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Less than five minutes later, whistling beneath my breath, I returned with a T-shirt for her.
Her hands were fisted at her sides and she was scowling with annoyance. “I don’t like being bossed around.”
“Do you boss Katina around when she won’t go to bed and she’s tired?”
“Yes.”
“Well then,” I pointed out. “This is precisely like that.”
“It is not,” she argued. “I’m not ten.”
“I’m not going to do anything or take this anywhere, Star. You’re safe with me.
“I’m going to put you to bed and you’re going to sleep in here and I’m going to return to my room and sleep in there.
“But, before then, I need to make you comfortable. So, arms up.”
Her mouth rounded but, like the good little soldier she could sometimes be, her arms slipped upwards.
A second later, the soft cotton was swooping along the length of her biceps and puddling around her neck. Carefully, I angled her head through the opening then dragged the mass of fabric over the towel she’d tucked under her arm.
“I’m not going to look,” I promised her, my gaze locked on hers as I fiddled with the knot that kept the towel in place.
My hand clapped against her belly to hold it up as I pulled the sides of the tee down so she was covered.
Only then did I move my hand. Gravity did the rest.
When she was dressed in my tee, the hem sitting high on her thighs but low enough for decency’s sake, with the towel puddled around her feet, I gently cupped her elbow.
“You ready for bed now?”
“My hair’s wet.”
I grabbed the towel, moved around her, and started patting it dry. It wasn’t much drier than it had been before I started, but it was better than nothing.
Without waiting for her to complain about my hairdressing skills, I gently tossed the towel at the bathroom door and started shuffling her toward the bed.
When I dragged down the sheet, I ordered, “Get in, Star.” I waited for her grouchy compliance then tucked her in. “Sleep,” I encouraged. “Tomorrow’s problems are exactly that—for tomorrow.”
Her eyelids drifted lazily up and down. “Your tee smells of you.”
My lips twitched. “It smells of detergent.”
Softly, she shook her head. “No. You smell of oranges.”
“I don’t even eat oranges,” I muttered under my breath when I saw she’d closed her eyes.
I routinely ate fruit that could be put in a pie and that was it.
I drew back and headed for the living room, tugging my shirt away from my body and taking a surreptitious sniff down it—where the fuck did she get oranges from?
It was when I entered that space that the strangest urge hit me—I didn’t want to leave her. Not even to go to my room next door.
I scraped a hand over my head as I fought an internal battle.
Call me crazy, but I trusted that her grandfather had no desire to hurt her. Maybe that was because he thought she’d already been hurt enough, or he truly believed she and I were the only people who could find his other granddaughter.
Whatever the reason, physically, I believed she was safe.
