Protection

Chapter Ten

Kyra looked in the mirror at herself as she pulled her hair through the strap of the baseball cap. All her things were packed and in the truck, the motel room was just as they had found it. Ben was outside on the phone.

Tears filled her eyes. Why had all of this happened to her? What had she done in her life to deserve to be alone? But she wasn’t really alone, was she? Tiffany was back in her life, there was still Alex and Micky. Then there was Ben and Tom.

But where did she fit in? She felt like she fit, but did she really? She was the witness, the one nearly killed twice and Ben saved. She was the one who poked her nose where she shouldn’t have, causing her and Ben to have to hide.

She knew Alex was trustworthy; he would protect her with his own life. Now, though, she was having second thoughts on going to him. She didn’t want to risk his life. She couldn’t let anything happen to anyone else. She didn’t want anyone else to get hurt because of her.

Maybe it was time to just go home. Go back to where it all began so many years ago. To go back to where she had grown up, and had once been so happy, without a care in the world. When her parents died was when it all began to go bad. That was when her life was changed forever.

The door came open in the mirror and Ben peeked in. His hair was slicked back under the cap, so it only showed in the back. His brown eyes made her heart melt. She forced herself to smile as she looked at his handsome reflection.

“Are you ready to roll?”

“Yep,” she whispered as she picked her brush up off the counter. She turned towards him as he stepped in the door, meeting his eyes.

“Are you alright?”

“Fine,” she started to go by him, but he stopped her easily with his arm. “I’m just thinking about things, Ben. I’ll be fine.”

He let her go and she went to the passenger side of the truck, getting in. She watched as he pulled the door shut, and then got in on the opposite side of her. What was she doing? The man was a cop. The very thing she swore she would never love, and now she was falling for him. Who was she kidding? She had fallen for him, from the moment she looked into those brown eyes.

Now though, that could all be taken away from her before she had the chance to fully have it. She couldn’t live that way, could she? She was scared enough something was going to happen to him now.

She stared out the window as they drove down the highway, her mind jumping all over the place. She thought about her parents’ house setting empty all these years because she couldn’t fully let them go. She had never let go of her belief of them being killed even though there was no evidence of it.

She would change everything when this was over, if she managed to survive it. She had to let her parents go, and not hold on to Nicky the way she had them. She would clean out the house, and move back to the place she had loved so much. She would make the house her home.

She would start her life over.

She would put her family to rest.

And she was going to do everything she could to be a part of that baby’s life.

She looked over at the handsome man driving the truck. “What will happen when this is over?”

“That depends on how it ends.”

“What will you do?”

He glanced over at her, “Is this what you’ve been thinking about?”

She looked back out the windshield, “I’ve been thinking about a lot of things.”

“Do you want to share?”