Page 28 of Shadows Relived
“Miss Harrington?” she whispered, leaning against the back of the couch.
“I’m okay, sweet pea,” she said with a smile. “Just had to talk to a grown-up who made a terrible choice.”
Lucas frowned. “I sometimes feel sad after talking to my dad, too.”
His words tugged at her heart. “I’m sorry, sweetie. No one should feel like that.”
She looked at Callen then, really looked at him. His jaw was tight, but his eyes were soft.
“We need to get them home,” she whispered. “They don’t need to be a part of this madness anymore. They have homes, even if they’re messy or half-broken or made up of sisters and aging grandmothers. They have them.”
He gave her a quick nod. “We will. I’ll make a call and see what we can do.”
As she went about clearing the dishes and cleaning up after breakfast, she thought about everything her father said.
She also thought about what he hadn’t said.
There would be fallout. There always was. But this time, she wouldn’t be the one cleaning it up.
She’d protect the kids until she could get them back to their families.
She glanced over at him, eyes glassy but fierce, soap suds coating her hands. “Thank you. For last night. For this morning. For not asking me to be someone I’m not.”
He turned, setting the coffee cup on the counterbefore brushing a knuckle against her cheek. “You’re enough, Meaghan.”
Her breath hitched.
She turned away before she could fall apart. There was too much to do.
However, when this was over, she’d choose her future.
Not the one anyone handed her. The one she would choose for herself.
CHAPTER 12
THE CABIN’SKITCHEN WAS finally put back together as much as it could be with three five-year-olds roaming around. Callen had just wiped down the counter for what felt like the third time when a sharp clang rang out from the living room, followed by silence.
Callen stilled before picking up his blade to sharpen it, letting the silence settle deep into his bones. He exhaled slowly. Not from relief exactly, but from the fragile, fleeting quiet that had become a rare commodity. He didn’t hate the kids, not really. But three little bodies buzzing with endless energy in a small cabin felt like living inside a shaken soda can. And he hated soda.
This moment, the absence of noise, was a damn gift.
He leaned a hip against the counter, blade in one hand, whetstone in the other, letting his eyes sweep across the cluttered kitchen. Sticky places, mismatched cups, crumbs that multiplied like bacteria. Chaos, sure. But temporary. He agreed with Meaghan. They needed to get them home, and then he needed to get her to her father. Or at leastsomewhere safe. He doubted she would want to go to D.C. after everything they discovered about the senator. He would call Blaze, and he could get them all somewhere safe. Let Meaghan handle the soft things. He’d get them through the fire.
He’d never stayed in one place long enough for things like bedtime stories or crayons on the walls. Even before the military, he wasn’t what anyone would call paternal. Kids always made him nervous: too honest, too fragile, too needy.
And yet, for the past twenty-four hours, he’d been crawling on the floor searching for missing socks, cutting crusts off grilled cheese, and learning the subtle difference between a tantrum and a full-blown emotional crisis.
It wasn’t that he disliked them.
It was that he didn’t know what the hell to do with them.
The silence now? It was a balm, and he hoped it stayed that way for a while longer.
But silence, he knew all too well, never lasted.
Callen was halfway through sharpening the blade of his old camp knife when the noise caught his attention.
Not a noise, exactly. A voice.
