by Chant, Zoe
Finally, he came to the front room, and Lila moved aside to let him in. She was pretty sure that if anyone had been in there, it would have made its presence known much earlier than now, but it would be good to be sure.
Flynn stepped inside, moving in to start searching—
“Aaaaaaah!” Sophia yelled, and Flynn made a startled noise.
Lila darted in after him—then stopped short.
Flynn was standing still in the middle of the room, a pink-and-orange afghan draped over the top of his head, and the remains of a whole bucketful of Nerf darts tumbling down to the floor around him.
Sophia, meanwhile, was standing tall on the back of the couch, holding the empty bucket clutched in her hands.
Lila covered her mouth with her hands.
“I got him, Mommy!” Sophia said triumphantly. “I got the bad guy!”
Slowly, Flynn tugged the blanket off of his head. His hair was standing up, staticky from the blanket. A lone Nerf dart was perched on his shoulder.
It wasn’t funny. Flynn was protecting them from very real danger. The urge to laugh hysterically was—
Almost uncontrollable. Lila pressed her hands harder against her mouth.
“Well,” Flynn said finally. “It looks like you have a very...defensively robust setup here. Um. Good work.”
“Thanks,” Sophia said proudly, easily transferring Flynn from bad guy to ally as she hopped down from the back of the couch, bounced once on the cushions—like she knew she wasn’t supposed to—and hopped again down to the floor. “I set up the moat, and then I put the Nerfs in the bucket for a trap, and then I got the other blanket for another trap, so anyone who came in would be all tangled up and hit with all the bullets, both!”
“And that’s exactly what happened. Wow. Well, you should be pleased, because most of the time, no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.”
Sophia’s forehead wrinkled. “What does that mean?”
“It means that whenever you have a plan, the other guy also has a plan. And since you don’t know what his plan is, the plans are going to—crash into each other and get all messed up.”
Sophia thought about that.
“Okay,” said Lila, a little alarmed at the thought of her five-year-old becoming even more of a wily military strategist than she already was. “Where’s your brother?”
Sophia pointed. “He’s no good at setting traps. I thought maybe he could be the trap, but he didn’t want to move.”
“Oh, good,” Lila sighed, and went to get the baby.
Grant was still sitting behind the couch, happily chewing on the blanket-moat. Lila picked him up and came back around to see Sophia gathering up her Nerf darts into her bucket again.
“I hope those are getting put away,” Lila said.
Sophia looked up, offended. “I need them to be another trap! In case the bad guys come back!”
Lila supposed there were worse things she could be doing. “Well, you’ll need this one.” She plucked the dart from Flynn’s shoulder and handed it down to her daughter.
Sophia grabbed it happily, and Lila looked up at Flynn, who seemed a little...something.
“You okay?” Lila asked. “She can be a lot, especially if you weren’t expecting her.”
He shook himself, almost animal-like, and Lila was reminded that he was a shapeshifter. “Fine,” he said abruptly. “I’m fine—I should be asking you that. I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner. I was doing a loop around town, and they must have slipped in while I was gone.”
Lila ran those words over in her head. Then again. There was only one obvious conclusion to draw from them, and she said hesitantly, “Are you saying that you’ve been keeping watch around my house? In case this happened?”
His shoulders lifted uncomfortably. “Not just me. We’ve been pulling shifts. We knew Victor’s lions were in the forest and that he wasn’t happy with you. He’s already tried to kidnap two women from this town; we weren’t about to let him succeed with you.”
Lila hugged Grant close to her chest, trying to figure out how she felt about this. His chubby baby arms came around her neck, his head heavy on her shoulder; it was coming up on naptime.
If things had gone differently, they could be on their way to Victor’s mercy right now, no naptime or Nerf traps or any of it.
“I wish someone had told me,” she said finally.
Though she had known that Victor had come after her friend Cam. But she’d thought—she’d thought that the dragons had run him off, that he’d realized he couldn’t fight them and gone back home.
