AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I just…” Her hands planted on her hips, and she stared at the toes of her sneakers. “You guys are always—” She sighed heavily. “It’s like worrying about me has taken over your life. It makes me feel guilty, you know?”
“Baby girl…” Hawk curled his hands around her shoulders, dipping his chin and trying to look into her downcast eyes. “Stop. We’ve talked about this before. Cannon and I wouldn’t be here if we didn’t want to be.”
Cannon moved in beside them. His arm looped around her waist, and he rested his chin on her shoulder. It seemed that now that they’d opened the door to touching affectionately, they were both taking advantage of it. So sue him.
“And there’s nothing more important to me than your safety and Hawk’s safety. I’ll always come running,” he said.
“But—”
“No buts,” Hawk interrupted.
“No, butts,” Cannon groaned, dramatically throwing his hands into the air. “Well, shit, babe. I thought you liked mine.”
Closing his eyes, Hawk shook his head. “I swear to God, Cannon…”
He supposed Dev knew who topped now. But she giggled, and he had to hand it to his man. He sure knew how to lighten the room’s mood.
Mock bowing, Cannon backed out of the room. “I’m here all week. Tip your waitresses. And with that, I’m going to go take care of Shadow and get him settled in for the night. I’ll check on the others while I’m down there.”
Dev shook her head. “Jax and Ram will be over in a few hours—”
“Still part of our job,” Cannon interrupted. Bounding back through the doorway, he pressed his lips to the side of her head then darted from the room, clomping down the stairs.
Dev looked over at Hawk. “Did he finally get some sleep?”
“No. That’s coffee and a couple Red Bulls.”
“He can’t go on like that.”
He blew out a breath. “Yeah, I know, but short of drugging him, I don’t know what to do.”
Actually, he did. But at the moment, without Cannon here with them, Hawk couldn’t explain that the easiest cure for the man’s insomnia would be Dev in bed between them. They’d all sleep better if she wasn’t across the hallway every night. They needed her in their bed, in their arms. Until then, even Hawk would be restless each night.
Four
As had become her near-constant daily ritual, Devon stared into the shiny mirror in the employee restroom at Leena’s Diner and tried to decide if it was time to retouch her hair. Why she always worried here and hadn’t inspected her roots at home, she didn’t know. Habit, maybe? A ridiculous habit.
Her fingers brushed over the short black locks. She kept the strands carefully styled, never letting them grow out, but the color was a constant battle. A battle she’d fight until her last breath if she needed to.
When it came down to it, so much of her routine was life or death. If the man she’d run from caught her, she might not physically die, but everything else inside her would.
All the hiding and worrying weighed heavily on her, and sometimes, she felt eons older than her real age. Even those she’d allowed to get close to her, over the past four and a half years, didn’t know how deep her fears ran. Every shift she worked, she had to steel her resolve and force herself to leave her secluded parcel of land. She constantly assured herself that random strangers were just that: strangers and not henchmen sent to drag her back to Chicago.
Still, she trusted few people.
She could count on two hands those she’d allowed to know her secrets—and some only knew part of her plight. Of course, Cannon and Hawk knew. Her best friend, Briar, and Briar’s two husbands, Jax and Ram, knew. And in what seemed like a terrible game of Telephone, Jax had alerted Robert Daly, who basically owned most of the tiny town of Daly and was generally the most wealthy and powerful man in this part of the country. Robert was also the de facto mayor of Daly, whether he liked it or not.
For a long time, that had been all. No one else.
Then Dev’s boss, Leena Bowen, had figured it out for on her own. She’d told her husbands, Brian and John.
Of course, Cannon and Hawk knew. Those two members of her circle of secrecy were the most important people in her life. Her cowboys. Her self-appointed protectors.
They were so much more than that.
Just thinking of them weakened her knees.
Seeing them set off butterflies in her middle.
