Raid

Chapter Seven Reward

Raid

Raid walked down the sidewalk to the shiny, black SUV parked on the side of the road in town. He pulled open the door and angled in.

Blue and red lights flashed into the cab as they did the same outside, illuminating the street.

“You hear the police band?” Tucker Creed asked.

Raid kept his eyes to the three squad cars and one K-9 SUV all angled in around Bodhi’s bike shop. Then he shifted his gaze down the street where, at a distance of a little over a block, two more squads and another K-9 unit were angled outside the gift shop.

“Raid, you hear me?” Creed asked, and Raid cut his eyes to his partner.

“I heard it,” he growled.

“She called it in,” Creed told him something he already knew.

“I said I heard it,” Raid repeated.

“You know how she knew to call it in? You said she was clueless,” Creed asked, and Raid’s eyes moved back to the flashing squads.

He knew.

She’d played him.

Sweet, shy, cute, goofy Hanna Boudreaux didn’t go out for a breath of fresh air to clear her head and try to get rid of a burgeoning headache like she told him she had.

She’d been the one he heard open the ladies room door.

She’d overheard him.

She’d covered it, came back looking freaked, lied that it was a headache and then spent the next thirty minutes acting jacked because she was freaked that her friends were fucking her over.

Then, minutes after he left her at her house, she’d made a call and blown their whole fucking, eleven month operation.

“This lead’s dead,” Creed declared, and Raid looked back at him. “They got both that Bodhi kid and his girl in custody. May luck out and they’ll flip for the police, but this guy pullin’ the strings, doubt those two goofballs got the breadcrumbs to lay that trail so they’ll probably only give the cops shit we already got.”

None of this was wrong.

Creed kept going, “Headin’ back down to Phoenix. Sylvie’s already pissed I’ve been up here this long. Says I need to haul my ass back to the valley and play Daddy to Jesse, and next time it’s her turn to try and track down drug supplying whackjobs.”

Tucker Creed had been coming up, on and off, a day here, a week there when things got hot, for the last eleven months.

Whenever it got hot it eventually fizzled out, so he went home to his family.

Raid had met Creed’s wife once. She was a relatively new wife, a new mom, but like her husband, she was a seasoned private investigator and ass kicker.

She was the ballsiest bitch he’d ever met in his life.

He’d liked her immediately.

Sylvie Creed had a baby boy named Jesse who she didn’t like leaving, but she also didn’t like her husband leaving. Further, they strangely, considering both of them were badass, consummate professionals and skilled, really hated being apart in a way you could almost taste how much they hated it.

Therefore, the longer this operation went, the more trips Creed took north, the more impatient Sylvie became.

And she was getting antsy down in Phoenix looking after a kid when she’d prefer to be in Colorado cracking heads with her husband, and she wasn’t all fired up about the fact that Creed got to have all the fun.

“You gonna call this shit in to Knight or you want me to do it?” Raid asked.

“You do it,” Creed answered, then his lips twitched. “You gonna wait until tomorrow to lay into your new babe for jacking up our action or are you headin’ there now?”

“She overheard me talkin’. We didn’t say much. She has no clue about the operation.”

Creed smiled. “So you gonna wait until tomorrow to lay your new babe or are you headin’ there now?”

Oh, he was heading there now.

It was fucking uncool she overheard him, came to the table, lied her ass off then pulled that tease shit at her house—whatever the fuck that was about—and called the Sherriff.

He had no idea what was in her head.

He was fucking going to find out.

Then he was going to drag her ass to her bedroom, which he hoped to God was as appealing as the porch and foyer of her house, and then “lay his new babe”.

Thoroughly.

She deserved a spanking for this shit.

But they were new. He had to break her into that.

Raid didn’t answer Creed’s question.

Instead, he asked, “You headin’ to DIA now?”

“Hotel, book a flight, then I’m out.”

“I’ll call it in to Knight, then I’m goin’ to Hanna’s. I’ll update you if we get a new lead and we need you or Sylvie to come back up. Though, advice. I’d throw your wife a bone. Knight says she’s threatening, we don’t find this asshole, then she’s gonna come up and do it on her own so she can stop livin’ the life of a woman without her baby daddy.”

“Right,” Creed grunted, his lips curved up.

“Later,” Raid said.

“Later,” Creed replied.

Raid threw open the door and knifed out. He walked the three blocks to his Jeep, swung in and headed to Hanna’s house.

