Free Chance Encounter by Christy Reece

pulled out the spare key she’d grabbed from her dresser earlier and had forgotten to give him.
    “I shouldn’t be long.”
    “I’ll be fine.”
    With a quick nod, he walked out the door.
    Kacie released another explosive breath. He might be overpowering and intimidating, but she couldn’t help but be glad that he was here to protect her. That is, if she even needed protection.
    Before she did anything else, she was determined to find out more about Brennan’s past. Asking him the minute they’d returned to the apartment had felt wrong, like she was being nosy. And okay, looking him up online wasn’t exactly less nosy, but at least she wouldn’t unwittingly offend him by asking sensitive questions.
    Sitting at her desk, she opened her laptop and put his name into a search engine. The instant the results screen popped up, she sat back in dismay. Over two hundred thousand links? She clicked on the first one and began to read. The more she read, the angrier she became. Within ten minutes of searching, she was closing down her laptop, feeling both queasy and guilty. They had massacred him. There were even blogs and websites completely devoted to hatred of him.  
    He’d been called everything from a child killer to an abuser of women. A loser and a coward. The first nice thing she’d read about him had been on the second page of the results list. A news story reported that he donated the money he collected from his son’s life insurance policy to a children’s hospital, though the writer pointed out that it still had not been proven that he wasn’t involved in his son’s death.
    She had known the man for less than half a day and already knew that ninety-nine percent of what she’d read was a lie.  
    But what she truly didn’t understand, what she could not begin to fathom, was why it appeared he had never defended himself. In just about everything she’d read, it was suggested that Brennan Sinclair’s silence was an obvious admission of guilt. Because, of course, if anyone accused you of doing terrible, hideous things, your first reaction would be to defend yourself, wouldn’t it?  
    Or could he have kept silent because the hurt was too great and the people who believed he could be guilty of such things didn’t matter? The people who loved Brennan knew the truth.
    Feeling even wearier than she had before, Kacie headed up to her bedroom. As she undressed, the mishmash of information she’d learned whirled in her head. When she settled onto her pillow, her last thought before she dropped into a restless sleep was followed by deep sadness. Brennan had said he had no family. If that was the case, who had believed and supported him during his awful tragedy?  

    Just over an hour later, Brennan walked back into Kacie’s apartment. The errands hadn’t taken him as long as he’d feared. He dropped the bags onto the hallway table and was about to head to the kitchen for some water when he heard a muffled scream.
    Switching directions, Brennan took the stairs three at a time and sped toward Kacie’s bedroom. Pulling his gun from the holster beneath his jacket, he twisted the knob and pushed the door open. The room was dark, and he didn’t know where the damned light switch was. Clicking the flashlight on his Glock, he swept it quickly around the room and saw nothing other than a small lump in the middle of the large bed. Turning the flashlight toward the wall behind him, he spotted the light switch and flipped it up. Bright light flooded the room. The small, shuddering woman in the bed hadn’t noticed.
    Nightmare. He’d had too many not to recognize one.
    “Kacie…wake up.”
    A low whimper, like the sound of a whipped animal, was her response.  
    He walked to the bed and said in a loud but calm voice, “Kacie. You’re having a nightmare. Wake. Up.”
    He wanted to touch her, shake her from the hell he knew she was reliving, but he feared that would frighten her even more.
    “Kacie. Wake up.