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“YOU DOING OKAY IN HERE?”
Warren's arms slipped around my waist, and he leaned in, his lips brushing my ear and his breath hot on my skin.
I leaned back against him and breathed out, letting the plate I was holding slip into the sink of soapy water. Damn, I loved the feel of him. I loved the fact that he was here in my house—my mother's house—for dinner and that we'd included her in our meal... but that he'd come in here without her, just to check and make sure that I was okay. There was something so warm, so comforting about his solid presence, like he was a rock I could cling to even when the rest of my life felt like it was an uncontrolled storm. I hadn't slept well since the night of the fire, and the fatigue was building under my skin, making me feel itchy and insecure, but the moment Warren was with me...
Well, it just felt right. I felt safe.
That was all.
“Better now,” I told him honestly. “Better when you're here.”
He turned me and took my soapy hands in his, a frown creasing his brow as he looked deeply into my eyes. “Still having nightmares?”
“Every night,” I whispered. “And it's not that big a deal. I mean, I know they're just nightmares. I know it's not actually happening, but that doesn't stop me from feeling like...”
I didn't know how to finish that sentence. It made me feel as if I couldn't breathe, as if nothing was ever going to be safe again, and I'd spent more than one night awake in the darkness and trying to find a way to distract myself rather than going back to sleep and risking the dream again. Which, of course, just added to how tired I was.
Which made it all even worse.
I hadn't told him any of that, though, and I wasn't planning to. He was already being so sweet and taking care of me whenever he could, but I didn't want him doing more than he had the energy for. After all, he was dealing with a lot of his own shit. His freaking house had been set on fire by the man who was stalking me, and then when we'd gotten out of the house, miraculously whole and unburned, the man responsible for the flames had tried to kidnap me. Warren had noticed and come running after us in time to save me, but it had cost him yet another fight with a McCarthy.
He'd been involved in a few of those at this point, and I couldn't stop thinking about how it was my fault. I'd pulled him into this. His house had been burned because of me. He'd been flagged by the cops as a troublemaker because of something he'd done for me. And for all I knew, the McCarthy men—Tony and his father—were now hunting him as well.
Because he'd defended me.
I wasn't going to put anything else on his shoulders. Hell, I wanted to take some of the things off his plate if he'd let me. So I hadn't told him the full extent of the nightmares or what they did to me in the middle of the night. I'd said that I was having bad dreams and that was it, and I meant to keep it that way.
The thing was, though, it was getting harder and harder to deal with it on my own. I was so used to being able to lean on Warren at this point that having to deal with someone on my own—or keep secrets from him—felt wrong.
What the hell had happened to the sassy, independent girl who'd spent years on the road with no one but her dog and her VW bus to keep her company?
She'd grown up and decided she wanted to stop living by herself, I knew. And she'd found a man she thought she wanted to settle down with.
As long as the men from her past would leave them alone to do it.
I leaned against Warren, my forehead on his, and stared into his eyes. “Take me away from here, Warren. To a warm beach in the Caribbean. Somewhere that we can lie in the sun for hours and hours and not think about anything but what we're going to have to drink with dinner.”
He chuckled at that. “That sounds awfully good. Are we going to bring Silver and your mom, though? Because I don't think we can leave either of them behind.”
I grinned, falling into the fantasy. “Of course. And while we're there, we'll find my mom a boyfriend so she's not always pretending not to be watching us when we hold hands. She needs a man in her life aside from you.”
The chuckle turned into a laugh, and Warren's face creased with happiness. “I'll sign that bargain, if it means more time alone with you.”
He leaned forward and brushed his lips across mine, sending heat flooding through my veins, and I pressed against him, needing more of his warmth. More of the solid sense of—
A knock at the front door boomed through the house, and I jerked back, heart suddenly racing for an entirely different reason. When I looked up, my eyes wide and my cheeks already heating with anxiety, I found Warren's eyes on the door to the kitchen. And beyond that, the hallway that led to the foyer and the front door that someone was now banging on.
“Stay here,” he muttered.
Part of me wanted to say yes. To let him go out and deal with whoever was there. Tell them we didn't want what they were selling and send them on their way. Because the last time someone had banged on the front door like that, it had been Tony McCarthy, here with threats and angry words and fists raised in violence.
The other part of me was sick and tired of letting Warren stand up for me when I could stand up for myself.
“Like hell I will,” I said. I stepped forward, grabbed his hand, and hustled after him down the hall.
