Delighted

Masters and Mercenaries Book 24.5, Sanctum Nights Book 13

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About the book

From New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Lexi Blake comes a new story in her Masters and Mercenaries series…

Brian “Boomer” Ward believes in sheltering strays. After all, the men and women of McKay-Taggart made him family when he had none. So when the kid next door needs help one night, he thinks nothing of protecting her until her mom gets home. But when he meets Daphne Carlton, the thoughts hit him hard. She’s stunning and hardworking and obviously in need of someone to put her first. It doesn’t hurt that she’s as sweet as the cupcakes she bakes.

Daphne Carlton’s life revolves around two things—her kid and her business. Daphne’s Delights is her dream—to take the recipes of her childhood and share them with the world. Her daughter, Lou, is the best kid she could have hoped for. Lou’s got a genius-level intelligence and a heart of gold. But she also has two grandparents who control her access to private school and the fortune her father left behind. They’re impossible to please, and Daphne worries that one wrong move on her part could cost her daughter the life she deserves.

As Daphne and Boomer find themselves getting closer, outside forces put pressure on the new couple. But if they make it through the storm, love will just be the icing on the cake because family is the real prize.

**Every 1001 Dark Nights novella is a standalone story. For new readers, it’s an introduction to an author’s world. And for fans, it’s a bonus book in the author’s series. We hope you'll enjoy each one as much as we do.**

Excerpt

Chapter One

“Hey, Boomer. Do you want a smoothie?” 

Boomer slightly adjusted the light that sat over the three small eggs he’d rescued from overeager kids the day before. The temperature seemed right. He could usually tell by touch. This wasn’t his first rodeo. He glanced over to the cat sitting on his desk, her eyes wide as she stared at the eggs. “Don’t change on me now, Sheba. You are the rare cat who gets along with birds. Play nice.”

He scooped up the cat he’d nearly died for a few years back and strode out of the little room he used as an office, shutting the door behind him before calling out to the woman in the kitchen. “Sure.”

Mae Beatrice Vaughn stood in the middle of his kitchen, two green smoothies in her hands as though she’d known exactly what his answer would be. 

Probably because when someone asked him if he was hungry, the answer was almost always yes. He wasn’t picky. He liked pretty much everything. Cookies? Good. Meat? Good. Healthy veggies pulverized into an approximation of soft serve ice cream? Good. 

He’d lived off MREs for weeks. He didn’t complain. 

Mae placed the smoothie on the counter in front of him and took a sip from hers. It was weird to see her with black hair. She’d dyed it shortly after they’d gotten back from their last op together, but he was still getting used to it. 

“How are the new recruits coming along?” Mae asked. 

She was staying with him for the week due to her recent run-in with a bad guy. Girl. Woman. He wasn’t sure how Julia Ennis would want to be referred to, but he knew she was bad and she probably wouldn’t hate getting another shot at the cutie he viewed as a sister, hence the recent change in hair color.

But then most of the men and women he worked with felt like family. The company he worked for—McKay-Taggart—treated him far better than his blood family ever had. 

“I would say we’ve got a couple of weeks before they hatch. Most birds’ eggs that size take about three weeks. I think they’re robins, but I wasn’t the one who found the nest, so I can’t be certain. It’s weird that they’re here at all. Most birds lay eggs in the spring.” One of the kids in the building had found them in a park and brought them back out of curiosity. Boomer would never have disturbed a nest, but once the damage was done, he felt the need to try to save the birds. Especially miracle birds. He didn’t know a ton of trivia, but he did know that 86 percent of birds laid eggs in the springtime. School had never been easy for him. It had taken way too long for him to get any help with his dyslexia, but the teacher who’d finally figured it out had used books about animals to get him interested in reading. One of the first books he could remember enjoying had been about birds and their habits. September was the least likely time to find wild birds laying eggs here in Texas. 

It felt a little like fate to find those eggs. 

“You are like the military masculine version of Snow White,” MaeBe announced, her lips tugging up in a grin that he was happy to see. She’d been down for months, but her natural exuberance was coming back. 

“I’m not sure what you mean.” It was good to see her getting back to some kind of normal. Her new normal included military training and having to move around frequently, but she seemed to be settling in. 

MaeBe gestured around his two-bedroom condo. “Because when you walk in a room it’s like all the animals follow.”

