Safe at Last (Slow Burn 3)

He glanced her way and saw bright emotion in her eyes as she inserted herself between him and Beau. Almost like she knew his story. As though his dark, stormy thoughts were displayed in real time and she could see right into his shattered mind.

“I’ll help you, Zack,” she said softly. “You just tell me what I need to know so I have a starting point. You don’t have to tell me all of it. As little or as much as you’re comfortable sharing. I swear to you on my life that I won’t rest until this is resolved for you. I won’t give up. You have my word.” And left unspoken was the fact that Eliza’s word was solid. She didn’t offer her word lightly, and neither did she ever break it when given.

Before he could respond, Eliza pulled him into a hug, which was an impressive feat given her height and weight disadvantage. But her hug was fierce. Packed with emotion, solidarity. Loyalty. She was the sister he’d always wanted to have.

He’d grown up an only child, his mother ditching him and his father when Zack was still a baby. And Gracie had come from a broken home with an alcoholic mother who didn’t even know Gracie existed most of the time. Her father? Some random hookup of her mother’s. She didn’t even know who the father of her child was, never mind Gracie ever knowing her father.

He and Gracie had both wanted children. As many as they were blessed with. They wanted to fill their home with absolute love and a strong sense of family. All the things he and Gracie had been denied.

“How soon?” he asked in a barely audible voice, one that was so strained it cracked with just the two words.

He didn’t have to explain the two-word question. Eliza knew exactly what he meant.

“We can go into the office now,” she returned. “Or if you prefer, I’ll grab my laptop and meet you at your place. Or you can come to mine. It’s up to you.”

She was offering him a way out of further losing his shit in front of the others, something he was grateful for because he wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep it together before he completely broke down.

It was like a ten-ton anvil had dropped from the sky and squashed him like a bug. He was still reeling from the shock of seeing Gracie in the flesh. No longer a ghost from his past, but a living, breathing woman—no longer a girl of sixteen—twelve years older but just as heart-achingly beautiful as ever.

“Your place,” he managed to get out. “If that’s okay.”

It was the only place where he felt comfortable enough to spill his guts. He damn sure didn’t want to have this conversation in front of all his coworkers at the office. He’d hidden his pain from the rest of the world for twelve years. Only since he’d gone to work for DSS had he formed any semblance of a friendship with others.

They’d just seen him at his lowest, but he knew it would only get worse, and he had no desire for the others to know the torment he’d lived with for so much of his life. He knew he was pathetic, but it didn’t mean he wanted more witnesses to his weakness than necessary. Furthermore, now that finding Gracie was no longer an impossible dream but a stark reality, he didn’t give two fucks how pathetic it made him that he refused to just let it go. As fucking if!

She gave his arm another reassuring squeeze. “Then run me back by the office so I can get my car. I’ll just need to go in and get my laptop and then you can follow me over to my place.”

“Thanks, Eliza,” he said softly.

“No thanks necessary,” she said just as softly.

SIX

GRACIE buried her face in Wade’s back, her entire body trembling. She couldn’t control the shaking. And the cold. God, she felt cold to her very bones. Shock wasn’t even an adequate word for what she had felt looking up into the eyes of an older but still devastatingly handsome Zack Covington. If anything, he was more handsome. Gone was the boyish charm and easy smile and in its stead was a much harder looking man, one that appeared as damaged as she was herself.

She’d thought she’d felt pain over the years. Grief. Regret. She didn’t think it could get any worse than what she’d already been dealt.

She was wrong.

Because never in that time had she faced Zack. Never since that night. No amount of imagining or mental preparation could have possibly prepared her for the reality of seeing him, when she’d made certain they would never again cross paths. Apparently fate wasn’t on her side. Also apparent was that fate evidently didn’t think she’d already suffered enough heartbreak for a lifetime.

Wade turned, sliding his arms around her in a comforting gesture. He gathered her to him tightly, hugging and soothing her with a low-pitched voice.

“He’s gone now, Anna-Grace. He can’t hurt you. I won’t let him hurt you ever again.”

His words seared through the chaotic tumble of her thoughts and through the numb that had settled over her body, paralyzing her. She shoved away from Wade sharply, catching her footing when she would have fallen again.

“I have to go,” she babbled, searching desperately for an escape route.

She couldn’t go out the front. What if he was out there waiting for her? What if he followed her? What if he found out where she lived? What if he already knew?

Oh God, he had to know where she was. How hard could it really be to find her despite the lengths she’d gone to over the years to ensure her privacy and make it so no one would ever discover her?

“I have to get out of here, Wade,” she said, hysteria rising in her voice. “Please, you have to help me. I have to go now. But where? I have to think of someplace he can’t find me. I can never come back here. I have to leave. I have to go. Tonight. Before he shows up at my apartment!”

She knew she was making no sense. She didn’t care. She also knew that she was allowing irrational fear to override all else. But her sense of self-preservation had firmly taken over and she was content to let it do its thing. She hadn’t survived this long by ignoring it.

Wade’s hands slid up her arms and gently but firmly grasped her shoulders, holding her, forcing her to look at him. His expression was hard and anger glittered in his dark eyes. He wore that dangerous look that would scare the holy hell out of anyone else, but she’d learned that despite it, despite his appearance and the fact that there were things about him she didn’t know—preferred not to know—that he was no threat to her.

“Anna-Grace, look at me,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument.