I pressed my forehead against his shoulder, the shower mist curling around us like a cocoon. Eric didn’t pull me closer or push for more, he just stood there, letting me lean on him, letting me breathe.
“Finish washing up,” he murmured. “I’ll stay right here until you’re ready.”
For the first time since the ridge, I felt myself breathe all the way in.
I finished quickly, exhaustion pulling at my limbs. When I stepped out, Eric wrapped me in a towel, slow and careful, like I was something precious rather than something broken.
He brushed damp strands of hair from my cheek. “Let’s get you warm.”
We stepped into the hallway and Eric led me to his room, where I had some clothes. I slipped on a pair of flannel pants, and Eric gave me one of his sweatshirts that fit me like a big warm blanket and smelled of him, which was soothing. He then picked up a brush and began brushing my hair. The last time someone took care of me was when Mom was still alive. The feeling broke something open inside me. This thing with Eric was real and thriving. As much as I tried to not have him involved, it was impossible because he is a part of my marrow. He always has been.
“Let’s head downstairs and I’ll make you some tea,” Eric said. “I think I saw some lemon tarts on the kitchen counter. Angela must have dropped off the leftovers.”
“How do you always know exactly what I need?” I asked him.
The warmth in his dark eyes were enough to melt my insides. “I always have you, Sunshine. Come on. You need sleep.”
I nodded, but as I glanced back to the dark windows, toward the storm still raging outside, the truth pressed cold and certain against my spine—tonight wasn’t an ending. It was only the beginning.And whoever had been on that ridge wasn’t done with me yet.
CHAPTER 49
Eric
Harmony slept for maybe ten minutes. Long enough for her breathing to soften, long enough for her head to curve into my shoulder, but not long enough for her body to trust the safety of the room around us. I felt the moment the nightmares reached her. The way her muscles tensed. The way her breath caught sharp in her throat. The way she jerked awake like she’d been running.
I smoothed her hair back gently. “Hey. You’re okay. I’m right here.”
Her eyes blinked open wide, dazed and glassy from exhaustion. The sweatshirt I gave her hung off one shoulder, her damp hair spreading across the pillow.
Her gaze drifted toward the window. Snow still hammered the glass in rhythmic bursts, the kind of storm that made the entire world outside look erased. She curled closer to me unconsciously, like her body knew what she needed before her mind caught up.
“Sleep if you can,” I murmured, pulling the blanket higher. “You’re safe.”
But she shook her head. “I’m not closing my eyes again.”
Her voice cracked on the last word.
I kissed the top of her head. “Then I’m staying awake with you.”
Downstairs, the soft murmur of Dad and Becket’s voices carried faintly through the floorboards.
Harmony’s fingers curled into my shirt. “They’re working on the information from the relay scrap you found,” I whispered “You want me to check on them?”
She didn’t answer immediately. Then she nodded once, the smallest movement. “I’m coming with you. I don’t want to be alone.”
I slipped my hand into hers and guided her downstairs.
Dad looked up the second we reached the kitchen. “Did we wake you?” he asked.
“No,” Harmony said quietly. “I couldn’t sleep.”
Becket angled a chair for her before she even reached the table. She sat slowly, like her limbs still weren’t fully steady.
“What did you find?” I asked.
“You said that the scrap was dated six months pre-arrest and had the name Ravenhill written on it. You said that Ravenhill was your dad’s most cherished enforcer, but he died years ago,” Dad repeated, confirming the information Harmony had given him earlier.
Harmony’s throat bobbed as she nodded. “That was… when things in Montreal were at their worst, when the whole mess went down with Riley Jansen and those thugs he brought to Val-Du-Lys.”
