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“Straight into your arms, apparently.”
I think about everything she told me about the shifter man who swept her off her feet. He was perfect, she’d told me. He was perfect and kind and so very not like her dad, Greg, or her intended beau, Andrew. They both believed that a woman should be kept in a certain place, and that place was planted firmly beneath their heels.
Jace seems distraught by this news and I know that what I’m telling him must be a complete shock. I mean, it’s been a complete shock to me, and I’m the one who’s lived the past 24 hours in this chaos.
Brandon starts to fuss, and I remember the bottle.
“Here,” I thrust it at Jace. “He’s hungry. You can be the one to feed him, but you need to do it now. Otherwise, he’ll just get more upset.”
“Yeah,” he says, but he seems to sort of be reacting on autopilot at this point. “Of course. The bottle.” He gives the bottle to the baby, and Brandon instantly starts drinking hungrily. Soon he’ll pass out and we can make him a little nest or something to sleep in. We’ll figure something out. I don’t know what’s going to happen now.
Jace looks at the baby like he still can’t believe this is happening, but I can’t, either. None of this seems real. It all feels like a horrible nightmare.
“She didn’t die in the car accident,” Jace says.
“No.”
“So, what happened?”
“Her dad found her,” I shrug. “What else?”
She had been so careful. When Alexis left, she left. She walked away from our little world and she never looked back. She never told anyone where she was going, or even that she was going. She just walked away. Even I didn’t know where she had gone until it was too late. When she showed up on my doorstep six months ago, I didn’t know where to start, so I did everything that I could for her. I did everything she asked
It still wasn’t enough.
“She wanted to protect you,” I said.
“By breaking my heart?” Jace looks up at me suddenly, and I’m surprised to see tears in his eyes. Sensitive guy, I see. No wonder Alexis loved him so much.
“She didn’t want you to be at risk. They found her, but they didn’t find you. It was only a matter of time, Jace. She faked her own death, so they’d stop looking and they’d leave you alone. Her plan was to come back to you one day. Once it was safe, she wanted to come back to you.”
“With guys like that, the only safety is in their deaths.”
“Yeah,” I say.
“So, you’re her friend?” He asks. He looks me up and down, and for a brief second, I wonder if he finds me attractive. I definitely, totally, absolutely find him attractive. He’s very handsome, but there’s something else there. There’s a certain charm when it comes to Jace. I can’t quite explain it. He just seems like he’s a genuinely nice person. He seems kind.
He seems...
Well, to be honest, he seems wonderful.
Hot.
Sexy.
Sensitive.
When I walked in the house and he fisted my hair for getting mouthy, I almost had a damn orgasm just from that. I need to watch myself or things could get very, very wild. Trapped in a cabin during a storm is a recipe for disaster, especially when you’re trapped with Mr. Tall, Dark, and Growly.
“Yeah, we grew up together.”
“Oh,” he smiles softly. “I remember.”
“What do you mean?”
“She talked about you,” he says. “A lot.”
“What?” She did? What did she have to say? Alexis and I had been close, once upon a time. We’d been like sisters. When she left and ran off to live among the shifters, something died inside of me. I spent almost a year looking for her before she showed up on my doorstep. That’s how much time she had with Jace. A year. She had an entire year to fall in love with this man, and suddenly, I realize that she must have cherished every second of it.
