He’d also sort of hoped to be able to whisk her away from this town, take her to New York with him where she could live at his place while he did his security work.
But she had a life here.
“I’d love to see the kids,” he said.
She shook her head as she pulled a jug of chocolate milk out of the fridge and poured two huge glasses. “You aren’t exactly a good influence right now.”
He frowned. She was right. But he wanted to be a part of everything she was a part of, and he hated his current undercover assignment was messing that up.
But the info he was gathering on the Aces right now would shut down their chapter in Winter Falls permanently, allowing Willow and Carrie and everyone else in the town to finally have peace.
And then what? Some happily ever after where he swept Carrie away from this town? First, he’d have to tell her about his inner bear, and that was daunting.
It was all a big mess. He was almost glad he’d gotten the call to come out here to deal with the gang, because a sense of duty or a need to protect always overrode any of his stupid insecurities.
“Earth to Cage?” Carrie asked, holding out a glass.
He took it and drank it in one long go.
She grinned and refilled it, and he shook his head and set it down.
He sat at the small, round table in the center of her small kitchen and looked around. There was a sliding glass door that led out to a small grass lawn with a redwood fence right behind it and then another house behind that.
She had no space here. She deserved a mansion with lots of rooms of her own.
But she seemed happy. He watched her as she busied herself fixing toast for breakfast, her cute butt swaying in her work clothes, which she must have been wearing when she fell asleep in her chair.
Her hair was askew, her makeup faded. There were circles under her eyes from lack of sleep… and he’d never seen a more beautiful woman in his life.
She turned to him, a tired smile on her heart-shaped face, and he felt his heart skip a beat.
When she smiled at him, he felt more nervous than he’d ever felt in the field.
“It really is good to see you,” she said, buttering toast and putting it on a plate and handing it to him.
He slid it back toward her. “I already ate. You go ahead.”
She nodded and picked up the toast and began to eat it with her milk. “I couldn’t sleep last night. I keep dreaming about us, starting with when we met.”
“I thought you were the most beautiful thing ever, even then,” he said seriously.
“Oh, come on. We were kids,” she said.#p#分页标题#e#
“Nope, I really thought so.” He’d had to see her, had to let her meet the boy behind the bear she’d saved. He’d been so bonded to her, even then.
That had been a fun day. And a turning point in his life. His first real friend. Though, if he were honest, it was more like love at first sight.
When she’d refused to be his old lady, she’d been the first person to give him a glimpse of the life he could have outside the compound. If he left the gang.
“I thought you were cute, too,” she said. “We were such kids, weren’t we?”
“Yes,” he said. “But sometimes kids know even better than adults.”
“I had no idea what was coming for us,” she said. “I just knew I loved it every time I saw you. Willow loved you, too. She asked about you often, you know.”
“She wrote me,” he said. “Has been writing me.”
“I suppose I should have kept writing even when you stopped,” she said. “But it was painful. And I assumed you’d moved on and I was bothering you. After all, I wasn’t going to hold you to some some crush you had as a teen…”
“I was eighteen. I knew what I wanted. And here I am.”
She shrugged. “Here you are. So did you come back for me, or did you come back for the gang? Because obviously, they knew you were in town before I did.”
He didn’t know what to say to that. He could only hope this was over soon so he could explain everything to her in a way that would make sense.
Until then, he had to keep her safe from men like Harvey, men who wanted to claim what was his.
“You know it’d be easier for me if you’d take my patch,” he said.
“Ugh, the ‘property of’ patches?” she said. “No thanks.” Then her eyes lit up. “Is that why you joined up with them?” she asked. “Some misguided attempt to protect me from them by being one of them?”
He sighed. She was close to the truth but still so, so off. “No. Look, it’s natural for me to be there, no matter the reasons. Maybe I just want to make money for a while, or maybe I’m trying to work out some things from my childhood. But you should know me by now, Carrie. I’m not going to do anything bad, and I’m not going to let them do anything bad to you. But it’d be a lot easier if you were wearing my patch.”