The statement was punctuated with a bark as Sprinkles jumped as high as she could, obviously desperate for attention. But then the Chihuahua always wanted attention. Mae picked her up, cuddling her close. 

“I’m a sucker for a hard-luck case.” 

Mae’s smile turned slightly sad. “Lucky for me.”

His second dog bounded in, drooling like a loon and trying to get MaeBe’s attention. 

“You are not a hard-luck case. Down, Puddles.” Puddles was a hard-luck case. The pit bull mix was the sweetest dog in the world, but he looked really scary. Right up until the moment he actually got scared, which was a lot, and then he peed. Hence the name Puddles. Boomer tried hard not to startle the poor guy. 

Mae grinned and reached her free hand down to pet him. “Don’t. He’s a sweetie.”

“Yeah, it’s all fun and games until he pees or tries to hump you.” Both of those things could happen, which was precisely why he couldn’t find anyone willing to take the dog on. 

“Hump you. Hump you.”

He felt a light weight land on his shoulder and kind of got what MaeBe meant with the Snow White reference, though none of his menagerie actually helped with the cooking and cleaning. Molly was an elderly monk parakeet he’d taken in when her owner had passed on. He’d thought he would have to turn the bird over to animal services, but Sheba, the cat, had proven far too lazy to try to eat Molly. Now the lizard he’d recently rehabbed was another story. That gecko had barely gotten out with his limbs intact, but Boomer had been able to release the little dude back into the bushes around the building, and he seemed to be living his best life. 

If that was the same gecko. He liked to think it was, but then he was a positive person. 

“Do you have to pick the absolute worst words to repeat? How about hello or have a nice day?” He turned his head slightly to get a glance at the bird and her light green plumage. 

“Hump you,” was the bird’s reply. “Wear a condom.”

MaeBe snorted. “Did this bird spend time with Big Tag?”

Boomer frowned. “I paid the kids to watch the dogs and the bird when we were in California. Sheba went with Tessa because Charlotte’s allergic. I think we can safely say Big Tag took to Molly. When I went to pick them all up, Tag had her on his shoulder, and he was wearing an eye patch. Charlotte told me he’d been playing pirate for days.”

Charlotte had not been impressed. 

Boomer had worked for McKay-Taggart Security Services for over a decade, and there was no doubt that Ian Taggart was the head of the business and the family. Like Boomer, Big Tag was both ex-Special Forces and ex-CIA, though the boss had worked intelligence, and Boomer had shot things from long distances. The boss also had a strange sense of humor, hence the parakeet’s new stance on safe sex. 

“He’s a menace,” MaeBe said with a shake of her head. “Okay, what’s the rundown? I warn you. You can’t go by what was in the fridge. I snuck in some groceries when I went shopping with Tessa.”

Tessa was a bodyguard with the company and a good friend. She was on the Keep MaeBe Alive team. 

Boomer took a long draw on the reusable straw MaeBe had placed in the smoothie she’d offered him and closed his eyes, letting the flavors flow over his tongue. “Spinach, banana, chard or kale.”

MaeBe’s nose wrinkled. “Seriously? You can tell what kind of green I used?”

He was freaky good with flavors. “I would bet chard. It’s got a hint of bitter.” He took another sip. “Almond milk and then there’s a creaminess. Peanut…” He stopped at the way her eyes flared. “No. Almond butter. You tried to cover it with the milk thinking I would go with peanut butter.”

She sighed. “You are a miracle, Brian Ward.”

Not according to most people. He was kind of average at most things, but he could eat something and practically run down a list of ingredients. Naturally his friends liked to test him. Often. 

His razor-sharp palate was a happier talent than the other thing he did better than almost anyone else in the world. 

Both dogs’ heads came up as though they sensed something was coming. A low growl came from Puddles, and Sprinkles let out what Boomer thought of as an exploratory bark. It let him know someone was coming down the hall. It would get louder the closer the person got. 

A gentle chime went through the condo. 

MaeBe frowned. “Were you expecting someone?”

Sprinkles started barking like mad, ready to attack whoever was on the other side. Puddles ran and hid behind the couch. 

“No.” His gut tightened, but he stayed calm. Assassins didn’t usually ring the doorbell, but it could happen. He reached up and gently offered Molly his index finger. The bird was well trained—and easily trained as evidenced by her new catchphrase—so she accepted the perch. “Can you get the warrior princess?”

MaeBe picked up the Chihuahua, cradling her close as Boomer walked Molly to her cage. She went inside and didn’t complain as he closed the cage door.

