Page 16 of Rescuing Baylee

Baylee sighed. There was no good answer to remedy everything. She just had to keep her head down and help the ones she could.

“Well, I need to get going,” Cass said, looking between them. “Gunnar.”

The dog returned to her side, and she took up the leash. “Baylee, it was nice meeting you. Stay safe. Landon, I’ll talk to you later.”

“Later, Cass,” he said with a slight wave.

Baylee turned back to the veggie bed, needing something to do with her hands. Hunter was still behind her, and she wasn’t sure why he was staying.

“Do you keep all of these up?” he asked, after the silence had lengthened.

She glanced around. “For the most part. It’s not always easy to get the time down here, but I try.”

“The flowers look nice,” he said, kind of lamely, she thought. She gave him a look from the corner of her eye.

“Thanks, Detective.”

“Call me Landon, please.”

CHAPTER SIX

Baylee turned back and started weeding again, hoping he would get the hint. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be more familiar with him.

“Listen,” he said eventually, “I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you before.”

Sighing, Baylee swiveled around on the ledge. Obviously, he wasn’t going to go away until she heard whatever he had to say.

The man had his arms crossed again, and she wondered if he stood that way a lot or if it was just when he was with her. Seemed like she frustrated him a little.

“You have no obligation to talk to me,” she murmured. “I understand not wanting to be social.”

Maybe he would get the gigantic hint she’d just dropped. The two of them had invaded her Zen time. But how Zen was it if the emotional support dog she didn’t know was reacting to her wild emotions?

“It’s not that I didn’t want to talk to you. It’s that I didn’t want to get pissed when I talked to you.”

Yep, that was it. Baylee stood and began gathering her tools, tossing them in the bucket she carried them in. “Well, we can’t have you getting pissed, then. I’ll get out of your way.”

Landon reached out and grabbed her elbow, and Baylee spun on him, the tools flying. Fists up, her body tensed in preparation for a fight. Immediately, he let go and held his palms up in a non-threatening manner. “Please, stop,” he said, voice low. There was a frown on his face, and he’d lowered his head slightly toward her, “and listen just a minute.”

Baylee went still, but she was still tense. And her heart was racing.

“I’m very sorry I grabbed your arm,” he said softly, his eyes showing his regret. “That’s exactly what I shouldn’t have done, I know. It was instinctive. I didn’t want you to storm off before I could say what I needed to.”

Baylee crossed her arms beneath her breasts, wishing she’d left when they first arrived. She’d shown him too much with that reaction. “So, get on with it.”

Emotion twisted his handsome face, and his eyes had gone dark.

“I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry for not being personable. But every time I look at you and see that scar on your beautiful face, I know someone did that to you. It’s not from a wreck. Those are healed knife cuts. I can tell the difference. And the anger that fires in me is more than I can articulate. I’m sorry if you felt like I was snubbing you or something. I really wasn’t. I knew I would say something inappropriate if I opened my mouth, though.”

Baylee stared at him for a long moment, shocked. She wondered if she could trust his words. Most of the time she went through her day not even thinking about the scars on her face, at least until she encountered people. The scars were shocking to people—she knew that— but she’d never had anyone say something like that.

Maybe he wasn’t the dick she suspected he was. “Fine. I appreciate the clarification.”

He straightened, his hands going into the pockets of his jeans. “I tend to get angry when women are abused. It’s why I became a cop. My dad used to whale on my mother daily. And if she wasn’t around, he would move on to us kids. I have a little brother and two sisters. It took us a long time to get out of that situation.”

“I’m sorry,” she said simply.

It was a story she’d seen a lot, and she supposed she understood the anger.