Eve didn’t need more than that. She grabbed her bag, let Winnie out into the hallway first and paused as Darius reached around her to turn off the office light. Then she followed him without hesitation out into the cold midday air.
It wasn’t until they were sitting in Darius’s truck that Eve spoke again.
“What if I really did put a larger target on myself?” she asked. “Are you sure that it wouldn’t be safer for everyone if I stayed at the department?”
Darius snorted as he put the truck in gear.
“We’ll never know, so there’s no point in wondering.”
Eve gave him another questioning look.
“What do you mean, we’ll never know? I could stay and we could—”
Darius was quick this time. He cut her off before she had a chance to continue.
“We’ll never know because leaving you isn’t an option.” Those dark eyes were back on her. She could see herself reflected in him as he leaned in close.
“Just so we’re clear. From now until the end, I’m going to be by your side, Evelyn Myers. So I suggest you get used to it.”
Chapter Nineteen
“You bought my house.”
Eve was standing in the middle of the living room, bag already dropped on the floor next to her.
Darius, having finished checking all the rooms to make sure they were clear again, scooped the bag back up. He nodded.
“The man who was using it as a rental retired and went to Florida. He sold it to me at a good price, and I’ve been working here and there on it when I have the time ever since.”
Eve’s eyes and mouth were both wide.
Darius left her to her surprise and backtracked to the first room on the left.
He heard her footfalls hurrying behind him but didn’t stop until he was inside the bedroom and in front of its closet. He unzipped her duffel bag before reaching for some hangers that were plastic-wrapped in the corner.
His shoulder pulled a little at the movement, but he was more interested in the woman currently standing behind him.
Darius had never once felt weird about buying the house next door. In fact, it had seemed a must for him the second he had seen the For Sale sign. However, he also hadn’t expected the girl who used to live in it to come back and find out.
At least, not the way she had.
Now he tried to look at her reaction while busying his hands with her clothes.
“You bought my house and…you kept my room.” She pointed to the old bed frame and then the nightstand between it and thewall. “That’s mine. I mean, itwasmine. Dad built it for me, but we didn’t have the room to take it in the move. We put it by the side of the road, right?”
Eve had never been a particularly sentimental girl when it came to material things, but on that day right before they moved, Darius had seen her cry. When she had gone to the store with her dad later that afternoon, Darius had hurried to grab the piece of furniture before squirreling it away in their shed. Kid Darius didn’t know what he would do with it, but he knew he didn’t like seeing her cry over it.
“The previous owner kept the frame, and I kept the nightstand.” Darius shrugged. “Refurbishing them saved me money in the long run. You can’t argue with saving money, right?”
Eve’s footsteps were moving farther away. Darius took a folded shirt from her bag and placed it on the first hanger. He glanced over his shoulder at her as he hung it up.
She had her hand placed on the nightstand’s top.
“You kept this to save money but bought my house? Sounds like you lost money to me.”
Darius found the second folded shirt. It was blue and worn. A T-shirt with a logo that had long since faded. He could smell the fabric softener on it.
It was nice.