Apparently not. Apparently the fight had still been going on, over her head, out of her control.
Lila was very, very tired of things being out of her control.
Things like her living situation, her income, her kids’ safety, her future...
Flynn nodded. “I apologize,” he said. “We didn’t want to worry you.”
He looked uncomfortable, still. Guilty for not telling her, maybe.
She hadn’t thought that Flynn would care that much; Cam had told her that Flynn wasn’t too happy to have Lila and her kids living in the abandoned house, which Flynn’s mother owned. He hadn’t wanted to antagonize Victor and his lions further by taking Lila under the town’s protection. He and Lachlan had had a fight about it.
Lila supposed this particular incident showed that he’d been right.
“I’m sorry to be so much trouble,” she said finally. “Thank you for coming to help. If you hadn’t, we wouldn’t have been able to do anything.” She forced a smile. “Nerf doesn’t do much against real bad guys.”
Flynn looked down at Sophia, who was sitting on the floor carefully dropping Nerf darts into her bucket. He smiled, although it looked painful. “I won’t leave the house alone again. I won’t allow you or the kids to be in danger even for a second.”
Lila was taken totally aback by the tears that suddenly filled her eyes. She turned her face into Grant’s soft baby-hair, inhaling his scent and trying to get herself under control.
A big hand landed softly on her shoulder. “Are you all right?”
“You have to stop asking me that,” Lila managed, her voice sounding choked. “I promise I’m all right. Not hurt, not even scared anymore. Everything’s fine.”
She was lying, of course: she was scared down to her bones. Scared of what would happen if the lions attacked again, scared of the future, scared of the fact that she was totally without resources of her own, dependent on people she’d just met a couple weeks ago for her safety and the roof over her head.
But Flynn didn’t need to hear all of that. He just wanted to make sure that no one got eaten by lions on his watch.
“Okay,” he said slowly. “Hey, that little guy looks pretty tired. You want me to watch Sophia, if you need to put him down for a nap or something?”
Lila blinked, surprised again. For some reason, she hadn’t thought that Flynn would be the sort of man who’d offer to babysit. Too forbidding, maybe.
But looks could be deceiving, after all.
So she took a deep breath and pulled her face out of Grant’s hair, looking Flynn in the eye once more.
God, he was imposing. Something about his strong jaw, his heavy eyebrows. The way his dark eyes seemed to look right through her.
It was reassuring right now, though. Because all of that imposing presence was between her and danger.
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “He does need a nap. You don’t mind staying with Sophia?”
Flynn shook his head immediately. “Not at all.”
Sophia looked up at that. “We can play bad guys some more!”
“If you dump out the Nerf all over the floor again, you’re picking it up again,” was all Lila said to that, and went upstairs to put the baby down.
Chapter 2: Flynn
Flynn felt like a jerk.
It wasn’t a new sensation for him, but this time, it had settled acutely somewhere under his breastbone and
was giving him a jagged poke with every breath. Inhale. You’re a jerk. Exhale. You’re a jerk.
He hadn’t told Lila the complete truth about why he’d been patrolling around her house. Sure, he and Malachi—the town sheriff, and Flynn’s boss—had agreed that there should be a guard posted for Lila and the kids’ safety. And since they’d wanted to keep the woods under watch anyway, it made sense to set the perimeter with the house as home base.
Flynn, though, had been keeping watch not just for Lila’s safety, but because he’d been half-convinced she was a spy for Victor.
He hadn’t mentioned this to Malachi, or his brother Lachlan, or any of the other town shifters, because he knew he’d be shot down.
But it had just all been so fast and convenient. Lachlan had met his mate Cam, fallen hard, and been willing to do anything she asked of him. Lila had conveniently been in big trouble literally the next day. Cam had called on Lachlan to come help out her friend, and suddenly Lila was ensconced in Oak Ridge—
And not just in Oak Ridge, but in Flynn’s childhood home, which had really rankled.