He did this trying to control his temper, and insanely, he did that by thinking about Hanna.

And he did this because, for weeks, he couldn’t get her out of his head.

And this was because, over the last week and a half, he’d come to understand Hanna Boudreaux was his reward.

He’d thought it the second he saw her in front of Bodhi’s bike shop, looking adorable, jumping around on those long, tanned legs, clapping and crying out excitedly wearing short-shorts and a little white top.

He’d suspected it when she crawled around gathering cat food tins, that sweet ass of hers in the air, making him fight his dick getting hard and giving him ideas for their future.

It came clearer when it just plain came clear that she was one of those women that needed a man. Taking care of her grandmother on her own. Paying her mortgage by knitting fucking afghans. Getting fucked over at a car dealership. Getting taken by her friends.

But he knew it the minute she timidly tossed her afghans over the back of her grandmother’s porch chair and smoothed her hand down the soft wool, yards of nothing that, at her hands, looked like everything. Home. Warmth. Comfort. Nurture. Love.

And if he didn’t know it then, it was cemented when she opened that mouth of hers under his and let him take everything he wanted.

His reward for his sweat.

His blood.

Their blood.

His goddamned nightmares.

Other than visits to his mother and sister, he had no idea that when he came back to Willow—something he never intended to do—that he’d find it there.

Her there.

What he’d earned.

What was his.

What he knew was months ago they’d traced the shipments to Bodhi and his girlfriend in Raid’s own damned town.

That was why Knight had called him in.

That was why Raid came home.

They never got a lock on the supplier. He always sent his minions with the dope, but Bodhi and Heather used the bike shop as a front, shipping it with the bike business as a cover.

Bodhi and Heather were relatively harmless, cogs in a wheel, low-level players they needed to watch and work and hope they led the team to the puppetmaster.

By the time the team was done dicking around with those two and ready to close in on them to try to squeeze them for information, strong arm or blackmail them into a maneuver that might out the big man, Bodhi and Heather got smart with protecting the bike shop and moved the business to Hanna’s shipments.

A local. A third generation Willowite.

Thus a complication.

At that time Raid had no clue who Hanna Boudreaux was. He knew Miss Mildred. Everyone did. He also knew Hanna’s older brother, Jeremy, who was a year behind him in school. All he remembered of the guy was that he was a decent wide receiver and he’d bragged overtly, and nauseatingly frequently, when he’d tapped Lori Kowslowski’s ass.

But he didn’t know Hanna.

Once word got out Bodhi and Heather had moved their operation and involved a local—a local linked to the town’s most beloved citizen, a ninety-eight year old fixture of their society—he’d had no choice but to ask around about Hanna.

He’d heard nothing but good things. She looked after her grandmother. She went to church. She was a quiet girl. She read a lot. She liked to go to the movies. She was sweet. Loyal. Funny. Loving.

An easy mark for those two assholes.

Even though Raid never saw her there, his sister Rachelle told him she came into café all the time.

“But haven’t seen her for a while, bro. You see her, though, you’ll know. Fantastic figure. Pretty smile. Great legs, but uber-mousy, you get what I’m saying? Has no clue, if she put in a teeny-weeny bit of effort she’d be all that,” Rache had said.

But sweet, shy, mousy, reads-a-lot Hanna, who everyone knew and everyone said was always around, had disappeared.

By the time spring hit Willow and Raid first laid eyes on Hanna Boudreaux, weeks before he saw her at the bike shop and took his shot to follow her and “run into her” at the pet store, he didn’t know what the fuck his sister was on about.

Hanna Boudreaux was not mousy.

She was standing with one of her hands on the handlebars of that ridiculous bike of hers, talking to Paul Moyer.

No.

Laughing with him. Her shining blonde head thrown back, her pretty face lit up, her body shaking, her other hand clutching Paul’s arm like she had to hold herself up with the hilarity of it all.

Paul had been watching her tits while she laughed.

Raid had wanted to land a fist in his face.

He held back.

They needed to know if Hanna was clean, then they needed to be certain Hanna was clean, then they could extricate her from the scenario and carry on with the operation.

And after Raid had finally caught sight of her he had decided that he would personally be extricating her because Hanna would be in his bed, under his protection and she’d feel none of that shit.

Fortunately, it took about a nanosecond to figure out that Hanna was being taken.

Unfortunately, before he could get her in his bed, she’d overheard him and blown the operation, so now they had nothing.

