Page 55 of Adoring Delaney

“Oh. You remember Natalie?” she asked.

“Who?”

“The woman from last night. The one who just moved here?”

Fuck. I was hoping that wasn’t the Natalie she meant.

“Yeah.”

“I ran into her at the grocery store.”

Cold seeped into my bones.

“Come again?”

“She was at the grocery store. I stopped and chatted with her for a few minutes. She seems really nice, if not a little lost being in a new city with no friends or family. I gave her my number and—”

“You did what?”

“Jeeze, Carter, keep your pants on. What’s the big deal? She’s nice. And she doesn’t know anyone.”

I’d meant to run the license plate of the car Natalie had gotten into last night, but work had been busy and it slipped my mind. I’d remember to do that tomorrow.

“It’s not safe giving out your number to people.”

“Seriously? She’s a lonely woman, not a serial killer.”

“You don’t know that.”

“You’re worse than my dad. I didn’t think it was possible for anyone to outdo him on the crazy scale but you’ve done the impossible and just became the mayor of Crazy Town. Both of you see danger around every corner and neither of you understand what it does to us normal people who just want to live our lives.”

Damn, she was funny. But this was serious so I wasn’t going to tell her that her commentary was hilarious.

“What does trying to keep you safe do to you?”

“It scares me.”

“That’s good.”

“No, it’s not, Carter,” she huffed. “Do you know how many times I turned down invitations to concerts because Dad had told me how dangerous it is to be in a crowd that size if there was a terrorist attack? Or how many times I didn’t go to the water park because Uncle Levi told us there’d be no place to hide if there was an active shooter? And do not get me started on being scared shitless while in college after your dad gave me sex trafficking statistics. You all think you’re protecting me, and I think you believe you are. But what you’re doing is paralyzing me with fear. I don’t do things I want to do because, like you all, now all I see is danger. I can’t live life like that.

“Natalie is harmless. And if she turns out to be nutty, what’s the worst she can do? Call me to death? It’s a phone number. I didn’t invite her to move in with us.”

It was the last part of her sentence that calmed me.

Move in with us.

So I gave in. Though I was still running this Natalie person and if she turned out to be nutty Delaney wouldn’t have to worry about the woman. I’d set her ass on the first plane back to wherever she’d come from. And I’d bet it wasn’t Chicago.

“You’re right, Laney. Sorry. There’s a huge difference between being smart and aware and scared and not leaving your house. I’ll have a mind to that, but I need you to promise me, you’ll be watchful and listen to your instincts. There are people—”

“I know what kind of people are lurking, Carter,” she snapped and I closed my mouth.

Laney pulled into her driveway and I decided to change the subject.

“Do I have time to take a quick shower before I help you with dinner?”

“It’s made. All I have to do is put the lasagna in the oven. Everything else is done.”

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