“Don’t look at me. I hitched a lift with Inspector Clouseau in there.”
Caylon shrugs. “I’ll give you a ride. Just tell me where.”
Zach bristles, but I ignore his posturing and hand Caylon the two weapons. “Could you also get rid of these, since you’re the self-appointed head of gun disposal?”
“Sure.” He tucks them out of sight and gestures towards his vehicle. “This is me.”
For a moment, I think Zach will protest again, but Caylon puts his hands on his hips. “Look, my boss told me to check that you’d got rid of it, so I did. If you want to argue with anyone, argue with Stefan.” He turns to me. “And I told you there was more to that PI than met the eye.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Trent says, walking past and giving him a smack on the chest. “You’re the king of hindsight. Well done. You can drop me back at the club.”
I head for the car, but Zach restrains me, tipping my head back until I’m staring straight up at him. “You’re amazing, you know that?”
“Sure. It’s always been my best-kept secret.”
He takes my hands and places them on his shoulders before leaning down to claim my mouth, soft at first, then savage. “I love you,” he whispers when he comes up for air.
And it’s ridiculous. A foolish thing to say.
Dafter still to say it back to this boy who I hardly know. Yet the words escape me in a whisper, spoken against the delicious curve of his neck. And perhaps they’re true, perhaps they’re not, but it feels right to let them out instead of holding my breath to see what happens.
Then Caylon is nagging us with the equation of frosty nights to his patience levels, and I pull away, a bubble of joy lodged in my chest, and bundle into the car to go home.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-SIX
ZACH
Nine months later.
I lean against my car, glowering as a trio of tween boys walk too close for comfort. Lilac is inside the school, called to the principal’s office for the third time since becoming Sierra’s guardian. The trend would worry us if her school attendance record hadn’t shown she was already well-versed in ditching class.
“Just try me, kid,” I growl as a boy touches a finger to the gleaming boot. He glances towards me, then does a double take while his mouth gapes open in fear. “Hey, Steven. Back for another round, are you?”
The boy stands stock-still for a moment, then breaks into a shambling run, wheeling his bike beside him. I watch him go past with a grin—doesn’t he realise he’d be faster if he took the split-second required to mount the cycle?
The grin fades the moment he’s out of range. The last thing I need is to be put on a watch-list at the school.
Not that I really expect him to do anything. It came as a massive relief to find that Sierra was the one who triggered the behavioural review rather than it stemming from my foolish actions.
Oranga Tamariki has since rescinded its claws, possibly because of the still-pending charges against Bradley Maxwell. It hardly makes them look competent to have placed a vulnerable girl with a paedophile for the past six years.
Sorry.
Allegedpaedophile.
Although I’d offered to untangle Bradley from the pending charges, my beloved’s claws were still out for blood. She’d insisted changing anything would just endanger our position, and I’m in no more hurry to lose custody of Sierra than she is. The girl took all of three seconds to grow on me.
She grew on all of us, in fact. Just last week, I caught my father with his tie loose, shirtsleeves rolled up, sitting on a couch in the den and yelling at the oversized screen as she firmly kicked his arse at a shoot-em-up game.
The last time Lilac mentioned moving into their own place, his puppy-dog eyes convinced her to stay.
I guess it feels like a second chance. Given the way he stuffed up with me, it must seem like someone in charge handed him a mulligan.
The parade of young blondes through the household has stopped. The last time he went on a date, it was with an age-appropriate brunette who heads up the corporate division of a rival law firm.
A proper grown-up woman with her own financial backing, who would never have to put up with his shit. Wonders will never cease.
Sierra comes out of the school office block first, waving to me across the playground. I raise my hand back to her, laughing as she breaks into a run. With her mousy curls and wide smile, she often looks like a mini-me version of Lilac. Other times, her brow will fill with thunder and her mouth with filth and…
