I didn’t even realize I’d fallen asleep until Georgie’s gasp startled me awake. The tablet she’d been playing on hit the floor in front of the couch as she attempted to wedge her tiny body in the crook of my arm slung along the back of the sofa.

“It’s okay, ladybug,” I said as I pulled Georgie against my chest and dropped my chin to the top of her head. Not surprisingly, her thumb went into her mouth and she began frantically stroking the fingers of her other hand over Duckie. Her headphones were sitting on the couch next to her, proof she hadn’t been wearing them.

Which meant I’d actually fallen asleep despite the sounds coming from her iPad… well, my iPad. Though with all the kids’ games, videos, and endless pictures of bugs Georgie had taken just this morning as we’d explored the exterior of the cabin, I was pretty sure I was never getting the thing back at this point.

I was pretty okay with that, though, since Georgie was clearly fascinated with the gadget.

“What’s wrong, Georgie?” I asked, but even if she would have been willing to answer me, she didn’t need to because the soft rap of knuckles on the front door caught my attention a moment later.

Since Blue and Tristan had agreed to give Ben some space for the time being, I assumed it was one of my colleagues. I tried reassuring Georgie, saying, “It’s just one of my friends, ladybug,” then picked the little girl up. I could feel her body shaking violently against mine. As well as Georgie had been doing considering all she’d been through, I had no illusions that she’d just miraculously recover from the ordeal of being abducted. Even if the guys who’d taken her hadn’t hurt her, the trauma of being ripped from her brother’s arms and watching him get beaten in the motel room just before she’d been kidnapped would have caused enough shock on its own. Add in the events that had occurred when we’d gotten her back at the warehouse, and it was a wonder she could even have moments where she acted like a normal kid.

Ronan’s men were supposed to text me before coming over specifically to avoid Georgie’s fear reaction or waking a restless Ben up from his nap again, so I hurried to the door and pulled it open, ready to lambast whichever colleague had forgotten the rule. The argument died when I saw who was standing on the other side of the door.

Ronan himself.

“I tried to text,” my boss said as he shifted his eyes to Georgie.

“Oh, um, I…” I stammered as I began searching for my phone. I pulled it out of my pocket and frowned. “I’m sorry, I must have turned it to silent without realizing it. Won’t happen again.”

Ronan eyed me like he wanted to say something, then seemed to think better of it. “Hi, Georgie, how are you?” he asked. Not surprisingly, Georgie didn’t respond.

“She’s tired,” I said lamely. “It was a… rough night.”

“I figured. Lucky for you, I brought reinforcements,” Ronan said with a smile. Then he was waving in the direction of the lodge. My stomach dropped out at the word reinforcements, and I was about to tell Ronan I was doing fine and he didn’t need to replace me with someone else when I saw who it was running toward us.

Blue and Tristan’s dog, Piper, was yapping excitedly as she ran circles around a large German shepherd and a little boy who was pumping his short legs as fast as he could. It took me a moment to realize who the child was.

Ronan scooped the little boy up when he reached us and then settled his hand on the shepherd’s head. Piper sat down next to the larger dog and lovingly licked his muzzle.

“Reese, you remember my son, Jamie,” he said as he gave the little boy a squeeze and then motioned to the shepherd. “And Bullet.” Ronan grinned at me and added knowingly, “Reinforcements.”

Fuck, was I that obvious?

Clearly, I was.

“Can we come in?” Ronan asked.

“What, um, yeah, sure… right,” I said awkwardly as I backed up. Both dogs followed us into the living room, but I was pleased when neither animal tried to force their attention on Georgie, who was still clinging to me. “It’s okay, honey, you remember my friend Ronan from the hospital?”

Georgie nodded against my neck but that was it.

“Daddy Ronan, can I show her?” Jamie asked as he bounced up and down after Ronan set him on his feet. The kid was a natural around both dogs, putting his hand out to pet them but not showing any kind of fear around them.

“Yeah, buddy,” Ronan said as he removed a small backpack from over his shoulder. “But just remember she’s feeling kind of overwhelmed at the moment…”

“What’s whelmed mean again?” Jamie asked, scrunching his face up.

“Overwhelmed,” Ronan repeated. “It means a lot’s going on and Georgie is trying to take it all in.”

“That’s why I gotta show her,” the four-year-old insisted. “Matty and Leo said it’d make her feel safe for sure!” Jamie declared. I watched him rifle through the backpack. I eased down until I was sitting on the couch. Georgie let me shift her so she’d be more comfortable, but her hold on me didn’t ease even a little.

“I didn’t know you were coming back so soon,” I said to Ronan. The man had left for Seattle the day after Ben’s surgery to make the arrangements with his second-in-command, Memphis, to get eyes on the vineyard.

“I just wanted to make sure everything was going smoothly here.”

I forced myself not to tighten my hold on Georgie despite my nerves. Ronan and I hadn’t had a chance to talk about the fact that I’d kept information about Ben from him. It was a cardinal sin to pull that kind of shit with Ronan, especially since being a part of his team meant all the team members needed to know what they were dealing with and have adequate backup. And while I’d had that in the form of Cain, the reality was that if I’d told Ronan earlier, we could have had more men with us at the warehouse. Not only would Ben not have gotten hurt like he had, but Georgie’s life wouldn’t have been at risk, since she wouldn’t have had to climb the damaged fire escape to get away from her pursuer. Not to mention the fact that we would have caught both men who’d taken Georgie and we would have been able to determine why they’d taken her.

