Page 14

FOURTEEN

ZEKE

SAVANNAH MENTIONED SHE’D had the movers put her things in the garage, but she didn’t mention the thing was now packed full. I can’t believe those assholes couldn’t be bothered to convince her to put enough inside so she would have space to fucking move.

I hold one hand out, helping her out of the car, continuing to hold on as I lead her across the driveway. It’s shoveled, but shoveling only does so much when the wind blows everything around all day, so it’s still slippery. It’s one of the many reasons we’re going to get this car in her garage before I leave. She doesn’t need to be crossing this driveway every time she wants to go somewhere, and she sure as hell doesn’t need to scrape ice and snow off the windows and windshield.

Even after she’s safely inside the garage, Savannah’s hand stays in mine as we continue across the cement surface. Her boots are now wet, making this area almost as hazardous as it is outside.

I tip my head toward the open bay as I scan the space, taking in the situation. “Close the door, so it can warm up in here.” Now that I’m inside, I have a better idea of what I’m working with. Of what she’s been attempting to handle on her own.

And I don’t fucking like it.

“You should have told me you needed help with this.” I feel like I’ve let her down. Left her on her own to face yet another curveball life’s thrown at her.

“You were out of town following Vincent and getting shot.” Her lips press into a frown. “What were you going to do?” Savannah pulls the garage remote from her purse and clicks the button, closing us in. “And I needed something to do anyway. I’ve been sitting on my ass for way too long. It was good for me.”

“Taking on projects you can handle is good for you, but this is more than a one-person job.” I open the door leading inside, using my hold on Savannah’s hand to urge her in first. The garage door wasn’t open for more than a minute, but it doesn’t take long for the frigid outside air to lower the temperature, and she’s not as used to the cold as I am.

“There wasn’t any point in asking for help until I knew what I wanted to do.” Savannah blows out a long sigh. “And I still haven’t figured that out.”

“Because you’re overwhelmed.” I release her hand and help her out of her coat, swinging it over my arm as she toes off her boots. I do the same then follow her up the stairs leading to the main level. “Remember what I said earlier about one step at a time?” I reach the top of the steps and look around to find even more boxes stacked up. “You’ve got a whole fucking marathon packed in this place. It’s no wonder you can’t find your way.”

Savannah purses her lips, her green eyes lifting to the ceiling as her shoulders slump. “I didn’t really have another option. It’s not like I could have them deliver half of my stuff. I can’t put things away if I don’t have the things to put them in.” She goes to the single piece of furniture in the living room and flops down on the sofa, catching her head in her hands. “I’ve started unpacking, but it just makes everything worse, because crap takes up even more space unboxed and all over the place than it does neatly stowed away and out of sight.”

I carry Savannah’s coat to the closet by the front door, making an educated guess and finding it correct when I open it up and find her coats lined inside. After hanging hers and mine, I turn, hands on my hips as I work through a strategy. I’m not a decorator, but I do know a thing or two about planning an attack. And that’s all this really is. “Do you think you can narrow down which rooms everything belongs in?”

Savannah lifts her head, lips flattening as she ponders my question. “For the most part, probably.”

“For the most part is good enough.” I scan the items she’s unpacked so far. They’re everywhere. Covering her kitchen counters. Stacked on the dining room table. Lined against the walls. “Let’s start by putting everything in the room you think it’s going to end up in.”

She slumps back in her seat. “That’s kind of what I was starting to do, but I felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere.”

“Sometimes it seems like you’re not going anywhere when you actually are. It just takes a while to notice the change.” I lift a glass lamp shaped like flowers from where it sits on the table. “What about this? Where does it go?”

Savannah slowly stands, taking a deep breath. “It used to be in my front hallway, but now I don’t really have a front hallway, so maybe I’ll put it in one of the spare bedrooms?”

She’s trying, and that’s all I’ll ever ask for. “Perfect. Show me where.”

Savannah moves toward the stairs but pauses to collect a few items stacked on the counter. She shifts them in her arms and then continues on her path. “I might as well take these since that’s probably where they’ll end up too.”

“Smart.” I follow her up the stairs, a smile working its way onto my face. I love her determination. Even when she’s unsure. Savannah might be afraid, but she still plows forward, doing everything possible to get where she wants to go.

Does she need an occasional nudge? Yeah, but that’s only because she starts to doubt herself. And I’m happy to reassure her. Happy to be the one to remind her how fucking amazing she is. How capable.

How brave.

