She gave him her sternest face, even if she didn’t really mean it. “I don’t like being bossed around.”
“I know. And I’ll try not be such a brute about things in the future. But this…I need this.”
She understood beneath the demand was genuine fear for her safety. “Fine. I need it, too,” she admitted on a whisper.
He nearly grinned again.
Lincoln full on smiled and chuckled. “You two are adorable.”
She stuck her tongue out at him, then turned to Hawk. “We’ll have to stop at my place to pick up some of my stuff.”
“No problem. We’ll do it on the way home.”
Home.That sounded so good, she tried to hide the way it warmed her heart and made her dream of a life she’d never let herself even contemplate before Hawk rescued her and changed everything.
Okay, maybe on the days she cleaned his house, she’d pretended that she lived there with him. Imagined that he was hers.
OMG! He was hers now, and he wanted her to be with him at his place.
Was she truly about to get everything she’d ever wanted?
Chapter Six
Hawk pulled into the driveway in front of Lucky’s little cabin. He loved its simple design with the front porch tucked under the extended roof. He imagined walking into a living space with a small kitchen and the bedroom and bathroom at the back. The simple dark wood made it feel like it had sprung up from the forest floor. “How much land do you have here?”
“Just an acre. I wish the cabin was nestled in the trees out back.”
“Is that why you’ve got a couple saplings planted on each side of the cabin?”
“I planted them last year. I can’t wait to see them grow and surround the cabin.”
“It’ll be pretty.” Crushed rock crunched under his boots as he made his way to the porch. The path was outlined in large river rock. The scent of lavender from the bushes outside the path reminded him of his mother’s garden. The miniature pink wild roses growing along the porch added another splash of color.
“Let’s get your stuff, secure your place, and head over to mine. You must be hungry.” They’d left the hospital a couple hours after she’d finished her breakfast and the nurse fitted her with a shoulder brace to keep her arm immobile so her chest could heal.
She grabbed her mail from the box, then met him up at the porch. She didn’t have her keys. Presumably they were in the house with her purse. She grabbed the spare she kept hidden beneath the bench in a metal hide-a-key she’d glued to the underside. She unlocked the door and stepped inside, halting a few steps in as he closed the door.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” It sounded more like a question.
He raised a brow. “You sure?”
“I don’t remember coming home that night.”
“Desiree said you were out of it. Drunk.”
She squished her lips. “That’s just it. I don’t really drink a lot. Never have. I got drunk once and hated the feeling. Ever since, I slow down as soon as I’m feeling tipsy.” Especially after she’d been drugged along with her family and woke up to them…dead. Yeah, no. She didn’t like being even a little incapacitated.
Hawk’s understanding gaze said she didn’t need to spell it out. “Okay. Well, your car is here, so we know someone drove it.” He glanced around the room. “Your purse is on the counter by the stove.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “That’s not right.” She turned to the table by the doorway with a bowl filled with change and keys he assumed belonged to her clients, since they each had a tag with a last name on it, including his. Next to the bowl was a potted plant and a crystal dish filled with Hershey’s Chocolate Nuggets. In the corner was a coat tree with a heavy coat, one lighter one, a sweater, and a couple of purses hanging from it.
He spotted a phone cable dangling over the table, too. “So you normally come in, drop your keys in the bowl, put your phone on the charger, hang up your coat or sweater and your purse.”
“Exactly. So why is my purse all the way over there?”
“If Desiree brought you home, then she’d have just dumped your stuff on the way to taking you to the bedroom or bathroom at the back.” The bathroom door was just past the dining area that was in the middle of the open space between the back rooms and the front living and kitchen space.
