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I could only give him a faint nod. I wasn’t even sure how to respond. If I was his friend, I should know these things, shouldn’t I? How many kids he had? Their ages? Their names?
Instead, I stood there fighting the urge to run, overwhelmed by the disorder of it all.
By the things I was never supposed to get too close to.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like kids. I just had no idea what to do with them. How to act around them or what to say. I’d done my best to care for Jessica growing up, to provide for her, to protect her, though I guessed I hadn’t done such a bang-up job, had I?
A surge of grief threatened to clot off the flow of air. Ezra seemed to sense it, and he eased my direction where I continued to linger near the doorway. It was as far as I’d made it inside last time, and he backed me into the very same spot he had that day, his devastating presence sending me fumbling until I was pressed against the white wall.
My breaths were short and shallow as I stared up at the man who watched me like I was an enigma and not the other way around.
He lifted my hand and pressed the key he’d opened the door with into my palm, curled my fingers around it, and squeezed my hand tight.
“I want you to consider this your home, Savannah. Your safe place. For as long as you want it.”
“And what if I get in the way?” This was his family we were talking about. His kids. And I was some stranger invading their space.
“You’re not going to get in the way,” he grumbled.
“Are you sure about that?” I didn’t even know how I was breathing, and I nearly passed out when Ezra reached out and traced the pad of his thumb along the line of my jaw.
Pleasure danced in the path of his caress.
Crap. Crap. Crap.
Did I really think I wasn’t going to get my heart smashed if I started letting him touch me like this?
Apparently, Hot Cop made me weak, and instead of being smart and pushing him away, I lifted my chin, giving him better access.
Warm brown eyes went impossibly soft. “Positive.”
The faintest grin tweaked at the edge of his mouth. “Besides, I already told you I like keeping an eye on you, Little Trespasser.”
A minute must have passed with the two of us standing there like that.
Frozen.
Held.
“Get some rest,” he finally said. He moved for the door that led to the backyard. “I’ll move my truck around to the front in the morning. Lock this door behind me and call if you need anything at all.”
“I will.” The promise came out too easily.
Opening the door, he stepped out, though he paused to look back over his shoulder. “Thank you, Savannah…for coming here.”
“I think it’s me who should be thanking you.”
That time he did grin. “Let’s just call it a mutually beneficial arrangement.”
He slipped the rest of the way out and shut the door behind him, and I couldn’t do anything but rush to it. My nose nearly touched the glass as I watched him cross the yard and climb his porch steps.
His big body moving through the shadows that played through the night.
And I knew I’d never been in as much trouble as I was right then.
TWENTY
EZRA
“How do you spell her name, Dad?” Olivia asked from where she was perched on one of the stools at the island. Her blonde hair was braided into two pleats on either side of her head, each of them a bit messy and uneven, but I was doing the best that I could.
She sat on her knees as she focused on the piece of paper in front of her, and an array of markers and colored pencils and stickers were dumped out around her.
There was no missing the excitement that brimmed from her tiny frame.
I hesitated for a beat, unsure if I’d made the worst decision last night by bringing Savannah back here.
My kids were finally healing.
Figuring out this new life.
It wasn’t like when I’d bought this place and fixed it up I hadn’t planned on renting the guest house out to generate some extra income.
But I knew I hadn’t brought Savannah here to earn a few bucks.
I’d done it because it’d been the only thing I could do.
I’d spent the entire night tossing and turning, unable to sleep as I’d toiled through every scenario of what might have happened at the motel.
My rational mind kept trying to convince me that it was random—no big deal—an attempted robbery.
The problem was, my gut screamed that it was not.
First thing this morning, I’d given the kids the heads up that we had someone living in the guest house. Since then, Olivia hadn’t stopped the rapid fire of questions that she’d pelted me with all day.