Boomer moved into the short hall that led from his living room to the front door but not before picking up the semiautomatic he kept in a lockbox on the bar. His hands worked the combo from sheer muscle memory as his brain went over all the possibilities. 

One. Everything was fine. The person on the other side of the door was a friend or a neighbor who needed something. No gun needed. 

Two. Everything was mostly fine. The person on the other side of the door was trying to sell him something. Only sometimes was a gun needed in that scenario. He’d met some pushy magazine salesmen. 

Three. The person on the other side of the door wanted to finish the job Julia Ennis had started and was here to kill MaeBe, and then he was probably going to have to move because things were going down and hard. The manager of the building was incredibly tolerant of his mini zoo but probably would draw the line at dead bodies. 

“Stay back,” he whispered as he flicked the safety off and moved to the door. 

MaeBe moved out of sight. Not that it would help because that Chihuahua would give away her position every time. 

Boomer glanced out the peephole and saw…nothing. No one was there. 

And then the door chimed again. 

Was whoever this was hiding under the peephole? 

Boomer opened the door and looked down. 

A girl in a school uniform complete with a jaunty beret on her head and a backpack on her shoulders stood there. She was the kid next door, the one with the mom with the…very pretty smile. 

Damn. And the banging bod. He couldn’t help it. That woman was one of those under-the-radar-hot types he couldn’t resist, and it didn’t hurt that she smelled like vanilla and cinnamon the couple of times he’d been in an elevator with her. But he shouldn’t think that when her kiddo was standing right in front of him with ridiculously wide eyes that reminded him of an anime character. A scared one. 

Luckily the big-ass gun he was carrying was hidden behind the door. “Hey, can I help you?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I’m Lou and I live next door and my mom’s not home and I’m pretty sure someone followed me home from school. You’re like a bodyguard, right? My mom said she didn’t think you were a cop, but she thought she heard you worked in security, right?”

And then he had the fourth possibility. Strange preteen girl who walked right into his apartment. 

The gun, in this case, could only be used on him. 

Lou from next door kept talking even as she moved farther in. “So that means you’re some kind of bodyguard, right? I told her I thought you were military. Like an Army guy. But she said you wouldn’t live here if you were in the Army. You would live on a base. So then I said maybe you were with the CIA because I read a book about spies and they sometimes recruit from the military and they can live anywhere, but my mom said you probably weren’t smart enough to be a spy because anyone who looked like you probably didn’t have to be smart.” Lou turned and frowned. “What does that mean?”

Boomer managed to ease the safety back on and slide the gun into the pocket of his athletic pants. It was comforting to know he could still make an impression on the ladies. Unfortunately, it was the same one he normally made. He was good looking and muscley and had not a brain in his head. He had one. It worked a little differently, but what he’d found was women liked smarts. 

At least all the women he was attracted to. 

“Where is your mom?” Boomer kept the door open because he might not have the highest IQ in the world, but he was blessed with an abundance of street smarts, and it wasn’t good to have a preteen girl he was not related to in his apartment. Not in any way. 

Lou swung the backpack off her shoulder and looked up at Sheba, who was delicately moving across the bar to check out the newcomer. “You have a pretty cat.”

He had a lot of animals, and he could suddenly see the headlines. Man Uses Animals to Lure in Underaged Victims. 

“Her name is Sheba.” MaeBe stepped out of the kitchen, Sprinkles still in her arms, but she was quiet now as though she’d figured out the adorable moppet of a girl wasn’t a threat. Sprinkles was cool around kids. Well, most of them. “And this is Sprinkles. Are you okay with dogs? There’s another one around here somewhere. He looks scary, but he’s a sweetheart.”

MaeBe saved the day again. He wasn’t alone with a vulnerable female. Everyone loved MaeBe. Except Julia Ennis, but she had her reasons, though Boomer could have told her MaeBe hadn’t stolen her boyfriend. Everyone had thought Julia was dead. But then she was alive and then Kyle was dead. 

Was Kyle dead? He didn’t think so, but he couldn’t be sure. But Julia was definitely alive. 

Sometimes he got confused. 

“I like dogs.” Lou proved she also knew how to deal with dogs because she held her hand up palm down for Sprinkles to sniff. “I know a lot about dogs. Did you know that a dog’s sense of smell is forty times better than ours? And dogs can sniff and breathe at the same time. And some dogs are really fast. Like they could beat a cheetah in a race.”