No one had checked her out at all, no one had even considered the possibility that it might be a trap, and no one had hesitated at the prospect of escalating their conflict with Victor and the Leosville shifters into an all-out war.
For a woman none of them had ever met!
Flynn had been the only one who seemed to see a problem with it. Even his own mother had chewed him out for being reluctant. Lachlan was still annoyed with him about it.
And now....now it looked like he’d been wrong after all, and he’d antagonized his family for nothing.
Well, that wasn’t really anything new, either.
You’re a jerk. You’re a jerk.
“Okay, you go out into the hall, and come in again!” Sophia announced, having set up her trap once more.
“How about we push the couch back up against the wall, first?” Flynn suggested. “Since your brother doesn’t have to hide behind it anymore.” The sight of Sophia perched precariously on the back of the couch had been what made him stop short, the last time. He hadn’t expected her to be lying in wait for him.
Maybe Sophia was the spy.
Shaking his head at himself, he went to get the couch solidly up against the wall again, so at least Sophia couldn’t fall off backwards if she tried it again.
Though he’d only known this kid for ten minutes, and he could already tell that it would be when she tried it again.
Sophia watched him. “You’re really strong.”
“Sure am.” He got the couch back in what he hoped was its former position.
“Will I be that strong someday?”
“Probably not quite. Men have more strength in their arms. And it’ll depend on if you’re a shifter or not.” Sophia and Grant’s dad had been a lion shifter, but Lila was human. No telling how the kids would turn out.
“I’m going to be a shifter,” Sophia said fiercely. “I’m going to turn into a lioness! Then I can fight all the bad guys. I won’t even need traps anymore.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Flynn said, smiling despite himself.
He was pretty sure this tiny, fierce girl was going to give some bad guys a run for their money someday, whether she was a shifter or not.
“Okay, now go back out and come in again!” Sophia was pushing on his legs, trying to get him to leave the room.
Flynn stepped outside, counting to ten in his head.
He’d been wrong. He had to admit it to himself. Those lions of Victors outside had meant business. He supposed it was barely possible that they’d staged the attack to make Lila look like a real enemy...but she wasn’t under any suspicion in town.
And she’d been so afraid. He’d been able to smell it on her when he’d come inside. The way she’d clutched her baby close—how she’d almost started to cry when he’d told her he’d stay and protect her—
Yep, he’d been wrong. He’d wanted to leave an innocent widow with two young kids out in the cold, because he was a suspicious jerk.
Well. She never had to know what a jerk he was, and he could make it up to her by keeping her and her kids safe for as long as they needed him.
“I wonder where those little kids are,” he said aloud, in an approximation of an evil-villain voice. “I’d love to take them back to my lair!”
He stepped casually into the room and braced for the Nerf attack. He wasn’t disappointed.
“Yaaaaaaah!”
This time, though, after the afghan and the Nerf deluge, Sophia launched herself through space at him. Startled, Flynn caught her blind, the blanket obscuring his vision.
“Got you, bad guy!” she yelled, whaling at him with some kind of weapon that, from the way it bounced, was probably also made of Nerf.
“Whoa!” he laughed, swinging her around into one arm so he could get the blanket off his head. He didn’t want to stumble over any toys or furniture and maybe fall or drop her. “I wasn’t expecting such a fierce warrior!”
“I got you!” Sophia repeated. “You’re dead!”
Obediently, Flynn laid himself out on the ground. Sophia sat on his chest, looking pleased with herself.
“Maybe we shouldn’t yell anymore,” Flynn realized suddenly, feeling guilty. “Your brother’s trying to go to sleep.”
Sophia sighed dramatically. “He’s not any fun. Mommy says he’ll be able to run around and play ninjas someday, but for now he’s too little. I want to play ninjas now.”
“How do you play ninjas?” Flynn asked.
Sophia immediately began a complicated description of a game that sounded like a combination of hide-and-seek, tag, and Dungeons and Dragons. Flynn listened attentively.
“And you have to be quiet?” he asked.
