Kayne closed the door.“I’ll get new locks installed, but you aren’t sleeping here again till I say it’s safe.”
She wanted to argue and pretend she wasn’t shaken.But the truth was, a small, bruised little part of her melted at his protectiveness, even as dread gnawed at her.
“I’m moving soon anyway,” she said
“Oh?”He glanced over.“Where?”
The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.“That is yet to be decided.”
The drive to the safe house took ten long, quiet minutes.Kayne checked the mirrors while Chloe fought the tight sting building behind her eyes.
When he turned down a tree-lined drive, a tall iron gate appeared, sleek and solid with a keypad glowing beside it.Kayne punched in a code, and it beeped in a comforting, high-tech way.The gate slid open, and the world became suddenly calmer.Danger would have to work really hard to access the place.
Kayne reached across the console and wrapped his hand around hers.
“Breathe, Chloe.You’re safe now.”
She did.Finally.
But she didn’t let go of his hand, not even when the gate slicked closed behind them and locked the rest of the world out.
#
Kayne watched the heavyiron slide shut with a finality he appreciated.Good.One less thing that could get to her tonight.The safe house sat tucked beneath old trees, private, quiet, and armed to the teeth thanks to BeBe’s paranoid brilliance.Still, his pulse refused to fully settle.
Chloe was shaken.
She tried to hide it, chin lifted, bracing for impact, but he’d felt the tremor in her hand the entire drive over.Felt the way she filled silence with corny jokes or went eerily still the moment the gate clanged shut behind them.
The stillness bothered him more.
He wanted to hunt down whoever had broken into her apartment and return the favor.What kind of psychopath thought destroying a plant counted as intimidation?A plant.Of all the twisted, sadistic options available, they’d gone with horticultural terrorism.
Inside, Chloe wandered the living room as if she were conducting a personal safety inspection she absolutely had not trained for.Kayne tracked her movements, noting the way her fingers brushed her bottom lip before she dropped her hand too fast.He wondered if she thought that if she didn’t acknowledge the fear, it might take the hint and leave.If only.
“I’m going to, um, look around,” she said, waving vaguely toward the hallway.“Casually.Like a person who isn’t expecting monsters to jump out and scare the bejesus out of them.”
“Stay where I can see you,” he said gently.
She shot him a look that was half irritation, half pride, half fear, which frankly seemed like too many halves, but she stayed in view.
Good girl.
Kayne forced himself to step into the kitchen before he hovered too hard and made her even more self-conscious.He flipped on the overhead lights, expecting bare shelves and a sad box of crackers.Instead, BeBe had stocked it, planning for an apocalypseanda dinner party.He found his favorite Cajun spices, two kinds of rice, eggs, shrimp, and vegetables crisp and bright in the bin.
“Damn, woman,” he murmured under his breath.“You think of everythin’, don’t you?”
BeBe Hale was confined to a wheelchair after a bicycle accident, and she was literally and figuratively Hell on Wheels, the patron saint of preparedness.He’d thank her later, possibly with baked goods.Or maybe a snow globe of the Gateway Arch for her extensive collection.
His stomach growled, reminding him he hadn’t eaten since morning.Chloe probably hadn’t either, not anything substantial.She ran on protein, optimism, and spite when necessary.
He glanced toward the living room.She’d folded herself into the corner of the couch, knees tucked up and clutching a throw pillow as if it had sworn an oath to protect her.She’d turned the television to a rerun of a once-popular comedy show.
She wasn’t crying.He’d discovered that Chloe rarely cried, but her eyes were too shiny, too alert.She didn’t need space.She needed comfort.And possibly carbs.
Kayne turned back to the kitchen and rolled up his sleeves.Cooking he could do.It was proof the world hadn’t fully gone off the rails yet.
He found a heavy and perfectly seasoned cast-iron skillet and set it on the burner.Oil.Celery.Onion.Bell pepper.When the holy trinity hit the heat, the kitchen filled with the smell of Louisiana—his mawmaw’s house, late evenings, warmth, order.Normalcy.