So she was a smarty pants. He could appreciate that, but they needed to get down to business. It was good that MaeBe was here, but it was still dicey to have a girl he didn’t know hanging out at his place. “Where is your mom, Lou? Is that a nickname?”

“It’s short for Louisa, which was my great-grandma’s name. I never met her, but my dad insisted I be named after her because that’s what his mom wanted. I don’t think he cared what my mom wanted. My mom would have named me Emily. After Emily Dickinson. I don’t think my great-grandma was named after Louisa May Alcott, but I tell people she was because Little Women is my jam. Louisa is kind of old, but I like Lou more,” Lou said, her words rapid fire and not completely making sense. “And my mom is at work.”

That part did make sense. Mom was at work and didn’t know her baby girl was hanging with the ex-military dude next door. 

“Do you have a cell phone?” None of the incredibly short conversations he’d had with the mom had covered her occupation. They’d pretty much nodded and gone their separate ways. He got the feeling she wasn’t very friendly. He was also pretty sure she was single because he’d never seen a dude go in or out of her place. Maybe the dad should have considered the name Emily.

Lou frowned. “I do, but I kind of left it in my locker at school. We’re not supposed to have them on us in class, so I leave it in my locker, and I forget it a lot of the time. Mom gets mad because she’s supposed to be able to get in touch with me, and today it would have been nice to have because of the guy who followed me home from school.”

“Did he follow you into the building?” Boomer asked, looking to MaeBe. It probably was nothing, but he would take her concerns seriously. 

“I’ll pull up the security cams.” MaeBe set Sprinkles down and smiled at Lou. “I’m MaeBe, by the way, and you came to the right place. Boomer and I both work for a security company. We can help you out. I’m going to hop on my computer and pull up the security cameras around the building while you tell us everything that happened this afternoon.”

Boomer got down on one knee, putting himself at Lou’s level. He needed to stop worrying about how things might look and do what he always did—help. Lou was scared, and that was more important than her mom being freaked out that she was hanging at his place. “Are you okay?”

Lou’s eyes filled with tears, and she nodded. “I was just…he scared me.”

Boomer nodded, feeling so bad for the kid. “It’s okay now. You can hang here with us until your mom gets home. How about we get a snack and you can tell me everything that happened. Even the stuff that doesn’t seem important. We’ll figure this out.”

Lou sniffled, and for a moment, Boomer worried she would burst into tears. 

“Wear a condom,” Molly squawked from her cage. 

Lou slapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes flying open as she looked at the parakeet. 

“Sorry about that.” He was going to have such a talk with Tag. “She’s been around some very bad influences lately.”

“Your bird is weird,” Lou said, but at least the fear seemed to be gone. “What kind of snacks do you have?”

Boomer stood again. “Pretty much all of them. Now let’s start with what this guy looked like.”

He moved into the kitchen as Lou told her tale. 

* * * *

Daphne Carlton watched the floors go by, praying no one else got on the elevator. She’d gotten stuck in traffic and then it started raining and now some weird guy had her daughter. 

Breathe. You have to breathe and find some calm.

The guy had said Lou was okay, but then she didn’t know this man and he could have already murdered her baby girl and now he was about to kill her, too, and she would let him because she couldn’t live without her daughter. 

Or you could panic. You could flip your shit and be exactly who they expect you to be. 

She forced herself to breathe. She was not this person. She was calm and logical, and that meant that she knew most child murderers didn’t call the mom and invite them to come pick up their child’s remains.

Hey, hopefully this is Lou’s mom. I mean, I hope I’ve reached Lou’s mom. I’m not Lou’s mom. I’m Boom…Brian Ward. I live next door to you. I mean I do if you’re Lou’s mom. She had a little trouble walking home from school, and I’m looking into it. She’s here, so I’ll take care of her until you get back. She’s okay. And I’m sorry about the bird. 

What the hell did any of that mean? And why hadn’t that man answered his phone when she’d called him back at least fifty-two times?

It had to be Magic Mike. That’s what all the women of the building called the gorgeous blond giant of a man in 15D. They called him that because they all prayed he was a stripper and they could find where that man worked. 

She called him something else. Adonis. The Adonis of the Fifteenth Floor. Not to his stupidly perfect face or anything. She wouldn’t do that any more than she would mention that he’d starred in a couple of good dreams lately. Not a one of those dreams included him sheltering her daughter from…what? A bird?

