A huge lump lodged in Trinity’s throat as Oscar sidled up to her. He leaned his skinny frame against her thigh and rubbed his face on top of Ginger’s head.
‘Okay,’ she said quietly, glancing at Reid. Even just saying the word felt good. As if all the weight had magically disappeared from her shoulders. For now anyway. ‘Just for a short while though.’
Christmas was a couple of months away—being in her own place by then seemed like a worthy goal.
He nodded. ‘Stay as long as you need.’
* * *
If Reid thought he was going to see a different side to Trinity once she’d agreed to his offer, he was wrong. She might have said yes but it was probably the most reluctant yes on record and she was clearly still not comfortable with the deal.
At dinner she’d tried to talk to him about making a monetary contribution towards their food and board, which he’d dismissed outright, and then she’d tried to make a bargain with him about taking over the cooking from now on so she was at least doing something to contribute. But Reid had shooed her out of the kitchen.
After years of army rations he enjoyed eating home-made meals and found cooking therapeutic. He’d told her she could sit and watch with a glass of wine if she wanted but she’d declined politely, a pleasant smile fixed to her face.
Which had been pretty much par for the course today. She’d been polite and pleasant all day but there was a coolness to it, a reserve, that kept him at a distance.
As far as he was concerned anyway.
It melted away with Oscar. Hell, even with his grandfather she was more at ease. But with him, she was cool and polite.
Not that it surprised him. He didn’t know how long Trinity had been doing it tough but long enough to have built a shell of wariness around her. And he knew that time was the only antidote. It was obviously going to take her a while to trust him. She needed time to get to know him. To believe that he meant what he said. No funny business. No strings.
I’m not going to sleep with you.
It had been shocking to hear her say it. To realise that a part of her actually believed he had an ulterior motive for inviting her into his home. A sexual one. It’d made him so angry he’d wanted to smash the kitchen bench top in two.
He didn’t know who the guy was that had put the hard word on her but it disgusted Reid. He felt insulted on behalf of his entire gender that there were douchebags like that out in the world harassing vulnerable women.
They gave men a bad name.
The thought that he’d take advantage of her situation was sickening. Sure, Trinity had fight and spunk, two attributes he found sexier than a great rack or an awesome booty. But he could see beyond her prickly, standoffish, tough-as-nails exterior to the frightened, vulnerable woman underneath and all he really wanted to do was protect her.
It was what he’d done most of his life and he couldn’t switch that off because he no longer wore a set of khakis. There’d been so many women and children he hadn’t been able to help, but he could protect Trinity and Oscar.
* * *
He went in search of her after dinner. She’d told him she was going to put Oscar to bed and he’d assumed she’d come back down and sit with him and Pops for a while—if only out of politeness. But it had been over an hour and she still hadn’t showed.
He was worried she was hiding away and he needed her to know that she and Oscar had the entire run of the house. That she didn’t have to sit up in her room like some frightened little mouse. That they had several televisions in the house plus a range of DVDs or she could use his computer.
He stopped at the room where he’d dumped Oscar’s bag earlier this afternoon but it was empty. In fact it didn’t look as if it had been touched. The door was open. There was no rumpled bedspread. No open cupboard doors. No discarded clothes or shoes.
Reid frowned as he moved to the next room along, which he’d given to Trinity because it had an en-suite. If he hadn’t been very much mistaken, she’d blinked back tears when she saw it and it had made him happy to throw some luxury her way.
The door was shut. If a closed door wasn’t a big old ‘keep out’ message nothing was. He hesitated for a moment, prevaricating about whether to knock. The last thing he wanted was to encroach on her privacy. And maybe she was asleep.
At eight o’clock at night...
The strip of light at the bottom of the door told him the light was at least on. So maybe she was lying awake staring at four walls worrying about things she didn’t have to worry about.
Reid gave himself a mental shake. He was dithering. Reid Hamilton did not dither. He was a surgeon, for crying out loud.
Or used to be anyway.
He knocked gently. Low enough to be heard but hopefully not wake her if she was asleep. There was silence for a moment, then a quiet, ‘Come in,’ that sounded wary and tight even through the barrier of the door.
He opened it to find a sleeping Oscar tucked up in bed beside his mother, his fine white-blond hair and the pale wedge of his cheekbone a contrast to the crimson pillowcase. A mangy-looking stuffed rabbit tucked in with him.
A surge of pride filled his chest knowing that the kid would be sleeping safe from now on. ‘Sorry,’ he whispered.
‘It’s okay,’ she said, her voice low, her hand sliding protectively onto her son’s back. ‘He sleeps like a rock.’
Reid envied the kid that. He slept lightly and dreamed too much.
Trinity was chewing on her bottom lip, regarding him with a solemn gaze. Her hair was wet, or rather it had been. It was half dry now with dozens of dark, fluffy, flyaway strands, which made her look about eighteen and not the thirty he’d originally pegged her as.
Just how old was she?
She was wearing some kind of sloppy V-necked T-shirt that dwarfed her shape and fell off her right shoulder. He noted absently there was a hole in her sleeve as his gaze was drawn to the exposed flesh. Her skin was pale, and the hollow between her collarbone and the slope where neck met shoulder was pronounced.
He loved that dip. Hell, he loved all the dips and hollows on a woman’s body.
Suddenly it was gone as she yanked the sleeve up. Reid blinked at the action and the direction of his thoughts. Bloody hell. What was he thinking? He dragged his gaze back to her face but she wasn’t looking at him; her eyes were planted firmly downwards on a book she’d obviously been reading.
Good one, man.
‘I...just came to check everything’s okay.’
‘It is.’ Cool and pleasant replaced by stiff and formal.
He glanced at Oscar again. ‘You know, you guys don’t have to share the same room. There’s enough for one each.’
‘I know. It’s what we’re used to. We don’t mind.’
Reid
