Make Mine a Ranger (Special Ops: Homefront Book 4) by Kate Aster Page B

hugged the toilet. Nothing came, just a sizzling in her esophagus. Her
heart was racing.
    With Tyler standing behind her, she felt
too sick to even be humiliated, half-collapsed on the bathroom.
    “Bess, what’s wrong?”
    A whirring sound echoed deep inside her
ears as pressure built in her skull, the sound so deafening she could barely
hear him.
    “Oh, God.” She pulled herself back from
the toilet, but was too weak to stand. Her skin felt clammy and her sight was blurred.
Deep breaths, she told herself. Abby’s upstairs. I have to keep it together.
    A red Lotus, she suddenly thought,
remembering. The same damn car she had seen twice now and blamed her own frayed
nerves and ample imagination.
    Oh, God. Had he seen Abby? Even the thought of him being so close
to her daughter made her sick. Finally, she dared to look at Tyler. Had he
really said it? The one name that could send her into a fit of terror?
    Tyler reached for a washcloth and wetted
it in the sink. He wrung it out, and pressed it against Bess’s forehead as he
sat next to her on the ground.
    “So Dan Wils is not a nice guy,” he concluded.
    Bess knew an answer was unnecessary. Lucky
for that, because she still couldn’t form words.
    “Are you with me, Bess? Do you need to
lie down?”
    Dan . He knew where she was. But how? Had he contacted her
parents? Had they said something? She felt a chill of betrayal from the
possibility. She had never told her parents how Dan had beaten her, and hadn’t
dared to admit to them that Abby was his child. But she had specifically told
them that she never wanted to see him again.
    “How did he find me?” she heard herself
say out loud.
    Tyler frowned. “In the age of the
internet, anyone can find anybody if they try hard enough.” He paused, probably
waiting for her to offer something more. But when she said nothing, he asked,
“Old boyfriend?”
    In an instant, sitting on the bathroom
floor, she was transported to another moment in time. When Dan had come home
drunk from a night out with his friends, and he had accused Bess of going out
someplace without him. She hadn’t left the apartment at all that night,
wouldn’t have dared to. She had known by then that jealousy was one of his
worst triggers. She denied it, and went to the bathroom to get ready for bed. He
had followed her in and pushed her into the wall, calling her a string of
obscenities, punching her and then knocking her down to the floor, kicking her
in the stomach before he finally walked away.
    Sitting on the floor now, her hands shook
convulsively at the memory.
    “Abusive old boyfriend,” she heard Tyler
clarify for himself. “Fucking bastard,” he added, his fists clenching.
    A biting chill swept over Bess as she
finally found her voice. “I have to get out of here.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I have to get out of Annapolis.”
    “You can’t leave the life you have here
just because some old boyfriend has come back to cause trouble. You’ll be running
your whole life, if you do that.”
    “You don’t understand.” She could barely
see Tyler behind the film of tears forming in her eyes.
    “I do understand. And I know that I’m living in this house and he won’t lay a hand on you without having it ripped
off first by me.”
    “You don’t understand,” Bess repeated,
keeping her voice quiet. Please stay upstairs, she silently willed her
daughter. Please give Mama a little time to figure out what to do.
    Tyler stood and extended a hand to pull
her up. “Okay, so enlighten me.” He walked her out to the back porch, probably
thinking the same thing she was—that Abigail didn’t need to hear what was
going on.
    Sitting in the cushioned chair, she
leaned forward, still pressing the cool washcloth to her face to dull the pain
behind her eyes. After a few deep breaths, she set it aside and looked out to
the Bay to soothe her soul. “Dan is Abby’s father.”
    Tyler shut his eyes. “Shit. Does he
know?”
    “No. I left him the