Chapter 13
The last thing Taryn expected was to actually sleep.
She couldn’t remember the last time she had rested fully.
She had always been a light sleeper, but from the moment Boyd took her and her family, every little sound woke her.
So, for her to sleep so heavily the moment her head hit the pillow after she and Jace curled up against each other meant only one thing—she felt safe.
The smell of coffee and Jace’s amazing cinnamon pancakes pulled her from a dreamless sleep. She smiled as she looked at the sun coming through the blinds on the window.
Taryn rolled onto her back and stretched her arms over her head as she yawned. She threw back the covers, swung her legs over the side of the bed, and sat up, a smile on her face as she thought about the night before and how she and Jace had loved each other’s bodies.
While she understood that she and Jace couldn’t just pick up where they had left off, it almost felt as if that had happened.
But she wouldn’t take anything for granted.
She had done that once and had lost five years.
Jace had welcomed her back into his life—partly because she was in trouble, but she also knew that he still loved her.
His actions the night before had proven that.
Which made her love him all the more.
She rose from the bed and put on some clothes, then made her way from the master to the kitchen. Jace had his back to her as he whistled softly to the sound of the radio. Taryn grinned as she recalled many such mornings that she had risen to find him in the kitchen.
Her gaze darted to the hallway that branched off from the entryway and led to the two other rooms of the house.
She walked across the living area to the hall, wondering what he had done to the other rooms since he had changed other parts of the house.
She wasn’t at all surprised to find that one space was full of weights and workout equipment, including a punching bag in the corner.
She moved to the next door, the shared bath. Then she came to the last room. She thought she might find a spare bed or perhaps boxes. Instead, the room was almost completely empty except for two boxes that held the things she had left.
“I always hoped you’d come back.”
Her head jerked around at the sound of his voice. He stood behind her with a cup of coffee in hand. He held it out to her with a grin.
Taryn took it and offered him a smile of gratitude. “The smell of food pulled me from sleep.”
“I thought it might. You were sleeping pretty good, but I was hungry.” He shot her one of his sexy grins that always made her knees weak.
She lowered her face to inhale the heady scent of coffee and honey before she took a drink. She closed her eyes and savored the taste. “I missed your coffee.”
“You’re the only one who likes it,” Jace said with a chuckle as he turned and started back to the kitchen.
She followed him, her bare feet not making any sound on the hardwood floor. “I’ve not slept that hard in years.”
“I’m glad you got some much-needed rest.” Jace returned to the stove and flipped a pancake. “I wanted to have some food ready for when you did get up.”
She climbed up onto the stool and smiled. “Are you kidding? It’s the best way to get woke up. All of this. I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed it. Thank you.”
His hazel eyes met hers briefly as they shared a smile. “Does that mean you aren’t too upset that I pulled out all the stops to get you back last night?”
“Not at all. I wanted this. All of it.” Her smile faded. “What I don’t want is any of you being pulled into the hell I’ve lived with.”
Jace put the last pancake atop the others and set the dish before her. “That isn’t going to happen.”
“You can’t promise me that.”
“Nope. I can’t. What I can promise is that I’ll make or buy all your favorites while you’re here. So, eat up and enjoy.”
“You do know how to spoil me.”
Taryn didn’t hesitate to take three of the pancakes when Jace handed her a plate and fork. She put some butter on each pancake, then poured some syrup on a separate plate.
Jace shook his head and chuckled. “Still not wanting your syrup and pancakes to touch?”
“Never,” she said around a mouthful of food. She grinned at him and stuffed another bite into her mouth.
Not one to sit idly by when there was food, Jace got a plate, sat beside her, and proceeded to drown his pancakes in syrup. They ate in silence. Taryn enjoyed the food too much to think of anything to say. Besides, there would be a lot more questions later.
By the time she’d swallowed the last bite, her stomach hurt from eating so much, but she didn’t regret a moment of it. Jace laughed as he rinsed their plates and put them into the dishwasher. Then he straightened to look at her.
Taryn shifted uncomfortably with his stare. “What?”
“I had your belongings gathered from the hotel. Thought you might want to know.”
As always, Jace had thought of everything. Taryn slid off the stool and walked to stand before him. She gazed up at him before she rose on tiptoe and placed a kiss on his mouth. “Thank you. I think I’ll jump in the shower. Want to join me?”
