Page 34 of Jay Bird

Her eyebrows lifted. “You would let me move your furniture?”

“You’ve been judging it since you walked in.”

A surprised laugh escaped her. “I have not.”

He quirked one of his eyebrows at her.

“Fine. Maybe a little.”

He nodded toward the window. “Feel free to plant flowers if that’s what you want. I know you’ve been thinking about it since we pulled up.”

Her mouth fell open. “How did you know that?”

“You stared at my yard like it personally offended you.”

Willow laughed.

Jay Bird glanced at Lily. “Get some rest. I’m going to make a call. I’ll be in the living room afterward.”

“Okay.”

He stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind him.

The room fell quiet again, and Lily, already half-asleep, let her head sink back onto Willow’s shoulder.

Willow stood there for several seconds, her eyes fixed on the lock as if it were something unfamiliar. When she finally reached for it, her hand trembled—not entirely from fear, though that was part of it, but from something deeper and harder to name.

She turned the lock, and it clicked softly, such a small, almost fragile sound in the quiet of the room.

Willow closed her eyes, leaned her forehead against the door, and held Lily a little tighter as tears quietly filled her eyes.

For the first time in three years, she had closed a door and locked it herself. Not to keep herself trapped inside, but to keep the rest of the world out.

An hour later, Jay Bird sat in the corner seat of the sofa with one ankle resting across the opposite knee and the History Channel playing quietly on the television.

Some guy was talking about a World War II aircraft carrier.

Normally, Jay Bird would’ve been interested. Military history was one of the few things he could watch for hours without getting bored, particularly when the narrator actually knew what the hell he was talking about.

Tonight, he couldn’t have repeated a single thing the guy had said, because his attention kept slipping away from the television and drifting instead toward the hallway on the opposite side of the house, more specifically to the closed bedroom door at the very end of it.

Having Willow and Lily inside his house still felt strange enough that every few minutes his brain circled back to it as if it needed confirmation.

Jay Bird had lived in the house alone for four years, and he had preferred it that way. The house was quiet when he came home, exactly the way he had left it when he walked out the door. Nobody asked where he had been, when he would be back, or whether he had remembered to pick up milk on the way home. There were no expectations waiting for him on the other side of the door.

He had built his life that way, intentionally and carefully shaping it into something quiet and controlled. After—. No. Jay Bird cut the thought off before it could even form, shutting it down hard. He wasn’t going down that road tonight, or any night if he could help it.

He shifted on the sofa and stared at the television without really seeing it.

Derek had called a little while ago. His commander had started the conversation by asking how Willow and Lily were doing, but it hadn’t taken long before he had gotten to the question Jay Bird knew was coming.

You sure about this?

Jay Bird had rolled his eyes even though Derek couldn’t see him and answered him honestly. He was good with the arrangement.

There had been a pause. Derek knew him too damn well, and unfortunately, he knew enough about Jay Bird’s past to understand why inviting a woman and her child to live under his roof wasn’t exactly a small thing.

But strangely, he was fine with it. Actually, he was more than fine, and that is what he should have been concerned about.