Chapter 10
TEN
Quiet footsteps passing her bedroom door woke Maren.
She was still in the half-dreaming awareness of a woman whose entire nervous system had reorganized itself around the sounds a child made in the house.
Light filtered through her eyelids and she wondered for a moment why her alarm hadn’t gone off and how much time she had to get Juni ready when reality came crashing in on her.
Right. School’s canceled today on account of running for our lives.
When she’d called Juni’s school from the road, she’d told them Juni wouldn’t be in for the rest of the week. Maybe she needed to call again and say she was withdrawing Juni for the rest of the school year because of a family emergency.
Yeah, ours.
She heard men’s voices speaking low in the front room—Colin and Mac talking.
Maren opened her eyes. She slipped out of bed without turning on the lamp and crossed to the door. As she opened it a crack, she heard Juni say one word.
“Colin?”
Maren just stood there with her hand resting against the knob, listening through the narrow crack.
Mac’s voice came first, warm and easy. “Oh, hey there, early bird.”
“I’m not an early bird,” Juni said, still thick with sleep. “I’m a Junebug. Right, Colin?”
Maren closed her eyes.
Oh, baby.
“That’s right,” Colin said.
Something about his voice—low, careful, almost amused—made Maren’s heart speed up and she did not have the emotional bandwidth to examine why before coffee.
Then Juni asked, “Where ya goin’?”
Maren’s hand tightened on the doorknob.
The conversation moved softly from there. Colin explaining that he had to go talk to the nice people from yesterday.
“Aunt Arden?”
“More like Uncle Kyle.”
That sliced through Maren. But it wasn’t jealousy she felt. It was regret that she hadn’t tried harder to find Juni’s father before now. Juni had been deprived of half her family.
She listened as Mac offered coloring books and the big box of crayons.
“I want to go with Colin.”
Maren’s mouth curved despite herself. Poor Mac. The man sounded like he’d brought the big guns and still lost the battle.
But then Juni asked Colin if he promised to come back, and every trace of amusement drained out of Maren at once.
She still doesn’t feel safe.
Of course she didn’t. Why would she? Twenty-four hours ago, Juni’s biggest worry was melted ice cream.
Then their home had become a crime scene.
Mr. Kibble had been torn open. The Blue Fairy had lost her magic beans.
Maren had woken her in the middle of the night and driven her across half the country toward strangers.
And now the one person Juni had glommed onto was leaving her.
Colin Hale.
The man at the gate. The first one they’d met. The man in the box.
Maren pressed her forehead lightly against the door, feeling an old echo of loss. She should have felt relief. Maybe she did. Juni letting someone other than Maren make her feel safe was a good thing.
But underneath the relief was something sadder and sharper.
Maren had spent years trying to be enough for that little girl. Enough mother, enough aunt, enough family, enough home. And one break-in had taught Juni that Maren could love her with her whole heart and still not be able to keep the bad things out.
Then Colin said something about a pinkie promise, and Juni’s voice rose, scandalized.
“No. I get in trouble if I cuss.”
Maren clapped a hand over her mouth.
Do not laugh. Do not laugh and give yourself away.
Colin explained the difference between swearing and a pinkie swear with the kind of solemn patience she’d expect from him if he were talking about disarming a bomb. A moment later, the front room went quiet in that loaded way that meant Juni was considering something very seriously.
Then Colin said, softer, “It means I’m coming back no matter what.”
Maren stopped breathing.
A moment later, she heard the small thump of Juni launching herself at him. Then the sound of Colin letting out a breath that sounded like someone had knocked it out of him.
Apparently, Juni wasn’t the only Walsh woman forming a dangerously quick attachment to Colin Hale.
Nope.
Absolutely not.
Maren stepped back from the door as if it had burned her.
Nope. No thank you. I refuse to develop a wildly inappropriate attraction to the man assigned to protect me and my niece.
Her life was currently a smoking crater.
Mira had apparently been involved in an NCIS investigation.
Someone had destroyed Juni’s room. A mysterious dead man had sent them to Colorado.
And Maren currently possessed one overnight bag, a burner phone, and a Subaru that probably reeked of French fries and existential dread.
Which was better than Juni, whose sole possessions included a hastily-repaired teddy bear, a Snoopy stuffie from frikkin’ Las Vegas, and a fairy stuffed with borrowed pinto beans.
