Chapter 61 Rowan
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
ROWAN
After trying and failing to work for another two hours, Asher disappears up the stairs to get some sleep.
But I can’t bring myself to go up to my own bed, not now that I know how good it is to sleep with Hannah wrapped around me.
Dropping my head into my hands, I stifle a yawn.
I could sleep on the couch. It wouldn’t be the first time, and I doubt it would be the last, but at least upstairs I’m closer to her. Just a couple of rooms away.
After another minute of deliberation, I shut my laptop and make my way up the stairs.
Hannah’s door comes into view, and I pause when I find Asher sitting against the wall across from it.
A soft snore escapes him, his head resting against the wall and his arms crossed over his chest.
He cannot be comfortable, but obviously, he couldn’t bring himself to climb into bed alone either.
I glance at the door again, my chest tightening at the idea that all three of us could spend tonight alone, and I fucking hate it.
I’m not going to allow Jeffrey and Marianne to fuck this up for us. We’ve all worked too hard and have overcome too much to let that happen.
Mind made up, I tap Asher on the shoulder.
His head rolls to the side, and he blinks up at me through barely open eyes.
“Hey,” he rumbles.
“What are you doing down there?”
He shrugs. “I thought the visit from Marianne might trigger a nightmare, and I didn’t want to be too far away if it did.”
I huff out a laugh, not because anything he said is funny, but because somehow, against all odds, I raised a man who will be uncomfortable for the woman he loves.
He’ll do anything necessary to make sure she’s okay, that she has everything she needs, and although I’ve often felt like a failure for not giving Asher a normal childhood, I sure as hell didn’t fail as a father.
I hold out my hand to help him up and tug him straight into a hug. “I’m so fucking proud of you, Ash.”
It takes him a second to return my hug—maybe because he’s still half asleep, or maybe because we’ve never been very affectionate with one another—but when he does, we remain like that for a few beats before taking a step back.
“Let’s go get our girl,” I say, nodding toward the door.
“She asked for space.”
“And we gave it to her. She’s had a few hours alone, and if we go in there and she asks us to leave, we’ll come back out here and camp out just in case she needs us.”
He hesitates for another moment before taking a step toward the door, and I’m right on his heels.
The lamp beside the bed fills the room with a gentle glow, but it’s the woman curled up in the center of the bed that pulls me forward.
She’s still in the same lounge set she wore today and didn’t bother sliding between the sheets.
A soft tremble moves over her body, and I take another step forward without thought.
She’s cold, and while there are an ever-growing number of things I can’t fix right this second, this is one I can.
The file she disappeared up the stairs with is neatly piled on the floor, which is a relief in itself.
I half expected to find her asleep with a page stuck to her face.
Asher rounds the bed, some of the tension in his shoulders releasing once he can see her expression. “I don’t think she was crying when she fell asleep,” he whispers.
Thank God.
If she was thinking about leaving, she would be upset, that much I’m sure of.
He kneels on the edge of the bed and carefully gathers our girl into his arms while I tug the sheets back far enough for him to slip her between them.
She barely stirs throughout the transfer, and it’s not until we’re both stripped down to our boxers with her pressed between us that her eyes flutter open.
“I didn’t think you’d come tonight,” she murmurs.
“We’ll always come for you, Little One,” I tell her, and I mean every fucking word.
Asher may be on the fence about keeping her even if she tries to run, but I’m not.
There’s nothing I won’t do to keep my family together, no one I won’t kill, and nothing I won’t burn to the fucking ground.
Hannah is mine, and I don’t plan on ever letting anyone take her away from me.