But my desire to prove that I was just as good at my job as I’d been before I’d gotten hurt had endangered a lot of lives, including my own.

Oh, yeah, and that pesky little thing about not wanting to share Ben with anyone, including other operatives whose sole job would have been to keep him safe.

“Ronan, I’m—”

“Is your charge safe, Reese?” Ronan interjected.

“What?”

“Is your charge safe?” he repeated, his voice softening.

“Um, yeah, Ben’s asleep.”

Ronan nodded. He motioned to Georgie. “And this little sweetheart looks pretty content, considering everything she’s been through.” Ronan shifted his eyes to his son, who was still trying to find something in the backpack. “You did your job, Reese, and you did it incredibly well. Stop waiting for me to say any different because that’s not going to happen.”

I let out a breath. I should have been able to keep my mouth shut, but that self-doubt that had hounded me as a kid whenever I’d stood in my father’s shadow, both figuratively and literally, crept in.

Oh, who was I kidding?

The fucker had never really left.

“I shouldn’t have risked Ben and Georgie like that just because I wanted to—”

“Wanted to what?” Ronan prodded.

I swallowed hard and looked at Jamie. “Nothing,” I murmured.

“Found it!” Jamie shouted. I smiled because the kid had changed so much in the short time I’d known him. Ronan and his husband, Seth, had taken Jamie and his older sisters in when they’d lost their parents and ended up in the hands of an abusive uncle and indifferent aunt. Jamie had been one of the quietest kids I’d ever seen, but clearly his new fathers had given him an environment in which he’d felt safe enough to be himself. It probably didn’t hurt that Jamie’s best friends were two of the most socially outgoing kids on the planet.

I smiled at the familiar sight of Jamie’s Spider-Man doll tucked in the curve of his arm. The doll was one of the older versions that had been around when I’d been a kid and I’d long since heard the story of how Jamie had come by the action figure. It had belonged to little Matty Hawkins, the son of another of my colleagues and his husband, Tate. Tate had owned the doll as a child and had given it to Matty as a way of making him feel safe when they’d been in a scary situation. Matty, in turn, had given it to Jamie more than a year earlier when the two little boys had met for the first time. I’d never seen the child without it since then.

“Here,” Jamie said as he held out a box wrapped with yellow wrapping paper.

“You got me a present?” I asked in mock surprise.

Jamie laughed. “It’s not for you, silly!”

Georgie had shifted slightly in my arms when I’d said present. Her wet thumb popped out of her mouth as she turned her head enough to look at Jamie.

“It’s for Georgie,” Jamie said with a little smile. “It’s from me and Matty and Leo.” Jamie held out the package, which I took when Georgie didn’t immediately react. “They’re gonna meet you next time,” Jamie said with a nod. “Daddy Ronan and Daddy Seth said us boys can be” —Jamie looked at his father and grinned as if he’d finally gotten some big secret. It was clear he had when he said, “whelming.”

“Overwhelming,” Ronan said with a chuckle. “That’s right… but in the best possible way.”

Jamie leaned into his father’s side for a cuddle as I held the present for Georgie. “Do you want to open it?” I asked. She shook her head, but her eyes stayed on the gift.

“Do you want me to open it?” I clarified.

Georgie nodded slowly.

“How do you suppose they guessed your favorite color?” I asked as I motioned to the yellow wrapping paper, then Duckie.

She shrugged her shoulders. The fear seemed to leach from her system, and she just appeared tired.

Which wasn’t a surprise considering the nightmares the poor girl had endured all night long.

I’d spent most of the night sitting by her bedside when she’d fallen asleep, since I hadn’t wanted to give in to her request to sleep with her brother for fear she’d inadvertently jostle Ben’s injured arm while she slept. Georgie had woken up in tears a few times, and the only thing that had calmed her down was me walking her around the cabin and showing her that Ben was, in fact, asleep in the very next room. By two in the morning, she’d seemed out for good, so I’d gone to Ben’s room to set up my own bed on the floor in case he needed something during the night, but my tired eyes had given out pretty much as soon as I’d lain down. I’d woken up a few hours later with Georgie tucked against my side and Ben asleep on my other side. I hadn’t heard or felt either of them get into bed—or rather, on the floor—with me, but they’d both been sleeping too comfortably for me to risk waking either of them. So I’d just lain there and held them and marveled how trustingly they’d both curled against me.

The two hours that had followed had flown by, even though I hadn’t slept another wink. When Georgie had woken up, I’d urged her to be quiet while I’d gathered Ben in my arms and lifted him back into the bed. He hadn’t stirred at all, but he had whispered my name… at least, I was pretty sure he had.

I’d been telling myself all morning that it couldn’t have really happened because he hated me.

