Page 119 of Mercenary

“I promise. But Madelyn?”

“Yes?”

“Who’s strong enough, smart enough, loving enough to protect me from you?”

34

Madelyn

Home. It’s been a long time since I’ve been home. That trailer in Shelby was never such a place. Before that, the happy house I’d been raised in seemed to fade into one filled with sadness and pain. San Diego . . . hotels and motels . . . The Ranch. Yeah, home’s become an elusive thing.

I remind myself it hasn’t always been so. Like Mama’s afghan, my younger self had been snuggled within the warm embrace of our tight-knit family. Cherished. Loved. Grounded like one of the one-hundred-year-old trees lining Main Street. Corny as it might sound, home was always where my heart rests.

Now my heart’s gone from Shelby like one of her glorious sunsets.

Kylie’s fled, yet a small piece of her will always be with me. It was inevitable we’d part. Hell, before the chaos that erupted within our lives, we always knew we were destined for different places, different lives, different loves. That doesn’t mean I don’t miss her.

And . . . I’m not alone. Declan’s here with me.

But for how long?

We’ve arrived at in a house located a few blocks away from the beach.

“You coming?” he asks, keys in one hand. With the other, he grabs my own and leads me to the front door.

“Do I dare ask whose house this is?” I murmur.

He abruptly stops and pulls me into his arms. I sigh and soften against him.

“Once I square things away with Hayden, I’ll take you wherever you’d like to be,” he tells me. “As long as it’s safe . . .” he adds softly, his chest rumbling beneath my cheek.

“I want to be anywhere you are but hopefully by the water.”

He chuckles. “You’re in luck.”

“I am?”

“I own this place.”

“You do?” I glance at the house and back at him. Disbelieving. The place is a postcard picture of femininity. With its white lattice porch, dainty arched windows, its mint-green siding with pink—yep, pink—shutters.

“Yep.”

My throat hitches.

“Bought it over a year ago. Just needed a reason to come home.”

He’s taken me home.

To his house.

He gives me a brief tour. Most rooms are unfurnished. Except for the big bed inside the master bedroom, a lone sofa still in its original plastic, and a new coffeepot on the kitchen counter. That nesting urge—the one dormant during my temporary stay at Happy Times—rises within me. Two matching chairs and a coffee table. A nice throw rug over the hardwood floors. A picture of a sandy beach over the fireplace mantel. A woman’s touch.

I grin.

Can’t have a heavy-handed man like Declan ruining the comfortable vibe of the place, now can we?

“You like it?” Oh my God. He looks so uncomfortable, like he’s asking me out on a first date or nervously thinking about landing his first kiss.