I’d kissed her.
That fact sat in my head like a live round. I’d said what I meant, and I meant what I’d said, and still my body kept replaying the moment like it was trying to learn it by repetition. The shape of her mouth under mine. The way she’d grabbed my shirt and pulled me in like she’d been starving.
I’d spent years getting good at control. Good at putting a lid on whatever wanted to spill out. That kiss had cracked something. Now it was like the damn thing was looking for the seam again.
Madden shifted, making a tiny sound in the back of her throat. Her hand tightened once on my stomach, then relaxed.
My instinct was to pull her closer. Keep her there. Keep her safe. The other instinct was to get up and make sure every door in this house was locked.
I chose the second one because I could do it quietly.
I slid out from under her arm with careful patience, moving an inch at a time like I was disarming a bomb. The bed gave a soft creak. Madden didn’t wake. She rolled onto her side, tucking her hand under her cheek, and for a second she looked like she’d never had to be strong a day in her life.
Something sharp twisted low in my gut as I stood there, shirtless in borrowed pajama bottoms.
Someone had tried to burn her alive.
Fury burned through me so hot, it was almost calm. Maybe I couldn’t fight all of Madden’s demons, but I was going to find the son of a bitch who’d done this and make sure he never got the chance to terrify her again.
I pulled on one of Hoyt’s borrowed T-shirts and stepped out into the hall. The house was quiet in that way a house only got when kids were asleep or gone. Given the angle of the light, I was banking on the latter because Logan usually hit the ground running by six AM and let everyone know it.
Caroline sat at the kitchen table, hair pulled into a messy knot, a steaming mug beside her as she scribbled something on a notepad. A grocery list or schedule or some other sign of normal domesticity.
She looked up the second my foot hit the tile, eyes sweeping over me in a single pass in that assessing gaze she’d learned years ago, when I’d started taking on our father to keep him from going after her or Gabi. Those eyes asked, How bad is it?
What she actually said was, “There’s coffee.”
With a grunt, I crossed to the pot and filled one of the waiting earthenware mugs Ford’s Mimi had made. Then, I joined my sister at the table.
“Where are the little monsters?”
“Ibby took them so I’d be free to help with whatever.”
“Nice of her.”
“She’ll want a family dinner soon, if you’re going to be around long enough.”
Caroline’s mother-in-law had essentially adopted all three of us when Caroline married Hoyt. Not that Gabi and I had been around much for her to mother. But I heard the implied question beneath my sister’s statement. The statute of limitations on keeping my own counsel about my departure from the Navy had run out.
“I’ll be around. I’m not sure what’s next, but I’m no longer in the Navy.”
I waited for the third degree. For the gasp and outrage.
But Caroline only nodded. “Good. Maybe choose something safer as a next profession.” Then she winced. “Although given you just hurled yourself onto a burning boat last night, perhaps I should save my breath.”
“I don’t plan to make a habit of it.”
She sipped her coffee. “What about Madden? Do you plan to make a habit of her?”
“We’re still figuring that out.”
I braced for the judgment. For the reminder of how Madden had once behaved toward me.
But again, Caroline surprised me by only nodding. “She’s got scars. I think a lot more of the kind that don’t show.”
It was a more astute observation than I’d expected her to have made this quickly.
When I said nothing, she sipped more coffee. “Gabi said y’all had your tongues down each other’s throats at the clinic last night.”
