Mustering some bravado as Flynn held the front door open for her, she said, “I’m going to jump in the shower.”

Wordless, he nodded when she passed by him. Minutes later Izzy stood beneath the hot spray.  Putting her arms out, she placed her palms against the smooth cool tile and let the pressure of the water work the pain out of her muscles and the ache from her heart.  When she found herself crying, Izzy didn’t fight the tears.  She let it go.  All of it.  The yearning of a little girl for her father. The years of longing for the sister she loved to love her back. Her mother’s death. Reliving the day she was taken from the tiny Oakland apartment as the coroner zipped her mom up in a black body bag had been horrific.

Sliding down the shower wall, Izzy pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her cheek against them. Her time as a ward of the state had been a blur. She’d been placed with strangers who, while they were polite, weren’t family.  They didn’t even try to be.  Those first weeks were terrifying.  She’d found solace in reading and school. The day she turned eighteen, she walked out the front door, not bothering to let anyone know she was leaving.  She doubted they ever noticed she was gone.

Here she was six years later, still struggling to define herself when everyone connected to her either died or rejected her.  Who was she?  What did she want?

Hell, she wasn’t one hundred percent sure she wanted a law career. Her motivation had been to flip her father the bird by saying, ‘Look at me, I can get into your alma mater, Stanford Law, too, and I didn’t need my rich parents to grease the wheels.’

None of it mattered, she realized, because no matter what she did from this day forward, she was going to do it for herself.  No more trying to prove herself worthy of the Chastain name.  She was a Fuentes, and it was time she owned it. She’d survive today and tomorrow because she was a survivor. Damn if she wasn’t going to survive well.

Raising her head to rub her swollen eyes, Izzy froze.  Flynn stood on the other side of the open shower, his stormy eyes catching and holding hers.  He was still dressed in his running attire, the material clinging to his sweaty body so tightly she could see the rise and fall of his chest with each breath.

Without so much as a word, he grabbed the towel she had set aside, reached above her head and turned the rain shower faucet off, knelt down and wrapped her in the thick fluffy towel.  He took her into his arms and carried her like a baby into the bedroom.

“He doesn’t deserve one tear, Pink.”  He settled her onto the bed.  “You’re ten times the individual he could never be.”

She sucked back a sob as fresh hot tears burned her eyes, damn it.  Where was her strength?  Why, when Flynn touched her, did she melt? “I’m a fool for hoping for something that will never happen.”

Taking her face into his hands, he forced her to look at him. “You’re not a fool, you’re brave. With a pure heart.  Always willing to see the good in people when they are inherently bad.”  He smoothed back her damp hair.  “We could all take a lesson out of your playbook.”

It took all she had not to press her cheek into his big warm hand.  This Flynn was the Flynn she had fallen for.  “My mom loved him with every ounce of her being.  His name was the last word she spoke before she died.  He used her up, and let her die of a broken heart.”

Pressing his lips to her forehead, he said, “I’m sorry.”

“Me, too,” she murmured.  For so many things.

With the adrenaline spike Izzy had experienced when she saw her father now fully subsided, a deep-seated exhaustion stole over her.  So much had happened in such a short amount of time; her ability to cope with it all wavered. “Let me sleep,” she murmured, closing her eyes, and finally—with no thought of what he would do or feel—Izzy melted into Flynn’s strong capable arms, deciding to savor this last stolen embrace.

Chapter Twenty-six

Several hours later found Flynn pacing a culvert into his kitchen floor.  Pink had slept the day away.  Was she sick?  She had to be hungry. He’d showered and eaten twice since he tucked her into the big bed, nearly breaking his jaw to keep from pressing his lips to her smooth, creamy body as he pulled the sheets over her nakedness.

He stopped his incessant pacing. Clasping his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling, Flynn cursed. She had been through the wringer.  Why should he be surprised she’d mentally checked out?  Sleep was a great way of ignoring one’s reality.  And Pink’s was pretty shitty at the moment.  “No thanks to me,” he muttered, feeling like the guy who had kicked the kitten when he should have been the guy who picked it up, loved and protected it.

He could give himself some credit.  He had picked her up and brought her here. To his house.  Not home, because it was just a place he crashed. But here, she was out of harm’s way.

As for loving her? He didn’t know how to.  Didn’t want to learn.  He’d witnessed firsthand the backlash of that emotion. Many years ago, Flynn had made the conscious decision to lock his heart and swallow the key.  He wasn’t willing to put himself out there.  The minute a woman even looked like she was going to suggest they become more than what he wanted, he bolted. His heart, his rules.  It worked for him.  He had no regrets.  Except with Pink.

His protection track record wasn’t that great, either.  He couldn’t protect his mother from his father or his sister from that asshole she insisted on marrying.  Under his watch, Pink had been two steps from being kidnapped.  Now she was an emotional train wreck and he had been the one to derail her long before her father had this morning.  He didn’t know how to undo what he had done without giving her hope.  And that he couldn’t do. Not after last night.

Glancing at his watch, Flynn decided she had slept long enough.

“Pink,” he called from the hallway.

When she didn’t answer, Flynn nudged the door open with his foot and stopped at the threshold.  She was still in bed, wrapped up tight in the sheets like a butterfly in a cocoon, sound asleep.

His heart made a weird thump against his rib cage.  Setting the tray with the lunch he had made for her down on the dresser, Flynn moved around the side of the bed.  Her long black lashes glistened with recent tears.  She made a sound like a baby did after a hard cry.  Somewhere between a sob and a sigh.  His heart squeezed with emotion he could no longer deny.

She did something to him. Caused an ache so deep in him it kept him awake at night.  How was that possible?  He’d known her less than a week. It felt like he’d loved her a lifetime, though.

When she’d called him out this morning after telling him how she felt about him, he had never been more miserable.  He should have been elated.  Jumping for joy because damn it, he felt the same way.  All those hours sitting outside of her house, he had nothing but time to think.  About Pink and how much he wanted to be a part of her life.  He had come to the decision that when this case was closed, he would pursue her until she couldn’t run from him anymore.

That had all changed last night, when he’d come around Pink’s side yard and saw the kitchen door open. He’d never experienced the paralyzing fear that he had at that moment. He panicked when his imagination ran wild with visions of what the intruder would do to her.  He’d seen it before. Vicious, bloody crime scenes. He couldn’t bear thinking of what could have happened if he hadn’t gotten to her in time.  Thank God he had.

That panicked fear, that loss of control, that brutal pain of possibly losing Pink still ate at him.  If this was how it felt when she survived, how would it feel if she didn’t?  How would he feel in thirty years if he lost her after she had become his everything?  He didn’t want to find out.