Page 7 of The Vigilant

The stairs from the garage rose into the back of the house, the sandy yellow hallway in front of me lined with modern monochrome photographs. I peered into every doorway I came across—most being brightly colored bedrooms—but it was the first room on the right that had me biting my lip with excitement.The laundry room.To not have to go to a laundromat to wash my clothes—all ten pieces of them.

By the time the hallway ended in the living room, I wasn’t surprised that the leather couch there looked more comfortable than the last however many beds I’d slept on—definitely more comfortable than the pallets in prison.

I turned, and there was a real stove in the kitchen.Damn,what I wouldn’t give to be able to boil water for ramen rather than microwaving it.

The last time I’d been in a house this nice—around anything this nice—was before my grandparents died. Mom’s parents, Lolo and Lala—the Filipino word for grandmother was technicallyLola, but for some reason, I’d always called her Lala—would take me to the beach when I was little, usually right after Dad left for deployment and Mom went into one of her moods. We’d stay at their friend’s beach house, and to a seven-year-old, it wasn’t the pricey paintings on the walls or shiny appliances that gave away how expensive the house was, but the hallways that seemed endless and the bathroom floors that were always warm under my toes. I pretended I was a princess in a castle. It wouldn’t be long after that before there was no one but myself left to protect me.

My head moved on a swivel until it found him standing behind me, his folded arms making his shoulders and biceps look even bigger.

“This is where you live?”

“No. This is where you’re going to live for the next six weeks,” Tynan muttered behind me, and I shivered. I still wasn’t used to his voice, the deep, rough rumble of it affecting me like fresh coffee soaking into my veins, heating and…stimulating me.

A voice shouldn’t be hot. A voice shouldn’t be sexy. Especially the voice of a man who’d done nothing but order me around. I’d been ordered around plenty in my life, but never had a voice made me so tempted to obey.

Then where do you live, Mr. White Knight?I wanted to ask but didn’t. The less I questioned him, the less he’d think to question me. It was bad enough I’d been caught breaking into Mara’s apartment, but the last thing I needed was for him to think he actually needed to babysit me. That would be…it would ruin everything.

“All right, well, thanks for the ride. I think I can manage from here,” I said and realized he held my bag.Shit.Why had I let him carry it? And why did it look so small in his hand?

Probably for the same reason I’d felt so small in his hands.

Tynan Bates was a big man. Big hands. Big shoulders. Big muscles. Big boots. Probably other bigthingsthat I shouldn’t have let myself think about on the ride over here, but I couldn’t help myself. Having to ride behind him, hold onto him, and breathe in the scent of him lingering in his helmet that he’d unceremoniously dumped on top of my head, leather and oil and cedar, those fifteen minutes on the back of his bike had been a crash course in the physicality of Tynan Bates.

I walked over and plucked my duffel from his hand, his deep growl bringing my attention to his face.

“I have questions,” he said, his dark eyes crackling with ungrounded energy.

“Good for you.”

A shot of anger rushed through me, recalling the way he’d first looked at the bag and asked if this was all my things. It took everything I had not to kick him again. I didn’t want his pity. Not when he’d learned Mom died. Not when he realized I’d been in juvie. Not when he’d learned my entire life was distilled into a gym duffel.

Instead of kicking him, I settled for squeezing his middle extra tight as we rode on his motorcycle. Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure it had the effect I was hoping since his middle felt like a stack of bricks against my arms. All of him, really, felt carved from hot stone even through my leather jacket and his as we rode into picture-perfect Carmel Cove.

Mom had brought me to the beach here once on vacation—a rarity; she’d wanted to “paint by the sea.”Which meant it wasn’t a vacation for me, her thirteen-year-old daughter, who was left responsible for her and myself, for food and safety, while she “chased her muse.” That was her PC—parentally correct—phrase for getting too high to do anything but dredge her hands in paint and smear it over a canvas.

I was pretty sure no one else had vacation memories of Carmel Cove quite like I did, having to pretend to be a cat and crawl on my hands and knees back to our motel because Mom refused to leave the beach unless a black cat was going to lead her to more magic. Maybe magic was supposed to be more drugs, but it didn’t matter once we were back in the room and she passed out on the bed.

I’d had to use all the vacation money Dad sent me to pay the motel for all the paint and sand damage she’d caused. But of course, Dad never knew. I didn’t want him to think I was weak. I didn’t want him to think he had to worry about me.

“Where have you been living?”

I didn’t want this man to think he had to worry about me either.“In the city,” I clipped and went to walk by him.

“Sutton.”

He grabbed my arm, and I yanked it away with a hiss.

“I’m fine. I’m going to shower,” I said and notched my chin higher. “You can go.”

I was the first one to walk away, heading directly into the first bedroom on my left. It had sliding glass doors that led onto a small outdoor patio, which was a perfect exit to slip out of, if needed; I hadn’t missed the security system protecting the garage nor the alarm panel just next to the front door.

I stilled, hearing the door in the hall and then the thud of boots descending into the garage.Good,I thought, because there was no reason for me to feel disappointed.

The icing on the cake was the massive soaking tub in the bathroom. I didn’t think twice before going straight to it and flipping on the faucets.A hot bath. The last time I’d taken a bath…well, that went even farther back than the comfortable bed.

While the tub filled, I turned and caught sight of myself in the mirror. “Damn,” I muttered.

My hair was wind-tangled. The dark circles under my eyes competed with my coal-black eyeliner. And it was amazing what a little bit of good lighting could do to reveal how pale and scrawny I looked.

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