His posture was hard, his eyes harder.
The man hazard and peril the way everyone had warned.
“That is not going to happen. You should know me better than that.”
I moved for the door, pausing to look back at him from over my shoulder. “I thought I did know you.”
Retreating inside, I slammed the door, closing off the connection.
Every part of me started shaking, my hands barely cooperating as I fumbled through the locks as if they might be strong enough to keep him out. My lungs squeezed with each battered breath, and my heart rioted at the center of my chest.
I couldn’t let him in. Not ever again.
I sucked down a breath and turned for the stairs, climbing them quickly.
I stumbled to a stop three steps from the second-floor landing.
“Oh, sweetheart,” I whispered into the darkness, my sweet, sweet girl rubbing a fist at her sleepy eye, and that torn, tattered Beast hooked under her right arm.
Just the sight of it nearly dropped me to my knees.
“Don’t never weave me, Mommy.”
Only three years old, she still dropped the L in every word she spoke, her mouth not quite ready to form the sound, the lilt of it always sending a fresh wave of affection crashing through me.
But it was her fear of abandonment, the loss that was haunting us both, that nearly destroyed me.
I swept her into my arms. Love and adoration and the strongest devotion pumped through me like a river. Growing stronger and deeper.
My heart no longer felt as if it was goin’ to fail because I had my reason for living in my arms. My reason for fighting. My reason for surviving.
I pushed back the wild locks of her brown curls from her face and pressed a tender kiss to her forehead, murmuring against her baby-powder skin. “Never. Mommy would never leave you.”
She wrapped her tiny arms around my neck, squeezing me tight, her lips against my cheek. “Oh-kay.”
She yawned and snuggled tighter into my hold.
I hugged her closer and carried her toward my room. Part of me knew I was clinging to my daughter too tightly, feeding into her own fears of desertion and loss.
It was hard to stop when she felt like the only thing I had.
My very breath.
I set her on my bed, and she stared up at me as I took her in. Her pink cheeks were round and chubby, her lips full and red. Her dark eyes somehow grinned. “I sweep with you?”
“Yeah, baby, you can sleep with me.”
The problem was, I didn’t know who I was doing it for. Because I sighed out in relief when I snuggled up to her, pulling her chest to mine, our hearts beating in time.
In perfect sync.
“I love you, Bailey Button.”
She giggled at her nickname and snuggled closer. “I’s wuv you the most,” she murmured like a secret, her breaths quick to even out.
I held her in the darkness.
In the shadows.
I still couldn’t believe someone had been in our house. That someone had invaded our sanctuary with the sole purpose to instill dread and fear. A terrorizing sort of manipulation.
My mind spun with the threat of the two letters that had been left. I’d found one sitting at the front door, and the other had been tucked in the mailbox at the road. The first had simply confused me.
Joseph had something that was mine. I want it back.
But it was the one that’d come last week that made me want to pack up my daughter and run. Hide us away until Mack found who was responsible.
I know you have it. Joseph was a fool. I hope you’re smarter than him. I’d hate to see you end up with the same fate.
The problem was that I had no idea what the it was. What they were lookin’ for and how I was supposed to deliver it. Didn’t they know I’d give up anything for my child? To keep her safe? I just didn’t understand.
I tucked Bailey tighter to my body, and I made the same promise to her that Jace had just made to me.
But mine was the truth.
One on which I’d live and die.
I’m going to take care of you. Protect you. Whatever it takes.
Five
Jace
Good God.
It was hot.
The sun pounded down through the humid air, the moisture like liquid fire on my skin, a fucking sauna set to full blast that would never offer any relief.
I lifted the hem of my already drenched shirt, and I swiped the sweat from my brow before I moved back to my SUV and pulled more lumber off the luggage rack.
So maybe I’d had to get creative in order to get all this shit here.
But hell, growing up, my entire life had been about making do.
So here I was.
I hoisted the stack of two-by-fours onto my shoulder and carried them to the pile of supplies I was making, eyeing the old house that was all but crumbling on its foundation.