“I would offer to let you come back with us,” Alicia studied Grace, “if that’s okay with you?We’re still trusting him?”
“That’s fine.We still trust him.”
“Fine.You’re still in the tightly held circle of trust.”Alicia was laser-focused on Callum.“But I’m not letting you within a hundred miles of my place if Dominic’s goon squad could follow or find you.”
Callum pulled out his phone and rattled off the nearby address where Dean had tagged.“That you?”
“Well, fuck me,” Alicia muttered.“I have pets that will eat you alive if you pull anything.”
He almost smiled.Even if she didn’t like him, Alicia had won him over.
Chapter Six
Gracecouldfeeleverybeat of her heart the entire time Alicia drove toward home.Her friend peppered her with questions she didn’t want to think about.
“Every time you shrug instead of answer,” Alicia pulled onto her quiet street, “I’m inventing answers.It would be easier if you just spoke up.”
“I don’t have any answers.”
“That would be a lot easier to believe if that man wasn’t a sexy six-foot-something built like a mountain.”
Her heartbeat thumped, thumped, thumped its agreement.
Alicia did a doubletake and cackled.“Some answers you don’t have to say out loud, and that face, Grace, was an answer as loud and clear as you’ve ever given.”
“Not true.”
She laughed again and pulled into her driveway.Her beautiful home had been a refuge over the years.Now Grace ran to it for different reasons the second Alicia came to a stop.
“Running inside won’t make him less—”
Grace shut the door before she heard the rest of what Alicia said, but her mind filled in the blank with “good-looking.”Actually, now she was lying to herself.Calling him good-looking was like calling a hot fudge sundae with all the toppings a little treat.He’d always been the hero she’d imagined, and there he was.Good-looking to another level, even after she’d maced him.
And, God, she felt like a horrible person for noticing him like that when he had just learned she lied and was alive.
Grace didn’t know what to do inside Alicia’s house.She wanted to hide until she had total control over her reaction to him.A totally justifiable reaction.He’d ripped his shirt off after she’d maced him, and holy mother of muscles, Callum Hale was ripped.
Not in a ’roided up, scary way, but in that way a man could send shivers straight to a woman’s nether regions simply by walking into a room.She hated how he had always done that to her.She hated even more that he’d never noticed that she thought he walked on water.
The biggest problem with Callum and his good looks and protective bossiness was that she had temporarily forgotten about Dominic.Her ex was always at the back of her mind, but she’d been living like this for years.
She hadn’t seen Callum for just as long.The man could still block everything else from her mind.
Alicia followed Grace inside, laughing as though she could read her mind.“You can’t run from a man like that.”
“Just giving myself space.”She kicked off her shoes and tucked herself into an accent chair, wishing to God she could shut herself in a freezer.“And obviously, I’m not running.I said he could come here.”
Alicia hummed and pushed her glasses up her nose.“Uh-huh.Sure.”
“Don’t look at me like that.”Grace wrapped her arms around her shins, glad to be in Alicia’s charming house that was as sweet and comforting as a homemade pie.She hugged herself tighter and waited for the invisible security blanket that was this living room to cloak her from the world.
Alicia dismissed that with a “we’ll see” look.“I’ll make tea.”
Late afternoon light flooded through the gauzy, draped windows.The living room’s cottagecore décor soothed Grace’s soul with its wallpaper that could have been in a dollhouse.Houseplants sat in every nook and cranny where books didn’t take up residence.
There were so many books, and they always shifted and changed, as Alicia picked up and read whatever was within arm’s reach.From the moment Alicia had opened her home, it was one of the safest places Grace recalled being in.
And now Callum was knocking on the door.The dogs barked, and he let himself in before Alicia reached the door.
