Page 49 of I'll Keep Her Safe

Poppy saws her teeth across her bottom lip. “I don’t know.”

“Talk to her. I’m sure once you explain, she’ll understand. She’s pretty reasonable.”

“That’s true.” Poppy’s shoulders relax a little, and she sighs. “I really liked it at Joe’s.”

“You’ll find another job,” I say, but the thought weighs heavily on my chest. Even if she does, Kurt will find her there, too, and continue to hurt her. She might work hard to keep her chin up, but she shouldn’thaveto. How can I protect her properly? How can I make sure he never hurts her again?

My gaze drifts across the mountains of cookies, and a thought crystallizes in my mind. Her comment about taking some for the crew has given me an idea.

“What if I could offer you work?” I say, and she looks at me, confused.

“What kind of work?”

I pick up a cookie and sample it, not at all surprised when it’s utter perfection in my mouth—crunchy on the outside, soft and crumbly in the middle, chocolate chips that melt on my tongue. Everything she cooks is amazing.

“The guys at work are always complaining there are no good lunch options near the job site. What if you catered their lunches?”

She blinks. “How would I do that?”

I motion to the kitchen. “You’d make the food here, and they’d pay you to provide their lunch. Whatever you cook will be a hundred times better than anything they’d buy locally. I’m sure they’d be into it.”

“Wyatt!” Poppy laughs. “I can’t just start catering because I want to. I need a food-handling license, and probably some kind of commercial kitchen, and health inspections…”

“Okay, okay.” I hold up my hands. “So there’s more to this than I realized, but you could do it, Poppy. We can find you a commercial kitchen.”

“I don’t know.” She rubs her forehead. “That’s a lot of overhead to make lunch for a few of the guys.”

“You’re right, but I have four job sites on the go right now. I could offer it to every site, not just the one in Park Slope.” I’m pacing again, the idea snowballing as I speak. “And there are often other crews working, too. Construction crews. Plumbing, electrical…” My mind flashes on Kyle and Violet, two doors down from me, who run a historical restoration company. We often work with them, and they tend to have multiple job sites on the go at once, so maybe they’d be interested too.

Poppy exhales, looking overwhelmed, and I stop pacing.

“We can start small. Make lunch for a few of the guys and see if they like it. You can do that without a food-handling license, surely. If it takes off, we’ll take the next steps, but I can tell you now, itwilltake off.”

“You’re serious,” Poppy says, staring at me.

“What? Of course I’m serious. Do you know how often the guys complain about lunch? They’re sick of eating the same shit over and over, spending so much money, and not even enjoying it.”

“But…” Poppy twists her hands. “Do you really think people will pay for my food?”

I blink at her in disbelief. I know exactly why she’s asking, and it burns me up, that Kurt pushed her away from the thing she loves, made her question herself…

I shake the thought of him away before another violent urge overcomes me. “Yes. I know they will. Happily.”

A smile hints at Poppy’s lips, her excitement getting the better of her, despite her reservations. “I could create a new menu each week, so they won’t get bored. Offer a few options, so they have choices, and charge one up-front fee each week, so they know what they’re spending, and I know what to buy.” She’s pacing now too, her energy shifting from one of defeat to optimism. To empowerment. “We’ll start small, like you said, and test the waters. But… maybe this could work.”

“Of course this could work. Once they taste your food, they’ll be begging for more.”

A laugh tinkles from her, and I stop, my heart pounding. I’ve helped her shift from near tears to laughter, and nothing has ever felt so good. But it wasn’t just me—it was her refusal to let Kurt stop her. Herownstrength.No mud, no lotus, as she said.

“I’ll tell the crew first thing tomorrow,” I say. She spins to look at me. “And the best part,” I add, balling my hands into fists, then releasing them, “is that no one can take this away from you. You’ll be your own boss, on your own terms, and Kurt can’t ruin that. I’ll kill him if he tries.”

She swallows. “Thank you, Wyatt. I couldn’t…” She shakes her head, then crosses the room and pulls me into her arms.

I’m not prepared for it. My heart leaps into my throat as her soft body presses to mine, and my arms are around her back before I can think twice.

“You’re welcome,” I murmur into her hair, inhaling her sweet, peachy smell. Her arms tighten, her head burrowing into my chest, and for a split second I let myself imagine what it would be like if she were mine. If I could hold her like this anytime I wanted.

When we draw apart she gazes at me, her eyes wide and dark, her chest rising and falling with her rapid breaths. My blood heats at the intensity in her gaze, at the way it looks as though she’s resisting the desire to lean back into my arms. It’s all I can do not to lower my mouth to hers and tell her that I’ll never let anything bad happen to her again.

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