Chapter 27

27

They had come up with a rotating system. Greer was going to stay at the hospital for the night with Hala, in case the Hanans needed something. Giavonna was going to relieve her in the morning for three or four hours. Before Hudson came fully out of the anesthesia and ordered Giavonna back to her demon coven or something—it really was tense between the two of them in a way Genny didn’t fully understand.

But Giavonna wasn’t really doing it for Hudson, Genny suspected. But for Hala and sweet little Ryan. Giavonna was always a sucker for a child in need in any way. Her sister wouldn’t admit it, but Giavonna was made to be a mother of at least a dozen kids of her own.

Aubrey and her sister left. Ayla had offered to come sit with the Hanans the next afternoon, along with Chantal.

They were all pulling together to help the little family.

She had good friends. And she adored them, every single one.

But now—she had a big problem.

George’s former bedroom was right next to her own. Chad was going to be in there all night. Right next door.

She drove—with Chad and Giavonna. Giavonna had ridden to the hospital with Greer—they’d been together when Hala had called. Greer was apparently helping Giavonna pack.

Her older sister was moving home. At least for a while. No one was entirely certain why. Genny sensed a mystery. When she got a chance, she was going to solve it. It might take an interrogation, but Genny would eventually get Giavonna Annalise Hiller to spill her beans.

For now, Greer and Giavonna lived in the same apartment complex in Barrattville, and Hala had moved into a small one-bedroom the floor above last week.

But tonight Genny got custody of her older sister.

And well…Giavonna was the buffer between her and Chad that Genny needed right now. She’d wanted her mother, but Guthrie had stolen that buffer before Genny could lure her mother to her smaller car.

Tonight had driven home how fleeting life could be.

Chad fell asleep in the back seat. He had been on the clock since five or six that morning, she thought. Just to have a friend injured. No wonder he was so tired. It had her feeling a little overprotective and gooey toward him at the moment.

She shook him awake after she parked and climbed out. And maybe stood there in the open rear door staring at the man for a moment first. “Come on, big guy. Bed for you.”

“Only if it’s your bed,” he said, but he pulled himself out of her small backseat. He rubbed one hand over his face. “I’m exhausted. Why did I sign up for this gig?”

Because he loved helping children. He always had. She had seen him be so gentle with his tiny patients, and the way he had held his niece and nephew at the barbecue at his parents’ place had just melted her. In a way she hadn’t quite yet defined. “Come on. Inside. I can grab you something of Gene’s to sleep in. He’s left his laundry in the laundry room again.”

“I’d appreciate it. I normally sleep naked, but naked and being that close to you…a recipe for things I don’t think you want to do with a minister sleeping in the room next door.”

That was the truth.

Giavonna had heard everything he said. She was watching him and Genny with speculation on her face.

Best get Chad tucked in before he said or did something to reveal everything to her family. She wouldn’t think about…tucking him in and revealing anything else to him right now. “Go, Chad-wicked. Right now.”

Chad was chuckling in that annoyingly masculine way some men had that was just designed to melt a woman to her skivvies.

Giavonna followed Genny to her room fifteen minutes later and closed the door. She stared at Genny for a long moment. “Okay. Spill. Just what exactly is going on between you and the seriously gorgeous, sexy Dr. Chad Fields?”

Genny’s cheeks caught fire. “I…am not entirely sure, but I think the man is on the hunt. No; I know he’s on the hunt. And I’m the number one rabbit he’s after.”

“And are you going to let him catch you?”

That was the one thing she had been emphatically against. Mostly. But the idea of letting him catch her, at least just for a little while, sounded like it was exactly what she wanted. And that was just insane . “I am not exactly certain what I should do here…”

“I’d sneak in there and jump his bones, myself. Life is too fleeting to waste time with regrets.”

Giavonna always had been the smartest one of the Hiller sisters. No denying that. But as Genny lay in her bed long in the night, she just couldn’t decide what she should do next.

Chad could be so dangerous to her sanity. She had been seriously hurt by a man just like him before. She didn’t know if she could go through that pain again.

She didn’t have a clue what to do about him at all.