throat. His discomfort was obvious. Even though I wasn't able to provide him with much information about Stephen, when he had been asking me questions about the attack, he had been visibly bothered by the details. And as he recounted everything that I had described to him, his voice wavered with emotion. Anger or sympathy or both, I couldn't really tell.

My focus was on Noah, his face blurred by my stream of tears yet I could see enough to know he was getting very angry. Each time Greg described an abusive reaction from Stephen, he simultaneously moved closer to me and grew more still. By the end of the recount, he was wedged firmly between my knees and had me clasped so tightly to his chest, that my injuries had started protesting the firmness of his hug. And although it hurt, I didn't want him to let go of me. I turned my face into the crook of his neck and my arms wrapped around him just as tightly as his around me.