Page 55 of Mine to Protect

“How are you staying with Chandler, then?”

I rolled my eyes and took another hit off the cigarette. “He stays locked in his room, even though he says he’s going to try his luck one of these nights just to see what the fuck would happen.”

“What would?”

“Probably a snapped neck or a bullet between the eyes.”

“Oh,” she breathed. “But what if I promised to stay in my room? At night, you could sleep on the couch, and I’d lock myself in my room, with Benny.”

My head dropped forward. “Sorry, Lady. Me staying overnight isn’t in the cards. I promised to protect you, even if it’s from me.”

“Okay,” she relented. “So you’ll stay with me during the day, and Chandler will come over at night. Babysitting shifts.”

I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her tight against my side. “It’s best this way, I promise you. But if you want me there during the day, inside your cabin, I have one condition.”

“What?” she asked as she tilted her head up, giving me a full view of her beautiful smile.

“We’re cleaning your place, and you’ll keep it like that. Understood?”

Not sure how, but her smile grew wider. “Deal, Sergeant Mathews.”

“Good. I’ll go pack a few things, and then we can run into town and buy some cleaning shit.”

“I have—” I cut her off with a single look. “Right, looking forward to it. Sir.”

Flexing my arm, I pulled her tighter. “Sir. I like that. Remember it tonight.”

19

Alta

By the timeSarah pulled up the drive, I had zero energy left for our girls’ night. It took over three hours to clean the cabin to Cas’s expectations. Three. Hours. Now my lungs burned, my fingertips were raw, and my arm muscles twitched, but every inch of the cabin was spotless. Someone could do surgery in the living room and feel 100 percent sure the patient wouldn’t get an infection.

I loved the results and the time we spent together completing the project. Plus I had drawers full of clean clothes, which hadn’t happened since Mom did my laundry in high school. We cleaned in silence mostly, which was kind of perfect. It was a comfortable silence that two ordinary people had in a relationship.

Relationship.

Who the hell would’ve thought I would be so far in my recovery to use the word and mean it? He healed me in ways hours of therapy never had, just by being him. Maybe he was right; we were both broken in some way, but that just meant our broken pieces filled the cracks of the other. That was what he was doing.

“I know you said no wine,” Sarah announced with a grin as she walked through the door. Two paper grocery bags crinkled as they swayed on either side of her legs. “But—” She pulled up short when she looked over my shoulder into the living room. “What’s he doing here?” she whispered.

“It’s a long story,” I said as I snagged the bags to take them into the kitchen.

“You do understand a girls’ night means just girls, right? Hence the name,” Sarah whisper-shouted as she trailed behind me.

When I set them on the counter, the rattling of glass bottles clinked inside the brown bag. With an arched brow, I offered a pointed look at Sarah, then the bags and back again.

“I need it,” she said with a whine. “And you could use some relaxing juice too. You just took away the vaginas-only part of girls’ night. Don’t take away the required liquids too.”

All apprehension of the evening turned to guilt. I needed to try; after all, she was, despite my quirks.

“Fine, but I hope you brought a bottle opener because I don’t have one.”

“Is he going to be here all night?” she whispered as she withdrew a bottle of red from the bag. “I don’t mind the eye candy, but it’s rude to flaunt what I can’t touch.”

I chuckled under my breath and glanced to Cas on the couch, busy on his phone. “Yeah, something happened today, and I need him to stick around for a bit.”

“It’s all around the station about John suspending you. Is that what you’re talking about?”

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