No one to lead them to the supplier who fucked with Raid and Creed’s buddy, Knight, who lived in Denver, had a successful nightclub, a questionable side business and a shitload of money with which he could use to throw at problems he wanted solved.

Something he didn’t hesitate doing.

So Knight contracted with Raid, Raid’s crew and Creed to solve it.

Now they had nothing.

Knight was going to be pissed.

Raid already was.

He turned onto the single lane road that led to three houses, the last one being Hanna’s, and pulled over. He yanked out his phone and made his call to Knight.

He was right. Knight was pissed.

He ended the call, pulled back into the lane and headed to Hanna’s house.

The light, upstairs right, was on.

Her bedroom.

So was the light, downstairs left.

The living room.

This meant she was up.

Excellent.

He threw open his door and folded out. He prowled to the front door, put his hand right to the knob and turned.

Fuck.

Now she locked it.

He hit the bell.

Nothing.

He looked to his left.

The lights were on, curtains drawn. He could see no movement.

He hit the bell again then pounded.

He stopped.

Still nothing.

“What the fuck?” he clipped.

He turned and prowled to his car. He opened his glove compartment, got his kit and prowled right back. He squatted by the doorknob, pulled out his tools, and in about five seconds picked her shitty, going-to-be-replaced-tomorrow lock.

He shoved his tools in his back pocket, opened the door and saw her instantly, standing in the foyer, staring at him, her big, pretty blue eyes huge.

He slammed the door behind him.

Hanna jumped.

She was very lucky that she’d changed into an adorable pair of very short drawstring pajama shorts and a skintight ribbed tank, both that left little to the imagination, both in colors that highlighted the golden tan that shimmered on every inch of her skin. She was also lucky she had her hair up in another messy knot his fucking hand fucking itched to yank out or he wouldn’t have had the patience to draw in the breath he needed to calm down.

But he drew in the breath he needed to calm down.

In that time she whispered, “Oh my God. You picked my lock.”

“How’s your headache?” he asked.

Her eyes, which had moved to the doorknob, shot to his.

Then she started backing up.

“Smart,” he murmured as he advanced.

“Raiden—”

“You heard me on the phone.”

She visibly swallowed. Her shoulder hit the doorway to the back hall and she shifted sideways.

Raid followed her. “You came to the table and lied through your teeth, right to my face.”

“I—”

“You told me you had a goddamned headache, which worried me, then you pressed tight to me, giving me your mouth and takin’ it away, a bullshit bitch tease move I didn’t know you had it in you to execute.”

She stopped dead. “I wasn’t teasing you.”

“What was that shit then?”

She stared into his eyes and announced, “A good-bye kiss.”

It was at that Raid stopped dead. “What?”

“Raiden, the gig is up,” she declared, and Raid closed his eyes.

Jesus, how could the woman be so infuriating and so fucking cute all at once?

He opened his eyes and asked, “The gig is up?”

She leaned into him and hissed, “Yes.”

Fuck, he wanted to kiss her.

He also wanted to shake her.

“Baby, it’s jig,” he corrected, and her head jerked, which made that mess of hair on her head jerk, which reminded him he wanted his hands in that hair.

Then elsewhere.

He needed to speed this shit up.

“Sorry?” she asked, sounding confused, and he looked from her hair to her eyes and saw she was, in fact, confused.

Yeah. Infuriating. And fucking cute.

“The jig is up, not the gig,” he told her.

Her eyes narrowed. “Seriously? You’re correcting my street lingo?”

“Think that street lingo was the street lingo about eight decades ago, Hanna. So now it’s just lingo.”

Hanna threw up her hands. “Now you’re giving me a street lingo history lesson?”

Raid found what he thought was the impossible happening.

He lost patience with Hanna Boudreaux being cute.

“Why are we talkin’ about this shit?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Why are you here at all?” she shot back.

“I’m here ‘cause I wanna know why you lied to me. I wanna know why you didn’t come to the table and talk to me about what you heard so I could explain it and shit would not right now be totally fucked.”

“I’m sorry, did I mess with your plans, Raiden? Were there more ways you could use me like Bodhi and Heather used me before you threw me away?”

At her words, Raid went completely still.

Then he asked, dangerously quietly, “Come again?”

She missed the danger, but she didn’t miss his words. “You used me and now you’re here acting like a jerk. Why?”

