Why was that?
Maybe shock.
Eli pulled the seatbelt over her. “Everything will be okay, baby. We’re here to take care of you.”
Arabella nodded. Right at this moment she didn’t have the energy to worry about whether she could trust them. If they’d one day just walk away.
Or how they would react when they learned the full truth about her life.
Because she knew she had to tell them and Jake everything about why she was here.
Since it seemed like Lee had found her. And he wasn’t happy about the way she’d left.
How was she going to protect herself?
And what about Horse?
She gasped. “Horse.” That’s what that noise was!
“He’s all right,” Eli told her. “He’s in my car. I’ll take him with me to the hotel.”
“Go get him,” Kellan said.
“You sure, man? He might shed fur in your car,” Eli pointed out.
“So what?”
She glanced over at Kellan, then around his car which was immaculate.
Kellan stared back at her.
But she honestly didn’t care. If he said it was okay, then she was taking him at his word.
Kellan grunted and nodded with satisfaction as though he’d just won some sort of argument.
Men.
Eli opened the back door and Horse bounded in, dirty paws and all. He stood between the two front seats and licked her face.
“Ew, Horse!” she let out a surprised giggle. “I’m all right. Yes, yes, I love you too. I do. I’m good, boy.”
Kellan listenedto her giggles and the tension inside him eased.
He’d been wound so tight since she’d collapsed this morning that he was worried he might snap at any moment.
You are not your father. You don’t have his temper.
Sometimes it felt like he did, though. As though he was riding the edge of a cliff about to plunge into the ocean.
Deep breath in.
And out.
He could be particular about his things, which is why Eli hesitated to put Horse into his car. A therapist would really havea field day with him. But he thought it was due to the chaos of his childhood. He’d seen similar tendencies in some of his brothers.
Not Eli.
He was messy. The only reason his car wasn’t a disaster was because Kellan had been keeping it clean for him.
