“Keep people who aren’t supposed to be here off the property and away from your door.”
“Think of Brenna, Cath,” Keith reminds me, going straight for my weak spot.
“If you think it’s necessary.” I hesitate. “Thank you.” God only knows what one of those guys will cost.
“He’ll come to the door and introduce himself within the next two hours. We’ll send Officer Singer his name beforehand so you know who to expect.”
“Okay.”
Brett hesitates. “Could I have your number?” It’s a simple request, and yet there’s something timid and boyish in the way he asks.
Just as there’s something altogether giddy and girlish in the way my heart flutters when I nod and reach for the pad of paper on the side table. I manage to scrawl my number using my injured right hand—it’s sloppy but legible—and then gingerly hand it to him, feeling Keith’s eyes on me the entire time.
I’m so wrapped up in Brett’s presence that I don’t hear the bare feet padding on the floor until it’s too late.
“Mommy?” Brenna’s standing in the short hallway in her bubble gum–pink pajamas, her sleepy eyes blinking as she tries to focus on the strange men in our house. “It’s noisy out here.”
“Get back to bed. I’ll be there in a sec,” I whisper, trying to shoo her before she fully wakes.
“What happened to his leg?” She points at Brett’s cast, ignoring me completely.
“He broke it,” Brett answers with a grin, watching her little face scrunch up.
“How?”
“In a car accident.”
She frowns. “There’s been an awful lot of car accidents around here lately.”
I can’t help but chuckle. She’s too sleepy to connect the dots.
“’Kay. Come on, Squirt. ” Keith spins her at the shoulders. “Say good night, Brenna.”
“Good night, Brenna,” she mimics, giggling all the way to my room because she thinks she’s being clever.
When I turn back, Brett’s looking at me strangely.
“What?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing. Have a good night.”
Should we be saying goodbye instead? Will I see him again?
With one last glance over his shoulder at me, Brett struggles out the front door on his crutches. I turn the dead bolt and then scurry to the window to watch him ease down the steps with great difficulty. I’ve never been on crutches, but they don’t look easy to navigate on the best of days.
Lights flash from Rawley’s parking lot as he makes his way to the car. Photographers who have snuck back on foot. A few minutes later, the SUV drives off.
“So?”
Keith’s voice startles me. I hadn’t expected him out so fast, but of course Brenna went straight back to sleep for him. “So?”
“You just sat across the table from Brett Madden. How do you feel?”
I couldn’t have begun to describe what I feel right now, even if I wanted to. But I don’t, especially not to Keith. I pick up the remote to flip on the news, curious to see what they’re saying.
The front of my tiny white clapboard cottage rental is on the screen, with Keith standing in my doorway and Brett hobbling up the front steps on crutches, and a caption below that reads, “Brett Madden visits Catherine Wright at her home.”
A fresh wave of shock rolls through me. I won’t be sleeping tonight.
Keith yanks the remote out of my hand and, turning it off, tosses it to the coffee table. “Gin rummy?”
“Fine, but I’m an invalid, remember.”
He fishes the deck of cards out from the side table drawer. “Easy to beat. Just how I like it.”
I inhale the scent of Brenna’s shampoo—strawberries and cream—as she sleeps soundly with her back to me, her hot little body overheating mine. But I still don’t pry myself from her, content to have her close to me in the darkness while I lie awake and ponder Brett’s surprise visit tonight. It has sufficiently distracted me from the fact that my dirty laundry is now being aired across national television.
For the first time since the accident, all I can think of is him.
Of his beautiful aqua-blue eyes and his warm, genuine smile.
Of how relieved I am that he’s going to be fine.
Of how much I enjoyed my brief time with him, as shocking and overwhelming as it was.
Of how it felt having his strong arm wrapped around my body.
Of what it would feel like to have him hold me close, not because I’m the woman who saved him but simply because he wanted to.
When I finally drift off to sleep, I’m reveling in that hopeless fantasy.
Chapter 11
“So when’s he coming back?” Keith asks, his back to me as he peers through the blinds, a cup of coffee against his lips.
“When is who coming back?” Brenna chirps, adding with exasperation, her tiny hands grasping her playing cards, “I’m ready!”
“Uncle Jack. Next Sunday, after his trip to Cancún.” My phone conversation with my brother lasted twenty minutes—the longest I’ve ever had with him, as we mainly communicate through texts. “How’s the guy doing out there?”
“Seems fine.” Keith takes in the rigid military man standing outside next to my front porch. He’s the second shift and he looks eerily similar to Hawk, the deep-voiced man who arrived last night, dressed casually in a golf T-shirt and dark wash jeans and wearing a gun. “You sure you even need me here?”
“I’m not sure of anything anymore,” I grumble, picking up my cards for another round of go fish.
My phone buzzes again. Brenna’s annoyed groan is louder than mine.
Keith chuckles. “Misty?”
“Probably.” I powered my phone back on today and found twenty-seven text messages from her. Once the expected “It’s tomorrow! CALL ME” and “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!” and “You’re all over the news!” lines were out of the way, the influx of questions and in-appropriate comments started, because I’m pretty sure she’d have spontaneously combusted if she couldn’t get them out in one form or another.
Is he as hot in person as he is on TV?
Are you going to see him again? Can you call me so I can come over?
What was he wearing?
What did he smell like?
Did you get to touch him?
Did he touch you?
I hate you so much! Can you ask him to come to Diamonds?
Do you think he’d be okay with me hugging him?
I won’t lie, when I read that last one—Keith’s favorite—I pictured a cute big-breasted Misty with her arms wrapped around Brett’s chest and a spark of jealousy flared.
Then, because I hadn’t answered her messages, she started flooding my phone with pictures of him. I don’t know where she found them, but suddenly, I had photos of Brett in tuxedos and swim trunks and everything in between. Of him alone, and of him arm in arm with plenty of beautiful women.
Women I could never compete with.
Keith turns and flashes those dimples at me. “Oh, come on! Read it out loud. I need some entertainment while I’m cooped up in here with you. Let me guess . . . she wants to know what color his boxers were.”
“I wouldn’t put that past her.”
Brenna’s face pinches. “Why would she want to know that?”
With a sigh, I reach for my phone.
How are you doing?