“You saved a little girl’s life today, bro,” he said with a sideways glance at his brother.
He couldn’t stop looking at him.
And was thinking about hunting down the baby monitor he’d placed in Darin’s room for the first couple of years after his brother’s accident. It was out in the shed. In a bin on the top shelf with other old electronics.
It might possibly be the only way Grant was going to get any rest that night.
Unless he crashed on the couch. Darin would have to get past him to get to the front door.
“I just showed her how to build a sand castle, Grant,” Darin said now. “You and Lynn saved us.”
“You saved her from a man who was going to kidnap her.”
“I hit a bad man, but it wasn’t hard to do. It hurt my hand, though.”
Life in Darin’s world was so simple. And more complicated than he felt equipped to handle some days.
But his brother was with him. Safe. He’d saved Kara’s life.
Grant had nothing more to ask.
* * *
LYNN WAS IN her room, purportedly to sleep. The lights were out. And she lay, fully clothed, on top of her covers.
She’d reached Brandon before he’d boarded his plane and now that he knew Kara was safe, unharmed and unaware of the horror she’d narrowly escaped, he’d decided he would wait and fly down as usual over the weekend.
As far as Kara knew, she’d spent the day with Darin playing in the sand. She’d been unaware of the “bad man” Darin had talked about, thinking only that he’d snatched her up because she’d been left behind by Maddie’s car.
It had all transpired so quickly, Kara hadn’t known what was happening.
But she’d rattled on and on about her and Darin’s castle. To her father on the phone. At the dinner table, through her bath and bedtime story. And was probably asleep dreaming about castles and princesses at that very moment.
Lynn knew about the bad man. And the near-miss. And she couldn’t let her guard down enough to get undressed, let alone sleep.
She could have lost Kara that day. Risked losing the little girl every single day.
Just as she’d lost Brandon. Her experience with him had taught her that loving someone made you a hostage to fate—to their choices, their fates.
She’d kept herself free from any kind of romantic commitment so she didn’t have to face again the burned ashes of an empty life.
But in reality, any kind of love held her hostage. And she couldn’t stop her heart from caring.
Tension emanated from her pores and she couldn’t make it stop.
As evidenced by the way she jumped at the knock on her open bedroom door.
“Lynn?”
The voice was Maddie’s. She’d insisted that the other woman spend the night with them. Because Kara hadn’t liked it that Maddie had driven off without her. Because Maddie had saved Kara’s life and was in perpetual panic mode at the thought of being in trouble for breaking the rules with Darin.
And because Lynn had needed her family together.
“Yes?” She sat up. Turned on the light.
She wondered if Grant was asleep. Or sitting up like she was, listening for any sounds from Darin’s room, wondering how to prevent a repeat of the day, of the fear of losing the one most dear to you.
She wondered if he missed her anywhere near as much as she was missing him, her partner in fear that night.
“You’re wearing your jeans and red shirt just like at dinner.” Maddie, her slender little body dressed in the pink-and-white pajama bottoms and top she kept in a drawer in the spare bedroom in Lynn’s house, came slowly into the room, a frown on her pretty face.
“I know.”
“You were in the dark.”
“Yes.”
Sometimes it was nice not to have to answer unspoken questions. Because Maddie had simply been observing a shift from the norm, not asking a question.
“I didn’t wake you.”
“No.”
The other woman nodded, picking at a thread on Lynn’s comforter.
“Would you like to have a talk?” Lynn asked softly, her heart going out to Maddie. No one on earth tried harder, or wanted to do right, more than Maddie did.
The other woman wouldn’t look at her. Her lower lip sucked into her mouth, her teeth biting into it.