My fingers felt too big for the task of handling the delicate wrapping paper with any kind of finesse, but before I could ask Jamie if it was okay for me to rip it, Georgie reached out and did it herself. Both dogs seemed curious about what was happening because Piper jumped up onto the couch between us to paw at the present like she was trying to help unwrap it, and Bullet laid his head on my thigh as if to watch.

It took Georgie several seconds to get the paper off and the box open, but when she did, she went completely still. In the box were two Spider-Man dolls. One looked a lot like Jamie’s, but a more recent version. The other…

I couldn’t stop smiling when it occurred to me what the other was.

It was a Barbie doll dressed in the typical Spider-Man costume, except that there was a hole in the back of the mask for her blond ponytail.

“Daddy Seth says sometimes girls like to play with boy things and boys like to play with girl things,” Jamie explained. “Since Daddy Ronan didn’t know which you liked, we got you both!”

Ronan was beaming at his son, and when he reached out to ruffle the child’s hair, the move just seemed so natural and uncomplicated. As much as I loved my own dad, our family hadn’t been the touchy-feely type when I’d been a kid, and after I’d come out to my mother, she and I had barely even spoken to one another. So there was a certain mix of envy within as I watched the proud father heap the silent praise on his child.

“I like spiders,” Georgie said softly as she released her hold on me so she’d have both hands free to grab the dolls from the packaging.

“Oh, me too!” Jamie said excitedly. “Me and Matty and Leo found one in Matty’s room at his pop-pop’s house and Maw-maw screamed when he saw it! And his maw-maw’s a big strong boy!”

Jamie was practically rolling on the floor with laughter, and I knew why. Dante Thorne was one of my colleagues and also happened to be the fiancé of Magnus DuCane, Matty’s grandfather. I’d heard people calling Dante the hated nickname more than once.

Clearly, it’d stuck.

“Spiders are nice,” Georgie said. “His maw-maw shouldn’t be scared,” she added as she tucked the female Spider-Man doll beneath her arm and patted Bullet on the head. Then she was sliding off my lap as she explained the virtues of spiders to Jamie, who seemed completely fascinated. I felt a shiver run beneath my skin at the thought of the creepy-crawly things.

I watched as the kids settled on the floor and Jamie began explaining the dolls’ features to Georgie. When I lifted my eyes, I saw that Ronan was watching me, not them.

“Any, uh, news on the case?” I asked in the hopes of deflecting his attention from me. The man just saw too much.

“I owe you an apology, Reese,” he said quietly as he leaned back against the couch cushion. Piper had long since jumped off the sofa to join the kids and Bullet on the floor.

“No, I—”

Ronan put up his hand and shook his head.

“Your father told me that he shared with you how he and I met.”

I snapped my mouth shut and nodded. Learning about the circumstances that had led to my father and Ronan meeting years earlier had rocked me to my core. I’d always thought of my father as one of the strongest, most confident men I’d ever known. But his actions the night he’d met Ronan had proven how very human he was.

“I’m so glad you were there,” I whispered.

Ronan let out a small laugh. “He says the same thing to me… that he was glad I was there… for you.” Ronan looked at the children. “I’m so happy you two have found each other again, but I was foolish to not recognize how those circumstances would affect you.”

“I’m fine,” I said with a shake of my head.

Ronan let out a sigh. “You were dealt a shi…shoddy hand,” Ronan said as he seemed to remember the little ears in the room. “You didn’t get to decide who your parents were, you didn’t get a say in the paths they chose, and you were used as a pawn in a fight that had absolutely nothing to do with you. Even if you hadn’t been forced to live in the public eye, they still did wrong by you.”

I wanted to disagree with him out of loyalty for my father, but the words wouldn’t come. I focused instead on little Georgie and that immediately had me thinking about her big brother.

“I did wrong by you,” Ronan said.

“I understand,” I said. “Your loyalty was to my father.”

God, why did I sound like a pathetic robot drone? “It’s fine,” I repeated more firmly. “You did what you needed to do. I’m grateful to you for saving my life.”

Ronan sighed again and then fell silent. Finally, he said, “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about,” I said with a smile that I knew looked as fake as my declaration had probably sounded. “It’s in the past.”

I could feel Ronan’s eyes on me, but I couldn’t make myself look at him.

“Should I update you on what I’ve found so far?” Ronan finally asked.

I began to say “yes” but thought better of it. “No,” I murmured. “Let’s wait for Ben. He has a right to hear this… to know what’s going on. I’d like to let him sleep a bit longer, if that’s okay. He had a rough night.”

“Seems like you all did.”

I began to nod, but when the dogs both jumped up from their spots and ran around the couch, I turned to track them with my eyes and stilled when that familiar lurching thing happened in my chest at the sight of Ben, who was standing just outside his bedroom door. I wondered how much of the conversation he’d overheard, if any.

“I’m here,” he said awkwardly as he shifted back and forth on his feet. His eyes held mine for a beat before he looked at Ronan hopefully. “Is it over? Can Georgie and I go home now?”

Even though I didn’t know what Ronan had found, I knew in my gut none of what he had to say would be what Ben wanted to hear. But coward that I was, I kept my mouth shut so I wouldn’t have to be the one to crush that little bit of hope like a bug beneath someone’s boot.