Chance: A Small Town, Enemies to Lovers, Protector Romance (Ghost Ops Book 2)
Chance: Chapter 42

Despite the gloomy day,Rory felt lighter than air. She hadn’t had this kind of feeling in, well, she couldn’t remember how long. She’d spent so much time worrying about the farm and the Dawg, her brother, her best friend, everyone she knew, really—was Miss Mary’s sciatica acting up today? Did Wendy’s daughter still have a fever? Was Mrs. Sutton really doing fine after her heart attack last year? Was Amber okay? How about Colleen? Was her obsession with demons and aliens a sign of dementia or did she just live in an alternative universe from the rest of Sutton’s Creek?

Rory had always kept a running litany in her head of the people she knew and whether or not they were recovering from whatever minor ailments or setbacks had assailed them. Granny had been the same, though Granny made casseroles and took them to people. Rory just served them drinks or dinner and gave them discounts or freebies when things were really bad.

Maybe it was why she was a good bartender, always listening to people talk, offering opinions and sympathy or congratulations when necessary. But she’d carried the worries of the Dawg, and even her brother, for so long that it’d gotten heavier than she’d realized. Until Chance started looking out for her, really looking out for her, she hadn’t known how heavy the burden of thinking about everything and everyone was.

She told everyone she was fine, that she could handle it, but sometimes you needed another person to be there and help you shoulder the load. Didn’t make you weak or incompetent.

Things she’d always feared because of her disease. She’d been at such pains to prove she wasn’t different from other people that she’d sometimes taken on too much.

And maybe she’d always have that tendency, but she was going to try and let others be there for her.

Starting with Chance, who’d tended to the chickens in the rain, cleaned up the breakfast dishes despite her telling him she could do it, and carried laundry downstairs for her before he’d had to leave for work. He’d kissed her before he left and told her to be careful bringing the laundry back up, but he hadn’t been bossy about it.

He took Clyde because he insisted she needed the safety features of Chuck Norris in this weather. Rory smiled as she picked up the key and hit the remote start button. A luxury Clyde definitely didn’t have.

Chance had moved Chuck near the porch for her, so she wouldn’t have to walk across the ground in the rain to get inside.

Silly, beautiful man.

Really, she wasn’t that fragile. She’d run through plenty of downpours in her life. And it was pouring. They’d had such a run of nice weather that it wasn’t unexpected, but she knew this much rain all at once was going to create flooding. She kept getting notices on her phone about creeks and low-lying roadways. She knew better than to drive through a flood—Turn around, don’t drown—and she had alternate routes planned if Cedar Creek had risen to cover the bridge she had to cross on her way to town.

At least it wasn’t tornado weather. Not that they hadn’t had plenty of that this spring. They always did, but fortunately Sutton’s Creek was still on the map. Had been for over a century, so maybe their luck would hold.

Rory checked all the locks, though she knew they were already on, checked her phone for motion alerts, made sure the stove was turned off (an obsessive behavior, yes), and grabbed her purse. With one last look around the living room, she disarmed the alarm so she could exit, rearmed it so it would be set to capture any interior motion or door or window breaching, and headed outside to lock the door behind her.

She still hated that she had to have an alarm system, but she understood why and was grateful for it. If the Davises bought the Coombs and Turton farms to build their developments around her, then she’d really be grateful for the alarm. Especially as more folks moved to the area and more stores went up to accommodate the expanding population.

Rory stood at the edge of the porch, unlocked Chuck, bounded down the steps and climbed up into his sleek interior. She was wet but not terribly as she wiped her hands along her jeans. She’d worn a ball cap to keep the rain from ruining her makeup, so at least she knew she wasn’t sporting two black-streaked eyes right now.

Her throat tightened as she saw the profiles on the screen.

Profile one said Chance. Profile two said Kitten. He must have done that when he’d gotten in to move the truck for her.

She hit the button for Kitten. Chuck moved all the settings to her selections. Seat, mirrors, steering wheel.

“You adorable asshat,” she said past the knot in her throat. She didn’t even mind that he’d named the profile Kitten. Nobody had ever called her that before. She would have said nobody would have dared, but Chance had.

And she secretly loved it. Okay, maybe not so secretly since she never corrected him when he said it.

She sniffled and clipped her seatbelt in place. She was really going to have to get a vehicle with airbags and anti-lock brakes. Clyde would survive not going into town every day, and she’d keep him running, but she needed something safer. Chuck had taught her that with all his bells and whistles.

She and Chance could take slow Sunday drives in Clyde on beautiful days. She’d even let Chance drive if that would make him feel better about keeping her and the baby safe. But she didn’t want Chance out there on rain-slick roads in Clyde any more than he wanted her there.

Rory blinked. Wow. She really had it bad, didn’t she?

“You know you do,” she muttered as she squeezed the gas and headed toward the road. “You’re in love with the handsome, adorable, sexy-as-hell caveman. You’re just afraid to say so.”

She was afraid to say so. Like maybe if she didn’t say the words, if she just let life keep on the way it was with him in her bed and her life, taking care of things and helping out, then maybe it would stay the same and he wouldn’t get tired of her and want to leave. And if he did leave, well, she wouldn’t have told him she loved him and he wouldn’t know he was breaking her heart, right?

“Ridiculous logic, Aurora. You aren’t going to tell the man you love him so he won’t know your heart is broken if he leaves you?”

But it was hard to be vulnerable. She was already vulnerable with her diabetes, always having to make sure she kept a handle on her numbers and took care of herself. She was even more vulnerable now with the baby on the way.

If she let herself be vulnerable with him, and it didn’t work out, then what?

She’d survive, that’s what. Like people did when relationships ended. Like she already had once before.

She turned onto the main road. The wipers were automatic and they were beating frantically as the rain hammered down. Jeez, maybe she should have waited another half hour or so before she left home. But the house felt lonely without Chance in it and the sooner she was at the Dawg, the sooner work started. And then, in a few hours, he would be there, sending smoldering looks her way before they came home and she was wrapped up in his arms again.

Seemed logical at the time.

Rory typically loved to drive fast, but she wasn’t about to in this weather. She took her time as she navigated the twists and turns of the country road that was as familiar to her as the back of her hand. Headlights appeared behind her after she’d gone a mile or so. The driver was impatient, riding up her ass, and she slowed further, hoping they’d go around. Any other time, she’d gun it and leave them in the dust.

But this was Chance’s truck, the road was wet, and she had a baby to think about. The bridge over Cedar Creek was ahead. The water was high but there was still clearance beneath the bridge, though the ditches were filling quickly. Another hour of rain and the roadway might be flooded.

The driver behind her whipped into the oncoming lane, gunning his truck as if he planned to pass her.

Rory swore as the vehicle crowded her lane, slowing even more. She just wanted the asshole to go around and be on his way.

But the truck kept pace with her instead of passing. It was raining too hard, and the tint on the other truck’s windows was too dark, for her to see a face.

She didn’t need to see a face to know that what was happening was deliberate, though. It wasn’t Jimmy’s truck, or not one she’d seen before, and it wasn’t the D&B Properties truck either. But there was no doubt whoever it was wanted to intimidate her.

She pressed the accelerator, hoping to surprise them with a burst of speed.

But the driver loomed in her lane, coming closer, and she had to jerk the wheel. The tires started slipping and then Chuck was sliding sideways toward the ditch. She tried to correct course, but the other driver wouldn’t back off.

The last thing she heard before she lost control was the metallic crunch of metal.