“I know,” he said. “Not the Wade Family weapon of choice.”
Her lips thinned and her jaw tightened before she turned away to reach for a plastic bear with a pointy head.
“I was kidding.”
Honey streamed into her mug as she stirred the tea without a word. Then she plunked the little bear down, picked up her mug, and swept past him toward the living room. After a few steps, she swung around.
“Quit following me! You’re making me nervous.”
“I’m going to sleep on the couch.”
Her gaze dropped to the pillow again. “What’s wrong with Nate’s bed?”
“Nothing. But it makes more sense for me to be on the couch if anything happens.”
“Nothing’s going to happen.” She resumed her trek to the living room as if everything in her life was perfectly calm and normal.
“Nate was worried,” he reminded her.
“I have protection.”
He tossed the pillow onto the couch as she faced him from the other side of the coffee table. “Right, and I’m more effective out here, without doors separating us.”
She rolled her eyes. “I meant my gun.”
Ignoring the jab to his ego, he said, “A lot of good it’ll do you, way out here in the closet.”
Mug in one hand, she placed the other on her hip. “I moved it.”
“About time.”
She shook her head and started for the patio doors. “Seriously, take the bed. You’ll be much more comfortable.”
Justin eyed the short couch and already felt the crick that was sure to be in his neck in the morning. She might be right, but damned if he’d move back now and admit it. Besides, then it’d be like she was protecting him with that damn gun of hers. The pillow stayed on the couch.
Outside on the patio, she’d arranged wood into a teepee in the small, built-in fire pit.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Campfires relax me.”
Un-friggin-believable. “Marley, it’s prime intruder hours and here you are, offering yourself up on a silver platter. Did you not hear your brother in the hospital room?”
“I heard him.”
“What if he wasn’t alone at the job? What if it wasn’t an accident? I saw the look on his face—he was really worried.”
“You said that already,” she snapped as she straightened. “I know. I saw his face, too. But I can’t just lie in bed, staring at the ceiling in the dark thinking about all this, imagining every little noise I hear is someone coming to get me. That would scare me.”
Abruptly, she turned away and started wadding newspaper into tight, tiny balls. So that was the problem…she wasn’t as cool as she appeared. He realized he wanted to pull her into his arms and protect her himself. That’s why he’d come in the first place, and why he didn’t just leave her with her gun.
Instead of arguing further, he settled onto one of the reclining patio chairs arranged close to the fire pit. Once the flames caught hold of the wood, she picked up her mug and turned around. Seeing him relaxed in the chair, she pulled up short.
“What are you, a self-appointed bodyguard?”
“Something like that.”
She regarded him for a long moment, then sat on the other recliner and swung her bare feet up onto the footrest. “I quit the second time, remember? Guilt doesn’t stretch that far.”