Page 100 of Moonlit Colorado

“Then I’m proud of you too,” Callum said softly. “I came here with certain assumptions. I should’ve waited to hear your side of it.”

Piper squeezed my hand again. She was still sitting beside me on the bed, and she hadn’t let go during my whole speech. It had felt so good to get all of that out. “Thank you. It means a lot to hear that.”

“At least you got the guy’s first name,” Piper said, “which will help lead the police to tracking him down. And you said there were some security cameras that got certain angles of him too, right?”

“That’s what the NYPD detective told Dane and me. I snapped some photos of him myself and recorded a video, but then the asshole took my phone after he?—”

Wait. The photos on my phone.

Could I still have access to them?

“You don’t have to talk about the attack if it’s too much,” Callum said. But I waved that away. He was reading my silence all wrong.

“I need my laptop.”

Callum took off his baseball cap and ran his fingers through his hair. “Sis, you have a concussion. Aren’t you supposed to avoid screens? And intense thinking?”

The doctorhadsaid those things, but this was an emergency. “My laptop’s in the living room. Ask Dane to find it. He can look at the screen for me, but seriously, justdo what I ask.”

“Okay. Geez.”

Callum returned with Dane and Ashford. “Hey, Gracie, how are you feeling?” Ashford asked.

“I’ll give you all the updates later. First, I need my laptop. I have to see if I’m right.”

Dane was carrying my computer under his arm. Piper got up so Dane could take her place right next to me. I recited my password, and he logged in. “What’s this about?” he asked.

“Go to my cloud backup. My photos automatically get uploaded there from my phone.” Same with videos. But I had no idea if the uploading had finished before Vincent took my phone and, most likely, trashed it.

Dane didn’t make me wait long for an answer. A few taps of his finger, and he grinned. “Two photos and a video were uploaded to the cloud last night.” He clicked a few more times. “Looks like you got a clear image of the man. This is going to make a huge difference in identifying Vincent and Lexi,andcorroborating your testimony about the attack. We can send these to the detective as well as the private investigator. You did good.”

“I did, didn’t I?” I felt almost giddy with relief. Vincent, whoever he really was, was going to regret ever messing with me.

Dane’s arm snaked carefully behind me, and he kissed me. Not just a quick peck, but a drawn-out moment of his lips caressing mine.

A throat cleared, probably Callum’s, and Dane pulled back, smiling at me with a glint of humor in his eyes. He had kissed me in front of Piper and my brothers. He’d been kissing me in front of other people all weekend, including his family, but Ashford was his best friend. So the significance wasn’t lost on me.

It felt like Dane had claimed me as his. And to my surprise, I was completely on board with that.

* * *

I napped off and on for the rest of the afternoon, then managed to get to the dining room for some dinner. Callum made pasta, and Piper whipped up a salad. Dane had ordered more cheesecake along with the groceries we needed. I ate as much as I wanted of everything and soaked up the presence of so many of my favorite people.

Then after dinner, Dane ran a bath for me in his fancy marble-lined bathroom. He offered to get in with me, but I told him to go spend time with Piper and my brothers instead. I needed a little time to myself to decompress.

But when I emerged wearing a bathrobe, I was glad to find Dane sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting for me. He was in a simple white T-shirt and jeans, hair all tousled, and had no right to look that sexy when I was too injured to take advantage of it.

“Did everyone else go to bed?” I asked. The darkness outside the window told me it was getting late, though of course the city still buzzed below us with ambient noise.

“They were passing around my whiskey when I said goodnight. Callum can drink.”

I smiled. “Especially when it’s the expensive stuff and someone else is paying. Was he being nicer to you?” I sat on the edge of the mattress, and Dane scooted closer, kissing my temple so gently I barely felt the touch of his lips.

“He’s not scowling at me as much. Not that I care what Cal thinks, with all due respect.”

“And you and Ashford? You’re good?”

Dane nodded. “He and I talked a lot today. We’re solid. But I don’t want you worrying about that, okay?” He pulled a small gift bag from behind his back. He’d been keeping it out of sight. “Here. I have a present for you.”

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