“Tempting. Very tempting,” he murmured as he kissed down her neck. “But the others will be here before we know it, and if I start licking your body now, I won’t stop.”
She laughed and pushed him back so she could look in his eyes. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”
She turned and started toward the master as she thought about how this was exactly how she’d expected her life to be with Jace.
Maybe she shouldn’t have returned to Clearview and put those she cared about in danger.
Perhaps she should’ve told Boyd that her brother’s mistake was his own, and that she would no longer pay for her family’s crimes.
Things could be vastly different right now if she had.
“Taryn.”
She halted and looked over her shoulder at Jace, hope blossoming that he would join her in the shower. He stood holding her bag. She went to retrieve it, but he held it back until she gave him a scorching kiss. Only then did he hand it to her.
“Damn, woman,” he said as he adjusted his thickening cock.
She laughed and winked at him, but she didn’t tempt him more.
As much as she would love to have a day with just the two of them, it wasn’t meant to be right now.
If things worked to her advantage, she might very well have it later, though.
It was a big if, however. One that scared her as much as the thought of losing Payton.
Taryn gave herself the time in the shower to shake off the melancholy and put herself in a better frame of mind.
Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work as she had planned.
Instead of letting go of what her mind had conjured, all she could think about now was whether she was being selfish by turning to the one person in the entire world she knew would help her no matter what.
She wanted to think that she was a better person than that.
One strong enough to fight her battles, smart enough to figure a way out of the toughest situations.
That had gotten her as far as today, but she could no longer claim to be strong or smart.
She felt . . . beaten down. Like she had been treading water for hours and something continued to yank on her feet, threatening to pull her beneath the waves once and for all.
If only Payton hadn’t been caught up in this with her. Without her sister in the picture, Taryn would’ve handled things differently. Every move she’d made, every decision, every action had been about doing whatever was necessary to ensure that Payton wasn’t harmed or made to do anything illegal.
“She’s all I have left,” Taryn whispered.
She isn’t all you have left. There’s Jace.
Taryn blinked back the unbidden tears. She didn’t like the fearful woman who currently stared back at her in the mirror.
The woman who second-guessed everything.
She had survived all kinds of horrors while in slavery to Boyd.
Though she had never been raped. In the grand scheme of things, that was a huge win.
She finished drying off and put on a clean pair of jeans and an olive-green V-neck tee. Taryn cleaned up her mess in the bathroom and gathered her dirty clothes in her arms. She carried them out of the room in search of Jace. When she didn’t find him, she put a load of her clothes into the washer.
When she finished, she found him outside on the back porch, sitting in a chair with the fan on above him.
A cat, who opened her eyes long enough to get a glimpse of Taryn, sat on his lap.
Once it realized Taryn was no threat, the feline settled more comfortably on Jace’s lap and purred louder with each stroke of his hand.
Taryn knew just how good his touch was. She envied the cat. That was something she’d never thought to tell herself. She bit back a chuckle and smiled when Jace turned his head to her.
“I put some clothes in to wash. Hope you don’t mind,” she told him as she took a chair beside him.
He shook his head. “Not at all.”
“When did you get a cat?”
His hazel eyes lowered to the feline, who looked up at him adoringly. “She showed up one day. Next thing I knew, I had a cat.”
“Have you named her?”
“Cat,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders.
Taryn laughed and leaned over to offer her hand to the animal to sniff.
When the cat was satisfied, it bumped its head against her hand.
Taryn smiled as she scratched the feline beneath its chin.
The animal purred loudly. Taryn then stopped and sat back, hoping the cat would curl up in her lap.
But it didn’t budge from Jace’s. Not that she blamed her.
“She’s very pretty.”
“I’ve become quite fond of her.” Jace glanced at the cat then said, “Clayton is on his way over with the cash for you.”
And just like that, she was reminded of her past and why she was at Jace’s to begin with. She forced a smile. “All right.”
“Danny and Ryan are with him. They’re going to want more information.”
“I know.”
“Will you give it to them?”
Images of everyone she had seen Boyd or his men kill flashed in her head. There was a real possibility that Jace could be another fatality.
Or he might be the one to free you and Payton.
Taryn opened her mouth to reply when the doorbell rang.