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Lucy wags her tail and nudges her face against Cara’s knee, pushing her forward.

I arch a brow and nod toward Lucy. “Seems Lucy thinks you needs to eat.”

Grinning, Cara shakes her head, a mixture of baffled and amused as she walks toward me. “Dogs are so strange.”

I press my hand to her lower back and pull her flush against me. I don’t give her a second to hesitate before I press my lips to hers, tasting the lingering mint of her toothpaste. “Dogs are good judges of good people. Let’s get you fed.”

“Speaking of feeding me.” She shakes the crackers back and forth. “Seems someone not only brought me food but removed my clothes last night. You wouldn’t know who did that, would you?”

“You were passed out. Did you want to sleep in that dress?”

“No, but…”

“I didn’t touch you.” I grin, thinking of her body. The warmth of her soft flesh as I removed her dress. “At least not too inappropriately. You can scold me all you’d like, but I won’t apologize for taking care of you. Or thinking your body is sexy as hell.”

She humphs, but it lacks impact. She looks too damn cute with her scrunched-up nose and lips.

“Come on. Breakfast. Food. What would you like? I was making eggs and potatoes.”

We reach the kitchen and I slide her onto a barstool facing the worktop where I’d been chopping potatoes before Lucy was alerted to Cara’s shower turning on and off.

“Just potatoes,” she says, and although I want her to eat some eggs for protein, the muted green haze to her skin makes me not push it.

“Potatoes it is. If you’d like more juice, help yourself to the fridge.”

—

“So you’ve told me about your parents, and you mention you have a brother, but what is your family like?”

My fork full of potatoes is halfway to my mouth when I pause. “What’d I say?”

Cara’s lips are pressed together and she’s looking out the windows. We chatted while I cooked, we talked about the art gallery and how I got my start with opening my first tattoo place. Get-to-know-you bullshit that doesn’t feel like bullshit when I’m talking about it with Cara.

Things have been going, well…easy.

Her happy expression has evaporated and changed to utter sadness.

“You okay?” She still doesn’t speak. “Cara?”

She blinks, pulling herself out of whatever has grabbed her attention, and smiles shyly at me. “Sorry. Your question caught me off guard.” She clears her throat and takes a drink of water, and I notice her hand has a slight tremor to it.

“What is it?”

“Nothing, really, I wasn’t prepared for you to ask about Jimmy.”

She sniffs and I set down my fork. I give her a few minutes, keeping an eye on her. Slowly, a realization settles, because she has that faraway look I know I get in my eyes whenever Stella and I talk about Irvin, and it kills me.

So instead of waiting for her to tell me about her brother, I start speaking.

“I had a mom.” My voice is bland, as it always is when I think about her. “Got knocked up by someone she hooked herself to in order to get money for drugs.”

Cara’s expression changes to surprise and I find myself smiling at the cute way her brows raise and her lips part. “What?”

“Yeah.” I settle my forearms on the table. “Bet Dan doesn’t talk about that much when he talks about me, does he?” She shakes her head but I don’t need the answer. Dan would take my secrets and anything I’ve told him about my life to his grave. “See, I was born addicted to drugs. My mom was clean for a long while after she had me. She’s always said she quit when she found out she was pregnant, but I don’t think she realized she was pregnant for a long while so by the time she stopped, the damage was already done. She told me when I was little I spent six weeks in ICU, born more than a month early, unable to breathe on my own.”

“Braxton—”

“It’s not a big deal.” I smile lightly. It’s not, really. “But I figure we’re getting to know each other and there’s not much in my life I’m ashamed about, but I was always ashamed of that. Not so much anymore. I met this guy when I was twelve. Big old three-hundred-and-fifty-pound mammoth of a man. Irvin. He caught me and a couple buddies trying to shoplift from the 7-Eleven and hauled us out of there so fast, telling the guy at the counter he’d deal with it, I almost shit my pants.”