“I’d better go relieve Miah,” she said, pushing herself up to sitting.

“Okay.” Casey rose to follow her. She was probably exhausted from all the stress, but he was wired. Maybe Miah felt like a movie or a game of cards.

Abilene turned with her hand on the doorknob, looking him up and down. “You don’t need to go.”

“I figured you must be wiped and that I’d give you some space.”

She turned fully, leaning back against the door. “I feel better with you than I do just by myself.” Her tone was shy, maybe nervous. “I mean, if you felt like hanging out, that is.”

Hanging out? What did that mean, exactly? A heart-to-heart, or another collision, like yesterday afternoon? He swallowed. “Whatever you need.”

What the girl needed, of course, was more than he had to give—a future, for one, and security. Not security like he was offering, playing bodyguard this week, but the real stuff. That C-word he’d been running from his entire life—commitment. And yet . . .

Maybe it was the possessive caveman in him not wanting to imagine her with anybody else, but some selfish part of Casey refused to think there was anyone better for her. He knew what she deserved. A man who’d do anything, risk everything, to keep her safe and to make her smile.

He could do that much. But all the rest? The long-haul stuff? To commit not just to one woman, but to a child as well. If he even had a future to look forward to, was he really capable of offering all that? If he had any doubts, the choice was obvious. There was no way in the hottest corner of hell he’d get himself in a position to let Mercy down the way his own father had done to him and Vince. Some men just weren’t built for that shit.

Make no promises, break no promises. That was the simple answer. Until those test results came back, it was the only answer. Once they did, if somehow, through some stroke of good karma he’d never earned, Casey found out he did have a future, then what? Then, he supposed, he’d have a choice to make.

Keep things simple and selfish, or finally man the fuck up.

Chapter 13

Casey used the guest bathroom while Abilene was downstairs. As he scrubbed his face with a cold washcloth, he had to wonder, did the Churches think there was something up between the two of them? Miah wasn’t naive, and Christine was a bloodhound about that stuff. He returned to the bedroom and shut the door as silently as he could, cheeks warming.

Abilene had returned and was leaning over the crib. As she turned, she pressed a finger to her lips.

He nodded. They might talk all night or wind up fooling around again, but either way it would be going down in whispers. He didn’t mind. And he honestly didn’t mind either way, what sort of “hanging out” this might be. If all she was after was a warm body against hers and a decent night’s sleep, he could be that.

He’d dedicated so many years to taking, he’d forgotten that it could feel this good, providing. Maybe he’d never even known it, before her.

I turned into my old man after all. The one vow he’d ever made to himself, he’d broken. He’d run off when things turned grim at home and called it freedom. In reality, it had been cowardice.

Well, fuck all that.

“How you feeling?” he asked softly.

Abilene shed her jacket and rooted through the dresser, pulling out pajama pants and a T-shirt. “Good, I think. Dazed, and still a little scared, but good. Could you turn around a sec?”

He went to stand over the crib, studying Mercy’s peaceful, fat little face while Abilene changed.

Her shyness didn’t bother him. He’d had lovers who liked to keep the lights off during sex, partly, he guessed, because he was attracted to girls who were a little bigger than average, and maybe a little more self-conscious than average. He’d been with brazen girls, too, skinny and curvy alike, but the shy ones prevailed, looking back. Opposites attracted, he supposed.

“All set,” she said.

She was climbing under the covers when he turned around. Uncertain what she might be after, he sat on the other end of the bed, content to talk. He squeezed her foot where it tented the blanket. “Anything in particular you need?”

She shook her head. “It’s just nice to have you here, with all this stuff running through my head.”

“I can stick around until you fall asleep, if you want. Maybe talk about something super boring, to help you get there quicker . . . ?”

“You could maybe stick around for the night. If you want to.”

Casey swallowed, his ever-hopeful dick growing curious about the invitation. “I could.”

She sat up, hugging her knees. “If this drama with James calms down after the meeting, I guess everything might go back to normal. You can sleep in your own bed again. I can start looking for a place.”

“You know the Churches don’t mind if you stay on for a few more weeks.”

“Yeah, Christine said so. It’s awful nice of them.”

“And I’m happy to help you move again.” If you could even call it moving. They’d gotten everything, including the baby’s stuff, from her old place to Three C in just one carload each. It had taken all of three hours from the time he’d showed up to help pack to when she’d folded the last of her clothes into the borrowed dresser.

“You get a place of your own,” he said, “and we’re going to need to hook you up with some things. Furniture, microwave, TV . . . Not that I’m one to talk. My apartment looks like a squat.”

“We can go Dumpster diving together,” she said.

“Deal.”

Neither spoke for a long moment, though both gazes lingered until Abilene bit her lip, looking away.

“What?” he asked, and gave her toes another squeeze.

“Are we . . . Did you want to do more than hang out, maybe?”

“I told myself yesterday was a one-off,” he said, but when her face fell, he hurried to take it back. “Only so I wouldn’t get my hopes up about it ever happening again. I mean, I don’t see the harm in it. But if you thought it was a bad idea . . .”

“Not if we both know where we stand. What do you . . . What does it mean to you?” she asked. “Be honest.”

“I like you,” he told her, point-blank. “I’ve liked you from the second I saw you. I liked you when the hormones made you a psycho, and I like you at three a.m. with baby puke in your hair. I think you deserve better than me, and more than I can promise anybody, but I won’t pretend like I don’t want to be with you, in whatever way’s on offer. What about you? What does us fooling around mean to you?”

“I’ve just missed feeling all those things, I guess. And in a selfish way, with everything as scary as it has been, I want it even more, if only to feel something nice for a change. Mercy’s small now,” she said, gaze drifting to the crib. “She won’t remember any of what’s been happening—not the moving around, not any of this business with James, not anything that’s changed between you and me. In a couple years I’m going to have to be careful of how close I let men get, so it’s not just me who’d be in danger of getting attached.” She looked back to Casey. “But for right now, I think it’s okay.” She sounded different, since that phone call. Even tired and rattled, her voice was as strong as he’d ever heard it. “Right now,” she said, “I think it’s what I need. I don’t need promises of forever; I’m up to my eyeballs in commitment already. But to feel like more than just a mom for a few nights, for however long it might last . . . ?”

He felt his pulse spike.

“Can we be that way?” she asked softly. “Just make each other feel good?” Her gaze moved down his body, lighting a fire in his belly.

“We can be whatever way you like.”

“Come over here, then. Remind me what I’ve been missing out on.”