walked over to the tiny kitchen, where Seth’s tent was on the floor. She crouched down and let the boy crawl inside. She watched the kid for a second before walking over to a drawer and pulling out a washcloth. She wet it at the sink, then moved to the cabinet above the oven where they kept a few first aid things and medicine. She grabbed a bandage before returning to him.
She stood in front of him, gaze unreadable on his. She stepped close—too close, because he could smell dinner and Seth’s wipes on her. That shouldn’t be somehow enticing. He wasn’t desperate for some domestic side of his life.
But she got up on her tiptoes and placed the warm cloth to where he’d scraped his forehead on the edge of the door. She wiped at the cut, her gaze not leaving his until she had to open the bandage.
Her eyebrows drew together as she peeled it from its plastic and then smoothed it over his forehead, her fingertips cool and soft against his brow. She met his gaze again then, sadness infusing her features.
“Noah, I have to leave.”
He studied her, so imploringly serious, and, yeah, he didn’t think that was bull. “Why?”
She glanced back at Seth, who was slapping his hands happily against the floor. “I just do. I can’t give any kind of notice or time to find a new housekeeper. I have to go now.” She glanced at the window, vulnerability written into every inch of her face that usually would have made Noah take a big old step back. He didn’t do fragile, not a big, rough man like him.
But this wasn’t about smoothing things over. This was about protecting someone who was very clearly in trouble.
“You’re not going anywhere. You just need to tell me what’s going on and we’ll figure it out.”
She looked back at him, expression bleak and confused. “Why?”
“Why?” He wanted to swear, but he thought better of it as Seth crawled over to his feet and used Noah’s leg to pull himself into a standing position. Addie needed some reassuring, some soft and kind words, and he was so not the man for that.
But he was the only man here, and from everything Laurel and Grady had told him, and from Addie’s own actions, Noah could only assume she’d been knocked around by Seth’s father and feared him even now.
Softness might not be in him, but neither was turning away from something a little wounded.
“You’re a part of the house. You’ve made yourself indispensable,” he continued, trying to wipe that confused bleakness off her face.
“No. No. No,” Seth babbled, hitting Noah’s leg with his pudgy baby fingers.
Noah scooped the kid up into his arms, irritated that Addie was still standing there staring at him all big-eyed and beautiful and hell if he knew what to do with any of this.
“You didn’t just take a job when you came here—you joined a family,” he said harshly. “We protect our own. That wasn’t bull I was feeding you earlier. That is how things work here. You’re under Carson protection.”
“I’ve never known anyone like you,” she whispered. Before that bloomed too big and warm and stupid in his chest, she kept going. “Any of you. Laurel, Grady. Jen, Ty. The whole lot of you, and it’s so funny the town is always going on about some feud and Grady and Laurel cursing everything, but you’re all the same, all of you Carsons and Delaneys. So good and wanting to help people who shouldn’t mean anything to you.”
“You’ve been here too long for that to be true. Of course you mean something to us.” He cleared his throat. “Besides, you’re a Delaney yourself by blood.”
She looked away for a second, and he couldn’t read her expression but Seth made a lunge for her. One of his favorite games to play, lunging back and forth between them. Over and over again.
Addie took Seth, but she met Noah’s gaze with a soft, resigned sadness. “I’m not safe here. More importantly, Seth isn’t safe here. We have to go.”
“Where?”
“What?”
“Where will you go that you’ll be safe?”
“I...” She blew out a breath, that sheen of tears filling her eyes, and if this hadn’t been so serious, he would have up and walked away. He didn’t do tears.
But this was too big. Too important.
“I don’t know,” she whispered, one of the tears falling over her cheek. “I’m not sure anywhere will ever be safe.”
Noah had the oddest urge to reach out and brush it away. He tamped that urge down and focused on what needed to be done. “Then you’ll stay.”
“Noah.”
“If you don’t know where to be safe, then you’ll stay here where a whole group of people are ready and willing to protect you and Seth.”
“I can’t put any of you in this, Noah. It’s dangerous.”
“Not if you tell us what we’re up against.” Not that it’d change his mind. He’d fight a whole damn army to keep her here.
Because she was useful. Like he’d said before. Integral. To his house. To the ranch. That was all.
“Promise me you’ll stay put.” They were too close, standing here like this. Even as Seth bounced in her arms and reached for his hat, their eyes didn’t leave each other.
But she shook her head. “I can’t, Noah. I can’t promise you that.”
Addie knew the next step was to walk away. Run away, but Noah’s gaze held her stuck. She was afraid to break it, that doing so might break her.
She’d been strong for so long, alone for so long. She had to keep being that, but the allure of someone helping... It physically hurt to know she couldn’t allow herself that luxury.
“Here are your choices,” Noah said in that low, steady voice that somehow eased the jangling nerves in her gut. “You can try to run away, and I can call every Carson, hell, and Delaney, in a fifty-mile radius and you won’t get two feet past the town limits.”
Irritation spiked through her. “Noah, you—”
“Or you can sit down and tell me what’s going on and we can fight it. Together.”
Together.
She couldn’t wrap her mind around this. Protection and together. Because she was his employee? Because she lived under his roof? It didn’t make any kind of sense.
Her father had cut off Kelly when she’d dropped out of school and refused to work at the furniture store. Then when she’d asked him for help in Kelly’s final trimester when the depth of her trouble with Peter was really sinking in, he’d refused to help.
He’d told Addie to never come
