Page 13 of Beau
“No. It’s an older model. I intended to replace it soon.” He slipped the phone back into his pocket and checked his other pocket, pulling out a set of keys. “Thank goodness I didn’t lose them in the bayou.” Beau looked up. “I could give you a ride to your place in my truck. I don’t mind if you get my leather wet. It’s a work truck. It’s seen worse.”
Aurelie frowned. “Get into a truck with a virtual stranger?”
He raised his hands, palms upward. “I’d think saving your life would put us past the stranger category. If it helps, I could call my mother and let her vouch for me.”
“You can’t,” she said, her lips quirking. “Your phone is dead.”
Beau sighed. “We could borrow the coordinator’s phone. Although, my mother won’t answer a strange number, thinking it could be spam.”
“Or I could borrow his phone and call for a lift service to pick me up,” she suggested.
“You could. And how long would it take for someone to get here? Twenty or thirty minutes? I could get you home in that amount of time.”
“How do you know?” She lifted her chin in challenge. “You don’t know where I live.”
“You’re right, but it would be twenty or thirty minutes sooner than anyone having to drive out here in the middle of nowhere to pick you up first.” He shrugged. “Your call, but I’ll follow you anyway.”
Aurelie frowned. “Are you a stalker?”
“No,” he said. “But I saved your life. They say when you save a person’s life, you’re responsible for that person.”
She shook her head. “In perpetuity?”
He nodded, his face poker straight. “I take my responsibilities seriously. If someone attacked you here, he could be waiting at your place to finish what he started.”
“I’ve been getting threats in my text messages.” She snorted. “I guess I won’t be getting more of them anytime soon since my phone is toast.”
“What kind of threats?” he asked.
“Actually, death threats.” She held up her dead cell phone. “I’d show them to you, but?—”
“—you can’t.” He nodded at the defunct device. “You should get a new cell phone tomorrow, and you might consider changing the number.”
“I’d thought about that but haven’t had time. I was working on preparations for this event.” She sighed. “Okay. I guess since you did save my life, I can trust you to get me to my house.” She grimaced. “It’s just that you’ve already done so much for me by pulling me out of the bayou.”
“If I didn’t want to help, I wouldn’t have offered,” he said. “Alone, you’re too easy a target. Since you’re getting death threats, and now someone has acted on those threats, it might help to have someone around. Maybe even deter the attacker.”
“I thought the threats would go away,” she murmured. “My father wanted to hire a bodyguard for me. Maybe he’s right—at least until law enforcement figures out who’s behind the threats and the attack.”
“It’s not a bad idea,” he said.
She met his gaze. “What was it you said you do for a living?”
His lips turned upward on the corners. “I didn’t. The truth is, I recently separated from the military.”
“Really?” She looked at him with new interest. She knew so very little about this man, and she wanted to know so much more. “What branch?”
“Army,” he answered.
“You’re too young to retire,” she said. “Why did you leave?”
He looked away. “Medically retired.”
“I’m sorry. And here I’ve been all about me. That must’ve been hard to be processed out.” Her brow dipped. “Were you injured on a mission?”
He nodded.
She waited a moment for him to expand on his injury. When he didn’t, she let it go. Clearly, he didn’t want to talk about it. “Well, I hope rescuing me didn’t aggravate your injuries.”