Page 20 of Edge of Danger

“Tessa?” He hesitated to touch her after the stupid kiss earlier, but she wasn’t budging. With a hand on her shoulder, he whispered her name again.

Her eyes flew open, and her body jumped. “What? Huh?”

“Shh, it’s just me. It’s Brax. Everything’s okay.” He stopped short of taking her into his arms to calm her down—barely, since that was all he wanted to do. To hold her and calm her and let her know everything was okay.

She blinked hard, holding a hand to her forehead. “Brax? Oh, I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry. I startled you.”

“It’s just that I got a little freaked out, I guess.” She offered a weak little laugh. “All alone here, middle of the night, that sort of thing.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think about that when I asked you to spend the night here. It must’ve been creepy.” He was careful to speak quietly, and not only for the baby’s sake. Tessa was still spooked.

“At first,” she admitted with a shaky sigh. “But things turned around. And he was an angel the whole time.”

“I’m glad to hear that—though I’m sorry you slept here on the floor. It couldn’t have been comfortable.”

She shrugged. “It was fine. And it’s only been a few hours. Not all that long.”

Before he could dispute this or apologize yet again, she asked, “Did everything turn out okay?”

It took a second for him to understand what she was talking about. “Oh, yeah. It went as well as it could. We took the guy in before anything went wrong.”

“That’s a relief.” She ran a hand over her face, yawning. “What a night for both of us, I guess.”

What would he have done without her? “I can’t thank you enough. I wish I could tell you this sort of thing will never happen again, but I don’t like making promises I can’t keep.”

“I understand. You have an unpredictable job. And I like spending time with this one.” She rubbed Walker’s back with a gentle hand, smiling softly.

The question was out of his mouth before he could even consider thinking twice. “Would you like to make this a full-time arrangement?”

She gulped. “Full-time?”

Now that he’d gotten started, he couldn’t stop. It was like somebody had pulled the plug from a drain.

“You could move into my house—it has three bedrooms, with two on the other side of the house from mine. No strings attached. You’re free to say no. And I hope you know I would never dream of doing anything to make you—”

“Yes.” She touched his knee with a shy smile, cutting off the flow of words pouring from him. “Yes, I would love to do that. Thank you.”

That one touch lit up his insides and convinced him he’d made the right choice.

As long as he could learn to live with a woman and a baby in the house without driving them both insane.

Chapter Eight

“Happy birthday, dear Walker...” Tessa leaned over to kiss her son’s forehead. “Happy birthday to you.”

She snuggled him a little closer, laughing at herself for even thinking of singing Happy Birthday to a five-month-old.

“It’s your five-month birthday,” she whispered with another kiss before putting him in his highchair. It was brand new, one of many things Brax had purchased over the past two weeks. “You’re getting to be such a big boy now.”

Walker waved his fists, smiling from ear to ear. Even if he couldn’t understand what she was saying, she could tell he liked the sound of her voice.

So she talked to him all day long. Anything to make him happy. It didn’t hurt that it made her happy too. When she wasn’t talking to the baby, she was singing. Every song she knew, one after the other.

Not only because he enjoyed it, but because she did too. It had been so long since she’d sang or had any reason to sing. Being with Walker gave her that reason.

More than that. It was feeling safe in a beautiful home set on lots of land without a neighbor in sight. Plenty of trees, tons of sunshine. Room inside to move around. No sense of claustrophobia, no sounds and smells from neighbors on five sides of her apartment.

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