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At least before they talked and figured out what the hell was going on between them.
Denying he hated the age gap was futile. He did, vehemently. At her age, he’d been a jack of all trades, doing whatever was needed to bring cash into the house. Tinkering with car engines, building fences and mowing lawns. He’d played chauffeur for a while, ferrying around a family-money prick wherever he demanded to go.
Meanwhile, Olivia would have been playing a different role entirely; one that was more age appropriate. Being a kid was a job of its own, and he’d just bet she’d been a gorgeous child, all that red hair with those hazel eyes.
The last of the water disappeared with a swallow, so he set the bottle aside. “Att, would you happen to have a set of padded cuffs? Preferably with a long coupling chain.”
“Sure. I’ve got some upstairs.”
“Thanks. I think it’s time someone went back to bed. Any objections to us bunkin’ down for another night?”
“Not at all. Need me to carry her up for you?”
Possessiveness bit deep. “No, I got her. Could you ask Connie if she has any free time this week to sit with her?”
Atticus plucked the empty bottle from his hand. “I’ll make sure she does, even if it’s just thirty minutes. When Olivia wakes up and is coherent, tell her she’s on bereavement leave for at least a month. Archie’s going to dig into how much her mother’s medical bills are; with any luck, we can chip them down to nothing.”
“Run the husband, the stepfather. If he can afford to pay the bills, Olivia ain’t gonna be stuck with payin’ any more than she already has.”
Rising, Zeke bent and hitched her onto his hip. With her butt braced on his arm, she slumped forward over his shoulder. Fingers gripped his shirt, keeping him close as he turned toward the door. “Archie, the letter, please.”
She brought it to him, tucking it in the front pocket of his jeans. “I wish I’d written J a letter, back at the beginning. Maybe it would have saved a lot of heartache.”
Atticus shook his head. “A formal declaration of love from the one person he thought he couldn’t have? Fifty dollars says he’d still be running.” He shot her a grin. “You’d have been all mine then, little bit, and the world would be a lot different.”
Even as she blushed, Archie mirrored his headshake. “The world would’ve been wrong, Att. This is how it’s meant to be—you and Alicia, with your beautiful family; me and Jasper with our brood of potential villains intent on taking over the universe, one potty at a time.”
Snorting, the big guy walked over to the computer and began shutting it down. “Just don’t give my kids any ideas. Some of the technology we have down here is capable of toppling a government or two in sticky hands.”
Zeke gave Archie a nod as he carried his woman out of the room, into the barren hallway. He’d just leave those two to argue the finer points of whose children were most likely to cause an uprising, and get Olivia somewhere quiet where she’d get the rest she needed.
The letter was burning a hole in his pocket, but it would wait.
Finding out how much of an idiot he’d been required privacy, after all. Making amends for his mistakes didn’t bother him; he would do whatever it took to soothe the pain he’d caused, but he got the feeling he’d need a few moments to digest the foot currently in his mouth.
After that, he had to make a decision.
A big, fucking terrifying choice.
***
Olivia
Moaning under her breath, Olivia rolled onto her stomach and turned into a starfish. Her arms and legs found the cooler areas on the bed as she snuggled her face deeper into the pillow, but the quiet jingle of chains when she moved her right arm prevented her return to sleep.
Slowly, she opened one eye, squinting at the pressure around her wrist, and struggled to make sense of the wide, tan-colored band fastened around it. Experimentally, she flexed her fingers, which worked fine, and then followed the thin silver chain links from the cuff, over the blankets and her hip…
Turning onto her side, then her back, her eyes trailed the chain over the side of the bed to the foot poised in mid-air.
Zeke sat in a chair beside the bed, his cuffed ankle resting on the opposite knee. He held a piece of paper in his hand, his eyes drifting from side to side as he read the words, before they flicked up and saw her watching him.
Carefully, he folded the sheet and set it to one side. Dropping his foot to the floor, he rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. “Your mom died.”
The quiet statement, so full of sympathy, punched her in the gut. “Yeah.”
“Told no one, drove yourself home from Nevada in a wrecker held together by chewing gum and luck.”
Because her throat squeezed shut, Olivia only nodded.
