Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 43536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 218(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 218(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
I was independent and focused on my work. I wanted to help children, to help families the way no one had helped mine. It was my calling. But for the first time ever, that felt really lonesome. Sitting across from Rafe in the diner had made it seem worse, not better. I felt a stab of longing for him, for anyone really, for a man to love and to wake up with every day. It made me ache somewhere in my chest.
His suggestions gave me something to focus on, practical strategies to protect myself next time. Even though I couldn’t take his advice.
“Lexi, I don’t know you well enough to have any right to give you advice, but you can’t go back there. Get reassigned, demand that your supervisor sends someone else. Refuse to go there. It’s the only choice here. Nothing I can teach you is going to protect you 100% with this guy. Jesus, he said he was going to beat your ass. You have to take this seriously. Nothing against my classes, but they’re not enough, not when you’re already in danger.”
I had thanked him for his concern, but I’d told him the truth when I said there was no other way. Janet was busy with her managerial duties and still recovering from knee replacement. There was no way she was going out there. And Brody wouldn’t trade me cases or do anything resembling a favor for me in this lifetime. I didn’t tell Rafe why. He had already been compassionate enough to find out why I wanted to learn self-defense. He’d listened to me while I explained the threat against me, the impossibility of being reassigned. He didn’t need to hear the details of every unfortunate thing that ever happened at work.
Part of me didn’t want the guy to think I was a whiner. I already felt weak, cornered in my situation. It would help somehow if he thought I was brave, if he thought I could find the good in things. So, I told him I wished things were different, but mainly I wished they were different for the little Watts girl. She deserved better than this. She deserved a parent who fought to make things right and get her home, not one who made threats and neglected her and took no responsibility for the problems.
“It breaks my heart every day,” I told Rafe honestly, “That these babies deserve so much better. The worst thing about today wasn’t that I was scared. The worst part was knowing that this is all that his little girl has to hope for. That going home to a father like that is the outcome we’re hoping for.”
Again, I had wanted to curl up in his arms. There was something about him, about that man I’d just met. He had a burly, powerful body—I should have shrunk away from him. All that muscle could have been punishing. His sheer size could have been intimidating. Instead, because of the way he carried himself, because of his demeanor, he seemed confident and strong, not menacing. Rafe seemed like the kind of man who would put his arm around me on the couch, let me snuggle against his broad, muscular chest, and he’d hold me tight. I’d never had that; never known a man or anyone at all who held me, but I yearned for it. And my body or my hormones or something seemed to recognize him, to register his protectiveness, his innate goodness.
I trusted him. I never trusted easily, not after the way I grew up. But something in Rafe called out to me, made me feel safer. It was a wonder I didn’t burst into tears. The only thing that really stopped me from crying was the fact that I didn’t want to flat out horrify him.
When I got home and locked my new deadbolt, I distracted my worried mind with thoughts of what I’d like to do with Rafe Sullivan. Horrifying him wasn’t even on the list.
4
Leo
Igot a kick out of making Rafe squirm. We grew up together. We’d always been like brothers, and I never missed a chance to give him crap whenever I could. He was level-headed most of the time, so I didn’t get as many opportunities as I did in high school when he chased after the head cheerleader for an entire year. To be honest, I hadn’t seen him that stupid over a girl since then. Until Lexi came into the picture.
I could tell from day one that she was different. Rafe clammed up and didn’t want to spill details. If it was just some girl he met at a club, he’d talk about how they met and where they went for a late-night snack and what music she liked and if she had a crazy family. We never trash talked our dates, but we shared funny stories and kept each other in the loop. So when he wouldn’t talk about this one, it was pretty obvious that he wanted to keep things private for a reason.