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Powell woke when strong arms lifted her from where she was sleeping. She knew who held her. The man would always be instantly recognizable to her as Gunnar Nils Erickson. Forever.

The man just loved to carry her around too. Well, she could get used to it. Good things happened when he did, after all.

“Where are we going?” She wanted him to hold her all night.

“I’m romantically carrying you to the car. We are going back to the Castle of Ostentatiousness now, where I am tucking you in and standing guard like the slobbering gargoyle Murdoch told me I now get to be.”

Powell’s arm hooked around his neck, and she rested her head on his shoulder. He always felt so perfect to her. She was with him. She wasn’t going to let go. Not now. Just not for a long, long while.

“I wanted to talk to Heather some more. Make sure she’s okay.” Powell had seen the way Heather’s hands had been shaking while they’d talked. Heather had just tried to hide it from her family. Because Heather thought she had to be the one to take care of them.

Powell knew now—Heather didn’t have it all together all the time. She just hid the hurt. Pretended. Like Powell had for so long. Kept her hurt a secret inside.

Maybe that was what life was—pretending you had everything together and hoping no one noticed until you really did have things figured out? Fake-it-until-you-make-it kind of thing?

“Heather was zonked out on the couch next to yours. I don’t even think an earthquake would have woken her up, babe. You did miss Miguel carrying a sleeping Hope off to her room to help tuck her in, though. I think he wanted to climb in next to her and cuddle, but some of her nieces were guarding her virtue. I have never seen him like that with a woman before. Hope doesn’t have a clue that he’s seriously got a thing for her.”

“They are a very unique family.”

“That they are. They are lucky to have one another. But damn, the knocks just keep coming for them all.”

“He despised Heather. The one in charge. The one I saw in Wyoming.”

The knowledge that she had run right into the man responsible for OPJ still made her sick to think about.

“Tell me exactly what he said.”

Powell closed her eyes. The last place she wanted to go back to was there. But she wanted Gunnar and his friends to get him. To make him go away so that the nightmares would just stop. So Heather would be safe again. “He said…she wasn’t going to ruin this for him again. I don’t want to talk about him anymore. I just don’t. Not tonight.”

“Want to talk about…Norm and Marcia, maybe?”

“That man was definitely not normal.” And was very beautiful, even with the tattoos and the scar across his forehead and just the scary way he looked. But he had been so gentle with the kids, all of them. And the way he looked at his wife gave a woman real shivers deep inside. “He is a very dangerous man, isn’t he?”

“I suspect that is exactly what he is. Or was. Are you going to make me wait months?” Gunnar asked quietly. His mouth was right by her ear. Powell fought a shiver.

“What do you mean?”

“He said Marcia made him wait months. Are you going to do that?”

“Wait for what?” Powell did not want to have this conversation right now.

Her brothers were right there behind them, for heaven’s sake.

“To give me a real kind of life?”

“I think…we need to talk. As soon as we are alone.”

She had wasted enough time with this man. It was time to make good on the promises she’d made herself when she’d been escaping.

No more being afraid of trying. No more.

Her baby deserved more than that from her. And so did he.

“I am going to hold you to that.”

“Just keep holding me. ” The words came out before she could stop them. Powell’s arm slipped around his neck and she just held on.

“Forever.”