Page 36 of Take Her from You

A hulking figure waited in the dark on the other side.

A scream ripped from my lips, and I stumbled back, landing on my butt.

Valentine held up his hands. “It’s just me. It’s okay.”

He approached, a pair of boxer shorts his only clothing, and reached to help me to my feet. “I heard a noise and came to check on ye. What’s wrong?”

Despite my panic, my fear, and every other reason why my mind shouldn’t go there, warmth trickled through my veins at his touch. But as incredible as last night had been, it was in the past and done, we’d both agreed.

I’d washed him from my skin.

“Sorry,” I breathed, my voice choked. “I had a call. I need to go.”

“To fetch your daughter?”

I nodded. “Greg knows where she is. I have to get her out.”

He scrubbed a hand over his hair, backing up to the main room. Any vestige of sleep fled him, pure action in his moves. “Give me thirty seconds.”

“You don’t have to,” I called after him, relief adding to my mix of emotions. He’d offered to help, but that didn’t mean he needed to get up in the middle of the night for me.

The light sprang on in the living room, then the one in his dorm room. Trailing behind, I peered through the open door, an unashamed spy now, watching as he shrugged on jeans and a close-fitting shirt, a zip-up jacket following. Then he grabbed a backpack from the floor.

I couldn’t help noticing the two packed sports bags on the bunk next to his.

He followed my gaze. “I’ve emptied the bunkhouse of my things and given the place a scrub down. Would’ve stripped the sheet, but I was still using it.”

I blinked. “When did you do all that?”

“After ye decided against cuddles and took yourself to bed.”

My cheeks heated.

He grinned, tugging on two huge black boots. “I didn’t want to be lurking when we brought your girl back.”

Our plan had been to leave in the afternoon. Not the middle of the night.

“Where will you stay?” I muttered.

“Aw, ye worried about me?”

“A little. I’m throwing you out of home.”

“Someone’s giving me a bed elsewhere. I’m good.”

Did that mean another woman? Why the heck had my mind gone there? It was none of my business, except I was the reason he was having to go.

Maybe it was better if I didn’t ask.

Either way, now dressed, Valentine was all action. He passed me, taking my coat from the hook and his car keys from inside his backpack. We exited into the darkened hangar, and I zipped up against a cold breeze from the open front.

Valentine directed me to the black truck I’d followed in and out of the village, and I moved Tobi’s car seat into it, nerves shaking my fingers so badly it took multiple attempts to clip it in.

While I worked, Valentine jogged back to the hangar and returned with something in his hands. He knelt at the front of his car. “Trade plates so no one can track my registration. Just in case.”

Inside the comfortable car, with the heating on, I huddled in the passenger seat, my knee jumping and my mind flitting over what I needed to do and what could go wrong.

“Give me my destination then tell me what happened,” Valentine requested.

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