Page 11 of Shielding his Legacy (Shattered SEALs #7)

Eva came downstairs, the warmth from the shower fading with each step.

Her hair clung to her neck, damp and freshly washed, but the tension in her shoulders was already creeping back, refusing to unwind.

The cabin felt too quiet, the only sound the creak of the hardwood steps beneath her bare feet, and the scent of woodsmoke hung gently on the air.

She stepped into the living room, a fire roaring in the fireplace, just as she’d hoped there would be.

Gavin was on the couch, Abby nestled against his chest and a snuggly-looking blanket wrapped around them.

His arms were stiff around the baby, as if the slightest wrong move might break the fragile peace.

He looked up when he heard Eva approach. His gaze was shadowed, unreadable, and she missed the closeness they’d once shared.

Be cool. Just be cool.

“Hey,” he said, his voice low. “Good shower?”

“Yes.” She moved to sit at the other end of the sofa, closest to the fireplace. “Sorry I took so long. Thanks for watching her,” she said, gesturing for the baby.

“Sure thing. Are you hungry?”

“I may have been daydreaming about bagels and lox in the shower.”

Standing, he moved to her and passed her the sleeping infant. “You sure you’re from Phoenix?”

Eva took Abby in her arms, the anxiety that had settled between her shoulder blades when she’d seen Gavin holding the girl dissipating in an instant. She wasn’t used to other people holding the baby. “I’ve fully embraced New York City culture.”

He headed toward the kitchen, calling over his shoulder, “No bagels, but I’ve got some eggs and rye toast.”

“Eggs would be great.”

He turned around. “No toast?”

She eyed him with mock horror. “Hell yes, toast.”

He grinned a dashing grin that had no doubt made scores of women swoon. “That’s my girl.”

Her stomach fluttered at the endearment.

His eyes locked with hers. “I mean… just… sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Disappointment stabbed her belly, abruptly putting an end to the ridiculous butterflies. She waved him off. “Don’t worry about it. I know what you meant.”

Turning, he walked toward the kitchen.

Eva’s shoulders fell, her posture sagging as she noticed the way his ass filled out the well-worn jeans on his retreating form. Damn, this was hard. Just being around him set her nerves on edge. How was she going to manage being near him for the foreseeable future?

Screw that. How are you going to handle him being in Abby’s life forever?

Panic reared to life and clawed up her spine in a rush. She’d seen the contented look on his face while he held the sleeping baby. He may have been shitting bricks back at the HERO Force office, but he’d clearly grown more comfortable with the idea of being a father over the last several hours.

It should have made her happy, but she didn’t know where she stood or what the rules were in their new relationship. She needed an end in sight, a finish line of sorts on which to focus her attention. “How long do you think I’ll need to stay here?” she called out.

The clang of pots and pans rang out. “Come into the kitchen. It’s hard to hear you.”

“Great,” she mumbled under her breath. “Now I get to watch him cook.”

He moved around that gorgeous little kitchen with a quiet efficiency that said he was more than comfortable making a meal.

Because of course he was. He was the father of her child and as untouchable as a pop icon.

It only made sense he’d be a goddamn renaissance man.

He was probably into woodworking and volunteered with underprivileged kids, too.

She narrowed her eyes, asking in a suspicious tone, “Do you speak any languages?”

He shrugged. “A little Spanish. Dos cervesas, por favor. That kind of thing.” He shot her a look. “You asked how long you need to stay.”

“Yes.”

“Until we’re sure you and Abby are safe.”

She went quiet at that, wondering how long it would be before no one wanted to hurt her.

Wouldn’t she always hold the key to identifying that police detective’s killer?

She was a witness. She had photographic evidence and had seen the murderer’s face on the enlarged print. The damage couldn’t be undone.

The smell of browning butter made her desperate to eat, the sounds of him cooking filling the air as she contemplated her fate. From the safety of Gavin’s kitchen, her life looked completely hopeless.

She worked to pull her thoughts back from the edge of emotional devastation.

She didn’t want to get upset again, and she’d rather stick a shank into her own kidney than cry again.

But she’d no sooner thought it than he turned around to grab a towel from the island at which she sat, his stare colliding with hers for an instant before he whipped back toward the stove.

