Page 48 of The Last Call Home (The Timberbridge Brothers #5)

Chapter Forty-Four

Delilah

“We’ll be back for you later today,” Mal says as he helps me out of his car.

His hand lingers on the small of my back, warm and possessive. It should be comforting. It only makes my skin prickle with the ache to be touched again. Touched differently.

“It’s fine. I can walk to the . . .” I stop myself before I say it.

Bakery.

My bakery.

The word claws at the back of my throat, bitter and burning.

“I can head to pick up my car,” I finish, voice brittle.

Mal flinches. It’s subtle, but I sense it in the tension that ripples through his fingers as they slip away from me.

“What?” I demand, already knowing. Already bracing.

“It didn’t make it,” he says, his voice low, apologetic. “Your car was behind the building.”

My heart races upward. It wasn’t just the café. They wanted everything—my place, my livelihood, my freedom.

“Was anyone injured?” The question scrapes past my lips. It hadn’t even occurred to me. My grief was too immediate, too selfish.

He shakes his head. “No. It’s like they did it with precision. They waited for just the right moment—when everyone would be by the park or inside the bar. It was a message. A warning.”

A warning.

“Why my bakery?” The rage bubbles up fast, wild, and hot. I don’t hold it back. “I’m nice, Mal. I donate. I help everyone in town, for fuck’s sake.”

The crack in my voice is a scream I can’t let out.

Mal steps in, pulling me into his arms as he can somehow hold back the storm I’ve been choking down since the moment the smoke hit the sky.

“It wasn’t about you, baby.” His lips graze my hair, and I hate how much I need the comfort. “Your café’s beloved by everyone. That’s exactly why. It wasn’t personal. It was strategic. They wanted to shake the town—to let everyone know they can take what we cherish most.”

His voice is tight with guilt, with fury, and something darker I can’t name. It lives beneath his skin, just like mine.

My chest rises against his. My hands fist the front of his shirt, dragging him closer like I need his heartbeat to drown out mine. His breath hitches, and I feel it—low in my stomach, in the heat pooling beneath my skin, in the ache that’s far too familiar when it comes to him.

“You think I’m supposed to accept that?” I whisper. “That someone can just decide to ruin me to prove a point?”

“No.” His mouth is close enough that I feel the word against my lips. “I don’t want you to accept anything. I want you to survive it.”

His eyes search mine, dark with regret, with restraint, with something desperate that matches the fire churning inside me.

It’s not just anger—it’s everything. Every moment I’ve ever needed him and hated needing him.

Every time, I imagined what it would feel like to fall apart in his arms and what it would cost me to let him see it.

Then, her voice slices through the moment. “Gracias a dios, mi chiquita. Estos hombres no querían dejarme verte.”

Mami’s voice pulls taut like a snapped cord, cutting straight through the invisible thread, keeping me pressed against Malerick.

She rushes in, yanking me from his arms and into hers with a grip so fierce it borders on pain. I don’t resist. I can’t.

Her hands sweep over my body like she's counting bones, as if touch could rewrite the truth. Her eyes take me in with that anxious fervor only mothers have—the one that sees through words, straight into fear.

She inspects me like she did when I was five and broke my arm falling off the backyard swing. Back then, her panic smelled like cinnamon and tears. Today, it smells like burnt sugar and smoke.

“As promised, we’ve been taking care of her,” Malerick protests behind me.

Mom’s glare lands on him like a silent curse.

“Are you okay, Mami?” I ask, my voice wrecked from seeing her so concerned.

“Worried, of course,” she says, her hands still clutching my arms. “But glad that nothing happened to you.”

“But The Honey Drop?—”

She waves it off like it's a ruined batch of pan dulce. “We have insurance. We’ll rebuild. The important thing is that you’re okay, and no one was injured.”

Then her voice lowers, and her mouth tightens. “They say it was faulty gas lines.”

My stomach twists. Even she doesn’t believe it.

She turns to Malerick now, eyes like daggers dipped in holy water.

“You hear me, boy,” she snaps. “That was no gas line. You find out who did this. And once you’ve got them—I’ll take care of the rest.”

“I assure you, Rosalinda?—”

“No.” She cuts him off with a raised hand. “Don’t lie to me.”

Her voice doesn’t crack. It rips.

“If you’re going to protect my daughter, that means no lies. You understand me?”

Malerick straightens, throws her a salute like she’s commanding the whole damn force. Like she owns every piece of him—and maybe she does. Perhaps we both do.

