Things We Never Said (Hart's Boardwalk #3) - Samantha Young Page 0,124

in her sleep. There was still some pain. She’d been lucky—there had been no bone damage—but Michael thought she wouldn’t be fully healed for another few months yet.

Her long lashes fluttered in her sleep and contentment washed over him.

She was beautiful. She didn’t need a scrap of makeup to be beautiful. It shone out of her. Even more so since she’d charged to Ivy Green’s rescue and helped him apprehend Freddie Jackson.

Nothing could ever have prepared Michael for the almost paralyzing fear that rushed over him when he saw Dahlia being wheeled out of her apartment building on a stretcher. To sit with her in the ambulance as she lay unconscious, chalk white …

Shot.

He knew then he’d been wrong when he said he could exist without her, but he couldn’t live without her. Michael knew he couldn’t even exist in a world where she was no more.

And he didn’t give a fuck if that made him weak.

He reached out and trailed the back of his knuckles down her arm. They were a pair, him and her. The halves of one whole. Neither of them made sense without the other. Living together was proof of that. Michael had moved in with her during her recovery so he could take care of her. He’d helped her shower, he’d held her when she woke up, sweating with nightmares that were typical signs of trauma in a GSW victim, and he talked her through her fears since she didn’t want to go back to seeing a therapist.

The nightmares eventually stopped.

But Michael never left.

She made him promise not to go.

The easiest fuckin’ promise he’d ever made.

She shifted in her sleep, and he saw her nose crinkle in a little flinch. He scowled at her shoulder. She was sleeping on it.

Gently moving her, Michael rolled her to her back, and she moaned in her sleep.

He felt that moan in his gut and cursed himself.

In spite of her wound, Dahlia insisted on feeling him up every chance she got, the goddamn vixen. Michael grinned on a groan and fell onto his back. She’d talked him into fooling around about six weeks after she’d been shot and he’d given in because she was the hardest woman on the planet to resist.

But no sex.

That had pissed her off, but it was for her own good. There was no way to do it without jarring her shoulder.

He rubbed a hand over his eyes. It wasn’t easy waiting to be with her again.

Feeling the heat gather in his lower spine and cock, Michael forced his thoughts elsewhere.

He had to be up for work soon. So did Dahlia. The height of the season had kicked in now that summer was upon Hartwell, and Dahlia’s shop needed to open. Michael knew it was best for her to be at work, to get on with life as normally as possible, but he’d also asked her to hire someone to help her out at the shop for a while.

A seventeen-year-old artist whose wealthy family owned a summer house in the Glades had jumped at the chance to work with Dahlia. Dahlia was enjoying teaching the girl about metalsmithing, so it was a win-win.

As for Hartwell itself, it was trying to find its feet again. Freddie Jackson couldn’t make bail, so he was in jail awaiting his trial. As for the Devlins … it looked like those fuckers might get away clean. Freddie had confessed to sharing confidential information with the Devlins and harassing certain members of the public upon Ian Devlin’s request. Devlin had been arrested, but they had to let him go on the grounds of insufficient evidence.

The fuck.

There was nothing substantial to tie Freddie’s story to Devlin’s. He said he panicked when Michael arrived, afraid he would lose everything, and he’d gone to Stu for help. He said Stu told him it wouldn’t be a problem anymore, that the cops would find Freddie’s apartment filled with enough coke to put him away, so he wouldn’t be around to fuck everything up for the Devlin family. When Freddie tried to reason with him, Stu kept saying he didn’t know what Freddie was talking about, laughing all the time, like it was a joke.

Freddie lost his temper.

Stu came at him as if to attack him, and Freddie shot him.

The Devlins had gone quiet for now. But Michael was determined to bring Ian Devlin down. He’d find a way. It helped that the media furor that had sprung up after Freddie had shot Dahlia had died