sick.
If Lars and Nikki hadn’t rescued her when they had...
She wouldn’t have survived.
“You really ran into a door?” he asked, his deep voice full of doubt now.
She knew what it sounded like. But she wasn’t involved with anyone. She might never be brave enough to trust anyone ever again.
“Yes,” she said. “But it was because I heard crying—”
“Blue,” he said and glanced down at the quiet baby.
She shook her head. “It wasn’t Blue. I keep hearing this crying...” Tears stung her eyes. “But it’s not Blue.”
“A bad dream?” he asked.
“I’m awake,” she said. “I feel like I’m always awake now.”
A look passed through his eyes. It wasn’t judgment. It was recognition. Did he also have trouble sleeping?
Lars wouldn’t talk about his deployments—didn’t want to share what were probably terrifying details with her. But she could imagine that whatever he and the other members of his unit, like Dane, had seen might haunt them.
What was her excuse?
Sure, she had been through some trauma, but only for weeks. Not months like Dane and her brother had endured. She doubted Dane would be any more willing to talk about their deployments than Lars was.
So she continued, “And even though I’m awake, I keep hearing that crying, but I can’t figure out where it’s coming from.”
He was staring at her again like he suspected it was all in her head.
“Stop,” she implored him.
He lifted his shoulders. “Stop what?”
“Stop looking at me like that.” Tears stung her eyes. And now she knew where the crying was coming from, as a sob slipped through her lips. She was crying now.
And those big hands that had cradled her son so gently closed around her now, drawing her against his chest. “Shhh,” he murmured, like he had to her son. His strong hands moved over her back now, sliding up and down as if petting her.
She found herself instinctively burrowing closer, seeking his warmth and his strength. He was so big. So strong. She felt safe.
He made her feel other things—things that frightened her even more than the crying and the creak of that door opening.
“It’s okay,” he murmured.
Like she had before, she protested, “No, it’s not.” Her words were muffled in his shirt and the hard muscles of his chest. It wasn’t all right what she was feeling now—in his arms—the tingling, the heat, the desire.
She shivered, and his arms slid around her, holding her closer. Her heart pounded madly.
What she’d been thinking wasn’t all right, either. That she was going crazy. But maybe she was crazy to be attracted to this man, who might be incapable of feeling anything at all according to his best friend.
Or maybe she was just overwhelmed. She hadn’t dared share her problems with anyone yet. She hadn’t wanted to burden them or make them think that she was losing her mind. It was different with Dane. Maybe with her voice muffled and her face pressed against him, she could tell him everything. She could let it all pour out.
Everything that had happened. Finding windows open that she swore she had closed. Hearing that door creak open. Finding those calls in the log on her phone—calls she would have never placed.
And when she finally lifted her face from his chest, his shirt was soaked with her tears. And his face was unreadable. Did he believe her?
Or did he think she was crazy?
* * *
He was crazy. Dane should have left the minute he’d found her and the baby safe in the attic. Then he wouldn’t have held the baby.
Then he wouldn’t have held her.
The night breeze blew through his damp shirt, chilling his skin. But that was good. He’d gotten too hot holding her, too edgy. And her tears...
All those tears had done something to him. He’d felt like he was drowning in them, like he couldn’t get a breath in lungs that had felt so tight, so heavy.
He drew in a deep breath now. That pressure didn’t ease any. He had to go back in that house, had to see her again. The minute she’d finished pouring out her heart and her tears he’d hurried outside. He’d told her that he was going to check everything out and see if anyone had broken into her house.
But he already knew nobody had broken in. The lock of that open door had born no scratches or gouges from someone picking it. The jamb hadn’t been broken. Nobody had forced their way into the house. And yet she swore someone had been inside, that she’d heard footsteps on the stairs and the hardwood floors.
Was it possible?
When he’d followed her home earlier, he’d watched her go inside juggling the baby, a diaper bag and something that had looked more like a suitcase than a purse. A laptop bag? She’d had her hands full. She might not have closed the door tightly behind them.
But he’d sat there long enough, watching her house, that if it hadn’t been shut tightly, it would have blown open then. Wouldn’t it?
And what about the crying she claimed to hear that wasn’t Blue’s?
He tilted his head and listened. Maybe a neighbor had a crying baby. But while Lars had been living in the little bungalow, Dane had met the closest neighbors. An older couple lived on one side and a single man on the other. He doubted either had a baby staying with them. He heard nothing now. Not even the sound of a TV despite the glare of one showing behind a window of the adjacent house.
Shining the flashlight on his gun barrel, he walked around the house. Like at the chapel, he found wood chips disturbed beneath some of the windows. Had someone been standing in them, looking inside? Watching her?
He shivered and it had nothing to do with his damp shirt. His blood was chilled now. He had that eerie sensation he’d had when he’d walked through the open door earlier into a dark house.
The house had been dark then.
But he’d watched her turn on every light before he’d driven away. She had had every light in the house shining as if she’d been checking to make sure no intruders lurked in any of the rooms. And she’d told him earlier, when she’d been sobbing against his chest, that the minute she’d heard the door open, she’d grabbed her son and headed up the attic steps. She’d had no time to turn off all those lights. Unless she’d done it earlier, after he’d left.
Somehow he suspected she hadn’t. As spooked as she was, she probably left the lights on all the time and locked the windows. When he’d walked through the house, he’d noticed that all the windows had been unlatched, like the door had been unlocked.
When she’d turned on those lights earlier, she’d checked the windows. That was one reason he’d driven off because it had looked as though she’d made certain her house was secure. So why would that door have been open and the windows now unlocked?
The short hairs on the nape of his neck rose and the skin between his shoulder blades tingled. He felt like someone was watching him now. When he glanced up, he saw her clearly illuminated in the light behind her that she must have just turned on.
Like she’d turned him on when she’d clung to him, her face buried in his chest. Every word she’d spoken had sent a warm breath whispering across his skin.
He’d never been as aware of another person as he’d been aware of her. He hadn’t just felt her breath on his skin; he’d felt her breathing, as her breasts had pushed against his chest. He’d felt her fear in every fast beat