He rolled his eyes. “This isn’t a negotiation.”

“No, it’s not.” Somewhere during the discussion she’d moved until she stood just inches away from Connor. Now she stepped back and headed for the bedroom. “I’ll pack a bag.”

Connor pressed his hand against the bandage on his forehead as he tried to make sense of what had happened since dinner. The night turned from unexpectedly enjoyable to a nightmare. Someone wanted to hurt Maddie. He couldn’t fathom that. She could be short and possessed a mile-thick defensive wall, but that struck him as smart. People should be more self-protective.

But the note . . . notes. The idea of her being watched and tracked, potentially hurt, made his stomach roll.

He looked up at the one man who might be able to make the danger go away. “What the hell is going on?”

Ben shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Ask her.” That sounded like a dead end, so he turned to a more radical idea. “Or, I don’t know, can’t you force her to tell you?”

“We’re talking about Maddie here. How would I do that?”

“I have no idea, Ben. I’m out of my depth.” Connor felt useless and that made his temper spike. Sitting there, unable to help . . . he refused to go through that shit again.

It didn’t matter that he just arrived on Whitaker or that he barely knew her. This wasn’t about timing. It was about making sure he never again played the role of passive bystander when someone was in trouble and afraid to reach out for help. He owed Alexis that. He wouldn’t make the mistake a second time with Maddie.

“Her past is locked in a mental vault and she’s not sharing.” Ben shook his head. “I can’t blame her. Not many people on Whitaker open up about their lives before getting here without a lot of prodding, and she is more careful than most.”

Connor refused to take that as an answer. “Yet they stared at us all through dinner and feel perfectly comfortable asking me all sorts of personal questions.”

“I didn’t say they weren’t nosy.”

Before they got derailed, Connor tried to drag them back onto the main topic. “But you could investigate her past. Call in favors. Right?”

A series of thuds sounded from the bedroom. Maddie’s voice followed a second later. “No, don’t come running or anything. I’m fine.”

Connor shook his head. “Are you?”

A mumbled reply shot right back at him. “I just said so, didn’t I?”

Ben stepped in closer to Connor, lowering his voice. “I know you’re trying to help, but there are things you don’t know about her. Some facts that make all of this more difficult than it would normally be.”

More cryptic bullshit. Connor had just about maxed out on that for one day. “Like?”