Page 67 of Shadow Justice

He pulled her closer, until her head settled fully against his shoulder and her arm crossed his chest, and he felt her breathing even out into something slower. The lamp spread warm light across the wall. Blue’s snoring began a steady rhythm on the other side of the door.

“Not going anywhere,” he murmured in her hair.

He stayed awake longer than she did. Old habit, partly—he’d logged too many late watches to drop off easily in an unfamiliar bed—but mostly he didn’t want to miss this. The way the apartment felt settled. The steady weight of her against him. Her fingers had curled loosely into his side, holding on even in sleep with the same stubborn grip she brought to everything else.

Reid stared up at the ceiling and let the old fear about deserving things settle to a distance he could manage. He didn’t know if he’d earned this yet. He suspected he’d spend a long time working to make himself worthy of it.

But Holly was asleep against his shoulder in the apartment above the coffee shop she’d built from stubbornness and a faith in people that exhausted and humbled him in equal measure. More than that, she’d asked him to stay.

He’d come back to Blackridge for his grandfather. He’d taken the assignment because Claire needed someone inside the shop. He’d walked through Sanctuary’s door, and Holly had looked at him across the counter as if he had no right to exist in the life she’d built without him.

She hadn’t been wrong.

He was going to earn the right now.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Monday morning arrived with tenderness still tucked into the quiet spaces of Holly’s apartment.

It was there in the way Reid moved around her kitchen without making it feel smaller. In the way his hand brushed hers when he passed her a mug. In the memory of the night before, warm and private, lingering beneath her skin while Sanctuary waited below them with its dark windows and locked doors and a murder investigation threaded through every ordinary routine.

Holly should have been embarrassed that she’d broken down and asked him to take care of her. Maybe later she would be when the world stopped tilting beneath her feet. She’d find the energy to worry about what it meant that Reid Fleming had slept on her couch as her protector, kissed her as the man who had once broken her heart, and touched her as if he’d been waiting years to do exactly that—take care of her.

For now, she stood barefoot in her kitchen with her hair twisted into a messy knot, watching him drink coffee in yesterday’s T-shirt while Blue leaned his entire body against Reid’s leg as if romance had rearranged his loyalties.

“I see how it is,” she told the dog. “One night of emotional upheaval and you defect.”

Blue wagged without remorse.

Reid glanced down at him. “He has good instincts.”

“He has terrible instincts. Yesterday, he tried to herd a corgi into a water fountain.”

“Leadership is complicated.”

She gave him a look over the rim of her mug, and his mouth curved. The smile was small, private, and unfairly devastating for a Monday before sunrise. Holly looked away first because she had a business to open, a killer still loose, and absolutely no room in her life for a man who could make drinking coffee feel sexy.

Except, once the killer was caught and Reid didn’t need to protect her anymore, she might have to make room for him to be that man.

The buzzer from the stairwell sounded before she could say anything ridiculous.

“That’ll be Roni.” Holly set her mug down and reached for Blue’s leash. “Try not to look guilty.”

Reid’s eyes warmed, and that was worse than the smile. She clipped the leash to Blue’s collar.

Roni came up the stairs in leggings, a fleece jacket, talking a mile a minute on her phone. From the sounds of it, there had been a mix-up with her realtor test date. She’d always had a fascination with old houses and now wanted to sell them, along with her dog business.

After a slight pause as the person on the other end spoke, she politely told them she would reschedule and hung up.

As she stepped into the apartment, Blue greeted her with enough enthusiasm to suggest he’d never loved anyone else, which was both flattering and personally offensive.

“Good morning, Sweet baby Blue,” Roni told him, rubbing his ears. Then she looked from Holly to Reid. “You look right at home in here.”

“He slept poorly,” Holly volunteered as if that explained it. Reid tilted his head. She gave him an exaggerated smile. What? I panicked, okay?

Roni’s eyebrows rose. “Did he?”

Reid picked up his coffee. “Blue snores.”