Savannah flips on the light in one of the bedrooms and we both deposit our items in the corner. Then she shows me around the upper floor. I’ve been in the townhomes before, but never this particular unit. They all have a similar floor plan though, so I’m not surprised to find another bedroom and a bath, along with a small office on the top floor. The main floor has an open kitchen, dining area, half-bath and living room, along with an en suite bath. The bottom floor has the two-car garage, as well as a bonus room and another bathroom. The units were designed to offer plenty of space for a growing family.

Which says a lot about how much stuff Savannah has.

“How big was your last house?” I try to imagine us finding places for everything, but it just doesn’t seem possible.

“About the same size as this place.” Savannah gets another armful of items from the table. “It wasn’t as open of a floor plan though.” She waits while I collect more stuff and then we go back upstairs. “I don’t mind this new place, it’s just not something I would have picked on my own.” She sets everything down in the same room as before. “Maybe that’s another reason I’ve put off moving all my stuff in.”

“Because you thought maybe you’d move somewhere else?” I ask. The possibility that Savannah might choose to move away from Fairbanks doesn’t sit right. I don’t like the thought of her being alone in a strange place. I don’t like imagining her without someone close to help her when she needs it. Someone to listen when she needs to talk.

To show her how far she’s come when she doesn’t see it.

“I wouldn’t hate moving somewhere else, I guess.” She turns to me. “Alaska is beautiful, but I don’t know that it will ever be my idea of the perfect place to live.”

As much as I hate the thought of her being on her own, I hate the thought of her being unhappy even more. “Where would be the perfect place?”

I’m interested in her answer. Another peek into a woman I want to know more about. The more I know about her, the more I can help her. The more I can help her, the happier she’ll be.

And the better I’ll sleep. Hopefully.

Savannah purses her lips, thinking for a second. “I don’t really know.” She nibbles her lower lip as we go back downstairs. “I don’t hate the snow, I just don’t love this much of it, so I’d still want to have a little winter.” She peeks at me over one shoulder as we go back down the stairs. “But I definitely want more summer than we have here.”

I chuckle. “Almost anything is more summer than we have here.”

Savannah and I continue dispersing the items in her dining room and kitchen, putting each item in the room she thinks it will ultimately end up in. Then we go to work on the stuff on the floor, toting lamps, decorations, and art up and down the stairs. Once it’s all cleared out of the main area she lets out a sigh. “That looks so much better.”

“Good.” I flash her a grin. “Now we just have to do that with all the stuff in the garage.”

Savannah groans, her head falling back on the sound. “I need food before we do that.” She goes into the newly cleared kitchen and opens the fridge. “Unfortunately, I’ve been so busy ordering food for headquarters that I haven’t had time to get food for myself.” She presses her lips into a flat line as she peruses the contents. “I do have the stuff to make a version of plov.”

“What’s plov?”

“It’s a rice dish my mom used to make before…” Her voice drifts off then she clears her throat and tries again. “Before she was killed.”

I know what happened to Savannah’s parents. Pierce did a deep dive into her and her sister Sadie’s background when he first discovered Sadie wasn’t who she’d led us to believe she was. Discovering the girls were the daughters of a man who’d turned against the Russian Bratva was shocking. They’d only made it out alive because their father brokered a deal with the US government, who’d given them new identities and new lives.

Their mother wasn’t as lucky.

“Why did she stay?” It’s a question I have no right to ask. An answer I shouldn’t expect her to offer.

And maybe she can’t.

Maybe her guess is as good as mine.

Confusion pinches Savannah’s brow, and it makes me think there’s no known answer. But then she says, “Because she loved him.” It’s so matter-of-fact. As if she’s shocked I wouldn’t have already known. “She knew Sadie and I were taken care of and we would be okay, but he wasn’t and wouldn’t be. My dad sacrificed his life to save ours and she sacrificed hers so he would know he was loved right up to the end.” There’s no sadness on her face. No anger. No regret.

“And you think she did the right thing.” It’s not a question. It’s a statement. One I can see the truth of blatantly written on her face.

“You don’t just abandon someone you love when they’ve sacrificed everything.” Savannah takes a shaky breath, hinting at the emotion she’s keeping close. “I loved my parents. Do I think my father made some awful decisions? Yes, but that doesn’t stop my love for him.” Her lips curve in a gentle smile. “My mother felt the same. Sadie and I knew when we left that we would never see her again.” Savannah reaches into the fridge and starts pulling items out. “I miss her every day, and I always will, but I understand why she did what she did.”

So do I. I’ve felt similarly in my life. Would have sacrificed my own to save someone else’s. Without fear. Without regret. But it wasn’t an option. So I could choose to follow their path, or I could go on, doing my best to honor their memory.

Like Savannah has done for her mother.

I follow her to the clutter free counter as she lines up her collected items. “Tell me more about her.”

