Dark Abyss by Kaitlyn O'Connor (classic novels for teens .txt) 📕

shifted uncomfortably. “Simon planned to brief you on all of it once we got you out of here. You need to focus on getting better.”

“Worrying isn’t going to help me do that,” Anna said pointedly.

Joshua blew out a breath of disgust and grinned at her a little sheepishly. “I knew I’d stick my foot in it,” he muttered, then frowned. “I guess they did, too, and that’s why …. I just ….” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “Jesus! I wasn’t thinking about anything but getting you out of there before the place blew. I’m not used to women!” He sent her a horrified look and blushed fierily. “What I meant to say is, being around them …. That didn’t come out right.”

Anna touched his hand, curled her fingers around it and held it. “Stop beating yourself up about that, ok? I thought we’d covered that? You weren’t being careless. There wasn’t time to … worry about anything but getting as far away as possible and taking cover! I know that and I know you weren’t being deliberately rough or inconsiderate. In all honesty, I think it was just a freak accident. I’ve fallen down plenty of times and never broke anything before.”

“Yeah, well that might’ve been because you didn’t have me on top of you,” he said dryly.

“And I would’ve been hurt a lot worse if you hadn’t been! I do remember that you were hurt because you were shielding me with your body!”

He looked like he wanted to argue it further, but she redirected him to the previous conversation. She would’ve suspected he’d been deliberately trying to sidetrack her if he hadn’t still looked so miserable about it.

“Just tell me what’s going on. I’m not nearly as fragile as you seem to think and I’ll worry a whole lot more not knowing why all of you are worried.”

He shrugged. “I guess we’d rather err on the side of caution than dismiss any possibilities after what happened. I don’t think any of us really thought he would bother you again—before. Now ….” He shrugged again. “Well, you are a witness and he’s a dangerous man. None of us wanted to take any more chances with you. So Simon ordered a ‘round the clock armed guard at your door.”

She studied his face. He had an honest face, not just a handsome one, and she thought she could trust her instincts. He was still holding something back. “What else?”

He cleared his throat. “We want to hold you in protective custody when they let you out of here.”

Anna was more thrilled at that prospect than unnerved by what it suggested.

“You do? Would I … be staying at your place?”

He blushed. “That was the plan. It’s actually not protocol considering ….” He stopped abruptly and sent her a look that was clearly horror at what he’d almost said. It intrigued her and amused her at the same time.

“What I mean is …,” he began again after clearing his throat uncomfortably, “we thought it would be the best place even though it isn’t the most ideal given the circumstances.”

She desperately wanted to ask him what ‘the circumstances’ was, but he looked so adorably miserable that she took pity on his discomfort. She hadn’t realized that he was as bashful as she was. He hadn’t seemed that way before, just quiet and rather introverted. Maybe he was more like her than she’d realized, though? The more he liked someone the more awkward he was?

She didn’t have any trouble at all when she was focused on areas within her comfort zone—science—especially when she was around people she had no particular interest in. The very moment it mattered to her what they thought of her, though, she lost half her IQ and began to behave so awkwardly that she embarrassed herself.

She wasn’t sure she should interpret his behavior that way, but it pleased her to think it might be a possibility.

“And this would be ... until he goes to trial?” she asked.

“Until we have a better idea …. Well, can come up with a more permanent … uh … arrangement.”

The more he stumbled around, the more she wanted to probe. She sensed there was something else he was worried about, though, and, since he looked so miserable and she also wanted to make him more comfortable, she steered away from her questions.

“Simon didn’t manage to get the evidence he’d hoped for?” she asked tentatively after she’d probed her memory for a few moments.

Joshua’s expression hardened and he was instantly transformed into ‘lawman’.

“Nothing that’s going to put a noose around his neck. He’s an oily snake. We got a hell of a lot of ‘suggestive’, but nothing unbreakable. With a good lawyer, and he can afford the best, he stands a very good chance of wiggling out from under what we have on him. It’s too vague and open to interpretation.

“Right now the only thing concrete we’ve got to hold the bastard on, is attempted murder of a watchman.”

Anna’s heart skipped several beats. “Who?” she gasped fearfully.

Joshua sent her a panicked look. “Don’t start crying! He shot Simon, but he’s fine now. They’re letting him go home today. I don’t think they would’ve kept him this long except he lost a good bit of blood.”

Anna calmed herself with an effort. “But … doesn’t that mean he’ll go to jail?”

“He’s claiming he had no idea we were watchmen. He thought we were kidnappers and he was only trying to defend himself … and a lot more bullshit like that!

He’s a smooth bastard. I’ll give him that. He’s already countered everything we’ve thrown at him. His lawyers are demanding