“How did I use you?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I didn’t go to the table, tell you I overheard, allow you to explain the intricacies of your plan of pretending you were into me so you could ascertain if I was in on my oh so very ex-friends’ fiendish plot to use my afghans as cover for transporting drugs. So I don’t know all the ways you used me. I just know you, like them, used me.”

“Pretending I was into you?” Raid whispered, and she threw up her hands.

“Raiden, I know,” she snapped.

“You don’t know shit,” he clipped.

“Really? So, you don’t notice me for months—no, for years—then suddenly you’re everywhere I am and how I’m,” she lifted up her hands and did air quotation marks, “linked to drug dealers or transporters or, uh… whatever you call them.”

“Yeah, babe, for years I didn’t notice you, then I did when two pieces of shit used a kind, trusting woman as cover for transporting dope.”

“Right, then, now that we have that cleared up, you can leave,” she announced.

Jesus.

“I’m not leaving,” he returned.

“Why?” she cried. “It’s over. You know I have no part in it. I don’t know your part in it. I don’t want to know your part in it. But my part is done. This is over. You don’t have to pretend anymore. Why can’t you just go?”

“I’m not pretending jack,” Raid bit out.

“God!” she yelled. “This is insane!”

Then she made a big mistake.

Huge.

She impatiently shoved her hand in her hair, not remembering it was up in a knot. She encountered whatever was holding it up, yanked it out and her hair tumbled in a shining mess around her face and down her shoulders.

Raid watched it, lost it, and advanced.

Hanna retreated, slamming into the wall at the side of the stairs.

Raid caged her in, putting one hand to her hip, fingers spread, pads digging in, one hand to the wall at the side of her head and he bent low so his face was in hers.

She’d quit breathing, which was good.

That meant she couldn’t spout more bullshit.

He forced his voice to gentle when he said, “I get you’re tweaked about this shit. I get you’re hurt that your friends fucked you over and how they did it, which is huge. What you need to get, honey, is that I’m not using you. I’m not pretending jack. I am into you.”

“Stop it,” she whispered.

Fuck him.

“Do not transfer the pain you feel that two people you let into your life and your heart fucked you to me, Hanna,” he warned.

He thought he had the upper hand. He thought if he could get her to calm down and see reason, they’d get past this.

So he was unprepared for Hanna Boudreaux rocking his world.

“I’ve crushed on you since I was six. We were on the same tug of war team three years in a row at Grams’s picnics. We were both out of class and alone in the hall at the same time second semester my freshman year, your senior year. Your locker was nowhere near mine. I don’t know what you were doing in that hallway but I’d gone to the nurse because I had flu and was getting my stuff to go home. You walked by me, looked at me and said, ‘hey’. I said ‘hey’ back, but I don’t think you heard me because you kept walking and didn’t look back. Until the pet store, that was the only word you ever said to me. ‘Hey.’”

Fucking shit.

“Hanna—”

“You left Willow then you came home and I went to Rachelle’s once a week, twice, three times just to catch a glimpse of you. You looked through me, dozens of times. Once you caught me looking at you and you jerked up your chin. You looked right at me and jerked up your chin. Then you looked away. Months later, I run into you in the pet store and it was like you’d never seen me before.”

Christ.

“I don’t remember that at the café,” Raid said softly.

“I know,” she replied. “When you met me, you didn’t know me at all, but I’ve been around for years.”

“Baby, me not remembering you doesn’t mean dick.”

“It does to me.”

He could see that. He knew she was that into him before she told him all that. No woman got that flustered around a man who she wasn’t extremely attracted to. And he’d liked it a fuck of a lot. From the minute she first tucked her hair behind her ear, hiding she was glancing at him to be sure he was still checking her out when she was with Bodhi and her bike.

And he liked it more than a fuck of a lot that she knew she was on his tug of war team when he was fucking eleven or whatever and remembered them walking by each other in the hall in high school years ago.

It was cute. It was sweet.

It was her.

He just didn’t understand the history of it, but Hanna explaining the length and extent of her crush on him explained a lot about her behavior the last week and a half. Raid could see that his not noticing her would cut deep.

He moved his hand from the wall to wrap it around the side of her neck. She tried to jerk away, but he dug his fingers in and pushed closer. This had the desired effect. She quit moving.