Savannah’s smile turns wistful as she sets a couple chicken breasts onto a cutting board and slices them into bite-sized chunks. “She was beautiful.” Once the chicken is handled, an onion and carrots go on a fresh cutting board and she starts peeling and chopping. “And she was a great cook.”

I watch as she expertly slices through the onion and turns the carrot into small matchstick-sized pieces. “It seems like maybe you inherited that trait.”

I’m not a cook. Don’t pretend to be. I can scramble eggs and heat up leftovers, but that’s the extent of it. Being at Alaskan Security has spoiled me. For a long time, many of us lived in the rooming house, so there was plenty to eat.

Now, not so much. It’s been a while since I’ve had something home-cooked. And as Savannah drops the chicken into a large pot and the scent of cooking meat hits the air, my mouth begins to water.

“I love to cook.” She stirs around the sizzling chunks. “Which is a good thing, because there aren’t many restaurants that serve the foods I ate growing up.”

I lean against the counter, watching as she works. “Was this your favorite?”

Savannah adds the onions and carrots to the pot, stirring them around with the browned chicken. “I really like plov, but it’s not my favorite.”

She peeks my way, expression a little sheepish. “My favorite is actually this sweet, cheese pancake my mom always made for breakfast called syrniki.” She carries some rice and a strainer to the sink, rinsing the grains under the tap. “We topped them with powdered sugar and smetana, which is sort of like sour cream or crème fra?che.” Holding a towel under the strainer, Savannah carries the rice to the pot, dumping it on top of the contents. She continues to talk as she adds seasonings and water. “I haven’t made them in forever, because Sadie doesn’t like them, and it seems silly to make a whole batch for only me.”

After mixing everything together, Savannah puts the lid on the pot and turns to me, wiping her hands on the towel. “We have some time, so if you want, we can get a little more done while that cooks.” She hesitates before adding on, “Unless you’re tired, and then we can be done.”

I’m always tired, but not in the way she’s suggesting. “The sooner we start that garage, the sooner we can be done.” I know there’s no way we can get through everything tonight, but I’m determined to get that SUV inside before I leave. No way is Savannah freezing her ass off in the morning.

She wrinkles her nose, scrunching her face up at me. “I knew you were going to say that.” Tossing the towel to the counter, she sighs. “Fine. Let’s get started.”

“I love your enthusiasm.” I motion to the stairs leading to the lower level. “After you.”

We spend the next half hour moving boxes around and coming up with a game plan. As I expected, there’s way too much to move in one night, but I think we can clear enough space for her to park inside, and that’s all I want.

The timer on Savannah’s phone starts to go off right as I reach for the newly unearthed coffee table. I lift it as she silences the alarm. “I’ll take this up as we go.”

Savannah scans the mess before grabbing a small box. “I guess I’ll take this.” It’s still obvious the task overwhelms her, but hopefully it’s a little less daunting with me helping her tackle it.

When we get to the main level, I carry the table over and set it in front of the sofa while she checks on dinner. When I rejoin her in the kitchen, Savannah is scooping out a mountain of chicken and rice into a bowl. She stabs a spoon into the pile and hands it over. “Here you go. Tell me what you think.”

I don’t hesitate. It smells fucking delicious, and I’m starving. Not just for food in my stomach, but also to fill that space only a home-cooked meal can. I didn’t think it had one, since home-cooked meals weren’t big in my childhood, but I must’ve grown it over time. Brock, a member of Team Rogue, loves to cook, and I guess I developed a taste for it.

After gently blowing across the steaming hot bite loaded onto the spoon, I shovel it into my mouth. There’s no stopping the groan of bliss that comes out of me. Brock is a good cook, but this is fucking magical. “It’s fantastic.”

Savannah beams at me, her whole face lighting up. “Yeah?”

I nod, already digging in for another mouthful. “Yeah.”

She rocks up on her toes, clearly thrilled. “I’m glad you like it.” She spins away, going back to the fridge. “What do you want to drink? I have juice, milk, and Dr Pepper.”

That is an interesting selection. “I haven’t had a Dr Pepper in years.”

She grins at me over one shoulder. “Then you’re due.” She grabs two cans, collects her own bowl of dinner, and instead of leading me to the dining room table we uncovered, goes straight for the couch.

She sighs as she sets her bowl and the drinks onto the coffee table I just carried up. “It’s so nice to have a table here again.” She settles onto the couch, cradling her bowl in her lap as she leans back against the cushions. “I’ve been balancing things on my lap and it’s a huge pain in the ass.”

I sit down beside her, spooning in more food as I settle into place. “Then you should have asked me for help sooner.”

Savannah watches me, her expression thoughtful. “You’re right. I should have.”