“Te dije que he estado viendo a tu padre,” she says, then does the sign of the cross. Her fingers tremble, just slightly. “Ruegale a Dios que esté mal o no sé qué vamos a hacer.”

Then she turns and walks off as if her spine is held together by spite and prayer.

Mal watches her disappear. “What did she say?”

I pause, staring after my mother.

She’s unraveling, and I can’t stop it. She’s seeing ghosts in the smoke, in her sleep, in me.

And I’m definitely not going to tell him that my mother is having a breakdown and believes my dead father is walking around and that we should pray that she’s wrong or we might be in trouble.

Because if I do, I might believe it, too.

“She’s concerned and probably going to pray another rosary,” I say, my voice rough with exhaustion. And guilt. And that gnawing ache I can’t scrub off my ribs. “What else can I do?”

He doesn't answer right away. Just watches me as if he wants to do something reckless. Like pull me close again. Like kiss me until we forget why we’re pretending this is just circumstance.

“Will I see you later today?”

His nod is slight, but his eyes—God, his eyes are full of heat, regret, and something else I don’t have the energy to name. Need, maybe. Lust. That tight, crawling sensation between us hasn’t eased since last night.

“Yeah,” he says. “I have a meeting soon. Later today, Cass will pick you up.”

I blink, thrown. “What do you mean pick me up?”

His gaze flicks to the house, then back to me, like he’s weighing how much to say. Like he knows what this will sound like and doesn’t care.

“Yesterday was moving day, remember?” he says. “We officially live in the cabin—together. You just need to pack a bag, or several.”

Just like that. Like it’s no big deal. Like him telling me to pack and move in doesn’t make my blood feel thick and molten.

“Who’s going to take care of my mom?”

“She has two bodyguards—who she shouldn’t be feeding,” he mutters, rubbing the back of his neck. There’s a flush creeping up his throat, and it’s almost endearing.

Almost.

He rolls his eyes. “Seriously, what’s with that woman and food?”

I let out a breath, somewhere between a laugh and a sigh.

“Hosting and making people feel like family is her love language,” I tell him, leaning back against the car just enough to watch his reaction.

“It’s part of our culture. Sure, we were both born in this country, but we still have our roots.

You’ll get used to it—and learn to love it. ”

Something shifts in his expression. That guarded tension melts a little. His lips tug into a slow, crooked smile that makes my stomach lurch and heat unfurl low and deep inside me.

“I had no idea,” he murmurs. “She’s always tried to feed me—and my brothers. Ever since we were kids.”

“She’s been feeding your hunger for years,” I whisper before I can stop myself.

His smile falters, and the air changes. There’s something raw in the way he looks at me now. Not just heat—but hunger. For something deeper. Something buried.

“My mother never let us go hungry,” he says quietly, “so I don’t get it.”

“You needed extra love.”

The words fall out, soft and certain. I step toward him before I think better of it, drawn to him like I always am—like I hate myself for being.

His jaw ticks. That controlled restraint he always wears slips for a second, and then he reaches for me.

His hands are on my waist, pulling me into him like he’s starved, and I’m the only thing that’s ever tasted right. His grip tightens, and before I can breathe, his mouth crashes against mine.

The kiss isn’t sweet. It’s not tender.

It’s a fucking storm.

All tongue, teeth, and raw hunger. It devours. It demands. It tells me everything he’s been holding back and everything I’ve been aching to feel.

My fingers slide into his shirt, curling into his chest, dragging him closer until there’s no air, no space, just heat and skin and the desperate sound of our breaths tangling between us.

He groans into my mouth like he needs more, like kissing me isn’t enough, like he wants to take me apart right here, against the hood of his car, against the memories of fire and ruin.

But then he pulls back just enough to press his forehead to mine.

“Thank you,” he murmurs, voice rough and reverent.

I blink. “For what?”

“For being here. For being you.” His hands slide up to cup my face. “For not letting this break you.”

My lips part, and I want to tell him it’s breaking me in places I didn’t know existed—but his mouth is back on mine before I can speak.

One last kiss. Fierce. Fast. Final.

Then he pulls away with a grunt, as it costs him something to leave. Like walking away from me right now is the hardest part of his day.

“I’ll see you later,” he says, voice hoarse.

And then he’s gone.

And I’m still standing there with the taste of him on my lips and the ache of goodbye pressing into my skin.