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“Oh, honey, it’s okay,” I promise when a scared whimper leaves her mouth between hurls.
After climbing onto Brodie’s bed, I slip behind Lucy to ensure none of her freshly shampooed hair gets caught in the aftermath of her day in the sun. “It is better to get it out than hold it in. I know it feels yucky, but I promise you’ll feel better once you get it all out.”
Once she’s tremored through the awful eviction of her supper, Brodie wipes up the mess on her chin with the washcloth before wetting a second one for her forehead.
“A little more, Lucy-Lou,” Brodie instructs before pushing the last of the Tylenol through the needleless syringe and into her mouth.
“Good girl,” I praise her when she takes her medicine without additional tears. “You’re so brave.”
When Brodie bobs down to issue his approval eye-to-eye and with a ruffle of her hair, I attempt to scoot back in case he wants to comfort his daughter with more than silent praise.
I barely get an inch away when Lucy begs, “S-stay with me.” My heart whacks my ribs when she rolls and buries her tear-stained face into my chest.
“It’s okay,” Brodie murmurs when I peer up at him to request permission. I don’t want to leave her, especially since much of her sickness is my fault. I spent most of the day outside so I’d have no reason to cover up the cause of Brodie’s ticking jaw. I liked his jealousy because it made my inane feelings for him since day one more understandable. “I can sleep on the couch.”
“Are you sure?”
He nods before pulling up the blanket at the foot of the mattress to cover us.
I smile against the tickling springs of Lucy’s hair when he tucks us in tight. “Thank you.”
With a second nod, he sits at the foot of Lucy’s curled frame until sleep is close to overwhelming us both before he leaves his room with the faintest sigh.
12
BRODIE
Forever alert for home invasions, I jackknife into a half-seated position when a light in the kitchen turns on. From a young age, I taught Lucy to maneuver throughout our home without lighting. By intimately learning the floor plan of our house, we have an advantage over anyone foreign to it.
I stop moving for the gun taped under the top shelf of a bookcase when I recognize the silhouette of the person in the kitchen. It is slim with a handful of enticing curves that will keep you awake all hours of the night.
After checking the time and noticing it is a little after four, I kick off the blanket I collected from the linen cupboard after checking on Lucy and Henley for the umpteenth time tonight, scrub the gunk out of my eyes, then make my way to the kitchen.
A grin curls on my lips when Henley busts my approach. A spoonful of ice cream is stuffed into her mouth, and the back half of her body is swamping the upright freezer. She is clearly cold—her nipples are puckered and erect—but her face isn’t showing a smidge of discomfort.
“Sorry,” she apologizes, talking around the spoon. “My skin still feels like it is on fire, so the thought of icy conditions became too tempting to ignore.” She angles the ice cream container my way. “Want to join me for a late-night snack?”
I shake my head before switching on the coffee pot. “I’m more of a dark brew before breakfast kind of man.”
“Breakfast?” She scoffs as if I am an idiot. “It’s barely midnight…” Her words trail off when she takes in the time displayed by the electronic planner on the kitchen counter. “I told you I’d be up before the sparrows if I went to bed at eight.”
Some of the heat coloring her chest creeps up her neck when I murmur, “You must have needed it. I closed your mouth three times in the past hour alone.”
She makes a face like I’m an adorable puppy before her expression goes deadpan. “You were checking on Lucy, not me.”
I nod. I’ve always found it easier to lie without words.
“Her fever broke pretty quickly.” She stops shoveling a generous spoonful of ice cream into her mouth to look up at me, blinking and confused when I say, “Yours hung around for a while longer.”
The look of adoration is back on her face. “You checked me for a temperature?”
Nodding, I pace closer to her to fetch the milk from the refrigerator.
My strides falter when she asks, “You don’t have a rectal thermometer, right?”
I’m tired, functioning off approximately thirty minutes of broken sleep and paying too much attention to how her fleshy lips curl around the girthy end of the spoon with ease, but I don’t hold back my laugh.
Her wittiness deserves a reply.
My laugh adds to Henley’s roused coloring, and it doubles the electricity firing between us. It cracks and hisses in the air, and I swear to God, the faintest brush of our arm hairs sends a current roaring through my body. It clusters low in my groin and makes me hard as stone in an instant.