He cast one glance over his shoulder when we reached the foyer, his face a mixture of affection and concern, and I gave him one swift nod. Yes, I answered him wordlessly. I was ready. I didn't care who was on the other side of the door. We were going to face them together. And there was strength in that. Strength enough to block anyone who meant us harm.
Warren gave me an answering nod, then stepped forward and jerked the door open.
Only then did I realize that the knocking had stopped before we got there.
And whoever had been knocking had left me a present.
I glanced down and cringed back, half shocked and half disgusted. A dead squirrel and a bouquet of dead roses lay together in front of the door, a rope binding them together. And attached to the rope was a note with one single word on it.
My name.
***
“YOU'RE SURE THIS IS the first time this has happened?” Warren asked, kneeling in front of me as I sat on the couch. He slipped his fingers over my clenched fists and started working to get me to relax, one finger and then another working their way between mine and forcing me to open up.
“I think I'd remember if anyone had left dead animals on my doorstep,” I said, trying to make it a joke. “It's not exactly something you forget.”
Warren's narrowed eyes and tightened lips told me I was failing at the whole joking part. “This isn't a joke, Lily.”
“No kidding,” I said, still striving for lightness.
His glower turned even darker, though, and I realized that now might not be the time to push him.
“Right, fine, I'm done joking. No, it's never happened before.”
The frown lightened up a bit. “Have you had any other sign that he's around?”
I thought about that for a moment, casting my mind back over the week I'd just had. Tony had definitely been there the night of the fire, but Warren already knew that. What he didn't know was that there had been odd things happening ever since then. Things moved around on the porch. Stacks of firewood knocked over behind the house.
Shoes that I'd sworn I left by the back door that were now missing.
I hadn't paid them much mind, though, because those sorts of things happened. I forgot that I'd moved something, and the wind was often heavy enough to knock over stacks of firewood.
But now that Warren was asking me, I was starting to see them in a whole different way. I might have misplaced those shoes, but surely I would have found them by now. And how would things move to an entirely different location without human help?
And without me remembering having moved them?
My stomach filled with ice water at the thought. Had Tony McCarthy been around my house all week, messing with things just to mess with me, without me realizing it? Had he been looking through my window when I was in my bedroom? Watching my mother and me eat dinner?
Standing behind the barn when I went outside to play with Silver, just biding his time?
When my eyes came back up to Warren's, I couldn't keep the thoughts hidden from him, and his face turned serious again.
“How many times?” he asked.
“At least four,” I murmured. “Four that I know of.”
Warren's eyes shut for a moment, and when they opened up again, they were hot with anger. “Four that you know of. And I'm guessing more that you never even suspected. That's it. I'm moving in for good.”
“What?” I gasped. How had we gone from Tony being around to Warren moving in permanently? I thought he would just be staying until he got everything together with the house...We barely even knew each other! And we hadn't yet talked about what we were, or if we were anything. Moving in seemed like...
An escalation, yes.
But it also made me feel immediately safer. Like I could handle anything if Warren was standing behind me, his hand on the small of my back and his strength backing me up.
“Moving in, long-term,” he repeated. “I don't want to be over there asleep, thinking everything is okay, and then wake up and find that something's happened to you. I don't want to wake up to a fire at your house because Tony thought no one was over here to wake you two up.” He put a hand on my cheek, his caress both hot and gentle. “I just found you, Lily. I'm not going to let that man take you away from me. I'm not going to let him hurt you.”
Something inside me melted at the words, and I recognized it as the tension I'd been carrying with me for the past week, the fear and fatigue and the knowledge that everything could go sideways at any moment, and that I might not be able to handle it on my own. He was right; even if Mom and I woke up in time to catch Tony before he did anything, the chances of us being able to get in touch with Warren, if he was anywhere other than here, were minimal.
And if Tony decided to get violent, my mom and I wouldn't be enough to stop him.
“You'd do that?” I breathed.
He pressed a kiss to my forehead and slammed the door behind him, closing out the dead squirrel and the horrible roses, and the expanse outside that was hiding Tony McCarthy.
“In a fucking heartbeat,” he murmured. “I'm not letting him have you back, Lily. I'm not giving you up.”
I leaned my cheek against his chest and wrapped my arms around him, breathing in his scent and letting it settle me.
Warren living here. Warren standing with me when I faced Tony McCarthy.
Keeping me safe. And me keeping Warren from his loneliness.
Yeah, I thought. I could live with that.
“Yes,” I whispered.
Because as long as Warren was here, I thought, we could figure everything else out.
