Elias’s gaze softened for the first time since I’d met him. “We’ll be here when you wake up,” he said. “Promise.”
Gideon slid his hand into mine. “Come on.”
I let him lead me back through the front door, the newly solid step thudding reassuringly under our feet. Inside, the air felt cooler, the house settling around us with that peculiar awareness it had when it approved of something.
On the stairs, halfway up, I looked back through the front window. The three men were still out there—Ethan and Lucas already arguing good-naturedly about something, Elias on his phone, probably digging through whatever government database he had charmed into letting him play.
“Your family is insane,” I said.
Gideon huffed. “You haven’t even met most of them.”
My fingers tightened around his. “I like them,” I admitted.
He looked at me then, really looked, and whatever he saw seemed to ease something in his shoulders. “I’m glad,” he said quietly. “Because they’re not going anywhere. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Good,” I said, surprising myself with how much I meant it. “Neither am I.”
23
GIDEON
Iled Hazel upstairs, her hand small and warm in mine, her steps slower than they'd been an hour ago. The adrenaline that had carried her through breakfast and the porch repair and meeting my brothers was finally draining away, leaving exhaustion in its wake.
She needed rest. Real rest, not the fitful half-sleep she'd managed last night while I stayed awake counting her breaths and cataloging every sound the house made.
Our room—I was starting to think of it—was quiet, afternoon light slanting through the salt-streaked windows in bands of gold. The bed looked inviting in a way that made my own exhaustion press against the back of my eyes. But I wasn't the one who'd fainted last night. Wasn't the one whose father had crawled out of prison to haunt me.
"Come on," I said, guiding her toward the bed. "Lie down. I'll be right downstairs if you need me."
She stopped, tugging on my hand. "Stay."
"Hazel—"
"Please." Her green eyes found mine, and I saw something in them that wasn't just exhaustion. Heat. Need. A hunger that had nothing to do with food and everything to do with reclaiming something that had been stolen from her long before last night.
I frowned. "You need to rest."
"I know." She stepped closer, close enough that I could smell the lavender from her bath this morning, the faint vanilla of Maude's cooking clinging to her skin. Close enough that her breath ghosted across my throat and made my pulse kick. "But right now, I need something else more."
Understanding hit me a beat later than it should have. "Babe?—"
"Don't 'babe' me." Her hands came up to my chest, fingers spreading over my heart. I could feel my pulse hammering against her palm, giving me away. "I'm not fragile, Gideon. I'm tired and scared and angry, but I'm not broken."
"I never said?—"
"You're thinking it." She tilted her head back to look at me, chin lifted in that stubborn way I was learning meant she'd already made up her mind. "You're thinking I should rest. That I've been through too much. That I need to be handled carefully."
She wasn't wrong.
"Maybe you do," I said quietly.
"Maybe." Her hands slid up to my shoulders, fingers curling into the fabric of my shirt with enough force that I felt the bite of her nails through the cotton. "But maybe what I need is to feel something other than fear. Maybe I need to remember that my body can do more than shake and faint and have nightmares."
Christ.
The words hit me like a physical thing—not a plea, but a challenge. A line drawn in the sand between the woman she'dbeen forced to be last night and the woman she was choosing to be right now.
"Hazel—"
