Page 14 of Intimately Faithful

There was no statute of limitation on heartbreak.

And not a heart she’d broken herself.

It was perpetual pain.

“Thank you, Danny,” her voice, held together with pins, was strained as she avoided his eyes when he rose back to his feet and placed the medical box away in a cupboard. “Thank you for everything.”

She meant her whole life.

Every single solitary second he’d been in her life as her love and protector.

“Do you want me to take your baby while you eat?”

“Oh…” she blinked, looked between Misha and Danny. Her unsettled heart flopped over. “She’s knocked out again. If you could hold her real quick, I won’t be long.”

“You never took long to eat,” he smiled and devastated her into laughing lightly.

It was true. In her house if she didn’t eat fast, she didn’t eat at all.

Her brothers are gannets, so they are.

Seeing him holding Misha like a natural, completely eradicated her appetite.

He looked so good.

What was it about good looking men holding a young’un that melted a woman’s ovaries into scrambled eggs?

God, he shouldn’t look this sexy rocking a baby.

He should be a father already, she mused, and felt the punch of it.

She couldn’t accept Danny Murphy as a father to anyone else’s kids if they weren’t hers.

She was a selfish witch and no other woman deserved him.

Only, they did.

Any woman would be three times as lucky to land a man like him.

Without thought, and before she could change her mind and to stop the runaway train that was her convoluted brain she blurted. “I’m on the run, I am, Danny. And I’d be obliged if you could put us up for a few days. I know it’s asking a lot, but you already know I have no shame. This is me at rock bottom, Danny, or I wouldn’t be here at all.” A pushing started behind her eyes but what would crying solve? Nothing. This wasn’t of her making but she was definitely on a game board now and her only choice was to make sure her and Misha survived.

“I’m asking a lot … considering.”

Finally he spoke as he leaned against the counter with his legs crossed and holding Misha, looking like he was born to have a baby in his arms, and it wasn’t in a tone she’d heard before. Thick and raw and just a little distant.

“We can get toconsideringanother time. I’m more worried what has you running at night with not a bag to your name for you or your daughter. What trouble has found you?”

Not; what trouble are you in.What trouble has found you. It was what he’d always say when she ran to him to fix something.

Rocks stuck in her throat. Frightened to tell him everything. Scared he’d kick her out if she didn’t. “It’s Misha’s father. He wants her and he… he’s not a good man, Danny. You’d call him the devil, I’m sure, in view of your new… or not so new status with religion.”

Both of his brows pinched in the middle.

It didn’t make him any less handsome as he concentrated a gaze on her.

She wanted to crawl across the floor and do stupid things like beg him for forgiveness and ask if now he was a man of faith did he have it in his heart to give a sad girl a second chance to make things right.

She didn’t, of course.

---