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Grace hadn’t been in her bed, and Caine had found her hiding in the closet of the girls’ bedroom with a mangy white cat.
“Grace, you can’t have that in here. You know if they find you—” His gut fell as he took in the bowl of milk. If they realized someone had helped themselves…
“I know,” she said, six-year-old blue eyes peering up at him. “But he was on the fire escape, and he needs me. Isn’t he cute?”
Caine sighed. “Stay off that fire escape. You know it’s broken.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “I wasn’t on it. I just opened the window.”
Most of the other kids were too scared of Caine to talk to him at all, let alone to back-talk to him. Yet the littlest one of them all loved to give him a hard time. Resisting a smile, Caine had knelt down in the open doorway. “He is cute. But, Grace, you gotta look out for yourself first.”
Petting the cat’s rounded back, Grace shook her head. “That’s not what you do, Caine. You always look out for me. Will you help me hide him?”
“Mister?”
The memory was like a punch to the gut. Caine sucked in a breath as the woman’s voice pulled him out of it. “What?” he asked, rushing to his feet when he realized the blonde was standing over him, her little dog tucked against her chest.
Her gaze was wary. “I asked if you were okay.”
A single shake, because his heart was jackrabbiting in his chest. Where the fuck had that memory come from? He hadn’t thought of that night for years. “Yeah,” he said, “but you’re not.”
And not just because of the migraine and the mugging, like those weren’t enough. But the asshole had gotten away with her driver’s license and her keys, a combination that had every one of Caine’s internal alarms blaring.
She gave a little shrug. “It’s over now,” she said, taking a step away. “So thank you again. I’m gonna head home and call a locksmith.”
He watched her, his instincts torn between helping and keeping out of something that wasn’t his business.
Will you help me…?
Goddamnit, between the echo of Grace’s long-ago plea still ringing in his ears and the fact that he’d let this woman’s mugger get away, her plight now kinda was his fucking business, wasn’t it? Whether he wanted it to be or not.
“So…okay, bye,” she said, turning away altogether.
“Wait,” Caine said, foreign words on the tip of his tongue. And then they were spilling free. “I can help you. With the locks. That is, if you want.”
Chapter 2
Emma Kerry froze in her tracks, then turned to face the man who’d protected her. “How can you help with my locks?” she asked, her pulse pounding against the front of her skull. Given how this man had just helped her, part of her felt ashamed for feeling any wariness, but there was something about him that sent a chill down her spine.
He nailed her with a stare, his eyes startlingly pale blue, something that stood out when everything else about him was so dark. Black knit cap, black hoodie, black jeans, small black gauges in his ears, denim-and-black-leather cut-off jacket from that motorcycle club she sometimes saw around town. Patches on that jacket read:
Caine
Sgt. At Arms
Was Caine his first or last name? Or a nickname? She didn’t know. But what she did know was that he was tall and possessed an edgy intensity that made her feel anxious. Or maybe that was just her projecting how on edge she felt after getting jumped.
“I know how to pick them,” he said. “So I can let you into your house.”
Hugging Chewy in tighter against her chest, Emma took an unconscious step backward. “Oh, uh, right.” She gave a nervous laugh that sounded close to hysterical in her own ears. “Well, thanks, but I’ll call a professional.”
He shrugged. “Saturday night. They’re gonna take hours.”
Emma’s instincts didn’t know how to read this guy, because he made her feel both vulnerable and safe, like he was some kind of magnet that messed up her internal compass. It was probably this damn headache. “It’s okay.”
His brow slashed downward and he took a step closer. “Why won’t you let me help?”
Her heart threatened to take flight, and she fell back another step as words rushed from her mouth. “Um. Because I don’t know you. And you have a knife. And I just got mugged and now you’re talking about breaking into my house?”
The man froze and held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Whoa. If I was going to hurt you, I could’ve done it by now.”
Emma gasped, the truth of those words needling in even though... “That is not at all reassuring.”
He winced, and it made him momentarily appear a little vulnerable himself. “I suck at reassuring.”
