11. Piper #2
I scowled against it, trying to discern where it was coming from.
Jealousy?
Is that what it was? This feeling that spiraled through every one of my senses as Theo began to slowly move in our direction?
“Everything good?” he asked when he got close enough that his words could only be heard by us. His grumbly voice had deepened further.
Anxiety seemed to have the woman shifting on her feet, and she hesitated before she forced out, “We’re fine. We were just wondering if it’s okay for Lucy to come out and play?”
Finn scrambled onto his feet, standing on the sled as he waved his hands over his head. “Hi! I is Finn! You want to swed wif me?”
Theo seemed to war, and I could feel his intensity bluster through the air as his attention swept the entire perimeter.
It was as if he were a guard protecting precious property and not merely the owner of the motel.
Unease skittered underneath the surface of my skin.
He finally turned back to her, and his chin barely dipped. “Yeah, of course.”
He dropped his gaze to the little girl. “Why don’t you come and meet Finn, Lucy?”
His forever gruff voice had gone gentle, and he cautiously stretched out his hand.
“Okay,” Lucy whispered, timid yet eager.
“I is Finn!” Finn jumped and shouted and giggled, clearly not reading the mood.
But I was struggling to read it, too. My attention swung between the woman and Theo. The two of them were locked in some kind of stare as the little girl tentatively approached him.
Yep.
Jealousy.
That roil of my insides was definitely jealousy.
And I hated it.
Hated that this complete stranger could evoke this reaction in me.
It was ridiculous.
I did my best to suck it down when Theo took Lucy’s hand and turned her toward Finn.
“Do you like the slide?” she asked him.
“I wike the swed and the swide .” Finn dipped his head deep with each word, a thrill rolling off him, his little red-bowed mouth twisted up in joy.
“Yeah, why don’t we all go check out the playground? Though it’s gonna be cold. If you’re not careful, you two might get stuck to it.” Ease returned to Theo’s tone, but I could still see the rigidness lining his bones.
Laughter erupted from Finn. “I not get stuck, Feo !”
“Guess we’re going to have to find out.”
Lucy let go of the tiniest giggle, and Theo took their hands and guided them over to the playground, their boots disappearing into the five-inch-deep snow as they went.
Both children tottered along at his side, Finn jumping every couple steps, his little stuttered words indistinguishable in the distance, though I could feel the absolute glee radiating from his spirit.
I squeezed my arms over my chest.
He’d never had this.
A chance to connect with other children.
“He’s adorable.” The reserved voice hit from behind and off to the side, the woman’s nerves scattering on the cold breeze that sent the branches waving on the trees.
I swallowed around the idiotic reaction that had taken me hostage and forced myself to turn and look at her. I hoped with everything that the smile I coerced onto my face didn’t come out as unfriendly. “Thank you. So is your daughter.”
Her jaw ticked as she let her attention glide out to her child who was currently climbing the ladder to the slide.
Fear and adoration arced from her being.
Apprehension filled her when she returned her focus to me.
She was beautiful. Tall and willowy. Though there was something about her that appeared downtrodden. Her shoulders hunched as if her wounds were too heavy for her to carry.
“I’m Piper,” I finally said.
A smile barely edged one side of her mouth, and she seemed reticent before she finally spoke. “I’m Alicia.”
“Are you on vacation here?” I asked, hoping to ease some of the awkwardness that ricocheted between us.
She let go of the weightiest exhale. It might have been a laugh if there wasn’t so much pain behind it. “Yeah.”
A frown carved my brow. There was something so strange about her response that it sent a bolt of agitation running through my body.
A turbulence that rocked the atmosphere.
Like maybe she was as afraid as I was to get comfortable.
“It’s really beautiful here.” There was my pathetic attempt at small talk.
Her gaze moved around the area, and both distress and hope poured out of her. “I think it might be the most beautiful place I’ve ever been.”
Her response didn’t carry a tone of insignificance.
