Chapter 9 #3
“Don’t,” Ethan said, his voice rough. “Don’t apologize.”
He should be the one apologizing. Should be explaining that this couldn’t happen, he was her host and protector, and he’d just violated every professional and ethical boundary by kissing her back. Should be pulling away, putting space between them, being responsible.
But his hands were still in her hair, and her fingers were still fisted in his shirt, and he couldn’t make himself let go.
“Mommy! Mr. Cole! I’m hungry!” Rosie’s voice rang out from the living room, followed by the thunder of small feet running toward the kitchen.
Ethan and Lydia sprang apart like they’d been electrocuted. Lydia’s face flushed scarlet, her hand flying to her lips, and Ethan took several steps back, running a hand through his hair and trying to look like he hadn’t just been making out with Rosie’s mother.
Rosie burst into the kitchen, blonde curls bouncing, completely oblivious to the charged atmosphere. “Can we have dinner now? Eli says we have to wait for you, but I’m really, really hungry.”
“Yes, baby,” Lydia managed, her voice shaky. “Give me just a minute, okay? Go wash your hands.”
“Okay!” Rosie bounced out as quickly as she’d arrived.
The silence she left behind was deafening.
Ethan bent down and picked up the phone receiver, checked the caller ID.
Number blocked. Of course it was. He replaced it in the cradle, his mind already working through logistics.
They’d need to report this to Sheriff Wyatt.
Get a trace put on the line. Maybe get Lydia a restraining order that actually had some teeth.
But first, they needed to talk about what had just happened.
“Lydia—” he started.
“I need to start dinner,” she said quickly, turning toward the stove. “The kids need to eat, and I haven’t even … there’s so much to do before tomorrow?—”
“Lydia.”
She stopped, her back to him, her shoulders rigid with tension.
“We should talk about this,” Ethan said quietly.
“I know.” Her voice was small. “I just … not right now. Please. I can’t?—”
She was right. The kids needed dinner. Thanksgiving prep needed to be done. And they were both still raw from the phone call, from the kiss, from the sudden violent shift in the landscape between them.
“Okay,” Ethan said. “But Lydia? That call … we need to tell the sheriff.”
She nodded without turning around.
“And whatever just happened between us—” Ethan stopped, not sure how to finish that sentence. Whatever just happened was a mistake. Whatever just happened can’t happen again. Whatever just happened was the best thing I’ve felt in three years, and I have no idea what that means.
“I know,” Lydia said again. Then, so quietly he almost didn’t hear it, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Ethan said. And meant it.
He left her in the kitchen and went to wash up, his lips still tingling, his heart still racing in his chest. In the bathroom mirror, he looked like a man who’d just had his entire world tilted on its axis.
Which, he supposed, he had.
He called the station and told them about the call, answering the deputy’s questions, then setting his phone away.
Tomorrow was Thanksgiving. A day meant for family and gratitude and counting blessings.
And Ethan found himself grateful for things he had no right to count as his.
For Lydia’s presence in his home, for Eli and Rosie’s laughter filling his empty rooms, for the taste of hot cocoa and salty tears on lips he’d been dreaming about for days.
And petrified, absolutely petrified, that Tom Redding knew where they were and was coming for them. Was he enough to stand in the way? To protect them?
But that was tomorrow’s problem. Tonight, he had a woman in his kitchen trying to pretend her world wasn’t falling apart, two kids who needed dinner, and the memory of a passionate embrace that had changed everything.
Tomorrow, he’d figure out how to keep them safe.
Tonight, he’d just be grateful they were here. And stay up to keep watch, which went without saying.
Even if he had no idea what happened next.
Even if that kiss had complicated everything in ways he was only beginning to understand.
Even if the taste of Lydia Harper was now burned into his memory in a way that made going back to just helping impossible.
Ethan splashed cold water on his face and tried to steady his breathing.
Then he went to help make dinner, because that’s what you did, even if you were falling in love with a single mother whose ex was persecuting her. You showed up. You helped. You pretended your entire world hadn’t just shifted beneath your feet.
And you desperately hoped that somehow, some way, it would all work out in the end.
That when morning came, and they had to face what had happened between them, Lydia wouldn’t regret it.
Wouldn’t look at him with fear or embarrassment or worse, pity for the lonely pseudo widower who’d read too much into a desperate moment.
That the kiss had meant something. That it wasn’t just her emotions seeking an outlet, but something real and tangible and worth protecting.