Chapter Liam
Liam
I hadn’t planned on this. On her.
Jenny Kennedy was trouble in all the ways a man didn’t need, with danger stalking her and a mouth that ran just fast enough to drive me crazy.
But then she looked at me with those green eyes, holding herself together by a thread, and I knew I was already in too deep.
I kept my voice steady. “I’m staying close tonight. We’ll set up shifts. Forest, and the others will help until we know how far this goes.”
Her lips parted as if she wanted to argue, but thought better of it. “I don’t want anyone else getting hurt because of us,” she murmured.
I stepped closer, close enough to smell the faint scent of wildflowers in her hair under the sharp tang of red dye. “That’s not your call to make. You and Poppy come first.”
She blinked up at me. “Why are you helping us?”
Because the thought of her brother finding them made my blood run cold, and I couldn’t bear the look in Poppy’s eyes when she told me what she saw.
But I only said, “Because it’s what I do.”
She swallowed hard, like she wasn’t sure if she should thank me or run.
“Get some rest tonight,” I told her. “Tomorrow, we start making plans.”
But deep down, I knew sleep wasn’t in the cards. Not with danger closing in. And not with Jenny Kennedy standing so close, looking at me like maybe—just maybe—I was the only thing keeping her world from falling apart.