Before That Night: Unfinished Love Series: Caine & Addison, Book 1 (13 page)

Caine, being Caine, went back to his squad car without another word, somehow knowing that she needed both time and space to work through her feelings as she packed up the only place she’d ever really considered home. The place she’d made for the kids so they could have a home for once as well. It may not have been much, but it
had
been theirs. And it had been filled with more love and happy memories than all their years at their mom’s apartment, combined.

“We could run,” whispered Tanner when Caine was out of earshot. “That guy…he’s falling for you. I know he is. So I don’t think he’ll turn us in. If you want us to run, we’ll run.”

Hot tears flooded her eyes. Partly because of his thoughts on Caine’s feelings about her—which her heart had squeezed tight over hearing—but mostly because of his unnecessarily brave declaration. “No. No running.”

“Are you sure?”

No she wasn’t. Not even a little bit.

So she lied. “Absolutely. I think we should give Caine’s way a chance.”

But because she’d never been good at lying to the kids, even when it was for their own good, she added one truth she knew to the marrow of her bones: “Besides, if we ran, I guarantee you, Caine would chase us. And he for darn certain wouldn’t stop until he found us again.”

Strangely, that one wholly overbearing, yet unnervingly heart-filling fact gave her exactly the amount of strength she needed to finish packing.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

AFTER EMPTYING OUT THE VAN,
Addison followed Caine to the underground police parking lot below the station and pulled in to the stall he pointed out to her.

Over the half hour it took for him to return the squad car and do whatever cops do to close out their shift, all Addison could do was wonder.

Wonder if she was ready to face what was going to happen next.

Wonder how Caine was handling
not
doing the normal cop thing right now by calling social services to take the kids away.

Wonder why she wasn’t freaking out more.

Only the answer to the last was readily available.

She trusted him, a hundred percent.

The question now was if she was doing wrong by him in dragging him into her crazy life.

Caine returned just as her thoughts were spinning her off into directions she wasn’t prepared to face.

Silently, Addison carried the now dozing Kylie in her arms while Tanner carried his and Kylie’s backpacks. The ones Addison had always told them to keep their most treasured things in just in case they ran into an emergency situation.

She knew for a fact that the emergency backpacks now housed one very well-cared-for Venus Flytrap and a pressed flower arrangement she’d helped Kylie make out of the hyacinths that Caine had given her before taking them to the movies.

The fact that the kids had deployed her emergency protocol as they’d followed Caine’s orders hammered yet another set of splintered cracks into her heart.

He walked them over to his personal vehicle—a protypical cop SUV, big and black with dark bodyguard window tint—and saw that he’d already transferred the things from the van.

He drove in total silence until they got out of the police building. The farther they got from the station, it seemed, the less tense Caine became. Until finally, he asked quietly, “Do you guys need to stop at the store or anything? I don’t actually know what your normal routine is.”

Her heart seized in her chest, but in a good way this time. “We’ve got everything we need. I always keep some extra fruits and pantry items in our cooler so the kids can eat that for breakfast.”

“I’ll cook you guys breakfast,” he growled.

Honestly, at this rate, her heart would burst out of her chest before they even arrived at his apartment.

They were back to silence for the rest of the ride.

With one big difference.

Caine had reached over for her hand, almost as if simply reassuring himself she was there at first, but when she laced her fingers with his, he gripped it then as if he never meant to let her go.

Yep, the man was definitely out to slingshot her heart right out of her ribcage.

About five minutes later, Caine was unlocking the door to a cozy apartment that was nothing like she expected. Sure, it was a standard bachelor pad in that there was hardly any furniture. But the warm, oversized pieces he did have weren’t really a match for the modern condo apartment in the city. Rather, they were more designed for a big family home in the country

He even had photos of his family at one end of his kitchen counter.

When he saw her eyes gravitate there, he shrugged. “I should probably hang those up somewhere better; never had the chance.”

But he’d made the time to put them out where he’d see them every day. And that revealed more than he probably realized.

It didn’t take them long to bring in all the things they’d brought with them from the van. They were just finishing up tucking away the suitcase the kids shared when she noticed that Kylie and Tanner were standing stock still in front of Caine’s big flat screen, staring at it like it held the secret entrance to Narnia.

Caine, being Caine, just got that jaw-clenched look of intense, silently ferocious empathy that he made sure to wipe from his face before he handed Tanner the remote. “It’s going to take me a bit to get your air mattress filled up—I’ve got to find my air compressor—so why don’t you and Kylie watch some TV in the meantime.”

Addison felt an arrow of embarrassment then. “You don’t have to fill up our air mattress. We’ll be fine out here on the ground with our blankets and pillows.”

He gave her a look that shouted, hell no, even as he replied to her suggestion in a deceptively calm voice, “You three take my bedroom. I figured I’d set up the air mattress for Tanner, and you and Kylie can take my bed. I’ll sleep out here on the futon mattress.”

While Addison was ready with an immediate
vocal
hell no, Tanner and Kylie beat her to the punch. Only they insisted on staying outside for a whole different reason. Courtesy of the big, bright TV they were now flipping channels through like a speed demon.

“We’ll stay out here!” they both called out in unison.

Tanner spared a quick glance at the futon sofa before his eyes riveted right back on the TV. “You said futon mattress. Does that sofa open up flat?”

Caine flipped it flat in one easy motion. “Yep.”

Kylie and Tanner didn’t even tear their eyes away from the TV as they grabbed their pillows and blankets from Addison’s hands before racing back to the now flattened futon.