Had a bird attacked her daughter? And where was Mrs. Callahan during this bird attack? 

The elevator doors opened, and she rushed out, not bothering to look calm now. She ran down that hallway. She hadn’t even thought to call the babysitter. Why hadn’t she done that? She’d simply called Lou’s phone and then Adonis’s and gotten nothing. Where was the woman she paid to pick up Lou and watch over her between the time she got out of school and Daphne got home from work? 

Had a bird murdered Mrs. Callahan?

Her brain was whirling. Lou would need a good therapist. Her in-laws would lose their shit and demand who knew what. They could be so unreasonable, and they held the purse strings. Lou could lose her place at school. 

The world would end. 

Well, her world. 

She knocked on 15D, her heart threatening to pound out of her chest. 

It took forever for the door to open, and then her heart was pounding for a different reason. 

The man was heartbreakingly gorgeous. He was at least a foot taller than her, with shoulders that barely seemed to fit in the doorway and a body that had been perfected in a gym. Sandy blond hair that was the slightest bit shaggy and a beard that would tickle across her…

“Where’s my daughter?” Lou was missing and she was drooling over the guy next door. What kind of mother was she?

The big guy grinned, an expression that lit up the hallway. “She’s inside. She’s fine. Just a little scared. She’s inside with MaeBe.”

“Maybe? She’s maybe fine or she’s fine?”

His head tilted slightly, like an overgrown golden retriever trying to figure out what was going on. “She’s good. I haven’t figured out if she was actually being followed or if it was a coincidence. MaeBe pulled up the security cams, and no one followed her inside.”

Followed her? “Someone was following my daughter? I need to see her.”

She heard a dog barking and then Lou was standing behind Adonis. “Hey, Mom. I’m sorry I left my phone at school.”

Finally she was able to breathe. She brushed past Adonis and dropped to one knee. “Are you all right? What happened? Where is Mrs. Callahan?”

Lou flushed, her cheeks going the bright red they always did when she realized she’d gotten caught. “Uhm, about that…”

“Mrs. Callahan is in Houston with her sister,” Adonis—she really needed to get his name—said. “She had a heart attack last week. Her sister, that is. Mrs. Callahan went down to take care of her. I took her to the airport myself. I don’t think she’s back yet.”

Daphne stood. “Last week?”

“I can explain,” Lou said, her eyes wide. 

“Somebody should.” Daphne heard the steel in her words, the ice coming over her because something had gone wrong and no one had bothered to mention it to her. What had Lou been doing?

Adonis’s eyes had gone wide, too, and he stood next to Lou like her massive accomplice. “Uhm, see, Mrs. Callahan has a sister and she had a bad heart…”

He was freaking adorable, but she had no time for it right now. “I meant about today, Mr….”

“Boomer,” he replied. 

“Mr. Boomer.” Weird name, but she was going with it. “I meant…”

“It’s just Boomer,” Lou corrected. “His real name is Brian, but that’s a family name like Louisa, and he doesn’t like it any more than I do.”

“Louisa’s not bad. It’s a nice name,” the man named Boomer corrected, his expression gentle. 

Lou looked up at him. “I was talking about Brian. You don’t like Brian.”

Boomer’s nose wrinkled. “Yeah, it kind of sucks. Boomer’s better. Except here. Everyone thinks I’m from Oklahoma because of the OU football team, and people in Texas have serious opinions about that. I’m not though. I’m from Seattle.”

Oh, it was obvious these two had found a rapport, and it was adorable and she had to shut it down. “I want to know what happened today.”

“Lou walked home from school and she thought someone was following her,” a soft voice said. “So she came up here and asked if she could stay until you got home.”

A pretty young woman with dark hair stood in the living room, and there seemed to be a dog behind her. A big dog. Its head peeked around the young woman’s legs and then darted back like it was trying to hide behind the maybe hundred-and-twenty-pound female. 

“And you are?” 

“That’s MaeBe,” Boomer said. 

The younger woman’s brows had risen as though she’d heard the sharpness in Daphne’s tone and didn’t appreciate it. “I’m Mae Beatrice Vaughn. Would you like ID?”

