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Locked-Down Heart (Combat Hearts Book 3) by Tarina Deaton (5)

Chapter 5

Chris pushed at the food on his plate. Should they check on them? What was the protocol in this kind of situation? He should have just gone to the barber when he realized his clippers were busted.

Jase leaned over and kissed Bree on the temple. “They’ll be alright, babe. We’ll make sure. Okay?”

She nodded roughly then swiped a tear from her cheek and took a deep breath. “Right. I have an idea.” She looked at Chris. “Come with me.”

Pushing back from the table, he and Jase followed Bree into the house, down the back hall, to what he assumed was the guest bedroom. Denise lay on the bed, Kaden and Kimber sandwiched between her and Sprocket. Kimber had her arm thrown around the large dog, her face buried in its neck. Kaden hugged his sister’s back while Denise hugged them both. Her voice was low and he couldn’t make out what she was saying.

Bree somehow squeezed herself onto the sliver of space on the bed behind Denise and rested her chin on her friend’s shoulder, reaching over her and Kaden to rub Kimber’s back.

“Sweetie, I have a plan. Do you want to hear it?”

Kaden lifted his head. “I want to hear it.”

Denise rubbed his arm and he laid his head back down.

“If you and Kaden cut Chris’s hair, he’ll be able to keep his special powers,” Bree said.

He straightened from the doorway. Whoa. What? He looked at Jase, whose shoulders shook with mirth.

Jackass, he mouthed.

Jase flipped him the bird and kept laughing.

“How do you know?” Kimber’s voice was small, a slight hitch in her breath from crying.

“I looked it up in the secret Disney princess handbook.”

Kimber’s head whipped around as far as it could. “That’s not a real thing.”

Bree sucked in an outraged breath. “It is, too! I can’t show it to you until you’re older, though. You have to be twelve.”

“I’m only eight.” She dropped her head back on to the bed.

The initial crisis must have been resolved because Bree unwrapped herself from the group and stood. “I know, but I’ll share the secrets I can.”

“Promise?”

“Cross my heart.”

“You guys ready to cut Chris’s hair?” Denise asked.

“Yes!” Kaden broke free of his aunt’s hold and scooted off the bed.

“I guess.” Kimber didn’t seem as enthusiastic about the prospect.

Right there with ya, little girl.

Denise moved closer to her and wrapped her arms around her, kissing the back of her head.

Kaden stood in front of him, starring up expectantly. “Can I shave patterns in your head?”

“Uh. Sure. I guess.”

“Cool.”

How did he get roped into this again?

Bree stopped next to him. “You ready for this?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No. Not really.” She patted his chest. “Consider it your civic duty.”

“Hey,” Jase said, grabbing Bree’s wrist. “Hands to yourself, Grabby McGrabberson.”

“It was a conciliatory gesture,” she said.

“You were feeling him up.”

She shrugged. “Tomato, toh-mah-toe.”

“Yeah, I’ll show you toh-mah-toe later.”

Chris shook his head. “Hello, I’m standing right here.”

“Good point. Jase, go get your clippers. We have a head to shave.”

He watched her march down the hall, a woman on a mission. “She seems a little too excited about this.”

“She gets like this sometimes. Usually we shoot some targets and she works it out of her system.” Jase shrugged and traced Bree’s path.

Great. Shaving his head was the alternative to his buddy’s woman shooting things.

When he glanced back in the room, Kimber had rolled over and was hugging Denise. She twirled one of the little girl’s pigtails around her finger while they lay there.

She glanced up and caught him staring. “We’ll be out in a few minutes.”

The first time she spoke to him all day was to dismiss him. Not that he blamed her. This was a family moment and he wasn’t family.

The thought caused his heart to stop for a nanosecond and restart with a hard thud. How did things get so damn screwed up? And how did being part of a family, of Denise’s family, suddenly become the most appealing thing in the world?

When he arrived on the back deck, Jase had his clippers plugged into an extension cord and was showing Kaden the different attachments for length.

