Page 11 of Wraith’s Promise

Not just physically tired, though there's that too, but the kind of exhaustion that comes from carrying too much weight for too long without anyone offering to help shoulder the load.

I get up, head to the kitchen, pull two glasses from the cabinet and fill them from the tap. When I come back, he's leaned his head against the couch cushion, eyes closed, and for a second I think maybe he's actually fallen asleep sitting up. But then he opens his eyes when he hears me approach, takes the glass I offer with a quiet "thanks."

I settle back into my corner of the couch, tuck one leg under me, and take a sip of my own water. The house is quiet except for the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen, the distant sound of a car passing on the street outside. It's peaceful. Safe. The kind of quiet I haven't experienced in longer than I want to admit.

"Can I ask you something?" Dean says, breaking the silence.

"Sure."

He turns the glass in his hands, watching the water catch the lamplight. "What made you say yes? To this job. Ranger said you didn't even ask about the pay before you agreed."

I take another sip of water, buying myself time to decide how much truth to hand him. "I needed the work. And I missed my brother. Being near his MC means being near him."

"That's not all of it though."

He's perceptive. I should've expected that from someone whose job it is to plan everything three steps ahead. "No," I admit. "It's not all of it."

"So, what's the rest?"

I could deflect. Could give him the sanitized version. But Dean's sitting here at ten-thirty at night instead of going to bed, and he trusted me with his daughter after knowing me for all of four hours, and something about the way he's looking at me makes me want to be honest. At least partially.

"I've always been good with kids," I say slowly. "And I've always wanted to protect people who can't protect themselves. The military was one way to do that, but it was too big, too impersonal. This feels more direct. More meaningful."

"Protecting one kid instead of a whole country."

"Something like that." I trace the rim of my glass with my thumb. "When Ranger told me about Mariah something in my chest just clicked into place. Like maybe this is what I'm supposed to be doing, even if it's not what I thought my life would look like."

There's more to it than that, obviously. The permanent absence of a future I thought I'd have, the hole I'm trying to fill with other people's children because I'll never have my own. But that's too much for day one. Too raw, too private, too likely to make him see me differently.

Dean's quiet for a long moment, "You really meant it. What you said earlier about not walking away."

"I really meant it."

"Good." He takes a drink of water. "Because I need you to understand something. After Kate left, I was completely lost. I had this toddler who didn't understand why her mother was gone, who kept asking for her, and I had no fucking clue how to do this alone. I was working three jobs trying to keep us afloat, sleeping maybe four hours a night, drowning."

I wait, letting him work through whatever he needs to say.

"And the worst part was that I kept thinking I'd done something wrong, that if I'd been different somehow, better somehow, maybe she would've stayed." His jaw tightens. "I know now that's not how it works. That Kate leaving had nothing to do with me and everything to do with her. But at the time I felt like I'd failed at the one thing that mattered most. Being enough for my family to want to stay."

"You didn't fail. She did."

"Logically, I know that. But there's still this part of me that's just... waiting for the other shoe to drop, you know? Waiting for someone else to look at my life and decide it's too much, that Mariah's too much, that I'm too much."

And there it is, the real fear underneath everything else. Not that someone will hurt his daughter, though that's certainly there too, but that someone will decide she's not worth staying for. Again.

"You're not too much," I say. "And neither is she. Anyone who can't see that is the problem, not you."

"You barely know us."

"I know enough. I know you love your daughter so much you hired someone you'd never met to protect her. I know you work yourself to exhaustion trying to give her the best life possible. I know she's happy and safe and loved, which means you're doing everything right." I lean forward slightly. "The rest is just noise, Dean."

"Just noise," he repeats, like he's testing the words out.

"Just noise."

We sit in silence for a moment, and I watch him process what I've said, watch some of the tension in his shoulders ease slightly.

"What was it like?" he asks, shifting the subject. "Growing up with Ranger?"