Daphne knew she’d sounded rude, but her daughter had spent the afternoon with complete strangers, and she was flustered. She’d seen Boomer around, but the goth chick was brand new. “I would like to know why my daughter didn’t tell me her babysitter is no longer in the city. I would like to know why she came to you instead of calling her grandparents. And I would like to know why Boomer here didn’t answer his cell phone. It’s obvious he has one since he called me and left a cryptic message about birds.”

MaeBe stepped forward. “No idea about the babysitter. You’ll have to ask Lou. I suspect she came here because it was closer than anywhere else she could go, and she was scared. The bird is a parakeet with some salty language. Boomer didn’t teach her. That was our boss. And Boomer didn’t answer his cell phone because we’re not sure where it is. He’s supposed to leave it on the bar, but he put it down on the table and that’s not high enough. Puddles likes to steal his phone. I suspect he takes it because he knows Boomer won’t leave the condo without it. He’s got abandonment issues. And I suspect your tone is scaring the poor pup right now. He tends to pee when he’s scared, and that will be on you.”

Lou and Boomer were watching them, both heads moving as though this was a tennis match and they couldn’t take their eyes off it. 

She was coming on way too strong, and Boomer’s girlfriend was obviously not going to take her crap. Daphne took a long breath. “I’m sorry if I sound rude. I’ve been panicking because Boomer didn’t say much beyond apologizing for a bird.”

MaeBe’s shoulders relaxed. “Yeah, I probably should have been the one to call you. Lou showed up around four, and she’s been here ever since. I’ve got a basic description of the man she thought was following her. I pulled the security cameras, but we didn’t find anything.”

“I think I just freaked out,” Lou admitted. 

She stared at her daughter for a moment. “What were you thinking?”

Lou’s eyes filled with tears. “I didn’t want to go to Grandmother’s. And I couldn’t call her anyway because I forgot my phone.”

What was she doing? She wasn’t going to have this argument in front of the way too attractive couple. She turned to Boomer. “I appreciate you looking out for her. Thank you. I’ll take it from here, and I’ll make sure she doesn’t bother you again.”

“She wasn’t a bother,” Boomer assured her. “We had fun. She helped me walk Puddles and Sprinkles. And then we made some pasta primavera while MaeBe was running her programs. It’s almost done. We’ve got garlic bread and a salad, too.”

Lou grinned. “It’s a lot of food.”

“You’re welcome to join us and we can talk about what happened,” Boomer offered. “I think she’s okay, but I wouldn’t hate checking out the school with her tomorrow afternoon just to make sure no one’s hanging around.”

Stay and eat with the happy couple when she was crazy angry with her daughter? That seemed like a treat for Lou and total punishment for her. Her righteous anger might subside from having a belly full of food she hadn’t cooked herself, and she needed her rage. Lou had gone too far. “No, but thank you. It’s kind of you. I think I need to take my daughter home and we need to have a long talk. Thank you, again. Louisa, get your backpack.”

“Come on,” MaeBe offered. “I’ll help you get your things.”

Lou looked like she wanted to argue, but Daphne sent her what she hoped was her “do my will, child, or I can take you out of this world” look. Lou sighed and turned to follow MaeBe back into the living room. 

“Are you okay?” Adon…Boomer asked. There was a look of deep sincerity in his blue eyes, as though he actually gave a damn about her answer. 

“I’m good now that I know she’s safe.” She was lying about the good part. She was shocked at the risks her daughter was taking, but she couldn’t tell that to the gorgeous, probably never worried about anything man. The last thing he would want would be to listen to her whine about how hard it was to be a single mom, how hard it was to be a widow. 

How hard it was to worry every second of the day that she was going to fail and she had no one to help her. 

“So you work at a bakery?” Boomer asked. “That’s cool.”

“I own it.” She glanced around. There was the aforementioned bird, and she was pretty sure she’d seen a cat slinking around in the background. How many animals did this guy have? She was pretty sure it was more than the building allowed. 

“Oh, you’re Daphne. Because it’s called Daphne’s Delights.” He nodded as though satisfied he’d figured out the mystery. “Lou told me all about it. She’s proud of you.”

That wouldn’t save her. “I’m proud of her, too. Usually. I can’t believe no one told me about Mrs. Callahan. She’s watched Lou ever since we moved in here.”

“She wrote a note. She moved fast once she got that phone call. I left it in your mailbox.” He frowned, an expression that did nothing to change how handsome he was. “Now I wonder if I left it in the wrong one. I’m not great with numbers, but I would think I could figure out which one is yours. It’s right beside mine. I would have hand delivered it, but I was late for work.”

