6
EVANGELINE
Evangeline awoke with a start, and for a moment she had no idea where she was. Her right cheek was cold, her left was warm, and her body felt stiff all over.
“Hey,” a deep, masculine voice said softly. “We’re home.”
Home?
Everything came rushing back in a heartbeat—the motorcycle ride, the police, the journey from the city, finding Sam, and meeting Grayson and Leo by flinging herself on the ground.
“Sorry,” she murmured.
“It’s okay,” he replied as he got out of the car. “You’ve had a long day.”
She let out a breath slowly.
He wasn’t wrong. She basically hadn’t stopped moving since the moment she took the Anderson kids to the zoo what felt like a hundred years ago, but was really only this morning.
Her stomach growled and she realized she also hadn’t eaten since the zoo either, when she’d finished little Eloise’s soft pretzel.
Hopefully, Grayson would feed her at some point. She still wasn’t sure how she was going to break it to him that she didn’t have so much as a change of clothes with her.
“You okay?” he asked, opening her door.
“Oh, sure,” she said, sort of stunned all over again that he was so gentlemanly. He’d made her feel like Cinderella when he opened the door for her to get into the SUV back in the village. She thought maybe that was a one-time thing, but it looked like he made a habit of these chivalrous gestures.
He held his big hand out to her this time, and when she placed hers in it, a little shiver of something went through her.
She was so surprised that she ripped her eyes from his and hurried to the back to get Leo out herself.
“Oh,” Grayson said, stepping back. “Okay. Probably good for you to figure out how to do that.”
“Hi,” she said softly as she opened the door.
Leo was sleeping so sweetly, his lower lip puffed out like he had fallen asleep feeling wounded.
She unclipped his straps as gently as she could, and he didn’t even wake up. It was only when she scooped him up in her arms that he stirred, whimpering until she cradled him against her chest.
She held her breath, waiting for him to notice that she wasn’t his daddy.
But he only burrowed his little face into the crook ofher neck and tried to go back to sleep, his little starfish hands clutching her hair.
“Oh,” she sighed in adoration.
“It’s nice to hold him, isn’t it?” Grayson said quietly.
He grabbed the sandwiches from the back of the SUV before she could answer. Evangeline turned to look at the house where she would be staying.
“Wow,” she murmured under her breath.
The house was enormous and everything about it was so pristine that she thought it must be new. The wooden siding was painted a cheerful green with bright white trim that practically glowed in the moonlight, and a single light was glowing on a wide front porch where she could picture huge family gatherings.
She had been nannying in Society Hill, where the house prices were through the roof, and every property looked impossibly elegant. But it was still in the city, where space was at a premium. Grayson’s house was just somassive. And it sat on a lot so big you couldn’t see another house in any direction, at least not from the driveway.
Evangeline had a moment where she considered the fact that since she’d slept for most of the ride, she didn’t even really know where she was. She was basically all alone in the middle of nowhere with a large man she had just met. But she couldn’t bring herself to be worried about it. For some reason, she felt instantly safe around Grayson Ward.
“Come on,” Grayson said gruffly. “Let’s get you settled.”
