Page 37 of Single Mom for the Firemen

“Sure,” he agrees, and he leans in to drop a kiss on my cheek. “See you then, Vanessa.”

And with that, he turns on his heel and starts the trek back to his cabin—leaving me alone once more, and inescapably consumed by the feeling that someone is watching me.

My eyes scan the forest, each and every tree, trying to find something that explains the strange prickling sensation at the back of my neck. But there’s nothing. Which should be a good sign, right? A sign that there’s nothing actually going on here. A sign that it was all in my head…

Or a sign that whoever is stalking me is so damn good at it that they don’t have to worry about getting caught.

I duck inside the cabin, pull the door shut behind me, and lock it tight. Tomorrow, we’ll have the cameras rigged, and at least then I’ll know that the guys can see if anything happens here.

And I just have to pray that all of this is nothing more than my paranoia getting the best of me.

18

JAKE

“Is that the last one up?”I ask Mason as he rounds the other side of the house, dusting off his hands.

He nods once. “Yeah, that’s the last one,” he replies. “We’ve got coverage on every corner of this place now. Nobody’s coming or going without us knowing about it.”

Internally, I let out a sigh of relief. Ever since Vanessa came clean to me about her reasons for coming out here, I have been scared shitless that something might happen to her. I found the article she wrote about the cartel, and if it’s anything to go by, I can’t see them letting her get away to start a new life quite so easily. They don’t seem like that kind of group.

And even out here in the forest, there are some things my brothers and I can’t ensure her protection against.

“I’ll run a test when we get back, but that should be it,” Killian adds as he joins us. “We’ve got it all under control.”

“Right,” I mutter, pushing a hand over my head.

Mason reaches out to lay a hand on my shoulder. “Hey,” he reminds me. “This is what she wanted us to do. We can’t do more than that. Okay?”

“Okay,” I reply. I know he’s right, of course. As much as I’d like to have a full-time security patrol outside this place on top of the cameras, overstepping her boundaries is only going to push her away from us and make it harder for her to come to us if something actually happens. No, better to stick by the rules she’s laid out, even if I want nothing more than to lock things down completely.

Before I can say anything else, she emerges from inside the house and waves at the three of us. I notice at once the way Killian grins when he lays eyes on her, and I can’t help but chuckle. He’s clearly down bad for this woman, though he’d never admit it. He likes to think he’s some playboy who never gets attached, but he’s probably more of a romantic than Mason or me.

“Dinner’s ready,” she tells us, jerking her head inside. “And Callie has another table decoration made for the occasion, so make sure you say something nice.”

“As if I’d need to be told,” Killian shoots back, and she grins at him as he brushes past her into the house. I wait for the stab of jealousy to rise in me at the sight of the two of them being so friendly with each other, but it doesn’t. I don’t know why, but there’s something about sharing her with my brothers that doesn’t feel like the imposition it might if she were with other guys. They’re my closest friends, my family, after all. There’s barely a damn thing in our lives we haven’t split with each other.

Inside, the table is laden with dishes—Korean food, she tells us, or her take on it. In the middle, there’s a decoration made out ofwhat looks to be bubble wrap with little dots drawn in the center of each bubble. Killian is the first to clock it for what it’s meant to be, raising his eyebrows at Callie.

“Is this the frog spawn we saw at the pond?”

She nods, clapping her hands together.

“You’ve done a great job,” I remark, leaning down to inspect it. “Looks like these things could come to life any second.”

“I hope not,” Vanessa cuts in as she takes her seat at the table. “I only made enough for the five of us…”

As we all settle in around the table and start serving up the food, the conversation turns to the hike Callie took with Killian and me yesterday—nothing too intense, since she’s so little, but she really seemed to enjoy it. Sometimes I forget what it must be like to grow up in the city, so far removed from this life. Our foster dad was always so insistent on bringing us out here and getting us to connect with nature, and there’s something I like about sharing that with another generation of kids.

“I’ll have to go out with you next time,” Mason remarks as he plants down his fork next to his empty plate. “We could go bird-watching together.”

“Isn’t that a hobby for retirees in Florida with nothing better to do?” Vanessa teases, and he laughs and shoots her a look.

“Hey, maybe if you’re short on imagination,” he replies. “But I happen to think it’s a damn good time.”

“Maybe you could show me sometime,” she replies, tilting her head to the side and grinning. I sense a flicker of something in the air between them. Though Mason didn’t say anything about the specifics of how their interview went yesterday, I getthe feeling that something more than just question-and-answer might have taken place.

The conversation flows with ease long after the food is finished, and I realize all at once that I’m not thinking about anything that exists outside of this house. No, for once, I’m actually in the moment. Surrounded by my family, by Callie and Vanessa—eating good food as the sunlight filters through the window behind us and the darkness begins to settle in for the evening. I can’t remember the last time I felt this way—hell, I’m not sure I have since I stood in the ashes of the home I had once called my own, and took in the nightmare of what remained.

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