“A buddy of mine has some issues in Denver,” Raid explained. “Those issues leaked to Willow. He called me in, contracting me to find the supplier who’s been shifting drugs through Willow. This asshole is slippery. Every lead we got led to shit. He’s got soldiers everywhere, but he’s a ghost. Honey, you might have been at Rache’s, I might have seen you, but I had a lot of shit on my mind.”

“You thought I was involved with drug people and investigated me. You got involved with me to investigate me.”

“I got involved with you to get involved with you, but I also had to clear you of that shit so we could move on and get his fuckin’ guy.”

“Raiden, can’t you see how I can’t see that I’ve been around, you’ve even looked right at me and didn’t see me and now, all of a sudden, you’re into me, and how I can’t believe you’re actually, well… into me?”

“How the fuck can you make something that makes no sense make sense?” he asked back.

“So you understand what I’m saying?”

“I do and it might make sense, honey, but it’s still whacked.”

Her eyes rolled to the ceiling.

“Hanna, look at me,” he ordered.

Her eyes rolled back.

“I’m into you,” he told her.

“I don’t believe you,” she told him.

“Why the fuck not?” he asked.

“I just don’t,” she answered.

“Christ, honest to God, you think I’m a man who comes back to his hometown, a town his mother and sister still live in, takes the town’s beloved native daughter—who also happens to be the great-granddaughter of the town’s matriarch —out to dinner in order to play her, and I’d do that shit at Chilton’s where everyone can see?”

She blinked.

She hadn’t thought of that.

Thank fuck, he was getting somewhere.

Raid kept going.

“And you think I’m a man who lays out bullshit lines to cute, sweet, pretty women and keeps at it after a job is fucked just for shits and grins?”

She pulled one side of her lips between her teeth.

Yeah, getting somewhere.

Raid kept at it.

“And serious as fuck, Hanna, you think that kiss was pretend?”

She stared into his eyes and her little white teeth appeared to bite her lip. She let it go and whispered, “That kiss was really good.”

Raid’s eyes didn’t go to the ceiling. His head dropped and he contemplated his boots.

He also saw she had fucking sequins glued to her toenails that looked varnished with black polish, but had some kind of white flower design painted around the sequin.

Christ, she was adorably ridiculous.

A sequin stuck to her fucking toe.

He couldn’t help it, and didn’t try. He started laughing.

“Are you laughing?” he heard her ask.

“You got goddamned sequins on your toes,” he said, his words trembling.

“They’re pretty,” she returned, and he lifted his head to look at her, no longer laughing.

His reward.

“Yeah,” he agreed. He wasn’t talking about sequins and he knew she knew it when he heard her sharp intake of breath. “Are we done with this idiotic conversation about me not being into you?”

“Uh… I think so.”

“So you get I’m into you,” he pushed to confirm.

She pressed her lips together and thought on it awhile.

Raid used the last of his patience to let her.

Then she nodded.

“Thank Christ,” he muttered and finally relaxed.

“So, uh… when you said you were going to call me tomorrow, which is today, incidentally, you actually meant it?”

Raid heard the growl roll up his throat before he rumbled after it, “Yeah, Hanna. I meant it.”

Her eyes lit. She liked that, didn’t hide it and he liked both.

Again, he wanted to kiss her.

“Cool,” she whispered.

“Honey, tell me you see the absurdity of me callin’ you tomorrow, which is today, incidentally, askin’ you to a movie, only so after the movie I can maneuver you to my house, then my bed, when I’m right here in your house with your bed upstairs?”

Her eyes rounded and she again stopped breathing.

Fuck yeah, he wanted to kiss her.

“Well, I can see the absurdity of you calling me when we can make plans for a movie right now,” she allowed.

Goddamned ridiculous.

And cute.

Fuck it, he was just going to kiss her.

So he did.

It was a repeat of the one before. Hot. Wet. She slid her fingers in his hair and pressed her warm, sweet, soft body to his, opened herself up and gave him everything.

He fought back the near overwhelming urge to drop her to the floor and take her in her foyer when what she said penetrated.

He ended the kiss, slid his lips to the skin under her ear and felt the soft puffs of her quick breaths against his neck.

“I’m sensing you wanna slow this down,” he noted, his voice rough.

“We’ve only had one date,” she replied softly. Then, quieter. “I’m not that that type of girl.”

She wasn’t. Hanna Boudreaux absolutely wasn’t that type of girl.

Fuck.

His reward.

He lifted his head and looked down at her to see her face soft, eyes bright and heated, lips swollen.

