I felt them before I heard them. Embry had borrowed Cam’s car, but it was the tingling at the back of my neck that alerted me to their presence. Then footsteps that turned to a run as my daughter pelted towards me. “Chapi!”
It was pure joy. The moment I’d been waiting for her whole fucking life, when I could give her something that made her happy and that was it. End of story.
Joe passed Embry his pretty baby girl and bent to fit the helmet to Liliana’s head and help her stamp into the boots.
They fit.
Joe grinned. “All right. Papá says you’re a good rider, but I’m going to stay with you anyway, okay? In case he’s a bit lairy from the journey.”
Liliana bounced on her feet. “He won’t throw me.”
The thought made me fucking nauseous. But I trusted this horse. Felt like he’d had my back for years.
And now he was ours forever.
* * *
Hourslater, we left Chapi with Joe.
Liliana was off-her-nut happy. She sat in the back seat of Cam’s SUV, tugging on Embry’s sleeve, talking his ear off while I focused on the road, too choked to say much.
Twenty minutes into our journey, Liliana dozed off.
Embry found my hand over the automatic console. “What is it?”
He always knew when I was in my head, and these days, I had nothing to hide. “I never drove her anywhere before.”
“Never?”
“Nope. I ain’t got a car and there’s usually someone else around to drive while she draws shit on my face.”
Embry drew a breath. “I drove her earlier and I never thought anything of it.”
“Why would you? It’s a weird fucking thing.”
“Are you going to get a car?”
“You think I should?”
Embry dumped his feet on the dashboard. “I think you’re having a hard time cracking that nest egg you nurtured all these years. You spent so long knowing it was your only chance to save them that the thought of depleting it gives you a rash.”
“How do you do that?”
“What?”
“Explain my own thoughts to me better than I can.”
He shrugged. “Loving you isn’t that complicated.”
I shot him a heated stare, but our exchange was interrupted by the roar of bikes. Cam, Saint, Alexei. They flanked the car, guarding us for no other reason than they wanted to, guiding us home.
Loving them wasn’t that complicated either.
Back at the compound, I delivered Liliana to her mum. They were still living in Cam’s suite.“We like it here,” Juana said every time Rubi offered her his house. Every time Cam offered her his.“It’s nice to be around people who aren’t plotting to kill us.”
She’d found a friend in Orla too. They were together when I carried Liliana upstairs and made short work of kicking me out again.
“Girls’ night in.” Orla pushed my chest. “Go get laid.”
