No One But You (Silver Springs #2)(51)

“I’m so tired,” she mumbled as she gazed at the little person who was depending on her to take care of him.

“Everything’ll be okay,” Dawson said. “Let’s go to the farm.”

“You won’t mind letting me stay the night?”

“Of course not. You can stay until you have somewhere better to go.”

He’d made it easy. His kindness brought a lump to her throat. He’d been through a lot himself, and yet he’d stepped up to help her, even though he was already helping her by providing a job with pay on which she could actually survive. Everyone expected her to be skeptical of his help, but she could tell Dawson had no ulterior motive. He was what she thought he was—a nice guy.

“Are you sure?” She blinked rapidly, trying to suppress the tears that threatened in the wake of so much drama, fear, anger and upset. She’d cried in front of him once before. She didn’t want to cry again, didn’t want to give him any more reason to regret befriending her.

“You work there, anyway. Consider it part of your pay, if that helps.”

“But you’re already paying me well.”

“I have the mortgage whether you stay or not. It’s not like it’ll cost me any more to have you.”

Would she have been this generous to him, had their roles been reversed? Like the rest of Silver Springs, she’d been so prejudiced against him, so conditioned to believe that a monster lurked behind that handsome face. “I just... I feel bad for leaning on you. You’re already carrying a heavy load.”

“There’s plenty of room at the farm.” He shrugged off his kindness as if it wasn’t a big deal. But it was a huge deal to her. Before she even knew what she was about to do, she grabbed him and hugged him—partly so that he wouldn’t be able to see the tears gathering in her eyes.

“Thank you,” she said. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am for your help.”

He’d stiffened when she grabbed him. The contact had obviously been unexpected. But then she felt his hands slide up her back and became instantly aware of his large, firm body. At that point, the hug turned into something a little more intimate than she’d intended, but the contact felt so good she couldn’t let go. She clung to him, even went so far as to close her eyes and let her fingers briefly slip through the hair at the nape of his neck.

He was the one who pulled away. “We’d better get some sleep.” After setting her gently to one side, he walked back to the truck as if that hug had never happened.

Sadie could hardly breathe for the acrid smoke billowing into the sky. Sly was in back, probably trying to keep the neighbors who’d wandered over, and the fire truck chasers, at a safe distance. She knew, if she got into the vehicle with Dawson, she’d be driving a wedge between her and her ex-husband, his friends on the force, almost everyone in town. She could easily become a pariah like Dawson. He’d warned her as much. So...was she making a mistake?

She feared she might be. She’d known Dawson for only four days. But in that time, he’d been a better friend to her than anyone else in Silver Springs.

Squaring her shoulders, she turned her back on everything that’d come before and got in the truck.

“Would you rather I take you to a motel?” he asked as she put on her seat belt. He’d already buckled Jayden in. Jayden’s safety seat was in her car around back; there was no way she could reach it.

She tried to imagine herself at one of the three local motels. The Mission Inn was the cheapest, but even that would cost over $100/night. She wouldn’t be able to stay there long even if she went there tonight. “No.”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“I’m sure,” she replied.





13


Sadie was glad she’d already cleaned Angela’s room. That made it possible for her and Jayden to fall into a clean bed. But as exhausted as she was—physically and emotionally—she couldn’t drift off. She kept wondering if all of her belongings had been destroyed and worrying about what it would cost to replace their basic clothes and toiletries, not to mention Jayden’s toys. She couldn’t bring herself to even think about trying to replace the furniture she’d managed to cobble together secondhand. And what about the sentimental items she might never see again? Like the professional photographs she’d had taken of Jayden when he was a baby? Her only pictures of her parents were in that house!

Could Sly really have done something so terrible to her? He claimed to love her, to have changed. He swore up and down that he’d treat her like a queen if she came back to him. But the memory of their encounter on the road just after she’d pulled out of the farm the other day had haunted her since it happened. The determination and hatred she’d seen in his eyes contradicted his proclamations of love, made her believe he did start the fire—to take his revenge on her for embarrassing him by defecting as much as to force her back to him. He didn’t really care about her, but he refused to lose her, couldn’t stand being the one left behind.

As she stewed over how the fire might or might not be progressing at her place, she heard Dawson moving around downstairs. He had to be tired, too. Why wasn’t he in bed, asleep?

Once she could slip out without disturbing Jayden, she got up. The clothes she’d been wearing at the fire had reeked so much of smoke she’d thrown them in the washer as soon as she arrived and Dawson had loaned her a clean T-shirt and some sweatpants. Although his sweats drowned her—she could only keep them on because of the drawstring at the waist—she wasn’t about to leave the room in nothing but his T-shirt, despite the fact that it hit her at midthigh.