Fantastic.

“Movie. Tomorrow night. You pick. Text me,” he stated.

“I don’t have your number,” she told him.

“Where’s your phone? I’ll program it in,” he offered.

“It’s upstairs.” She made to move, mumbling, “I’ll get it.”

Raid locked his arms around her and her eyes shot back to his.

“Unh-unh.” He shook his head. “Already watched you run up those stairs in a sexy dress and heels tonight. Not gonna watch you do it in your sweet pajamas. Only so much a man can take.”

“Oh,” she breathed.

Fuck.

His reward.

“I’ll be here, six o’clock. Pick a movie that works with that time, but I wanna take you out to eat before so plan accordingly.”

“Okay,” she agreed.

“We need to go earlier, call Rachelle at her café. She can give you my number.”

“Okay,” she repeated.

“Now, I gotta go.”

She licked her lips and again said, “Okay.”

Raid made a move, but her arms tightened around him.

Then, suddenly, she dipped her chin and planted her forehead in his chest.

“I know you think I’m an idiot and this is ridiculous and I understand why you were angry I didn’t discuss things with you when I overheard you talking. But I heard you say I was clueless and you were going to end this tonight. I obviously mistook what you said, but what you said didn’t sound good,” she explained in a hesitant, hushed voice.

He pulled her closer and dropped his lips to the top of her hair.

Finally, he got it.

She hadn’t heard it all.

Not even most of it.

Just the part she could misinterpret.

“You missed the part when my partner was givin’ me shit about my new babe takin’ my mind off the job, how I needed to get my head back in the game and how you were distracting me from doing that.”

“Oh,” she whispered into his chest, her arms around him going even tighter. She dropped her head back and he lifted his up to catch her eyes. “I should have told you I overheard. Let you explain. I’m sorry.”

Straight up apology.

It took balls to do shit like that, even for sweet, cute, shy women.

His fucking reward.

“It’s done, baby,” he told her.

Hanna nodded, then again tipped her chin down and planted her forehead in his chest.

“Do you think I’m a crazy, creepy stalker lady, hanging at Rachelle’s just to see you walk in?”

“Absolutely not,” he replied immediately, his voice steely, and her head jerked back so her eyes could scan his face to ascertain the veracity of his words.

He let his expression do the talking because he didn’t think her crush was crazy or creepy.

It was like everything about her, sweet and cute.

He just wished like fuck he’d been paying more attention, so instead of spending the next however long it took coaxing her into his bed she’d already be there.

Finally, she said, “I think I actually believe you.”

Raid smiled. “Good, ‘cause I’m not lyin’.”

Hanna’s body melted into his and she gave him a smile back.

Fuck, he had to get out of there.

“Now let me go unless you want me to stay,” he ordered.

He was gratified at the lengthy hesitation before she let him go.

He leaned in, kissed her forehead and moved to the door.

He had it open when something occurred to him and he turned back.

“You thought you were ending this earlier,” he noted. She tipped her head to the side, but then righted it and nodded. “So why did you give me the afghan?”

Her brows drew together in confusion, he sensed not at his question, but at her actions. Then she laid it out honestly.

“I don’t know. Maybe I was being my usual idiot and wanted to give you something to remember me. Maybe, even with what I thought you were doing, I knew you were a partial good guy, what with offering to take care of Grams’s yard and all, and I wanted to give something back. The only thing I had to give. Something that would keep you warm. But really, I don’t know. I just…” she shrugged, “did it.”

“Glad you did, honey,” he replied.

“Me too,” she said.

He gave her a grin. Hers was shy, but she returned it.

“Lock this after me,” he commanded.

Hanna nodded and he jerked up his chin.

Then he walked out the door, closing it behind him. He was on the steps when he heard it lock.

Raid sat in his Jeep and didn’t pull away until the downstairs lights were off and he saw her shadow moving behind the filmy curtains of her bedroom.

He drove to his place. He tagged the afghan and walked up the side stairs, unlocked his door and moved in.

He pulled off his clothes, yanked the comforter off his mattress, untied the satin ribbons around the afghan and threw it out on his bed.

Then he climbed under it.

He’d been right when he first touched it.

She’d been right when she said it would keep him warm.

Heaven.

Then Raiden Miller fell asleep under the warmth of Hanna’s cashmere, and for the first time in a long time he didn’t have a nightmare.

Not even one.