Page 71 of Hunted

Because she’s still looking like she might have something to say about it, I decide distraction might be the thing that saves me from her disapproval. “Has Mack mentioned anything about all of us moving into a house together?”

No one says a word.

But suddenly everyone decides they need to either sip their tea or look away.

“You all knew?” I guess. I’m not disappointed that I’m the last one to know, but Iamsurprised Mack didn’t talk to me about it first.

“He might have mentioned something,” Adela says.

I rub my back when it reminds me that sitting in hard chairs is not a long-term activity.

“Come on.” Helena straightens. “Let’s go sit in the den. More comfy.”

Adela gets to her feet. “It’s late, or early, whichever way you want to look at it, but I’ll see if I can throw something together for us to eat.”

My grandma rises as well. “I’ll help.”

“And I’ll enjoy this tea,” my grandpa says, toasting them with a grin.

We leave Adela and my grandparents to finish their tea and pull food together that I can’t imagine anyone will want to eat, migrating to the den to settle on the couch.

Helena turns the TV on, but after flicking through a few channels, she turns it off again and tosses the remote beside her. “Nothing to watch.”

I know exactly why she’s not interested in watching anything. “You’re worried about Bennett, aren’t you?”

She nods. “I know he can handle himself in a fight, but I’ve gotten used to fighting alongside him. It’s weird to not be with him.”

I can guess why that would be. “He asked you to stay with me, didn’t he?”

She shakes her head. “I offered. We agreed if there was going to be trouble, it’s likely to be at the hotel, but just in case there was trouble here, I wanted to be here.”

“But you’d have rather been with him,” I say. “Wouldn’t you?”

She nods.

As Adela and my grandma rattles around in the kitchen, I give Helena a rueful smile. “I’m going to admit to saying something to Mack that I didn’t mean.”

Helena and I are closer than we’ve ever been before. It feels like a lifetime ago that she was just my dad’s enforcer. Now, I call her a friend.

She takes my hand and squeezes. “I heard, and it’s okay. I understand your fear. Especially now. I tried telling Bennett to stay at the back if there was any trouble. You can probably imagine how that went down.”

We both laugh.

We’re both bringing children into the world soon, and neither of us wants to lose the fathers of our children.

We share a smile, and I squeeze her hand. “It’s scary isn’t it? They mean so much to us that they make it impossible to imagine a future without them.”

“It is scary.” She nods. “But I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m happier now than I ever have been in my life, and I don’t want anything to threaten that or take it away.”

“Are you sure Zoe and Chris are okay outside?” I ask, glancing at the den entryway.

They’ve been outside in the backyard since before I came downstairs. I’d thought they would walk around a bit, make sure no one was out there, and then join us in the kitchen for tea. But they seem determined to stay out there all night.

“They’re fine.”

“Did Mack or Bennett tell them to go out there?”

A slow smile stretches across her face. “Nope. They volunteered.”

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