Give Me a Reason (Redemption Hills 1)

I recoiled at the thought. “I’m pretty sure we’re not at that point. Let’s not complicate this more than it already is.”

She huffed. “Fine…but you can’t pretend like this isn’t happening.”

I blew out a sigh. “I need to go. We’ll talk about this later.”

“Deflecting,” she sang.

“I am not. I really have to go. Breakfast is ready.” I flinched even saying it.

Tessa squealed so loud I had to pull the phone from my ear. “Um…you’re not at that point, my ass. But fine. Go. Eat breakfast, then eat some more cake and make sure he eats some, too. Don’t worry, I’ll be a good girl and wait for the details until tomorrow.”

Just great.

“Love you!” she peeped before the call went dead.

Sighing, I softly banged my head against the wall before I forced myself into action. I couldn’t stay in this bathroom all day. I slipped back on the same clothes I’d worn yesterday, ran my fingers through my mussed hair, and found some Listerine under the cabinet so I could at least rinse out my mouth.

I balled the sheet against my chest, trying not to blush all over again when I slipped back into the bedroom and to the mess of a bed, doing my best to make it quickly, smoothing out the sheets and the comforter and resituating the pillows against the headboard all while struggling not to let my mind revisit every moment that I’d spent with Trent there.

Impossible.

Last night had been branded on me.

Finally, I gathered enough courage to leave the room, and I slinked down the hallway, my ear inclined to the barest noises that filtered up from below. The clanking of dishes and the rumbling of a deep voice. Gage’s high-pitched, sweet one was mixed in between.

I stole down the steps, nerves scattering through the room, my heart in my throat and the blood whooshing through my veins.

Fully unprepared for what I might feel when I came face-to-face with Trent again. Wondering why he hadn’t at least prepared me for the whirlwind that was Gage. Why he didn’t come and ask me to breakfast himself.

All those whys rambled through my brain, my fingers twisting because the whole problem was I didn’t know how to navigate this. Where I stood or where we were heading.

The only thing I knew was I felt anxious for those eyes to take me in again.

I made it to the bottom landing.

Sounds filtered through from the arch that led into the great room.

I edged that way, stopping when I got close enough to peek through.

In the daylight, it appeared entirely different.

The enormous room was brightly lit by a wall of windows facing the backyard, gleaming with the rays of sunshine that burned through.

Gage was on a stepstool at the island, pouring orange juice from a giant container into plastic glasses he had set up in a row.

But it was the man with his back to me who stood at the stove that locked the air in my throat. Those frazzled nerves scattered far and wide.

He was all black hair and sinewy body—but not the body I knew.

“Miss Murphy! Yay! You woke up. Sheesh, you take forever. I thought I was gonna have to go back up there and drag you down.” Gage drew it out like it was a crime. I felt like I was committing one while I stood there shifting on my feet.

Because the man at the stove whirled around at Gage’s welcome.

His smile similar but so different. Lacking any malice. Missing the sinister threat. Instead, he grinned, all dimples and barely-there stubble on his ridiculously handsome face. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t the Miss Murphy I’ve heard so much about. Sleep well, I hope?”

He was all satisfied innuendo.

Oh my god.

I was going to melt into a puddle of embarrassment right there.

My wave was timid. “Hi. I’m Eden.”

“Logan.”

Right.

The youngest brother.

“Yup…I told my uncle Logan all about you, Miss Murphy. How you’re the best teacher in the whole wide worlds and you like me the best and that I love you.”

My heart skipped a jagged beat.

“Oh.” I whispered it. A soft affection as I looked at the child who’d slayed my safe little world, with a little help from his father of course.

“Uh-huh! Yep. Uncle Logan, did you know she even taught me how to spell orangutan? O-r-a-n-g-u-t-a-n.”

He drew out every letter.

“It’s the very hardest word in the whole dictionary, you know, and now I’m the best speller ever, and I’m gonna get all As, right, Miss Murphy, right?”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him the rest of the kids had learned it, too.

“That’s right, Gage,” I murmured while sneaking wary peeks at the man who was watching me with a sly grin riding over his mouth. As if he was the keeper of a secret only he was privy to.