Page 61 of Juniper Hill (The Edens 2)

I checked the number and hit decline. One hundred fifty-five calls in the two months I’d lived in Quincy. Since I didn’t have to worry about daycare calling and there wasn’t anyone I wanted to talk to anyway, I shut the damn thing off.

Drake’s crying stopped by the time we hit the highway.

And that’s when mine started.

I was so tired. Mentally. Physically. But mostly, I was tired of being alone.

All my life, the women in my family had been at the mercy of the men who kept them. My mother. My grandmother. My sister. I’d broken that cycle by coming to Montana.

If I let Knox or anyone help, wasn’t that like taking a huge step backward? What happened when I depended on him?

Except I couldn’t keep going like this. I needed . . . help. Admitting that, even to myself, made me just cry harder.

The tears fell in a steady stream as I turned onto Juniper Hill, winding my way down the lane. The lights were on at Knox’s house, casting a golden glow into the night. His truck was in the garage.

I parked and took out Drake, planning on going upstairs and making myself a dry and depressing peanut butter sandwich for dinner. But my feet carried me across the gravel to Knox’s front door.

He opened it before I could knock. His gaze tracked a tear as it dripped down my cheek.

“I want to not feel so alone. I want my kid to smile when I pick him up from daycare. I want Drake to have a normal life, and I feel like this is so far away from one, I can’t even see which direction to start walking. I want you to kiss me again. I want to never eat a peanut butter sandwich again. I want—”

Knox silenced me with his lips, banding one strong arm around my shoulders while the other lifted Drake’s car seat from my hand. His tongue dragged across my lower lip as his soft mouth pressed into mine.

Before I was ready for it to end, he pulled his lips from mine, but his arm stayed tight, pulling me to his chest. “There’s one want granted. What else do you want?”

I leaned into him and told him the terrifying truth. “You.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

KNOX

Memphis laughed as I strolled into the hotel room she was cleaning. “Aren’t you supposed to be working?”

“I’m on a break.”

“Uh-huh,” she deadpanned. “You had a break fifteen minutes ago.”

“Twenty.” I handed her the latte I’d just picked up from Lyla’s.

“What’s this?”

“A latte.”

She stared at the paper coffee cup like I’d brought her a brick of gold, not a drink my sister had refused to let me buy. Memphis sipped from the black plastic lid, and that look of sheer joy on her face . . .

For that look, for a laugh, I’d bring her a coffee every day.

“Thank you.”

“It’s just a coffee, honey.”

Her eyes softened. “Not to me.”

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

I stepped closer, fitting my hand to her jaw. “Like you need to be kissed.”