Interesting.He never would have pegged her for that.Perhaps he didn’t know her as well as he’d thought.Three years of an age gap made a difference growing up.She arrived at middle school when he walked into high school.He and Hayden were seniors when she was a freshman.Then they’d grown up, and she’d had all of his attention.Callum had taken pains to ignore her.
The call ended.Callum lay on the couch and listened to the grandfather clock softly ticking.He didn’t bother to make his bed yet.The night was still young, and his thoughts were all over the place.He tucked the pillow behind his head and tried to envision Dominic’s next move.
Hesitant footsteps padded down the stairs.His skin prickled with a hyperawareness of Grace.
She padded into the living room.“Are you sleeping?”
He eased up as she rounded the far side of the couch.“Hey.No, I just got off a phone call and was thinking the conversation over.”
Her hair was loose over her shoulders, framing her heart-shaped face.In her flannel pajamas and a robe, without her fidget bracelets or protective friend by her side, she looked like the woman he’d known before her ex-husband entered the picture.“Can I sit with you?”
“Sure.”Callum waited until she’d pulled Sherlock into her lap.“Can’t sleep?”
The cat nuzzled against her fluffy robe and purred.Her fingertips smoothed down Sherlock’s neck.“I didn’t try.I have too much on my mind.I was going to read something, but then I couldn’t focus.”
“Glad you came down here.”
Her eyebrows scrunched as if she weren’t sure she should have joined him.
“I’m sorry I had to ask you those questions.”
In the dim light of the living room, finally, she lifted her eyes and locked on his.Hours of fighting for them, and now that he had them, he didn’t know what to do.Words caught in his throat.A lecture, a security plan, anything about her safety should have been easy to discuss, but he didn’t want that, and she didn’t need it.
The silent house hummed around them.His pulse sped up, and swallowing, he liked the little beat of excitement that came from sitting next to her.This wasn’t the right time to notice her the way he was, but the right time had never come along.Every time it had, he had shoved it away, and look where that got them.
The corners of her lips upturned, almost as if she had an inkling of his thoughts.Grace tipped her chin down.“Are you tired?Do you want to be left alone?”
He would say anything to keep her on the couch with him.“My sleep schedule has been wrecked.On a job.Off.Travel, one night’s sleep, and here I am.”He was talking too much.“I don’t need that many hours a night.But when I’m ready, I’ll sleep like the dead.”
Sherlock jumped down.Grace curled her legs under her and leaned against the couch, making herself cozy.She threaded her fingers through her hair, twisted it into a bun, then let it go.Long strands fell loose and framed her face.He wanted to touch her hair.His fingers itched to thread through its silkiness.She remained just out of reach, but it wouldn’t be hard to dip his mouth under the spot hidden by her hair and nuzzle until she arched her neck.
A tightness that he’d tried time and time again to forget squeezed his chest.What might life be like if he had simply settled down and had a person to come home to?What if Grace had been that person?
“Do you remember when you met Dominic?”she asked.
The fog clouding his reasoning immediately lifted at the mention of her ex.He managed, “Mm-hm,” and dragged in a sobering breath.
“You and Hayden were on leave and visiting home that weekend,” she said.“Dad grilled burgers.The sun was baking us alive.”
“Yeah, I remember.”
She closed her eyes and lay her head against the back of the couch.“You and Hayden knew it wouldn’t work out, didn’t you?You knew on that very first day.”
He rolled his bottom lip into his mouth.He and Hayden had thought the situation with Dominic would run its course within a matter of weeks.If not sooner.Not for a minute had either of them believed she’d marry the guy.
Dominic Marino had been as far from the right man for Grace as Callum could have fathomed.He had struggled with keeping his mouth shut more on that day than he had with Grace in his entire life.
“You can say if you knew, Cal.You saw the red flags, didn’t you?”
Red flags weren’t the only thing he saw that day.Callum simply saw red.“I mean…” He gestured broadly, not sure how much help hindsight would be.“He told you which cheeseburger to eat.”
Her forehead furrowed.“You remember that?Major red flag.I was so, so stupid.”Sherlock returned to her lap with a sailing jump and nuzzled against her robe.Grace fluttered her fingers down his arched back.“Do you know what love bombing is?”
“You don’t have to explain yourself.”
“Every single thing he did was a surprise.Not just a surprise.Like, asurprise.”She used her hands to mimic explosions.“The extravagance of it all.City hopping.Dining out.Jewelry.Fancy private jets.And it wasn’t even the money or the flaunting of everything that had my attention.God, that makes me sound so superficial, but the relationship was just a nonstop onslaught of attention.I was drowning in dopamine.I couldn’t breathe.I couldn’t think.I couldn’t do anything except hang on.”
Callum didn’t know what to say.
