The Promise He Made Her Read Online Free PDF Page B

place.
    â€œBut I need to be right here in the city. I’ve got early morning appointments and sometimes I don’t get home until nine o’clock at night as it is...”
    Hours he could relate to. And didn’t like to hear her keeping. As if she had no life...
    â€œIt is right here in the city.”
    â€œA place like that, here in the city, and it’s available?” Her tone had lightened. He took that as a win.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThat’s hard to believe.”
    Not as hard as she thought. As she’d soon find out. He’d gotten the place for a steal, on foreclosure, after years of neglect and abuse.
    The toilets had been replaced. And the faucets. Structurally it was fine. He’d added braces beneath the porch. Done some painting—so far only on the inside. And covered holes in the walls with cheap prints...
    â€œSo, do you think it’s a good idea for you to stay there where it’ll be easier to keep you safe? At least for the time being?”
    The way she stuck her out lower lip, as though she was considering, that was new. Drew attention to how full that lip was...
    â€œSo that’s your plan?” Her disapproving tone didn’t coincide with his thoughts at all. “To have me move to a safer place? Be guarded? Held hostage for the unforeseeable future, in case someday Ken decides to act on a threat that he might not even have made?”
    He’d made it. Sam was 100 percent certain of that.
    He just had no proof. Yet.
    â€œYou honestly expect me to believe if you aren’t guarded that you won’t be looking over your shoulder every second of every day, living in fear, in case someday the bastard decides to act on a threat that he might not even have made?” The words burst from him. He’d rather scare her than have her beat up again. Or worse.
    She had to move. Within the next twenty-four hours. Period.
    He’d made a promise to her to keep her safe and he was damn well going to keep it.
    * * *
    H ER INSIDES MIGHT be clenching to the point of pain, but Bloom was not going to give in. Fear would not rule her life. Ever again.
    Sure, she’d experience the emotion now and then. It was an inevitable part of the human experience. But that didn’t mean she had to live it.
    Feel it. Breathe. Move on. And it would pass. Fact. Not just theory. Or wishful thinking.
    Nor was she going to dumb herself down by refusing to see, or to think about, the fearful challenges that could be in front of her. Having once been robbed of that chance against her will, without even knowing that it was happening to her, she now cherished her ability to face situations and make her own choices in how to deal with them.
    â€œI won’t be living in fear,” she said after a minute of careful thinking, in answer to the detective’s challenge. “And I already look over my shoulder. Unless my back is against the wall,” she added. A timeless “gift” from her past. An awareness that there is always that which is unseen acting upon you.
    His expression didn’t change. Nor did his posture. But she knew he was changing tactics even before he spoke. Because she was trained to hear the things people didn’t or couldn’t say. To see the things that they didn’t know were there.
    Except for where Kenneth Freelander was concerned. That’s what love had done to her. It had used her to prove the truth in the old adage “love is blind...”
    â€œMy plan doesn’t end with getting you to a safe house.”
    She was listening.
    â€œA batterer will batter if he’s met with the provocation that brings out that tendency in him,” he continued.
    Now he was in her territory. “Unless he’s had counseling and learned how to redirect those tendencies,” she said. “Or to recognize the circumstances that prompt them and distance himself from them before they get out of hand.”
    Not all