Page 31 of Judge’s Redemption

“I choose you, Judge.” I kiss her before she finishes my name. Relief, hunger, and something dangerously close to joy tear through me at once. Shay's arms lock around my neck, and I lift her until her legs wrap around my hips. She laughs against my mouth. The sound wrecks me.

I carry her into the empty hallway and press her against the wall, kissing her until neither of us can breathe and she's tugging at my hair like she intends to make up for every night we lost. Her mouth moves to my jaw, then the place beneath my ear that she remembers too well. Heat punches through me, immediate and familiar.

“We have to collect our daughter,” she whispers against my skin.

Our daughter. The words nearly put me on my knees. “In a minute.”

“Okay, one minute then.”

I use every second, kissing her until her legs tighten around me and the empty house no longer feels like a risk I took alone. It feels like the beginning of something we're choosing together.

“This doesn't mean you can order all the furniture,” she whispers.

“I already bought a bed.”

“Judge.”

“For practical reasons.” Her smile opens fully this time.

I've imagined Shay in a thousand places during the years apart. None looked as right as her standing inside the house I bought for our future, choosing to stay because I finally left the decision with her.

Judge has been teaching our four-year-old the difference between sockets for twenty minutes.

I lean against the open garage door and watch Evie sit cross-legged beside him on the concrete, wearing pink safety glasses that are much too large for her face.

His motorcycle stands above them, black and gleaming beneath the garage lights.

“Three-eighths,” Judge says, holding out his hand.

Evie studies the sockets with the serious frown she inherited from him. She chooses one and places it in his palm.

Judge turns it between his fingers. “Half inch.”

“That's the bigger one.”

“It is.”

She takes it back and searches again. We've lived in the river-road house for twelve days. There are still boxes in every room, the living-room curtains haven't arrived, and Judge keeps discovering things Evie apparently can't survive without. A stool for the bathroom sink. Pink safety glasses because she asked why she couldn't help him work on his bike.

“You know she starts school next year,” I say. “Not an apprenticeship.”

Judge glances over his shoulder. “She wanted to learn.”

“I wanted to learn,” Evie confirms.

“At this rate, she'll be fixing bikes before she can ride one.”

“She won't be riding one.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Ever?”

His mouth shifts at one corner before he turns back to the bike.

He's different here. Not softer exactly. The dangerous man is still present in every alert glance toward the road and every call he takes from Kane. But inside this house, his control no longer feels like something that might close around me.

Evie picks up another socket.

“Daddy, you need the little one.”