Page 105 of Sterling Heat

“Yeah?” he mimics me, his mouth widening into a playful smile.

“Yeah. Now go to work.”

He laughs and turns toward the stairs, rumbling down them as loudly as his brother did, and I hear in my head a house full of feet thumping up and down staircases.

A house filled with laughter and love.

Oh, but a dream.

Chapter 30

[Sebastian]

“Where the hell is Barnett?” I grumble for the second time this morning. It’s a rhetorical question.

I’m edgy. My body still hums from kissing Enya goodbye this morning. Hell, everything in me vibrates from our entire night. The ups and downs of yesterday. I’d wanted to linger a little longer in bed. Make her breakfast and then spend the day on my couch, holding her, making love to her.

The rooftop had been insane. The shower completely unexpected. Enya soft and pure. Enya demanding and needy. Just thinking about her either way makes me fucking hard.

“I told you he called in sick,” Rena states, startling me.

Sick. Sure he was. A seventeen-year-old boy out on the Fourth of July. If he was anything like me, he was hungover as hell, but I needed him here.

“Rena.” I snap as we almost collide behind the counter after I finish a customer’s coffee order. She’s like a shadow today, giving new meaning to riding my ass. Give me some fucking space.

What is with her today? She’s already asked me three times what I did last night when it’s none of her fucking business. Plus, she’s so close to me, hovering even, like she’ll learn the details of my night from her proximity.

As we circle around one another, the door to my apartment stairwell opens. Enya enters the bakery, juggling Adara in the car seat.

“Sugar,” I grunt, setting down a customer’s order and pointing at Rena to ring him up. Rushing around the counter, I catch up to Enya as she closes the privacy door. “What are you doing?”

“It’s a beautiful day and I need some air. I thought I’d take Adara for a walk.”

Shit. I want to take a walk as well. I’m suffocating today under the pressure of work and the weight of the break-in. Add to that the confusion in Enya’s eyes when the portable crib was delivered and then her admission that she’s ready to tell me how Adara came about . . . and it’s been a fucking long day when it isn’t even ten o’clock.

“I’ll get the stroller. Wait here.” Exiting out the back of the bakery, I take the stroller out of Enya’s SUV. The difficulty of living in an apartment with a baby hits me. Living on one floor doesn’t involve steep stairs to climb with a weighty car seat. A garage provides easy access to a house. Plus, Enya told me she wanted space, including a yard, for Adara to run and play and discover the outdoors.

The idea is a reminder of my home growing up. How we had the empty stables and a large yard to get lost in, especially when Dad was drunk. I didn’t want Adara to ever feel the need to escape but just explore outside. I wanted her to always feel safe.

And I was concerned that I might be the danger in her life.

The break-in messed me up. With Andy’s reminder of rumors that money might be somewhere in Enya’s place, I didn’t like the connection between me and that old house.

When I bring the stroller into the bakery for Enya, a man is just walking into the shop. I immediately recognize him as the guy who bought Enya a lemonade.

Cocky confidence exudes around him when he sees Enya, but the moment we catch eyes—mine glaring, his surprised—he backs out of the bakery, like he’s changed his mind about entering.

Coward. I’d love to chase him down and tell him to stay the hell away from my girls, but I stay put and help Enya clip the infant seat into the stroller.

“I’d like to go with you,” I tell her, feeling vulnerable with the admission.

“I’d like that, too, but we can take another walk later.” Her voice doesn’t sound convincing that she’d take a second walk with me. “I just need to get out for a bit.”

She means get away from me. I can sense it in her general quiet. She’s going to walk away because she’ll finally accept it’s dangerous to associate with me.

That house holds ghosts, and they’ve come back to haunt.

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