Sworn to Protect. Kimberly Van Meter

done.

      That was a promise.

      Chapter 2

      Sundance strode into the Healthy Living urgent care facility and went straight to the reception desk. Betty Whitefeather, the ancient front desk receptionist, waved him through and he entered the side door, heading for Mya’s private office. He was in luck, she was sitting there, scribbling some patient notes. When she saw him standing in the doorway, she closed the file and looked at him expectantly. “What’s up?” she asked.

      “Has she been in?” he asked, cutting straight to the point. Mya’s fallen expression was all the answer he needed. “She can’t hide in her house for the rest of her life. Someone needs to get her to start living again.”

      Mya shifted into protective mode. “It’s only been a few weeks. Cut her some slack. Have any leads surfaced on the case?”

      “No,” he admitted grimly, chewing his lip. And he’d given more resources to Iris’s assault than any other case currently on his desk. “Forensics are a slow process. But something is bound to turn up.”

      “I hope so,” Mya murmured, but Sundance could tell she was doubtful they’d ever catch the man who’d brutalized Iris. Although she was defensive of her best friend, she said, “I am worried about her. She’s…” Mya hesitated, caught between sharing too much and helping her friend. “She’s not dealing well with everything. I can’t get her to leave the house at all.”

      There was something Mya wasn’t saying. Sundance could tell by the way she refused to meet his stare that there was more. Sundance knew he had to see Iris, even if under the guise of investigative work.

      “I’m going out there,” he announced, knowing Mya’s reaction would be negative. He wasn’t disappointed. When his sister started to shake her head, saying it wasn’t a good idea, he shut her down firmly. “I need to see if she remembers anything now that some time has passed since the initial shock, and she’s not picking up her phone.”

      “She doesn’t want visitors,” Mya said. “She’s not up to it yet. And I don’t think you badgering her about the case is going to help matters. She needs to do this in her own time.”

      His tone gentled. “I’m not going to push her too hard. But if too much time passes, we might lose the opportunity to dredge up what she can remember. I want to catch this guy before he does it to someone else. Iris is a fighter. She’s going to get through this,” he promised with true conviction. He’d never known a more stubborn woman than Iris Beaudoin and he couldn’t imagine her allowing anything to take her down for long.

      Although Mya nodded, worry still shone in her eyes. “She’s not the same, Sonny. I don’t know what to do,” she admitted. She wiped at the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. Sundance hated to see his sister cry. He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze and she seemed to take comfort in the knowledge that he was there for her. She straightened and nodded, ready to put her faith in him to fix things. “Maybe you can do what I can’t seem to manage. But remember, she’s so fragile right now. Go easy on her.”

      Sundance nodded but he made no promises. He’d have to see for himself what was happening with Iris before he knew how to handle the situation.

      All he knew at this point was that Iris hadn’t left her home in the three weeks since she left the hospital. Mya brought her supplies, but otherwise she accepted no visitors. For all intents and purposes, she’d locked herself away in her house.

      And that definitely wasn’t the Iris Beaudoin he’d known since she and Mya were in kindergarten together and he was in the third grade.

      The Iris he knew was fearless, prideful, stubborn, a royal pain in his ass, in-your-face woman who laughed at challenges and never failed to gleefully insert herself into other people’s business without apology.

      He couldn’t let that Iris wither and crumple in on herself, and if it took him to rile her up and draw her out, he’d do it. Whether she liked it or not.

      Iris heard the sharp rap at her front door and ignored it just as she had whenever someone happened to stop by. She knew Mya was still at the urgent care center but even so, Mya wouldn’t knock because she had a key and would just walk in. So whoever was knocking—insistently and loudly—would eventually go away when they realized Iris wasn’t going to receive them.

      The darkened interior of her usually sunny bedroom was her sanctuary and her prison. She’d stripped the gauzy panels of her bedroom windows, replacing them with dark, heavy blankets that blocked any hint of sunshine as well as prevented prying eyes from seeing in. Each time she felt the stirrings of strength to face the outside, she shrank away with fear that he was out there, watching her, laughing. When she slept she fought phantom hands that grabbed and violated. She often woke screaming, soaking in her own panic-driven sweat, stinking of terror and helplessness. So she caught catnaps when her body could no longer fight the exhaustion, but she stopped sleeping through the night to avoid the nightmares. Mya had offered to write her a prescription for something to help her sleep but Iris had balked at the idea. The thought of being unable to rouse herself from her dreams was too much like that night, being unable to help herself as a stranger had raped and beaten her. She shuddered violently and she burrowed deeper into the blankets heaped on her bed. In spite of the summer heat, she couldn’t seem to warm her body. It was as if her internal temperature had been permanently set to deep freeze.

      At least the knocking had stopped.

      Then she heard the front door opening and she scrambled out of the bed, grabbing the baseball bat she kept by her bedside now. She’d thought of getting a gun but that would require leaving her house and facing people.

      It was probably Mya, the logical side of her brain offered, but the logic was drowned out by the panicked part of her that was in complete control right now. Her grip tightened on the neck of the worn wood.

      “Iris?” a voice called out, and recognition caused her to stiffen in alarm.

      “Sundance?” she answered, her voice scratchy from disuse. “Is that you?” He followed her voice and rounded the corner to the threshold of her bedroom where she still stood in the shadows with a raised baseball bat. He peered into the darkness and then flipped the light switch. She stumbled from the sudden wash of bright light and dropped the bat to crawl to the safety of her bed. “Go away,” she demanded, pulling the covers over her head. “I don’t want any visitors.” Least of all you.

      But he didn’t go away. Instead he walked to the window and she heard him taking down her blankets, flooding the room with natural light. She felt the sunshine filling the room and she burrowed deeper into her bedding. She didn’t want sunshine. She wanted darkness and solitude.

      “I need to talk to you,” Sundance said, ignoring her wishes. That was just like him, to do what he wanted despite what others said. “About your case,” he added unnecessarily. Why else would he be pestering her? It wasn’t as if he regularly dropped by to visit on a normal day. Normal…the word held no meaning for her now. She couldn’t remember normal any longer. Maybe she was delirious from lack of sleep. Maybe she was eternally cracked in the head because she couldn’t think straight, couldn’t think beyond basic needs. And when she said “basic,” she meant the very basics.

      The slow but steady tug on the blankets caused her to pull harder but her strength was laughable. Tears welled in her eyes as she felt the blanket slip from her grip. All that covered her was the sheet. Sundance stood in a pile of blankets, his gaze alarmed. She imagined she looked frightening. She didn’t care. She lifted her chin and met his stare. “What do you want?” she asked dully, wishing to hide but he’d made that impossible. “I said go away.”

      Sundance had never minced words with her. In all the years she’d known him he’d never held back. To be fair, neither had she. But as he stared at her, his gaze taking in every disgusting detail of her self-imposed retirement from the human race, she saw something different. Uncertainty. She would’ve rather that he started yelling at her or baiting her than