I waited until Jackson was out of earshot, then said, “I had the screen door propped open when I was packing the car. I didn’t know he was out of his enclosure.” My voice was quivering. Why was my voice quivering?
The screen door bounced closed, and then Vic strode across the room toward me. He was wearing black cargos and a white T-shirt that clung to his broad shoulders and muscled chest. He also wore a scowl—not that a scowl was unusual for him, but this one was different. This wasn’t a pissed-off scowl. It was something else. Concern? No. Why would Vic be concerned? And what did it matter? We were leaving and I’d likely never see Vic again.
Vic stopped in front of me. “No way in hell are you and the kid moving to Callum’s.”
My heart lodged in my throat. He knew? Who told him? Not that it should matter, because Vic had no right to tell me what I could or couldn’t do. That was twice now. I glared at him. “I’ve escaped one man who told me what to do. I won’t be around another.”
His eyes narrowed. “Who?”
“What?”
“Jackson’s father?”
Oh my God. He wasn’t getting it. “I have to find Waffles.” I was moving to push by him when he slipped his hand into mine, stopping me from walking away.
My gaze flew to our linked hands and then to his face. “Vic, let me go.”
“What man?” he repeated.
“My father. Can I go find my son’s pet now?” I tried to pull my hand from his, but he closed his fingers and drew me in closer.
Shit, I couldn’t think straight when every inhale was spiked with him. I wanted to stay pissed, not melt into him like some weak, pathetic teenage girl who was in the arms of her first crush. Crush? Yeah, he was a crush because that’s what he’d do to me.
He tensed for a second and then took in a breath. “I’m asking you to stay.”
I swallowed. “What?”
“I want you both to stay in the cabin.”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Why not?” he demanded.
For so many reasons. Reasons I couldn’t even make sense of—especially when he was standing inches away from me, and all I could think about was him touching me.
“Because last night you said you were afraid you’d hurt us. And because the move will be better for Jackson.” That wasn’t exactly a lie. The last thing Jackson needed was to get too attached to Vic, only for Vic to leave. And the truth was, Jackson already liked Vic too much. “And because you’re being a bossy, overbearing… Darth Vader.”
His lip twitched. “If I’m Darth Vader, then Callum is Jabba the Hutt.”
I rolled my eyes, hating that he’d obviously watched Star Wars.
“I need you to stay.”
I jutted out my chin. “Why? Because you hate Callum and don’t trust him?”
“Yes.”
One thing about Vic was he was abruptly honest. I couldn’t, though. And I couldn’t because I liked Vic—a lot. And Jackson did too.
Vic had an unfinished house. Disappeared for years at a time and had a job hunting criminals. Bad criminals. The kind who were so bad you didn’t even hear about them on the news.
I stared at the chip in the pink nail polish on my big toe. “Vic, we can’t.”
He didn’t say anything for a second, and then he said, “Moving will make his nightmares worse.”
My eyes snapped to his.
Did he know what it was like to have night terrors? Did he have them too? Was that why he’d been running in the middle of the night—because he couldn’t sleep? Did he have nightmares about his job? About what he’d seen or done? Or did he know how Jackson felt because something had happened to Vic as a child?