It was as if standing there in that spot was the greatest gift she’d ever received.
Her daughter’s shock of laughter caught our attention, and we both swiveled that way.
It appeared Finn had come flying down the slide, and in Theo’s attempt to catch him, Theo had been knocked onto his butt.
Now Finn was splayed over the top of him.
I was pretty sure with the way Theo enthused, “You’re so big and fast, you totally knocked me down,” there was a whole lot of acting going on.
“I knock you down!” Finn shouted as he wiggled around in his ridiculous outfit, rolling off to the side and onto his stomach before he could finally climb to his feet, using his mittened hands to push himself to standing.
Then he and Lucy both took one of Theo’s hands, the two children struggling with all their might to help him up.
“I go again, Feo .” Finn bobbed his sweet head emphatically.
“What, you just want to knock me over again?” Theo asked as he hopped onto his feet. He ran a tender hand over the top of Finn’s cap as he gazed down at my son.
My chest tightened, emotion clotting the air.
“No, I go wif Wucy .”
“Ah, now that sounds like a good plan.”
“Finn doesn’t get to play with other children very often,” I mused, more of that joy threatening as I watched him having the most fun he’d had in as long as I remembered.
Maybe in ever.
He always seemed content. Happy, even. The life we lived was the only life he knew.
But it was times like these when it became clear what we were missing.
“Neither does Lucy,” Alicia whispered as she anxiously tugged at the zipper of her coat.
“How long are you staying here?” I asked.
Alicia wavered, her silence stirring that turbulence again. “We’re more of a long-term rental. You?” She hurried the last.
Uncertainty rolled out of me on a huff. “At least three weeks.” I couldn’t bring myself to utter aloud what Nelly had suggested. “We got into a small accident, so we’re stuck here until my car is repaired. Theo found us, which is how we ended up at The Sanctuary.”
I peeked at her when I said it. A total masochist for trying to gauge her reaction when I mentioned his name. What the hell was wrong with me?
A puff of vapor curled from her mouth as she exhaled. “You never expect your savior to look like that, do you?”
Something about her tone made me think she was prodding. Asking me for a detail without coming out and saying it.
Or maybe she was just making it clear that she was claiming it for herself.
Confusion bound, and I turned back to stare at where Theo caught Lucy at the bottom of the slide. “No. I guess you don’t.”
“He’s a good man,” she murmured even lower than she had been speaking before.
My belly tumbled.
“That’s good to know,” I muttered, trying to make sense of whatever was happening.
The sense of something ominous floating in the air.
A grimness that butted up against the peace.
I glanced up when I heard the engine of an automobile coming up the winding drive that led to the two cabins and ended in a small cul-de-sac.
Dread curled through me, and the fine hairs at the back of my neck lifted in sticky awareness. Old fears rose to the surface, and my eyes darted toward Finn, my feet itching to run to him. The urge screaming at me to sweep him up and rush us into hiding.
Paranoia sinking its steely talons into my spirit.
In the same second, Theo straightened, and his attention whipped toward the vehicle that I could see flashes of through the trees as it took the little loop.
It was a blacked-out SUV.
Theo moved faster than I could fathom, and before I could process it, he was on the pathway in front of where Alicia stood.
As if he were making himself a barricade between her and the view of the SUV.
Violence streamed from his body. Every muscle rigid and firing with brutality.
Menace lashed out of him in an outright warning.
A bit of the edge that had lined me dwindled when I realized this wasn’t about me. That the shimmering sense of evil curling through the air wasn’t my demon hunting me.
It belonged to someone else entirely.
I was just picking up on whatever it was that Theo was radiating.
The SUV barely slowed as it made the loop before it disappeared back up the narrow lane.
Theo glowered behind it as it drove away.
His hands clenched and unclenched as he watched it go, before he turned and rushed back to where the children were still playing in the snow. He scooped Finn into an arm and took Lucy’s hand with the other.
