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No stinking home.
He couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe she’d been homeless and hadn’t breathed a word of it. Well, he kind of did. Becky was the kind of kid who would be desperate to stay with her sister. That was who she was. How could he not admire that? How could he not want to help her?
There had to be some way to figure things out. Something he could do.
Her breathing had evened out, and her body had relaxed under his arm. She fell asleep.
That was just as well. He adjusted her some, trying to move her head to a more dry spot on his pillow.
The central air was on at his house. If he were able, he’d turn it off. She didn’t need that cold air blowing on her as wet and cold as she was.
He shook his head, careful not to wake her. He couldn’t believe she was homeless.
Then he smiled. He loved that she would go to such lengths to keep her little “family” together. The world needed more people like her, not less. More people who would fight for their families. Fight for their relationships. Fight for the things that matter. Stop fighting stuff that didn’t.
Kind of funny when he thought about how a little kid, smart-mouthed and sassy, stubborn and irritating, could remind him about the important things of life.
He hoped he never forgot.
Chapter 10
“How do I look?” Chisaid, smoothing her hair down, then brushing her hands down her shirt.
“Like you’ve been working since five this morning,” Griff said calmly, not even glancing up at her. More irritated than he wanted to admit that she was preening for that stupid big-city lawyer.
“Really?” she asked, and his heart twisted at the dismay in her voice. He wanted to encourage her, not discourage her. But she couldn’t see that the lawyer was nothing but a cheat. He had a light, a very light, ring on the third finger on his left hand. Griff had noticed it the last time he was in, when he’d been holding his coffee cup. It wouldn’t surprise Griff at all if the man took his wedding band off before he walked into the diner.
Why else would he come the whole way to Strawberry Sands for coffee unless he was trolling for women? Griff probably knew more about that than he wanted to admit. Still, it irritated him that Chi wasn’t smart enough to figure it out.
“Do you think I’m pretty?” she asked softly, leaning forward like his answer really mattered.
He thought she was beautiful. Beautiful because she was so fresh faced and innocent. She might think that she had a rough-and-tumble life, but she really didn’t even know what that was.
Not like him.
“You’re pretty,” he said, but his words were given begrudgingly. He didn’t want to tell her that she was pretty just so that she could go back to preening for some other man. He wanted to tell her she was pretty as he was brushing her hair back away from her cheek, tucking it behind her ear, pulling her close to himself.
