Safe at Last (Slow Burn #3)

ZACK paced the interior of Eliza’s living room like a caged, restless lion ready to attack and kill. He dragged a hand repeatedly through his short, spiked hair until it was in complete disarray, shooting in a dozen different directions.

Sweat. He was sweating. His shirt was damp. His brow glistened with moisture. And a bead slipped down his spine, making him itchier and more irritable by the minute.

“Zack, sit down.”

Eliza’s voice was soft, but it carried a hint of command.

She glanced over the top of her laptop and motioned for him to sit down on the other wing of the sectional sofa. Eliza’s apartment was a study in comfort. Decorated in warm earth tones with a splash of femininity. Not overdone. Not too girly. It was a place a man would feel welcome. A place he could call home.

He’d dreamed of surprising Gracie with a huge home. A two-story mansion with at least seven bedrooms, and jack-and-jill bathrooms connecting the children’s bedrooms in twos. He’d wanted four boys and then two girls. Six of the bedrooms would be connected by a bathroom so that only two children would ever have to share one. And of course he’d want the little girls last so they’d have older brothers to look out for them and spoil them every bit as much as he would.

Gracie had loved the house that Zack had grown up in. It was the epitome of the American dream. Two-story white frame house with homey dormers, a sprawling front porch with a swing and a white picket fence surrounding the house. It was precisely the sort of home she’d daydreamed about, though he’d never brought her over after that first disaster when he’d taken her to meet his father. The memory still enraged him. His father had completely humiliated Gracie. Had made her feel like a piece of filth. Hell, he’d even called her white trash. Had said that even the trailer park was too good for the likes of her. Given that Gracie was homeless for the most part, it had been a low blow. A trailer would have been welcome to Gracie. Anything that put a roof over her head.

After Gracie’s uncle had died, Zack had been relieved, until he realized that Gracie had no place to live. Still, he recognized she was much better off homeless than under the power of an abusive relative.

Zack had found her a tiny motel on the Dover side of the lake. She landed a position as a room cleaner, which didn’t provide much of anything in the way of a paycheck. But what it did provide was a place for her to live—a tiny bedroom on the first floor next to the office—and it provided her one meal a day, her choice of breakfast or dinner from the homestyle cooking restaurant attached to the motel. Zack gave her money for the other two meals of the day, and he often ate breakfast and dinner with her so that he ensured she didn’t go without.

Every morning she rose before dawn to begin her day. She left in time to get to school and then she resumed her job afterward.

Zack came home at every opportunity. His father was disgusted by the fact he was so hung up on a girl that he was blowing what should have been the best years of his life. There were no frat parties or endless girlfriends, no living large with his star quarterback fame. No, he attended his classes and made all his practices, but he always looked forward to the end of football season, when he could come home to Gracie.

He’d never stayed at school over the weekend once football season was over. As soon as his last class on Friday had ended, he’d immediately get into his truck, having already packed the night before, and head straight home.

Though he’d never offered her the disrespect of taking advantage of her sexually—he, like her, had wanted to wait—Zack had spent most nights with Gracie, him taking the floor while she slept in the bed, and they’d talk for hours.

He’d hated that she’d be so tired the next day, struggling to get up early and get her duties done by check-in time, and so he’d often help her. The two had become a formidable team, coming up with an efficient method of cleaning the rooms spotless in twenty minutes. That made Zack happy because it meant she was his for the rest of the day.

Most high school football players’ favorite night of the week was Friday. Friday meant football and the rush of adrenaline after pulling off an impossible play. Friday was Zack’s favorite day as well, but not because of football. To him, football was a means to an end. A way for him to provide for Gracie and the children they’d one day have.

It was his favorite day because he knew that at the end of it, Gracie would be in his arms, her head pillowed against his shoulder.

Until the time he returned home to find her gone. For good.

He didn’t understand it. Maybe he’d never understand it. But he sure as hell wasn’t going to walk away without some sort of an explanation. If she didn’t need him—didn’t want him—then by God she’d look him in the eye and tell him so.