Page 28 of Hold Me Until Morning

“That should do it,” he said.

My teeth clamped down on my bottom lip, and I shifted in discomfort.

I couldn’t stop staring at him.

A giant in the middle of my room.

Handsome as hell and dangerous to my sanity.

Blowing out the strain from my lungs, I wrung my fingers together. “I honestly don’t know how to thank you.”

Sure, he’d offered to do it.

Okay, insisted on it.

And even though I didn’t want to be indebted to him, appreciation pulled heavy at my chest. It hadn’t been an actual lie that I had movers set up for the weekend, only the movers were me.

“You don’t have a thing to repay me for.” His voice was gravel. A bait.

Uncertainty shook my head, suddenly unsure if there was a way to put a finger on him. If everything I thought I knew about him was true at all. “You just unloaded an entire truck. By yourself.”

A hint of that arrogance curled through his expression, though there was something softly goofy about it, like he wasn’t taking himself seriously when he raised his right arm out to the side and flexed it. “What do you think all these muscles are for?”

His stupid biceps bulged, and I fought the way my throat suddenly felt thick.

“I’m sure you get plenty of exercise doing the work you do.”

“Among other things.” The teasing insinuation was clear.

I bit down on the inside of my cheek.

Cocky. Freaking. Cowboy.

But there was no stopping the heat that crawled up my neck.

His features softened. “I was happy to help, Hailey. It’s what any good neighbor would do.”

He said my name the way he used to, and his gaze shifted into that soft familiarity he used to watch me with. He peered at me from across the room, the gold of his eyes glinting beneath the light that shined from the ceiling.

The air tugged hard as I stood there in the silence, no clue what to make of him all while knowing I shouldn’t be putting in the effort to make anything of him at all.

I needed to stay away from him. Reject whatever old feelings were trying to climb their way out of the vat where I kept them sealed.

“Where’s Maddie’s father?” He asked it like he had the right to know.

Point-blank.

I choked over the question. Apparently, we weren’t going for surface pleasantries.

“I left him three months ago.” I forced it out around the lump in my throat, unable to keep the spite out of my voice.

“He’s a prick, yeah?”

My laughter was raw, a shot of disgust and disbelief. “You could say that.”

Leaving the hand-truck standing on its own, Cody took a step my direction.

Another then another until he was standing in front of me.

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