“Can we start now?” he asked.

“Let’s wait until Kimber’s ready. I think she should get the first turn. I’m sure there’s a princess rule about it in Bree’s secret book,” Chris said.

His shoulders drooped. “Okay.”

Crap. Now he’d made Kaden sad. Maybe there was a kitten around he could kick. “But I’ll tell you what. We’ll use one of the longer cutting lengths so you have enough hair to cut patterns in. How about that?”

Kaden’s little legs kicked out and he bounced in the seat. “Okay.”

Denise and Kimber arrived holding hands and joined them around the table. Jase found a stool for the kids to stand on so they could reach the top of his head. Bree wrapped an old towel around his neck and shoulders. He couldn’t see her, but Denise’s presence was as heavy as a physical touch at his back.

He flinched at the sharp pop when the clippers turned on and closed his eyes when Kimber took the first pass.

The feather-light brush of falling hair touched his cheek and Kimber giggled behind him.

“Can I do another one?” she asked.

“Go for it,” Jase said. “Just leave some for your brother.”

It was only hair. Right?

* * *

He leaned closer to the mirror and rubbed his hand over his head, trying to figure out where the patches of hair remained. The kids hadn’t done a completely horrible job, but he looked like he’d lost a fight with a weed eater wielded by a monkey on a three-day bender. Thankfully, Jase hadn’t let them take the length attachment off so he still had some fuzz to work with and wouldn’t have to shave his head completely bald.

Someone knocked on the bathroom door. “Come in.”

He stood upright when Denise walked in and closed the door behind her. Her expression was unreadable. Not that he’d ever been able to read her anyway. She didn’t emote the way other people did. If she didn’t want someone to know what she was thinking, they never would.

“You missed a few spots in the back,” she said softly.

“I’m having a hard time seeing back there without another mirror.”

She nodded and stepped away from the door, holding her hand out for the clippers. He handed them over without a word and watched her in the mirror.

At least she was touching him. Even if it was only to push his head forward. He could feel her heat at his back. The slight brush and weight of her breasts when she moved her arms to reach the top of his head.

This was hell.

“Thank you for letting them do that,” she said.

He swallowed hard, fighting the urge to turn around and kiss her. “You’re welcome.”

“They haven’t had a lot to smile about in a while.”

“Denise—”

“But it doesn’t change anything. They aren’t bait. They aren’t a tool for you to get to your target. They’re two little kids whose world is crashing down around them.”

“I would never use them as bait, Denise.”

She shut off the clippers and set them on the counter, finally meeting his gaze in the mirror.

She turned to leave the bathroom and he laid his hand on the door. “I was going to apologize. Show up at your apartment with flowers and chocolate and explain what happened.”

“What happened with what?” She crossed her arms and shook her hair over her shoulder.

There. He saw that—the hurt and anger that she locked down before they could reach the surface.

“I left a note for Phil, my partner, to give to you but he never got it. The team that picked me up cleaned out my truck before they parked it at headquarters and they threw it away. I didn’t find out until after I went to your cousin’s house. That was the first full day I was back.” He reached for the strand of hair over her shoulder, but she moved back. He dropped his hand. “I never meant to take off without telling you I was leaving.”

“I get it, Chris. It’s part of your job. Thank you for explaining.” She reached for the doorknob.

“Denise, please.”

“Please what, Chris? Please understand? I understand, I do. But it doesn’t change anything. We hooked up.” She shrugged her shoulders. “It was fun. But that was then, and my priorities have changed.”

She took a deep breath. “Sarah is giving me custody of Kimber and Kaden. They’re my priority now.” She gestured toward the door. “So I can’t afford to be someone else’s afterthought.”

She pulled the door open and walked away.

He eased it closed and rested his head against the wall next to it, holding on to the knob with a death grip to keep from punching the wall. Damn it. He wanted to chase after her, but he knew it would only make her angrier.

She’d never been an afterthought. She was pretty much his only thought.