As Sarah’s little red Volkswagen pulled out of the Italian restaurant, she stuck it into second gear, trying to get her heart rate under control. “What the heck was that?” Whatever had just happened, she knew they were about to full-on fight. She remembered how Zane was. He hadn’t been this bad in high school, but he wasn’t the kind to back down. Unlike Jeff, who avoided conflict at all costs or just threatened to slap a lawsuit on them if he got really angry.

Zane let out a long breath and clenched a hand into a fist, staring out the window. “That was your boy, Harris. That’s what that was.”

It irked her that he was acting like it was high school and that Harris was something more than just a client. She put the car into the next gear and pushed the gas pedal harder. Her mind was scattered like seaweed on a beach, and she blurted, “You both acted like you wanted to rip each other’s heads off.”

Zane didn’t speak, keeping his eyes focused straight ahead and looking like Thor about to tear up the Earth to get back to Asgard.

It was unsettling and annoying how attracted she was to him. She’d always been attracted. Being so close with him, so similar to and yet different from the past, was really doing unfair things to her mind.

Zane turned to her. “Has Harris met Tyler?”

Not understanding why he was acting this way, she sighed. “Last week, he dropped a lightsaber off at the house for him.”

“He was at your house?”

“He stayed on the porch. I allowed him to give it to Tyler, but it’s not like they had a long conversation.”

“Just get us back to your place.” He grunted, not looking at her.

Truthfully, she wanted to stop the car and make him get out, but she couldn’t do that. Something bigger was going on, she could feel it. “What is going on, Zane?”

His jaw was clenched, and he shook his head. “This wasn’t part of the deal. I’m not supposed to be involved at this level.”

The words felt funny. Off. Like he was referring to something else. “What are you talking about?”

He waved a hand of dismissal in the air. “Nothing.”

She kept driving, and a niggling feeling started to grow. Something odd was going on, and she was right in the middle of it.

* * *

When they had gotten back to her place and she’d tucked Tyler into bed, it bothered her a little that Tyler had wanted Zane to come tuck him in too. That he’d wanted to talk more with Zane. The really disturbing part was seeing the broody, militant soldier turn into the boy she’d known from high school right before her eyes when he spoke to her child.

As she got into bed, taking care to pull the covers tightly up to her chin, she tried to quell the nerves that still bounced around inside of her. It was weird—Zane Kent was really staying here. He was under the same roof. And Tyler liked him. Her mind looked to the past, and she wondered what it would have been like if Tyler had been his.

She blinked, feeling guilty and thinking about how unfair that was to Jeff. So they hadn’t had a great marriage. He had been a dang good father, though. The center of her chest tightened, making it harder to breathe. All the thoughts and feelings of the past swirled inside her. Especially of the day she’d left Zane.

Sitting up, she sucked in a breath. Dang it. She tried to breathe slowly and not get worked up. That was not good for her. Her mother had ironically asked her last week when they’d been at the care center if she’d had any “episodes.” That was what her mother liked to call panic attacks.

Sarah closed her eyes and kept her hand over her heart, commanding herself to breathe slower and think about something different. This had been part of the self-talk program she’d done with a therapist when Tyler had been little, learning to refocus her thoughts onto something that wasn’t causing the anxiety. She went to her standard—birds flying in sync with each other. Sarah had always loved to think of birds. She lay back down and relaxed as she felt her heart calming down. The birds flew in an orderly formation.

When Tyler was little, there was a park by their home. In the summers, she would take him there with a little friend of his whose mother worked. They would eat their lunch and play and she would watch the birds. Inevitably, she would turn, and Tyler and his friend would be beside her watching the birds too.

Tyler would always put his little hand into hers, and it had been the best feeling in the world. It became one of the things she’d learned to think about, a memory to keep in her pocket for bad days. Simple, but pure.

Yes, the birds. She would think about the birds.

Her mind flitted to thinking about someone possibly breaking in, but ironically, the very presence in the house who was causing her to have a panic attack also calmed her worries in that regard. She couldn’t help letting out a little laugh. If anybody broke into the house tonight, she would feel sorry for them, because she knew Zane was in the mood to hurt someone.