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He sets the bags down and leans in to drop a soft kiss on my cheek. It’s enough to get my blood rushing, and I welcome the sea salt top note of his cologne as he measures me from head to toe. “You look delicious in that dress,” he whispers.
“Easy, Mr. Danson,” I whisper back. There are children present.”
“Speaking of,” Chase says, switching back to his cool guy vibe. “Sammy, Luna, I got you some stuff. Feel free to unpack everything and keep what you like. If there’s anything you don’t like, set it aside, and I’ll send it over to Mom’s daycare.”
“Oh, wow, so many toys!” Luna gasps, eyes as wide as saucers as she looks into one of the bags. Sammy is practically speechless, hypnotized by one particular box containing a generous palette of colored playdough.
“So cool!”
“Kids, what do we say to Chase?” I cut in, smiling as I watch my babies straighten their backs and look up at him.
“Thank you, Mr. Chase!” they reply in the sweetest unison.
“You’re welcome,” Chase replies. “Dig in.”
We leave them to their toys and move over to the chaise lounge, then sit down under the umbrella shade. “You shouldn’t have,” I say, nodding back at the kids. Sammy is already going to town on the playdough, while Luna carefully analyzes each box, trying to decide what she is going to open first. “They’re gonna be spoiled rotten.”
Chase gives me a wry smile. “Halle, these kids need all the love and toys in the world after what they’ve been through.”
He’s not wrong.
I cannot change the past, but I can certainly enjoy this present moment and the idea of a potential future with these men.
17
Chase
As the evening quietly falls over our neighborhood, I put the kids to bed in their room. It takes a while to get them to close their eyes, though. Sammy, in particular, can be quite the starter of shenanigans, trying to trick me to read him another bedtime story. Then another. And another.
Luna is already half-asleep on her side of the room.
Sammy, on the other hand, is staring at me as if he’s silently sending messages into my very soul. I love this kid so much already. I’ll destroy anyone who tries to hurt him or his sister—or their mother. Hell, I will destroy anyone who tries to make their lives even the slightest bit difficult. These kids bring out two opposing sides of me, and it’s a weird thing to process, but I’m working on it.
“Come on, kiddo, another story?” I groan, feigning frustration.
Luna giggles, her eyelids at half-mast. “Try a dinosaur story. Those always help.”
“Thank you for the advice,” I reply as I pull out one of Sammy’s personal favorites from the stack of children’s book on the nightstand. “How about Rex and the Blueberry Thief?”
“Yes, please!” Sammy says, eagerly sitting back against his pillow.
These two look adorable in their matching jammies—Luna’s follow a watermelon theme, with watercolor-style slices of watermelons spattered across white cotton, while Sammy’s are a jolly celebration of the avocado in two shades of green. I could eat them both up, dammit. I shouldn’t get this attached, not with all the uncertainty swirling around us. We haven’t found that son of a bitch Colby yet; hopefully I gave him a good scare the other night but I doubt it.
He’s lying in wait. Biding his time.
It’s a matter of when, not if, with this guy.
“Okay, but afterwards you’re going to sleep,” I say to Sammy. “Uncle Wyatt is downstairs, waiting for me. We’ve got all that leftover dinner to put away.”
“Okay, just this story,” Sammy agrees.
Sitting on his bed, I scooch closer so he can lean against me while we both read from his book. I let him flip the pages as I take him through the tale of Rex, a brave and curious dinosaur who has to figure out who stole his friend Trini’s blueberries.
I don’t know why this little guy is so attached to me but it’s mutual. I see parts of myself in him, parts that vanished to the bottom of my consciousness after I joined the Navy. His innocence, his curiosity, this sparkle of life brimming within him. He’s so precious and it makes me furious whenever I think about what his own father did, setting that diner on fire.
Halle might think I’m joking but I don’t intend to let Colby Nash live.
That man doesn’t belong in this world, not after everything he put her and their kids through. These wide-eyed angels who never hurt anybody, still taking their first steps into a life that has so much to offer them.
