Chapter 26

26

The sound came when he was just about to get out of bed for the day early the next morning. It was a bit early for him, but Fletcher hadn’t been sleeping all that well lately.

Not since the moment he’d realized he wanted his housekeeper much more than he could breathe.

He’d dreamed about her again. About what he wanted to do to her.

Leaving him turned on and hard as a rock and hungry. For her. Every single night.

He suspected she was starting to catch on now. He’d brush against her, and she’d jump like the proverbial scalded cat. And would look at him, like she was a bit nervous and everything.

He was hunting, and he knew it. He just had his prey right in his house, where she belonged.

It felt right, having her there. He wasn’t a fool. He felt more like he was at home again, instead of just in the house his parents had loved each other in. Charlotte’s words at the dance had sunk in later that night.

He’d finally figured it out.

Dylan made him feel like he was finally home . Like it was a home again and not just the place he slept now.

He and his brothers had long ago packed up all of his father and mother’s things and sold or donated what they could part with. What they couldn’t part with had been kept for future generations. But the chair she’d reupholstered for him had been his father’s chair.

The extralong dining table had been one his uncle had made and given his parents so long ago. But Dylan had refinished it and made it gleam again. She was already pestering him about painting the wooden paneling on half of the walls. Bringing it up to this century, she’d teased him. Make it brighter.

Told him he wouldn’t want to raise his Fletcherlings in a dark cave someday when he caught some unsuspecting townie to be his Tyler bride like Ben had her poor, innocent big sister. He was a Tyler—they were good at making more of themselves, she’d heard. He’d probably want lots and lots of Fletcherlings someday and everything.

She made it brighter for him just by being there. Period.

He was going to have to take it slow—even if he wanted to get her naked fast.

The sound came again. Fletcher jumped out of the bed, not bothering with anything more than the gym shorts he slept in now.

It had come from her. From the room right next to his.

His parents had always wanted Nikki right next door to them, especially when she’d been really young. Nikki not being able to see well had scared his mother a little. Made her afraid, especially in the case of a fire or something. His dad had cut into a large closet to give Nikki a full bathroom when she’d been twelve. Fletcher and his brothers had shared the bathroom at the end of the hall.

The walls weren’t thick enough to hide the sound. He knew what he was hearing.

Her door was open an inch. Sometimes, she got up in the middle of the night. He’d caught her before, wandering around a little. Sitting in the big bay window in front of his house, watching outside. Looking all sad and quiet and hurting.

This time, she was crying. It stabbed right at him.

He flicked on the bedside lamp. “Dylan, honey, what’s wrong? I’m here.”

She wasn’t asleep. She was sitting up. Tears were all on her cheeks, and she was pulling in deep breaths. “I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”

“No. I was getting up soon, anyway.”

“Nightmare. Got me again. They have been my buddies since moving here, actually.”

“Here? To my place?” It made sense. She’d moved in with him just two days after that damned Dale Fisher could have killed her. Fletcher still burned when he remembered what could have happened to her, to Meyra. Even to Brandt, a man he considered a friend. Hell, it had barely been a month ago. “You are safe here. With me.”

“You are certainly hero-y looking,” she said. Dylan was staring at his chest. He knew she liked what she saw. She’d said wild things before. “You are too pretty to be human, I think. You and your brothers. Genetically modified man-aliens. All of you Tylers. No wonder Daisy has such a bad case of Tyler-obsession syndrome. Of course, her condition seems to worsen considerably whenever my father is around, but I think where there is smoke, there is probably fire.”

“Just years of hard work.” He took a risk and sank to the side of the double bed. He just hated to see the tears on her pale cheeks like that. “Want to talk about it?”

“Not much to tell.”

That told him exactly how much it was bothering her. Dylan always wanted to talk—unless something was truly wrong. He hated it when she turned quiet. He’d figured out what that meant really quick. “Then tell me. I’ll listen.”

She’d been through hell lately. Fletcher just wanted to make it better however he could. He reached out, cupped her cheek in his palm. “I’m here, baby. I’m not going to let anything happen to you ever again.”

“That’s the problem, things just keep happening. And now I can’t forget. I can’t forget Katie, or her…dad.”

Katie. The baby girl whose father had been murdered that day a month ago. Dylan had seen her covered in blood. Dylan had waited on that baby’s father a few times at the inn and diner, he had heard. And that man, four or five years younger than Fletcher, had fallen a bit for Dylan. He’d had a three-week-old baby—her mother had died from a drug overdose at her birth. Dylan had watched the baby for him once or twice, Ben had said.