This is not the time for my body to remember how much it once enjoyed being touched by something other than a battery-operated boyfriend.
Especially since that body had been practically dead in the nethers for years.
Years.
She had been surviving on romance books, chocolate, and a certain friend who had lived in her nightstand with discretion and excellent manners.
A friend she had left behind.
On the bedroom floor.
After someone tossed her entire house.
“Oh God,” she whispered, covering her face.
Because of course.
Of course whoever had ripped apart her home had found it.
And then Officers Brown and Gebhardt had photographed her bedroom.
Which meant that somewhere in San Diego, in an evidence file or an incident report or possibly the deeply private jokes of two patrol officers, Maren Walsh’s personal device had been documented beside a heap of smutty paperbacks and the ruins of her dignity.
Wonderful.
Terrific.
If whatever it was her sister had done didn’t kill her, embarrassment still had a solid shot.
From the front room, Mac said something about coloring at the table. Juni answered him in the weary tone of a princess making the best of her royal exile.
Oh, Juni. Maren was immediately back to smiling despite herself. That girl was the proverbial sunshine of her life.
Then she heard the front door open and close quietly.
Colin was gone.
For a moment, the safehouse felt different without him in it.
Maren hated that she noticed.
Yesterday’s clothes were folded over the chair where she’d left them after her shower, and while they had survived the road trip, the safehouse, and one emotional apocalypse, they did not deserve to be pressed into service again without a formal apology and possibly a hazmat team.
She opened the suitcase Colin had carried into her room the night before and stared into it.
Not much.
A couple changes of underwear. Two shirts.
One pair of jeans. Leggings. Pajamas. Random toiletries.
A life packed in half-panic, but she figured she and Juni would only be at a hotel and out of the house for a couple of days, at least until they felt safe enough to go back home.
Packing a ton of clothing had not felt important at the time.
Now, standing barefoot in a beautiful bedroom in a safehouse in Colorado with two full-time bodyguards, it felt very important.
Besides, Juni needed clothes. Socks that hadn’t been worn for three straight days. Pajamas that didn’t smell faintly like hotel detergent and fear. And Maren needed—well, she needed everything, apparently. Including a functioning brain and possibly a new identity.
One thing at a time.
The Colorado morning still held a little overnight chill, so she pulled on leggings and a soft, oversized cardigan that was basically her security blanket over the tank top she’d slept in. Not exactly ready-for-company, but better than wandering out in said tank, panties, and bedhead.
With a libido that has apparently returned from the dead and is now pointing helpfully toward the front room.
Nope.
Still not doing that.
She opened the bedroom door and went down the hall.
The first thing she saw was Juni at the kitchen table, knees tucked up under her on the chair, coloring with intense focus.
Her hair was a sleep-tangled net around her face.
Mr. Kibble sat beside the coloring book like an elderly chaperone, Snoopy had been propped against a napkin holder, and the Blue Fairy reclined in front of the salt and pepper shakers as if recovering from surgery.
Mac sat across from Juni with a coffee mug in one hand and a crayon in the other. He was filling in the sky of what appeared to be a unicorn picture with extremely careful blue strokes, a warm, half-smile on his face.
And still, Maren noticed, positioned where he could see both the front door and the hallway.
His gaze lifted to her the second she stepped out. He didn’t look startled or surprised and she realized he’d probably been tracking her since she opened the bedroom door. He hadn’t chosen his seat by accident. He’d set Juni up where she could color and he could work.
“Morning,” he said, his smile spreading in a way that probably made elderly women trust him to carry their groceries. “Hope we didn’t wake you.”
“No.” Maren glanced at Juni. “I was already awake.”
Juni looked up, crayon paused halfway through making a rainbow tail violently purple. “Colin went to talk to Uncle Kyle.”
“So I heard.” Maren crossed the room and kissed the top of Juni’s head. “Good morning, Junebug.”
“Mac brought the big box of crayons.”
“I see that.” She also saw the look of pride in his eyes and almost laughed. Been there.
“It has a sharpener in the back,” Juni added as she turned the box around to show Maren.
“Oh, fancy.” She winked good-naturedly at Mac.
Mac gave a solemn nod. “Only the best for official safehouse operations.”
Juni considered him. “You color good.”
“Thank you. I’ve been practicing since about five minutes ago.”
That earned him the tiniest smile, which Mac accepted like he’d just won a medal.