unsteady ground.
Isabel shifted in the passenger seat, and I caught the way she tried to hide her wince.
“Did you take anything yet?” I asked.
She glanced at me, her eyes holding that same wariness as when we first met. Eventually, she shook her head. “I feel like I got hit by a car,” she admitted. “I think the adrenaline is wearing off.”
“Tomorrow’s going to be even worse.”
Her head angled back, she sighed heavily. “I know.”
I pulled the truck into our neighborhood, and Emmett pressed his face closer to the window. “Cool! You guys are right by the lake.”
“Pretty close,” I told him. “We can walk there after dinner if your aunt wants to take a nap.”
“What are we having for dinner?” Anya asked. “I’m starving.”
“Please don’t let Isabel cook,” Emmett begged.
Isabel turned her head and smiled. “Hey, I didn’t let you starve this weekend, did I?”
“Not technically,” he muttered under his breath.
I caught myself smiling a little at the exchange.
Our house came into view, and her head tilted with interest when I slowed. It looked small, from the front, with the pine trees towering over the top of it. But inside, it opened to the kind of space and view I never could’ve provided for Anya in California. She had a yard to play in. Mountains and water practically in our backyard. It was as idyllic of a childhood as I could give her, as the sole person responsible for her upbringing.
And for the first time since Beth died—no matter what the circumstances were—I was going to walk into the front door with another woman so that she could sleep under our roof.
As I hit the garage door button, I couldn’t help wondering what the fuck I was doing, bringing her here like this. The instinct to do so, standing in her backyard, had been overwhelming and impossible to ignore. I never would’ve been able to walk out of that door if I’d known she was alone.
This, however, was different. Because now, there was no going back from it.
Denying that I was attracted to her was a fool’s errand. I could lie to myself about a lot of things, but not this, no matter what had grown between us the last couple of weeks.
But having her in my home, the place I shared with my daughter, after the experience they’d just shared, felt like I was tempting fate.
I parked the truck and let the kids out, watching carefully to make sure Isabel was walking steadily as she waited for me to unlock the door into the house. Her progress was slow, her hip clearly bothering her more as time passed.
As soon as I opened the door, she gave me a subdued smile as she passed into the kitchen through the laundry room.
“Come on,” Anya yelled, sprinting for the stairs, “I’ll show you my room. I have a pink canopy!”
“Uhh, okay.”
Isabel exhaled a soft laugh. “I don’t think he’ll act suitably impressed.” As she walked slowly into the family room, her gaze lit on the wall of windows, pitched in an A-frame, overlooking the sprawling view of Lake Sammamish. “It’s beautiful,” she said.
“Thanks,” I replied. “Do you want to go straight to bed? Or rest on the couch?”
Her eyes flew to mine, her cheeks becoming a shade of pink. “Which room should I use? I wouldn’t mind a nap.”
I blew out a hard breath because I hadn’t thought this piece through. The guest room, which I’d assumed Emmett would use, was across the hall from Anya’s room on the second floor. The third bedroom—my own—was on the main floor, along the back of the house with the same view as the family room. I gestured in that direction. “You can sleep back there. I don’t want to make you do stairs.”
Without argument, Isabel walked in that direction, and when I pulled the Tylenol out of the cabinet in the kitchen, I had to take a moment. Hands braced on the kitchen counter, I pushed through the feeling that I’d made a massive mistake by doing this.
As soon as I strode through the living room, painkillers in one hand and an ice pack in the other, and caught sight of her sitting on the edge of my bed, I knew I had.
She took the pain meds without complaint, allowing me to pull back the covers so she could slide in. Not a word was spoken as she settled herself onto my pillow, let me set the ice pack on her hip. For that,