Page 81 of In Safe Hands
“Sorry.” She squeezed his hands.
“Not your fault.” Shifting around behind her, he urged her up the steps with a hand on her lower back. “I’m just glad my days off start tomorrow so I have some time to try to figure this out. If I’d been sent on one more bullshit—sorry, Dais—call, there’s a good chance I would’ve punched Rob in the throat.”
“Not a good thing to do to your boss,” she mumbled, weaving a little as he steered her into her bedroom.
He gave a short laugh. “Not if I want to keep him as my boss, or if I want to stay in law enforcement instead of becoming a mall cop.” His hand fell away from her back as she turned to face him. “What’s that look?”
“I’m trying to picture you as a mall cop.” Shaking her head, she frowned. “Sorry. I just can’t see you in anything but this uniform.”
His grin was a little crooked. “Good thing I kept my fists to myself, then.”
Her response was interrupted by a yawn.
“Bed,” he ordered, pointing.
“Fine,” she grumbled, putting her phone on the nightstand before pulling her hoodie over her head. The tank underneath started to come along for the ride, and she grabbed it, tugging it to cover her belly again. The neck of the sweatshirt was narrow, and it caught around her face.
“Problems?” Along with amusement, Chris’s voice also held something deeper. When she answered with a bad-tempered grunt, he laughed, and then his hands were there, easing the hoodie off her head.
“I forgot how much I don’t like that sweatshirt.” She glared at it balefully as she tossed it over her desk chair. “It’s for laundry-day-only use.”
Without thinking anything except how tired she was, she shoved her yoga pants over her hips and let them drop to the floor. It took Chris’s harsh inhale for her exhausted brain to realize that she’d just stripped her lower half to her underwear in front of him.
“Sorry!” she yelped, diving for the bed. Her coordination was off, thanks to exhaustion and half-naked panic, so she tumbled onto the mattress in an ungraceful heap. As she tried to pry the top sheet out from underneath her, she babbled. “I don’t like to sleep in pants, since they tend to wrap around my legs if they’re loose, but I don’t like leggings, either, so that’s why I—what is wrong with this sheet?!”
“Lift up.” When she obeyed, he yanked the recalcitrant bedcovers back far enough for her to finally get her legs under them. Even with her bare lower limbs hidden, she still felt exposed, so Daisy pulled the covers up to her chin. Chris stood by the bed, an unreadable expression on his face.
“Sorry,” she said, a little more calmly now that she was buried in blankets. “I didn’t mean to flash you.”
To her surprise, he grinned at her. “You still had too many clothes on for flashing. It wasn’t even indecent exposure yet.”
“It felt indecent,” she grumbled, although his laugh forced her to smile. “And I’m a terrible hostess. Did you want to sleep in Dad’s room? The sheets are clean.”
“The couch is fine.” He sat by her hip, and she could feel the heat of him, even through the covers. “It’s comfortable.”
“Okay.” Her eyes couldn’t stay open anymore. “I’ll get you some blankets.”
He snorted. “You’re not going anywhere except la-la-land. I’ll get my own blankets.”
“Mm-kay.” Any plan that didn’t involve her getting out of her warming nest of a bed was fine with her. “Linen closet’s by the bathroom.”
“Got it.” Something brushed her forehead, but her eyelids refused to lift so she could see what it was. “Good night, Dais.”
“’Night, Chris.”
Chapter 17
Someone was in the house. It was too dark to see, but Daisy could feel the staring eyes, hear the raspy breathing. Her shaking hand reached for the bedroom lamp, and she turned the switch, but nothing happened. The room stayed draped in blackness. Sliding out of bed, the floor cold against her bare feet, she crept toward the door. The shadows moved, shifting into menacing shapes. She had to get downstairs, but the doorway kept sliding farther away, as if the house was taunting her, trapping her. When she tried to run, it felt like she was moving in slow motion. He was going to catch her, hurt her. She needed to get away, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t stay, couldn’t leave, couldn’t run, couldn’t scream—
“Daisy!”
Her eyes popped open, and she sat up abruptly. Chris jerked out of the way, barely avoiding a clash of foreheads. It took a moment to adjust to reality, but then the familiar shapes of her bedroom stood out in the gray dawn light. Her first breath hurt her throat, before her breathing slowed, as did her heart rate.
“Chris? What are you doing in here?” He was sitting on her bed again, almost exactly where he’d been when she fell asleep. If not for his crazy bed head and the fact that he was wearing fewer clothes than he had been earlier, she would’ve thought he’d been sitting there the whole time.
“I heard you.” He pushed some stray strands of hair out of her face. “I figured you were having a nightmare. Your mom?”
