Page 39 of Keeping Her Safe

Pulling her away from him so he could look into her eyes, he asked, “How are you?”

“Excited. Worried,” she said truthfully.

“Book and then me, or me and then the book?”

“Book, then you.”

“Congratulations on the book. The series, for that matter.” He kissed her forehead. “Don’t worry. We need to talk about us. I want there to be an us, Zeph. Do you?”

“Yes, but I was worried you would be mad at what happened.”

“I can never be mad at what we did. I hope to do it again soon.” He kissed her mouth again, which made her smile.

Was she really in his arms? Was he really kissing her? Was he really saying he wanted to do it again? She almost whimpered when he pulled away from her. “There are pancakes in the fridge. I have to get back.”

“Who are those guys?”

“Your brothers-in-law.” He smiled at her expression and walked out of the room.

Searching the room, she found the mentioned pancakes, and soon, she was sitting at the counter and eating them dry. Not her favorite, but she had learned to eat and then go back to work. No fuss.

As she ate the last pancake on the plate, she let her mind drift. She had wanted it to drift to a new land for her next series, but it kept going to Zachary. Zachary’s hands all over her, his mouth all over her.

It was definitely time to review her book, but first, she had to walk past the men in the dining room. It wasn’t that she was scared of them; she was just nervous about saying the wrong thing. Stiffening her spine, she walked out of the kitchen.

Once the guys saw her, one of them said, “Zachary, introduce us to your wife.”

Zachary snagged her hand as she walked by. “Zephyr, this is Gabe. He’s married to Zoey. This is Jasper, and he is married to Evie. And you already know Max. They needed someone to play a game with.”

Shaking hands with them, she saw that they were all friendly. After matching their faces with what she had learned about them over the last few days, she felt her sisters had chosen spouses wisely.

“Good. You guys have fun. I have some work to do.” She excused herself as the guys started talking sports. Making her way upstairs, she settled onto the bed and tried to work.

Mostly, she spent the afternoon staring out the window across the room. She let her life play before her eyes, letting herself wonder about what-ifs. What would have happened to her if Charley Hart had said yes to raising her? What if she had known her sisters her entire life? What if her mom had never left here? All the what-ifs led to her never meeting Zachary.

Somehow, everything that had ever happened to her and not happened to her led her to Zachary. Maybe that was the destination she had always been on. Was she truly at the destination, or was this just a stop on the way to it?

Should she tell the women about their mom? They had no idea she had been dead for years. Should she tell them their father knew about her? Should she tell them about her?

Having only met them yesterday, she was already relaxed enough with them to tell them the whole truth. But if she did, would they treat her like a sister? Would she know how to act, having sisters?

She had given up on working and was just listening to music through the headphones when Zachary came into the room. Their eyes met across the room and held as he walked over to the bed and sat down near her feet. She pulled off the headphones and waited for him to talk.

“We’ve been invited out to the pumpkin patch.” He acted like he had managed to get them tickets to a sold-out concert.

“Do we need to go to a pumpkin patch?”

“It’s at Zoey and Gabe’s. The one the girls were raised on. I assumed you would want to go.” He was a little concerned with her answer.

“I do want to go; I just didn’t know about the pumpkins.” She wasn’t able to get excited.

“Did you spend the day up here bringing yourself down? You get to spend more time with them,” he said, pulling her computer off her lap and taking her hands in his.

“I don’t know. The more time I spend with them, the more time they have to figure out that I’m not all that fun,” she replied, biting her lip.

“You are fun.”

“I’m not good with people. I never needed to be. Groups scare me.” She was trying not to cry as she admitted it.

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