After
they were all settled in, Kylie then turned her doe eyes to Caine and asked in her sweet little voice, “Can me and Tanner sleep out here? And watch some TV for a little bit? Pleeeease.”

Tanner wasn’t even bothering to enter into the negotiations—Kylie had it knocked out of the park the second she’d clasped her hands together and audibly held her breath.

Addison smothered back a chuckle when she saw Caine melt right there on the spot.

Then Addison was the one holding her hands together over her chest—one atop the other, in hopes of slowing down her galloping heartbeat—as she watched the amazing man turn silently to the hall closet, and then return with two more fluffy spare pillows for the kids and a giant, white cloud-like comforter.

“It’s late so you guys can watch TV for an hour,” he said gruffly. “There are some kids’ channels that still have cartoons on right now. Then you sleep. When you wake up in the morning, you guys can watch more TV until you need to get ready for school. Deal?”

Kylie launched herself off the sofa and into Caine’s arms before she smattered his face with kisses. “Thank you, Caine!”

Tanner gave Caine the cool kid chin-jut thanks, though he did stare at the soft pillows Caine had handed them for a very telling second.

Meanwhile, Addison felt like she was going to lose it, just a little bit. Okay, maybe a lot. Her siblings hardly ever asked her for anything. And it absolutely slayed her that they were looking so over the moon by the possibility of something as small as watching TV.

She gripped the counter beside her to stem the pain radiating through her entire frame. “They haven’t been able to watch TV in a while,” she confessed to Caine. “I mean I made sure to buy them a tablet that they watch some internet shows on, and occasionally, there’s a family-friendly movie on at night that we play on the small diner TV’s we have mounted up on the walls. But yes, no TV like this of their own to watch.”

Swallowing back the shame cramping her insides, she added, “Even before we were homeless. Our mom pawned our TV off years ago to pay back a guy who had spotted her a loan. For some meth. Not that it mattered since we got kicked out of that place a few days later with basically just our clothes and a few of the kids’ toys—”

His hand on her arm stopped her explanations. Whether it was because he just couldn’t listen to any more, or because he knew
she
couldn’t, Addison wasn’t sure. But she was thankful for the reprieve.

“You’re pretty great with them,” Addison whispered, though she was sure the kids had tuned out all sounds except for the TV at this point. “Firm but fair.”

Caine shrugged. “Just channeling my folks, I guess. I’ve watched them with my brothers and foster siblings for years.” He grabbed an extra throw blanket and tossed it onto the recliner. “I’ll stay out here with the kids. You’ve had a rough couple of days, and my bed will make you sleep like a log.”

“Don’t be silly, I’m not going to take your bed from you. I can sleep on the air mattress out here.”

His jawline grew rigid as a rock, in perfect harmony with the hardened, unrelenting look in his eyes. “You take the real bed, Addison.”

“Caine—”

“No. While you were helping Kylie load some things in the car, Tanner told me you’ve been sleeping on that yellow dollar store inflatable floaty mat. Across the two front seats.”

“I’m short enough that it worked out fine,” she reasoned.

He stared at her with eyes brimming with emotions so raw she had to look away. “Please, Addison. Take the bed.”

Unable to face his tortured gaze again, she nodded and said simply, “Thank you.”

In the silence that followed, she realized the entire room had grown silent. Even the TV.

Looking over at the kids, she found them fast asleep. While their heads were laying on the marshmallow like pillows Caine had brought out, they were each holding their normal pillows tightly in their arms. They looked more blissfully comfortable than she could ever remember seeing them.

“Thank you for that, too.” She gazed at them and suddenly felt overwhelmed at seeing them on actual furniture. “I tried to make everything in the van as comfortable as possible. As much like a home as I could…”

“I know, sweetheart. And you did an amazing job. You raised two incredible kids.”

Tears prickled to life behind her closed eyelids. All at once, she felt so tired. So unbelievably drained.

Two strong arms swooped her up into the air then, before a granite-like chin gently tucked her head against his chest.

Without a word, he walked her to the bedroom.

As soon as they passed through the doorway, he quietly shut the door, fell onto the mattress with her, and then crushed her to him.

Then he just held her.

“Caine—”

“I just need to hold you for a bit. I promise I’ll go sleep outside after that. I just…need to feel you, to know you’re okay.” A broken breath shook out of his lungs. “Do you know how frickin’ terrified I’ve been ever since I found out that creep has been stalking you?” His vice grip tightened even more. “And do you have any idea how insane I’ve been going the last few hours knowing that you’ve been living in your van this entire time?”

Judging from how intense the alpha waves rolling off the man were getting, she was certain she didn’t have the first clue.

She didn’t know how to respond, what she could say to calm him down. So she just went with the first thing that popped into her head. “You can sleep in the bed with me. The kids always wake up after I do.”

That made the muscles in his frame tense, but in a very noticeably different way. His raspy voice nearly shuddered as he told her, “I’m not nearly strong enough to do that, sweetheart. But I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep.”

“Well at least let me help you blow up the air mattress.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because that’s the kids’ bed.”

She flinched. “It’s really comfortable. I bought the best one I could for them.”

He scowled at her. “I didn’t mean anything by that. I have two foster siblings who came to our house with very few things; I know how important those things can be. I just didn’t want Kylie and Tanner to wake up and find me sleeping on their mattress before I checked with them if it was okay first.”

“Oh.” Why was he so unbelievably
wonderful
?