He rushed back to Alicia and stopped two feet in front of her.
“Think it’s time for you two to go back inside. Lucy is getting cold.” He gritted it.
Alicia frantically nodded as she took Lucy’s hand from him. “Okay.”
That single word was rushed and ragged.
What the hell was going on between them?
I didn’t care. I didn’t care.
I could tell myself it a thousand times and still I wouldn’t be able to stop the twisting of the blade inside me.
It was so stupid.
So reckless.
Yet, it was there.
Undeniable.
“I co-wed . We go fire?” Finn bobbed his head as he reached for me, angling out from Theo’s hold.
I took him into my arms, hugging him close, my nose pressed to his cold cheek as I tried to process what it was that I was feeling.
What was happening in this place that felt like both respite and a prison.
Intense, bottomless eyes slanted toward me. “Yeah, we’d all better get inside and get warmed up. I have some work I need to attend to.”
Theo basically hustled us all back to our cabins, standing guard as he watched Alicia and Lucy fumble through their door, before his consideration slid to me where I hovered at the front of mine.
My hand clutched the knob as I tried to make sense of who he was and what he made me feel.
“You should go inside for a bit.” His coarse words filled the air between us, and I felt them as a warning.
Trembling, I stood there staring at this man who I’d known was trouble the second I saw him, and I didn’t have space for any more trouble in my life.
“Why?” It came out a challenge.
“Because I asked you to.”
Disbelief scraped off my tongue, and I shook my head in incredulity.
Theo suddenly moved, flying up the porch and coming to tower over us.
A stronghold of malice and the darkest light.
The danger I felt emanating from him from the beginning rebounded at full force.
The man looked like a weapon.
All sharp edges.
Ferocious and wild.
“Need you to trust me,” he ground out.
He moved in so close that he ripped the breath from my lungs.
Finn had his face buried in the right side of my neck, snuggled close as he tried to get warm.
And still, I stood there, staring up at Theo.
“Why should I trust you?”
The wings of the moth tattooed on his throat bobbed as he swallowed hard, as if he didn’t know which lie to tell. “Because I would never hurt you.”
It seemed like the most blatant one. Because it became so glaringly clear right then just how badly he could.
“Who is Alicia to you?” It was out before I could stop it.
Ferocity flashed through his dark, menacing gaze before something else entirely slipped into his features.
Something that appeared entirely too satisfied as he basically growled, “You jealous, Pipes?”
“No.” It didn’t even come close to sounding casual, my own falsity firing free.
The truth was, the thought of him with her made me sick to my stomach, and I had zero right to that reaction.
Smugness pulled to the edge of that ridiculously lush mouth, and he leaned in closer to my left cheek.
“Little Liar.” He grumbled it like praise, and I couldn’t form the rebuke I was trying to conjure considering my knees nearly gave when he reached out and let the pad of his thumb trace along my jaw.
His voice was a scuff of seduction as he muttered, “It’s not what you think.”
Then something ruthless took to his features. “But I take care of those who come here and need extra help.”
I could hardly swallow. “Is that what you’re doing for me? Taking care of me because you think I need extra help?”
His expression morphed again, and that time there was no mistaking it.
The lust that curled between us.
A keening bow that only gripped me tighter when he leaned down to murmur in my left ear. “Oh, the ways I would take care of you, Piper Whittman.”
A shiver rocked my body, and Theo suddenly stepped back, moving backward across the porch as he instructed, “Now go inside and get this little man warmed up by the fire.”
Flustered, I turned around and fumbled with the handle to let myself in. Basically running inside to flee whatever the heck had just happened between us.
But there was no escaping it.
Not when I set Finn on the floor in front of the fire so I could get him out of his snow clothes, but not before my phone buzzed in my pocket.
Hand shaking, I pulled it out to a message from Theo.
One-Star
Make no mistake, I’ll be thinking about all the ways I could warm you up later.