Just last week Lou had helpfully offered to check the mailbox on Saturday. What perfect timing for her ever so smart kiddo. “Oh, I suspect you got it exactly where it needed to go.”

“I’m sorry.” Lou was back, and both dogs were at her side, including the obviously ferocious one. And the pit bull. The Chihuahua’s tail thumped against the carpet as though she was ready to launch herself at anything or anyone who got in her way. 

“Not as sorry as you’re going to be,” she said before thinking about the fact that she was with strangers who could call Child Services on her. After all, she was so clueless she’d let her twelve-year-old daughter run around the streets of Dallas by herself. “Thanks again.”

She hustled them out the door. 

“I wanted to show you I don’t need a babysitter.”

Daphne dragged her keys out of her bag. “How many days have you come home alone?”

Lou followed her. “Four. And you didn’t even notice.”

She hadn’t noticed because she always called Lou’s cell to let her know she was in the parking garage. Mrs. Callahan lived on the nineteenth floor and all the way on the other side of the building. Oftentimes Daphne was dragging home a project to work on, and it was far easier to let Lou meet her at the apartment. After all, she was twelve, and she had a key. What could happen to her in an elevator that had security cameras?

“Yeah, well, I assure you, I’ll notice everything now because I won’t let you alone for a single second.” She opened the door and ushered her daughter in. “You’re grounded. Forever. You will be lucky to see the light of day by your eighteenth birthday.”

“I don’t like Mrs. Callahan. She’s boring, and all she does is watch the news and make me do my homework.”

“She sounds perfect to me then.”

“But I get my homework done fast. She won’t even let me read a book. I’m not allowed to watch TV on my phone, and her version of a snack is celery sticks, and I hate celery sticks,” Lou argued. “I want to be like you when you were a kid. You got to come home and watch TV and have a cookie.”

Yes, because latchkey kid was something to aspire to be. “Both my parents worked, and they didn’t have the time or money to make sure I was properly taken care of.”

“So you learned how to take care of yourself.”

Daphne shook her head. “It wasn’t like that. It was hard.” And it could be fun. There had been a certain freedom to those afternoons, and she’d used it to get into trouble she didn’t want her daughter to deal with. “And the world was a different place then.”

“No, it wasn’t. I looked it up. In the year you turned twelve there were 1,332 murders in the state. The most recent statistics show there were 1,409 but the state added 7.6 million to the population in the years in between, so technically the murder rate has gone down,” Lou announced. “The difference is the twenty-four-hour news cycle.”

This was what happened when you tried to raise a genius-level kid on a slightly gifted IQ. Lou had come out of the womb playing chess not checkers. “Go to your room. I can’t even with you right now. I have to figure out when Mrs. Callahan is coming back and how long I’ll have to reconfigure my schedule.”

“I don’t like Mrs. Callahan,” Lou insisted. “I did great on my own. I didn’t start any fires, and I got my homework done. It was nice to be alone for once, Mom. Please. She tells me all the time that I should try to be prettier and people would like me more. She tells me I don’t smile enough.”

Daphne sighed. “She’s from a different generation.” And one that wasn’t going to change. She was so tired. Mrs. Callahan worked because she was cheap and had tons of spare time on her hands. “Go to your room. I need to think about the situation. I meant what I said, though. You’re grounded. You can’t lie to me like this.”

“But sometimes I need to show you things are okay before you’ll try them,” Lou argued. “Momma, you’re scared all the time. You need to see that it’s going to be okay.”

She couldn’t do this right now. She was going to lose it, and she’d promised herself she wouldn’t do that. Not in front of Lou. She was the mom. Lou didn’t need to watch her mom break down. “Go to your room.”

Lou sighed. “I’m sorry, but I’m also not. I did a good job. When I thought I was in danger, I found someone to help me. I didn’t go to Grandmother because we both know she would hold it over your head. And you can’t redo your schedule because you have three wedding cakes to make and you’re providing the desserts for the mayor’s fundraiser. I know you think it’s weird, but Boomer and MaeBe are right next door. Why not let me hang out with them?”

“We don’t know them. And I know they seem nice, but they can’t possibly want to babysit you. It doesn’t mean you’re not awesome. It simply means people don’t do things for nothing. They have to get something out of it.” She hated it, but that was the way of the world, and men who looked like Boomer didn’t do things out of the kindness of their hearts. 

