They were a handful.
Precious and wild and probably the most terrifying things I’d ever encountered. The way they threatened to make somethingbrittle inside me crack. Rattling my bones and nudging at my spirit.
Daisy’s flesh and blood.
Her life, so obviously.
Yeah. I knew she was married and had three kids.
Of course, I did.
I was a hacker, for fuck’s sake. My entire existence was digging into people’s lives.
But I’d done my best to stay out of hers. Let her live in whatever peace and joy she could find after I’d nearly snuffed out every chance of it, even though she didn’t have the first clue what I’d really done.
I could feel her joy now, but it was also blatantly clear there was no peace.
I hadn’t sifted through every aspect and element of her life the way I normally would when I was investigating someone. I wanted to respect her privacy since I had no right to intrude on her life.
Now, I regretted it.
“Even though summer’s hit, the nights still get chilly.” I mumbled it to fill the suffocating silence as I adjusted the logs then covered the hearth, needing to fill the tension that strained between us while she stood there staring at my back.
Could feel those eyes the way I’d always been able to do. This girl who’d always had the power to see right through me.
She let go of a light chuckle, and her words were quiet as she slipped deeper into the room, her feet barely making a sound on the wooden floors. “Oh, I know. I just spent the last two nights sleeping out in it, remember?”
She said it easy and light. Like she hadn’t been trespassing and camping out on my land for two days without my knowledge.
Unease rolled through my senses. How the fuck had I let that happen?
Clearly, I was getting complacent.
I rose to my feet and slowly shifted around. My insides tightened at the sight of her.
Cinnamon hair twisted in a messy knot at the back of her head. Wearing baggy sweats and a fitted tee. Slight frame and soft flesh and plump, distracting lips. “You ready to tell me about that?”
The casualness drained from her features, and that undercurrent of uncertainty I couldn’t miss rushed back to the surface.
Daisy swallowed hard and fidgeted with the drawstring of her sweats.
Fuck. That was distracting, too.
“I know I handled this the wrong way. I mean, sneaking onto your property and camping out is kind of pathetic.” She rambled it fast, that awkwardness that had made her adorable peeking through. “But I got here…and God…I saw you in town when I stopped to get the kids something to eat when we first got here. You came out of a flower shop…”
She laughed a bemused sound with a shake of her head like the thought made no sense.
It wouldn’t to her since she didn’t know about Raven and the rest of my crew. The ones who became my family after I destroyed mine.
“I mean, can you picture it? This grumpy giant coming out of a flower shop? And you were so different. So much bigger than I remembered. And you had this…energy about you. Anger, I guess. And I realized that I didn’t really know you anymore. My plan had been to march right up to your door and knock on it, but I lost my nerve.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “And you decided to camp on my land instead?”
She chewed at the inside of her cheek. “Well, it is probably the most gorgeous area I’ve ever seen, and I promised my kids we were going on an adventure, so I figured what better way than to camp out in the woods. Vacation and finding you. It was a win/win.”
A frown slashed into my brow. I wasn’t buying it. “Don’t bullshit me, Daisy.”
She bit down harder on her cheek, and her gaze dropped to the floor before she warily peeked up at me. “It was better than us sleeping in the car the way we did for weeks, and the campground was full. And I…felt closer to you. Safer…just knowing I was in your space.”
