I didn’t let her finish because I knew she planned to argue about the escort.
“Don’t argue. I’ll let you know who will be there when your shift is over when you call me next.”
There went another sigh. She’d done that a lot during our conversation, but I also knew it meant she was caving.
“Fine. Thank you.”
“Now was that so hard?” I teased.
It may not be quite the moment for it but if I didn’t do it, I might have put a hole through the wall instead. And it made her laugh.
“More than you know,” she bantered back.
There were a few seconds of silence as we both seemed to take everything in.
“Lake?”
“Yeah?”
“Be careful if you go on a call, okay?”
I knew she wouldn’t be alone, but I didn’t like it one bit. She seemed to be thinking along the same lines as I was.
“I won’t be alone. Dave is always with me and usually some of the firemen too depending on the situation. Trust me when I say you don’t want to cross some of those men. Huntley is ex-military like you and a badass.”
Hearing the affection and admiration in her tone over the guys had an odd feeling swarming through me. I was pretty sure it was jealousy. Then I recognized the name she threw out, one that I didn’t hear a lot.
“Wait. I think your fireman friend comes intoNo Surrenderto workout, train, and shoot,” I told her. I mean the name, fireman, and ex-military all made sense. “The odds are damn good it is the same guy and if so, he’s a good guy.”
He was in fact a very cool dude and a badass as she called him. Then a thought occurred to me. Was there anything between Lake and Huntley, or any of the guys for that matter? It wasn’t the time to bring it up so I held the questions running through my head at bay.
“Wow, small world. All this time we knew some of the same people but we never ran into each other.” Her voice was strong and full of wonder until her next sentence. “But you could have changed that if you wanted to,” she whispered.
Her sorrow-filled tone shredded my heart.
“Lake—”
“No. Please don’t say anything. I need to get back to work and can’t handle any more right now. I’ll call soon. Thanks for keeping Stormi safe. Bye.”
Before I could say another word, let alone goodbye, she’d hung up.
I ran my hand down my face.
She was scared to trust I wouldn’t leave again.
But Lake was just going to have to give me a second chance to prove I wouldn’t.
Chapter Nine
LAKE
I was not preparedfor the sight I walked in on.
Lyric was my escort home and he’d tailed me all the way to make sure everything was okay. I felt awful having him get up so early to do me a favor when he could have been in bed with his beautiful wife or eating breakfast with his children. He, however, insisted it was Bronson who called in a favor, but it was also what friends do.
I mentioned how close of friends he and Bronson were, but Lyric proceeded to tell me that I was the friend he was talking about. He said friends take care of one another and the group was more like one big happy family.
When he said Stormi and I were part of thatfamily, I couldn’t control the tears that tumbled down my cheeks.
