“Good girl. Now just lie there and relax. Okay? Close your eyes. I’m going to tell you a story my mom used to tell me when I was having trouble getting to sleep. It’s called Lullaby Hill. Once there was a boy who couldn’t sleep, and so his mom took him to Lullaby Hill.”
He continued to tell the story in a quiet voice as he placed the blanket around her and rocked her back and forth.
Very soon, she had drifted off to sleep, and he stilled. Shifting her slightly, he managed to get his phone from his back pocket and sent a message to Ink to let him know that she was asleep in the staff room.
Cash stared down at her. He should put her down, distance himself a bit. There was just something about her that tuggedat his Daddy instincts. The more he took care of her, the more settled and in control he felt.
As long as he remembered that she wasn’t his.
15
“How do we know that she’s telling the truth about all this?”
Addie opened her eyes and glanced around, her heart immediately racing.
Where was she? Addie didn’t know this place. How had she fallen asleep here? She rolled to her side and nearly fell off a sofa.
Why was she sleeping on a sofa? That was weird.
Sitting up quickly, she saw that she was alone, but there were voices coming from the other side of the partially opened door.
“What do you mean, telling the truth?” someone asked.
Wait, she knew that voice. That was Cash.
Okay, okay. She knew where she was now. She was at Callahan Security. These people were helping her find her sisters and figure out what happened with the man carrying the body.
“We saw the hotel room and the message,” someone else said.
Ralen.
She knew she probably shouldn’t eavesdrop, but they seemed to be talking about her. They shouldn’t be discussing her behind her back.
“Not that,” Butch said roughly.
“We watched Addie try to contact her sisters. And they were definitely at the bar with her,” Cash added.
“Not that either,” Butch said. “If you’d let me talk.”
“Sorry, we’re just not used to you saying much,” Ralen told him. “To be honest, I didn’t think you communicated except for grunts and glares.”
“Grunts and glares. Old grouch language,” Cash said.
Hmm. She was starting to think that Cash and Ralen didn’t get on with Butch.
Which meant that she didn’t get on with Butch.
Wait. You don’t even know him.
No, but she owed Cash and Ralen so much. And Addie had always been intensely loyal. If she claimed someone, then she stood by them.
Even if they did think she ‘wasn’t quite right.’
She swallowed away the hurt at that memory.
“Old?” Butch snarled. “I’m not that much older than the two of you.”
He wasn’t?