No one really knew what was going to happen to the baby. Her future was still being figured out. She’d been whisked away by social services somewhere, and Jude—the head of social services around here, his cousin Michael’s wife—couldn’t say anything about her for legal reasons. “Katie will be okay.”

“He wrote me a letter,” Dylan whispered, her cheek still in Fletcher’s palm. “Sage…gave me a copy today. I haven’t told anyone yet.”

Fletcher leaned closer until he could slip his hands beneath her arms and boost her against the pillows a little. “Make room. We’ll talk. You can tell me what it said.”

“He told me he really had no one. That his mom—she didn’t really love him or the baby and that he didn’t want his baby to grow up to be like her. And asked that if something ever happened to him if I would keep an eye on his daughter. I maybe spent thirty minutes total talking to him, and he asked me that. Because he had no one else. He was alone like that. And it hurts to imagine her growing up like that now. And I don’t know what is going to happen to her or where she is, or anything. So how can I? I don’t even know her last name. He said…in the letter…he has—had—a sister-in-law. He was hoping she’d be his family, even though he wrote that he was mean to his brother’s ex-wife before. And what am I supposed to do? I still keep thinking about her, that baby girl. What if that sister-in-law isn’t good, either?” Her head landed on his chest. “And I just don’t know what to do.”

Fletcher just held her, feeling helpless, while she cried. Her arm snaked around his neck. Her head was pressed to his chest. Fletcher’s arm tightened around her.

“She’ll be okay,” he whispered. “Jude will make certain of it. She’s good at that kind of thing. We both know that, right?”

Dylan nodded. Fletcher’s nose was buried in her hair, then. His other hand came up, tangled in that hair. He just held her.

“I keep reliving that day. And the one…with Devvie. They keep getting mixed up in my head in my dreams. And that man…turns into…Bruce. And then Katie is there, crying for me. And I can’t get to her.” The words came out so soft he almost didn’t hear. “I can’t fix it, either. I can’t fix anything. I used to be able to fix everything, and now I just can’t . Not since we had to come here.”

His hold tightened. Bruce.

That asshole. If he ever saw his uncle again, Fletcher was going to tear him apart completely for what Bruce had done. Kept doing. His bastard of an uncle was still out there somewhere, doing things only heaven knew what. Fletcher just knew it couldn’t be good.

“Bruce won’t hurt you again,” Fletcher said bluntly. “I won’t let him.”

“He didn’t really hurt me before. Just scared the bananas out of me. I just…in my dreams…I see him. Sometimes, I even think I see him around town when I am awake.”

Of course, she did. How could she not? Bruce was a damned criminal, involved in whatever sludge was going on in this county up to his eyeballs. And Dylan lived with Fletcher now—a man who could pass for Bruce fifteen years ago, with the exception of his damned hair. And there were a good three dozen Tyler cousins and second cousins who also could pass for Bruce at a distance. All over Masterson.

No wonder she was having nightmares.

“Bruce…he kissed me, you know.”

Fletcher stiffened. “What?”

“I don’t know if people know—I know Sage does. It was in my statement and on the video I took. Well, his chest was on the video, considering. He lifted me off my feet and kissed me. Told me I looked like her. I don’t know who he meant.”

“Probably the girls’ mother. Her name was…Katherine. She went by Katie.”

She flinched at the coincidence. “I didn’t know that. I try not to listen to stories about people. Gossip and things.”

Fletcher nodded, brushing one hand lazily down her bare arm and then pulling her closer. She was shivering. “She was very small, like Em—and like you. But except for the hair, looked like Junie through the face.”

“Do I look like her?”

“Somewhat. From what I remember. The big bright eyes. The shape of your face, mostly. Your size, definitely. Similar smiles. What I remember most about her was how she made him smile.” Well, he could understand that. Dylan gave him laughter. No denying that. “I’m sorry he did that.”

“Really freaked me out. I was trapped. Between his van and that judge’s big truck. And he just lifted me up. I couldn’t have stopped him, even if there was time.”

And Bruce could have driven off with her exactly as he had Meyra just a few minutes earlier. Fletcher’s stomach clenched when he thought about that.

About losing her.

The way his dad had lost his mom…

No. Fletcher couldn’t even stand to think about it. His arms tightened around her, and he pulled her as close as he could get her. “He won’t hurt you again. He won’t get near you. I promise, no matter what.”

She just looked up at him, with those big green eyes that saw straight through to a man’s soul. Fletcher leaned forward.

And then he was kissing her. Hell, maybe he shouldn’t be. Maybe it was the last moment that he should even think about kissing her. But his lips were on hers, and he was pulling her closer, over his chest. And he was holding her.

Because the last thing he ever would want to do was lose her.