He walked closer to a bookshelf next to the fireplace and checked out the only photo there amid the paperbacks. It was framed in silver and slightly tilted. An older couple stood in the background of a sunlit yard, smiling. The woman wore a wide-brimmed hat. The man had suspenders and weathered hands. In front of them stood a little girl with dark braids and a grin too big for her face.
The girl looked like Delaney.
He didn’t know much about her family. And Eli, who usually kept his questions to himself,suddenly wanted to ask.
The sound of the water shut off. A few minutes later, Delaney stepped into the room, damp hair pulled back, wearing clean clothes and a slightly guarded expression.
She paused when she saw where he was standing. “You’re looking at the picture,” she said, not accusatory, just matter-of-fact.
He glanced over at her. “Yeah. Your grandparents?”
She nodded. “They raised me after my mom died. She was a cop. Killed while on the job.”
Eli didn’t move. “I’m sorry.”
Delaney gave a small shrug, like she’d worn the weight of that loss for so long it no longer surprised her. “My dad couldn’t handle it. He faded out over the next year, and by the time I turned eight, he was gone for good. Grandma and Grandpa did the best they could.”
Eli looked back at the photo. The pride on their faces said they’d loved that little girl with everything they had.
“Your mom’s the reason you went into law enforcement?” he asked, going with one of those questions he usually wouldn’t have asked.
“Yeah,” Delaney said, walking to the kitchen counter and grabbing a bottle of juice from the fridge. She lifted it, silently offering him one, but he shook his head. “That and the fact that her murder was never solved. I thought maybe if I joined the Bureau, got into profiling, I’d figure itout. Crack the case no one else could.”
“Did you?” Another of those blasted questions.
She shook her head and set the unopened bottle of juice aside. “Not yet.”
Eli nodded once. He understood that kind of drive. The kind that started in grief and kept growing. And that’s why he went with a snapshot of his own childhood.
“My brother drowned when we were kids,” he said. “I was eleven. He was eight. We were at a lake. I couldn’t get to him in time.”
Delaney looked at him then. Really looked.
“I think that’s why I ended up in combat rescue in the military and then in private security,” he added. “Trying to save everyone I couldn’t save that day.”
She didn’t speak, but her eyes softened in a way that made something shift in his chest.
“Baggage can be a pisser,” he said with a dry smile.
She tried for a smile, but it faltered. Then she let out a soft groan and pressed a hand to her forehead. The strain of the blast, the search, and everything with Ava was starting to catch up with her. Eli saw it in the sag of her shoulders and the way she suddenly looked ten pounds heavier with worry.
He crossed to her, instinct already moving his feet.
At first, he reached out and stopped himself,his hand hovering just inches from her arm. This wasn’t protocol. Not exactly appropriate.
Then he said to hell with it and pulled her into his arms.
She stiffened for a second, then melted against him with a breath that sounded more like surrender than relief.
“I know this probably crosses a line,” he murmured.
“Yeah,” she said softly into his shoulder. “But I’m not stopping you.”
“Good,” he said, holding her tighter.
Because truth was, he needed this too. The weight of the day had sunk into his chest like lead, and feeling her there, warm and real and breathing, helped shove some of it back. Even if just for a minute.
Delaney’s body fit against his a little too well. He hadn’t meant for it to feel like this. Just comfort. Just grounding.