“I don’t think so. They’re nice. They seemed like they like to help, and I wasn’t trouble,” Lou insisted. 

There was a knock on the door, and she shook her head. “Go to your room, Lou. I’m not joking. I need some time. I’ll figure out what to do about dinner and let you know.”

Her daughter’s frown deepened. “Fine. I’m sorry. Let me know if you need help with dinner because I’m hungry. The food Boomer made looked really good. I helped him with it. He showed me how to do the pasta. I can help you next time.”

Great. Now Adonis could cook. Well, of course he could. 

She’d forgotten to put the roast in the Crock-Pot, and she hadn’t run to the store before she’d come home because she’d been panicked. Now she had to consider ordering in something—which she’d promised she wouldn’t do anymore—or heat up a frozen pizza. She’d meant to meal prep, but things had been crazy lately, and she’d used all her free cash to buy ingredients for the events she had coming up this week. They weren’t cheap, and the bakery was always straddling the line between making it and going under. 

If she went under, what would happen to her and Lou?

There was another knock, and she realized her cheeks were wet. She was crying. Yep, that tracked. It was her default state these days. 

She wiped away the tears and moved toward the door. 

That was when she realized the mail was wrong. She’d placed the mail on the entryway table yesterday, and she knew the letter from the accountant who’d set up her business accounts had been on top. She’d put it there specifically because she wanted to remember to deal with it as soon as she could. 

Damn it. Was Lou reading her mail now? She sighed. It was yet another thing she would have to deal with. Lou was going through something, and she needed to decide how to handle her. 

She wished she could have a wistful thought about Dennis—that her heart could long for her husband to be here to help her with Lou. But he’d never been that man. Even if he was alive today, he’d shrug and tell her kids were her department and then get back to his very important research. 

Daphne shook off the maudlin thought that she was alone and always had been. No one was going to magically ride in and make her life easier. 

The key was getting through the tough moments and getting to…

She wasn’t sure she believed there was something great on the other side. 

Still, she opened the door because it was what she was supposed to do, and Boomer was there, a reusable grocery bag in his hand. He’d turned and was starting to walk away, giving her a view of his back. And it was amazing. She was not some hormonal, sex-crazed woman who looked at men’s butts, but there was zero denying that his was spectacular. 

Boomer turned, and then a magnificent smile crossed his face. “Oh, hey. I thought you weren’t going to answer. I know you said you didn’t want any, but I kind of thought you could use a break. That was probably some kind of mom lecture you gave, and that can take it out of you. I know because Big Tag is always tired after he yells at us for doing stupid shi…things. So I put together dinner for you and Lou. It’s not poison or anything. I’m actually a pretty good cook.”

She was not going to cry. She was not going to cry. She was not going to cry. 

Instead she sniffled. “This is so nice of you, but I have to ask. Why would you mention poison?”

That smile deepened, giving the creases that proved he smiled a lot. “Well, in my line of business, it comes up more often than you think. We might have gotten off on a strange foot. I know it’s supposed to be the wrong foot, but it wasn’t wrong to let Lou in. I hope you see that.”

She took the bag he’d offered. “I appreciate everything you did for her this afternoon.”

He held out a big hand. “Let’s start over. I’m Brian Ward, but I’ve been called Boomer since I was in the Army. I live next door.”

She shook it. His hand was warm and big and callused. It enveloped hers and sent a surge of awareness through her. “Daphne Carlton. It’s nice to meet you.”

He held her hand in his for a moment. “It’s nice to meet you, too, Daphne. I hope you enjoy dinner, and please let me know if you need help with Lou. My door is always open. Good night.”

He stepped back and then he was walking away and she was staring at his backside. His muscular, works-out-a-lot backside. He probably had a six-pack. And those notchy things at his hips. 

And a girlfriend. 

Not probably on the girlfriend. He totally had one of those, and while she looked sweet and pretty, she hadn’t taken any crap. She worked security, too, so she could probably kick a little ass. 

Daphne shook her head because that was a ridiculous thought. Like she would even think about hitting on someone so out of her league. She didn’t hit on anyone, much less a gorgeous god of a man with the sweetest damn smile she’d ever seen. 

She stepped inside and let the door close between them. 

And locked it. 

She did not live in a world of sweet, gorgeous men who were thoughtful and kind. It was good to know there was at least one of them out there. 

But he wasn’t for her. 

Copyright 2022 Lexi Blake