Page 22 of Delicate Escape

Maybe she was right.

Rhodes drummed her fingers on her thigh. “So, can I ask Shep to help you?”

My stomach bottomed out at the hope in her eyes. “I don’t know, Rho. It feels like taking advantage, and?—”

Her hand snaked out, taking mine quickly and squeezing my fingers. “I think he needs this.”

I frowned at her in confusion. “Needs to fix my leak?”

“Needs to feel like he’s helping you.” Rhodes dropped my hand and ran hers through her dark locks. “Notyou. Someone. Anyone.”

There was a slight desperation to Rhodes’ words, which put me on edge. “Is everything okay?”

She shook her head and looked out over the nursery, but her eyes weren’t truly focused. “He blames himself for what happened to me.”

Something lit along my sternum, a twitchy sensation that made me want to shift in place. Rhodes had been through hell on Earth at the hands of a serial killer, and while we didn’t talk about it, I knew she carried scars—both physical and emotional.

“Why would he blame himself for something a monster did?” I asked, pitching my voice low.

Rhodes scrubbed a hand over her face as if the fatigue from all that had happened was just now hitting her. “Because he hired Silas. Worked with him for years. Shep thinks it’s his fault Silas had access to me.”

The twitchy feeling inside me twisted into an ache. For Shep. It fit. The way he seemed to take on everything around him…of course, he would take this on, too. I swallowed hard, thinking about my blindness to a different monster. “We can’t always see a person’s capacity for evil. But that doesn’t make us culpable. It just means we see the good in those around us.”

I’d lost some of that along the way. Now, I looked for the darkness and not the light. And I’d hurt Shep by doing so. His face flashed in my mind, his stubbled, angular jaw and wounded, amber eyes.

As I blinked the picture away, I found Rhodes staring at me. There was curiosity in her gaze and a hint of worry, but she didn’t open her mouth to push.

“You can ask him to help me,” I said.

Rhodes’ entire face lit up. “Thank you. Seriously. I really think he needs this.”

“I’ll pay him, though,” I stressed. “I know there’ll be no arguing with him cutting me a deal, but he’s not working for free.”

Rhodes chuckled. “You already know him too well.”

And how was that? A handful of conversations that were only seconds long. Watching him from afar. Hearing Rhodes’ stories.

Yet I knew the walls I’d built to keep everyone out, the ones that kept me safe, would have to be reinforced three times over with him. Not because Shep would set out to do me harm but because I sensed he had the power to slip right through my barriers.

8

SHEP

I slammedmy truck’s door and stepped out into the garage just as the door slid closed. Twisting my neck, I felt the telltale pop and release of tension. Not enough. We were juggling more jobs than we should, and adding a personal project to the slate meant we were past our limits. But I couldn’t resist the old farmhouse; it was too much of a hidden gem.

Lifting my phone, I used the app to unlock the door to my house. Most people wouldn’t add a lock to the door between the garage and the home, but I wasn’t most people.

I’d grown up in a house that had taken in kids from the roughest of circumstances. I knew that bad things could find you wherever you lived and thus prepared accordingly. I just used tech to do it.

The moment the door opened, a soft beeping sounded. As I plugged in the alarm code, I heard the AC kick on. Summers in Sparrow Falls had a large swing. The nights could get down to the forties, but the days could reach one hundred. I left the thermostat atseventy-eight while I was gone, but the moment my electronic locks turned, it was programmed to drop to seventy-four.

Lights flicked on automatically as I walked through the modern Craftsman. It had more room than I needed, with four bedrooms and five baths, but that just meant a higher resale value when it went on the market next week. As I opened the fridge, my phone dinged with an incoming text.

Mara

You didn’t tell me the Juniper Lane house was getting featured in The Tribune. This is amazing! We should celebrate!

I frowned at my screen. If you read between the lines, the text was equal parts quiet accusation, congratulations, and gentle suggestion for us to spend time together. It had annoyance sweeping through me. And fast on its heels…guilt.

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