Page 16 of Beast's Wife
Morgan opened and closed her mouth. “What about me? I’m not trained. I wouldn’t know what to do.”
“That is because they’re trained to take care of you,” Carver said, stepping into the room.
Andy put his puck guard down. “Sir,” he said.
“I’ll take it from here.”
Andy nodded and turned toward her. “It has been a pleasure.”
“This isn’t over. I will beat you one day,” Morgan said.
Andy left with a chuckle, and she turned toward Carver.
“I’ll be taken care of?” she asked.
Carver nodded and stepped up toward the game. He lifted up Andy’s guard. “Would you care to play?”
“I want to, but…”
“But, what?”
“I want to be able to take care of you and take care of myself,” she said.
“I have everything in place.”
“But what if on that odd chance, nothing goes the way you expect it to? What then?” she asked, feeling her anger start to rise. “How can you be so calm when people are attempting to kill you? They invade your house.”
“They didn’t get near my house. I was alerted as soon as they invaded the perimeter. I have safeguards in place. I’m not a moron.”
“I didn’t call you a moron, but what if it goes badly?” she asked, running fingers through her hair.
“I have lived in this house for over a decade, and I’ve never been a well-liked man. My name has instilled fear longer than I have been on this property. I can assure you, this is onlythe twentieth time someone has tried to get onto my property to hurt me,” Carver said.
“Twentieth? You make it sound like that is a good number,” she said.
“Trust me, it is.”
“Why don’t you hide away? Have a secret location?”
“So people can sneak around? So I will always be looking over my shoulder?”
“But that’s not what will happen,” she said. “The point of a secret location is that no one knows and you are safe to be there. No one will find you.”
Carver began to laugh, and she found the sound a little irritating.
“This isn’t funny,” she said, not in the least entertained.
“I know it isn’t funny, and I don’t mean to laugh. When you have many enemies, Morgan, it doesn’t matter where you are, people will try to find you. This way, I dare them, and it also scares them.”
“How does this scare them?” she asked.
Carver put down his puck and stepped toward her. She turned to him, and now her ass grazed the edge of the air hockey table. She was so focused on him.
“Because, what kind of crazy bastard must I be, that I allow everyone to know where I live? That I refuse to hide, and if they want to, they can come right up to my front door.”
She frowned. “Now that you say it like that, it does sound kind of crazy.”
“There is nothing kind of crazy about it. If you want, I will give you lessons in firing a gun. I don’t want you to focus on standing and fighting. I want you to focus on running and shooting. No one is going to hurt you, Morgan, but if you are worried, I’ll make sure you can take care of yourself,” he said.