Page 15 of Hunted

“Huh?” He frowned.

“The one through your left eyebrow,” she said, smiling at his confused expression. “Piercing accident?”

“Oh, that.” Clint reached up and brushed his fingers over the white line bisecting his dark left brow. “No. Happened so long ago I forgot about it. It’s from a firecracker when I was a kid.”

“Yikes.”

“Yeah. The foster family I was living with at the time wasn’t exactly big on safety. Our foster dad bought a bunch of illegal stuff at one of those roadside stores and we took it all out into a field on the Fourth of July and lit the place up.” His deep chuckle as he remembered the events of his past did funny things to her stomach. “Don’t get me wrong. That family was great. Positive, loving environment—just a little too lax when it came to rules. There were two other foster kids there besides me and while I did my best not to light anybody else on fire, one of the other kids wasn’t so careful. He lit off a roman candle. You know, the ones that shoot the fireballs into the sky, without warning anybody to step back. One of the lit ones exploded and a hot spark grazed my eyebrow. The hair never really grew back.”

“Man,” she said, eyes wide. “You’re lucky you didn’t lose an eye.”

“Tell me about it.” He smiled and twirled his half-empty bottle between his fingers. Such long, lovely fingers. Leila found herself mesmerized by them, thinking how they might feel against her skin, skimming through her hair, down her neck, lower and lower…

She looked up to find him watching her expectantly.

Crap.

He’d obviously asked her something and she had no idea what. Swallowing hard, Leila gave him a small smile. “I’m sorry. Could you repeat that?”

Clint tilted his head slightly, his expression amused. “Distracted much?”

Heat prickled her cheeks and she focused on her plate again, silent.

“Everything okay at work?” he asked after a long moment. “No problems I should know about, right?”

“No. Everything’s fine,” she said, reaching over to fiddle with Thomas’s sock-covered toes, making her son giggle. “Just tired, I guess.” She gave herself a mental shake and concentrated on what he’d said, hoping to get the spotlight off herself. “So, it sounds like your time in foster care wasn’t all bad then?”

“Nah.” Clint shrugged, running his fingers through the condensation on his bottle. “Foster care gets a bad rap, but honestly most of the people in the system are decent. The hardest thing for me to deal with was feeling like I didn’t have roots. It’s hard, being untethered. But I adapted, became used to it.” He snorted. “Maybe too used to it, some might say, considering I’m such a loner now. Childhood shapes us more than we think, I suppose.”

“Hmm.” Leila sipped her water and toyed with the few remaining bites of pasta on her plate, feeling a bit of the tension easing inside her. “That’s true. After my dad was out of the picture, I saw how hard Mom worked to support my brother andme. I guess that’s why when Mike got sent to prison, I knew I could handle it, since I’d grown up without a dad. And, really, Mike wasn’t the dad I wanted for Thomas.” She sighed and looked back at her son. “I do want him to have a good father figure someday, though. I want him to have everything I didn’t growing up.”

“Understandable.” He drained his beer then tossed it across the room into the recycle bin. “Three-pointer.” Clint grinned, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table. “I have to say, it’s been nice having you guys here.”

“Don’t sound so surprised,” she teased. “We aren’t that bad, are we?”

“Other than stuff everywhere, no.”

“Stuff?” Leila gave him a look. “I’ll have you know I clean up after myself and my son all the time.” She did, but she had to admit it was tough to control the clutter with a toddler.

“I know. It’s just different is all.” He sat back and rubbed his eyes. “I’m used to living by myself.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” She finished her food then rose to help him clean up the table. “You don’t really go for much decoration around here, do you?” His walls were without any artwork, and there wasn’t a single knickknack on display.

“Not really,” he said, rinsing the plates and sticking them in the dishwasher while she wiped the table. “Part of it is my time in the military and foster care. Like I said before, when you’re constantly moving, there’s not much time to settle in. I don’t see much point in getting attached to stuff either.”

She wondered if that meant getting attached to people, too. “What’s the other part?” she asked, wanting to know more about him.

“Mementos are about helping you remember—but I prefer to keep the past in the past.”

“Huh.” She lifted Thomas from his booster chair and went with him into the living room. He made a beeline for the basket of toys and immediately started zooming cars across the floor, happy as a clam. She should leave her conversation with Clint at that, but she was curious about his attitude. When he finished in the kitchen and came to join her, she asked, “So, you don’t have any reminders of your parents?”

“Not really,” he said, but she noticed something flicker across his face. “Well, there is this one thing.”

“What?” She found herself, encouraging him with a smile. He looked so adorable, all rumpled hair and faraway expression. She remembered the feel of his chest against her back from the gun range earlier. He’d been working with her on her aim and her stance, his warmth surrounding her, his muscled body hard and strong brushing her back. Leila bit back a groan of frustration before focusing on him again. “Tell me.”

He held still for a moment before striding over to a small closet in the corner. “Probably easier if I show you.”

Clint rummaged around, giving her a fantastic view of his taut butt in those faded jeans of his, then turned. In his hands was a raggedy-looking stuffed rabbit. One of its eyes was missing and the ears showed signs of several repairs, but it also appeared well-loved, carefully preserved. Her heart melted at the sight. “This is Trixie. She’s the last toy my parents ever bought me.”

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