Page 10 of The Protector’s Heart

Shit. He should go like right fucking now. As if on cue, his phone buzzed and a text from Mia read, “I hope you got home safely. They just declared a state of emergency because of the road conditions.”

“I’m safe,” he texted back.

“Home?”

“None of your beeswax.”

“Oh that’s mature.” She signed off that she loved him, and he replied back the same, sliding his phone onto the table and yawning.

“I’m stuck here, sweetheart,” he whispered.

Nila’s answer was a sigh, as she snuggled into the cushions.

Being stuck wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

CHAPTER FIVE

Nila yawned and stretched, rubbing her eyes. She looked to the right and was surprised by what she saw. Malachi was leaning against the arm of the couch, his head propped up on one hand, and his other arm holding Jack as he slept, snuggled against him.

She swallowed hard at the sight. She’d never seen anything sweeter. A blanket was covering her, and she knew that Malachi had done that for her, and also must have caught Jack before he woke her up. She was oddly grateful, but wary at the same time. Glad that he’d helped Jack, but concerned that he’d stayed the night. Why hadn’t he gone home?

Easing from the couch, she walked to the front window and pulled back the curtain enough to see in the morning sunlight that another foot of snow had blanketed the world outside her door. She’d lured him into her home with hot chocolate and marshmallows when she’d known that the snow wasn’t letting up. A part of her knew that she’d been desperate for some kind of extra protection, because the lack of electricity had meant the security system was useless. But the bigger part of her knew that she just hadn’t wanted Malachi to leave.

“It’s pretty bad out there.” Malachi’s voice was soft and deep, and it wiggled down her spine, making her whole body tighten.

She turned slowly and looked at him, so comfortable on her couch with her son in his arms, Jack’s blue baby blanket over top of them both. Malachi looked even more handsome with his short hair mussed from sleep and a shadow of stubble on his chin.

“I’m sorry you got stuck here.”

He smiled at her in a way that said he knew exactly why she’d let him stay, even though she hadn’t consciously made the choice. “I’m not.”

“I didn’t hear him.” She looked at her son, his tawny head tucked into the crook of Malachi’s neck as if he belonged there.

“I got him pretty quick. He just went right back to sleep, but I think that he leaked on me.” He grinned wryly.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay, I promise.”

She moved toward them and stopped next to the couch. He looked up at her, and there was nothing sinister in his eyes, no look that told her a fist might come flying at her at any moment, or that a scathing insult might be hurled in her direction. “It is okay, isn’t it?”

He nodded.

She took her still-sleeping son from him and saw that Jack had indeed ‘leaked’ since Malachi’s dark shirt had an even darker stain on it. Jack made a snuffling sound as he began to wake, and she said, “I’ll be right back.”

When she came out of the bedroom after changing Jack, she found Malachi, naked from the waist up, talking on his cell. “Okay, thanks, I appreciate it.” He tucked the phone into his back pocket and said, “A wolf from my pack works for the power company, and he said that the power will be back on this street in about an hour. Do you have a shovel?”

She realized she was staring at his chest. His amazing chest. When he cleared his throat and said her name, lifting her eyes to meet his was possibly the hardest thing she’d had to do. Him and his damn lickable chest. “I’m sorry?”

“A shovel?”

She blinked. “I can wash the shirt; you don’t have to bury it.”

He laughed, and the sound was so sweet she wanted to make him laugh again. “No, sweetheart, I want to shovel your driveway. And you don’t have to wash the shirt, I can do my own laundry.”

“You don’t have to shovel the drive.” He called her sweetheart. She cursed herself for thinking that was awesome.

“Well, I’ll give you two reasons why I do. One, I’m snowed in because the plows that came through very early this morning blocked me in.”

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