Sophia nodded. “Ninjas are stealthy.”
“Let’s play ninjas, then.” Flynn lifted her off his chest, where she’d apparently been ready to settle in permanently, and set her on the ground.
“Okay!” Sophia darted off, and Flynn was left blinking at the spot where she’d been.
Then he hustled off himself. He’d promised to keep an eye on her, after all.
And he was determined to be a good ninja.
***
Eventually Lila came downstairs, no baby in her arms anymore. She saw Flynn pressed against the inside of the doorway to the kitchen, and stopped, her eyebrows going up.
Flynn pressed a finger to his lips. “We’re playing ninjas,” he whispered.
“Oh,” Lila said, almost silently, her dark eyes sparkling with laughter.
She looked much better like that than she had shivering with suppressed fear. Flynn wanted suddenly to make sure that she was always happy like that, that she never had to run from anything again.
Guilt, he supposed.
She was gorgeous when she was suppressing a laugh, though. Her small nose scrunched up, her curved lips pressed together, her cute high ponytail twitching with a little giggle.
Flynn caught himself. He wasn’t supposed to be attracted to her, just protect her.
Even though she was definitely attractive. Her body was lusciously curved, her face elfin, her skin smooth and creamy with a hint of olive. Her hair was dark and glossy, looking beautiful even pulled back like it was.
And she was a terrified single mother whom Flynn had done a deep disservice, even if she didn’t know it. He wasn’t about to hit on her to top it all off. God, he was such a jerk.
He tore his attention away from Lila and focused on being a ninja. That, after all, was the most important task at hand.
Chapter 3: Lila
Lila hadn’t quite anticipated this.
Well, she hadn’t anticipated any of the things that had happened recently, much less anything that had happened this afternoon. But after the attack, and Flynn saving them, and him offering to stick around the house and protect them from any lions who might show up—
—well, she hadn’t expected that to entail playing ninja.<
br />
Flynn was pretty good at it, too. To play ninja well, one needed to be fairly stealthy, but also willing to take risks that would let Sophia catch you. If you were too stealthy, she got bored and wandered off to get into something.
Lila had learned that the hard way, once, when she’d tried to interpret playing ninja as sitting in a quiet corner with a book she’d been meaning to read for a year. It hadn’t gone well. She’d gotten caught up in the book, hadn’t realized how long Sophia had been quiet, and had been startled out of the book by an almighty crash. She’d ended up cleaning flour and olive oil off the kitchen floor for a week.
Flynn, though, had all of his attention on the game, and was giving Sophia a challenge, it looked like. She kept leaping out to surprise him and catching only his heels as he darted away to a different part of the house.
Lila breathed out, looked around—and realized that she didn’t have any kids to take care of.
Grant was sleeping soundly, and Sophia was completely occupied. Lila wasn’t needed for anything. It was too early to make dinner, and she’d spent a laborious morning trying to get Sophia to see picking up the house as a fun game, so there wasn’t even clutter everywhere. Mostly.
She supposed that she could take this opportunity to scrub the bathroom, which desperately needed it, but...
Slowly, she walked back into the front room. Slowly, she let out her breath as she sat down on the fort-couch, which was extremely floral and had to be a relic of Lachlan’s childhood.
Flynn’s childhood too, she supposed.
That was an odd thought. Lachlan and Flynn’s mother had offered to let Lila stay in this house, because she was living in Lachlan’s mother-in-law suite and the house was standing empty. But if it had been her house, then Flynn must have grown up here.
She wondered how many complicated hide-and-seek games he’d already played in these rooms. Probably a lot. It must be kind of weird for him, to see a stranger’s kids running through this house, making it their home for now.
She’d have to apologize to him...or somehow make it clear how much she appreciated the use of the house. Diana had refused to accept rent, telling Lila, “It’s just standing empty. And I remember being in your shoes. When I arrived in Oak Ridge, I was a single mom with no money, too. I would’ve been lost without everyone’s help. I’m just paying it forward.”