He froze and turned slowly back around. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” She’d almost kept her voice steady, but a tiny squeak at the end of ‘fine’ held a telltale wobble. Fuck. Getting up, she put Abby into her car seat—not because the baby needed to be there, but because Eva needed to busy herself with something and hide her face from this man.

She didn’t want him to know she was upset, didn’t want him to understand how uncomfortable she was staying here with him, or how he made her feel inadequate and unwanted on top of endangered and desperate.

Hell no, she wasn’t okay.

She was about as far away from okay as she’d ever been in her life—and that included the day her parents had learned of her pregnancy and kicked her out of the only real home she’d ever known.

Single mothers might be “a thing” in the rest of Phoenix and the whole damn United States, but in her daddy’s house, preacher’s daughters didn’t have children out of wedlock, period.

Better to not be their daughter at all.

The emotion she’d barely kept in check was building behind her eyes like a lake filling behind a glass dam. She was about to break, and she needed to get away from him so he wouldn’t see the flood as it overwhelmed the tiny villages downstream.

“I’ll be back,” she said, not looking at him as she bolted for the doorway. He called her but she didn’t stop moving, desperate to escape.

“Eva,” he repeated.

She was aware of him on her heels as the tears spilled from her eyes and dripped onto her cheeks. She silently thanked God for the growing darkness of the foyer and stairway. He grabbed her hand from behind, and she shook him off with a flick of her wrist. “Just leave me alone,” she snapped.

“Damn it, Eva, wait.”

Her feet stilled at the aggravation in his voice, but she didn’t turn around. The staircase was right in front of her, escape so close yet so very far away. Tears wet her skin, and she swiped at them angrily. “What?”

When he spoke again, he was closer—his body a mere foot behind her, close enough that the air between them was charged and warming. “Please let me help,” he said, his voice deep.

“You are helping.” She gestured to the room in the dim light, to the house, to the horrifically large impact she and her daughter had made on his life in a ridiculously short period of time.

Gavin had his shit together, and she and the baby were nothing but an unforeseen complication, a reminder of a night he obviously wanted to forget.

Worse yet, she was indebted to him, and that was the least palatable emotion she could think of in this entire plane of human existence. Because how could she ever repay him? What could she do to release herself from the tight bounds of sorry-I-fucked-up-your-life and hey-sweetie-I-owe-you-one?

Then his hands were on her upper arms, the grip of those strong fingers light but certain, and the connection between them hummed. It was as if he’d closed the circuit on a live wire he’d left exposed the last time they’d been together.

“Please,” he murmured, the timbre of his voice taking hold of her nervous system like a snake charmer’s flute commanding the twist of a cobra. “Talk to me, Evie.”

The shortening of her name brought the memories back with a rush of blood down low.

But her tears were flowing freely now, sexual desire held in check by the stress of what it had cost her to survive these last few days, and what it might cost her to regain the progress she’d made toward independence.

His hands slipped down her arms and she thought he might release her, but he only wrapped them around her middle and pulled her snugly against his chest. The scent of him was so familiar, it was consuming her ability to think.

“You don’t have to do this alone,” he whispered in her ear, making goosebumps rise on her arms. “Let me in, Evie.”

Sheer force of will was the only thing keeping a loud, ugly sob from escaping her mouth.

It wasn’t fair that she needed to confront him again, wasn’t right that it was he who’d swooped in to save the day—no matter that it was fate and her own two feet that had dragged him back into her life, kicking and screaming. “I can’t.”

His cheek brushed the top of her head, the stubble on his face raking through her hair like a comb. “Yes, you can. I want to help you. I want to hear all the things that are weighing you down, making you scared. You can trust me.”

Tears fell from her jaw to his forearm, completing her humiliation.

No sooner did she think it than the dam broke, her stomach muscles clenching and releasing in time with her ragged breaths.

She could no longer resist the comfort he was offering, no matter if she knew better and should run the other way.

“Come here,” he said, releasing her just enough for her to turn in his arms and face him. She settled against his chest and let it all go, her arms coming around his torso as she sobbed, hands grabbing at the fabric of his shirt.

Damn it all to hell, it felt so good to be held by him, to release every bit of horror and shame and fear she’d been holding onto since the moment she held that positive pregnancy test in her trembling hands.