Page 60 of Cowboy Elite 2: Mike

Dawn crept through the lace curtains in shades of rose and honey, and Liv woke to warmth.

Not the sun. Not the quilt.

Mike.

His arm was still draped across her waist, his breathing slow and even against the back of her neck. Sometime in the night they'd shifted, her back to his chest, his knee hooked over hers, their fingers loosely intertwined where his hand rested against her stomach.

She'd slept.

Really slept.

No nightmares. No waking every hour to check the locks. No lying rigid in the dark, cataloging every creak and rustle.

Just sleep. Deep and dreamless and safe.

Mike's thumb traced slow circles on her stomach through the thin fabric of her t-shirt, absent, soothing, intimate in a way that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with trust. She'd let him stay. Let him hold her through the dark hours when panic usually sent her pacing. Let herself be held.

When was the last time anyone had just held her?

Not her mother, who'd believed affection made children weak. Not the string of mediocre boyfriends in culinary school who'd wanted her body but never bothered learning her middle name. Not even friends—she'd been too guarded, too driven, too certain that closeness meant vulnerability and vulnerability meant loss.

But Mike had climbed into her bed fully clothed and offered nothing but presence. And somehow that felt more intimate than anything she'd ever shared with anyone.

His breath hitched and she felt him wake, the slight tension in his arm, the way his fingers tightened reflexively against hers.

"Morning," he murmured, voice rough with sleep.

"Morning."

Neither of them moved.

"You sleep?" he asked.

"Yes."

His arm tightened around her waist, pulled her closer. "Good."

They lay there in the quiet, listening to the ranch wake up around them, roosters crowing, cattle lowing in the distance, the far-off bang of a screen door as someone started morning chores.

"Mike?"

"Mm?"

"Thank you. For staying."

He pressed a kiss to her shoulder, right where her t-shirt had slipped down. "Nowhere else I'd rather be."

The moment hung between them, tender and fragile and full of possibility.

Then the door burst open.

"Miss Liv, Uncle Joe said I could help make the—" Charlotte stopped dead, eyes going wide as saucers.

Mike and Liv both froze.

Charlotte's gaze moved from Liv to Mike to their intertwined hands to the fact that they were very clearly in bed together, and her expression shifted through surprise to confusion to something that looked suspiciously like delight.

Mike sat up slowly, aware that his hair was probably doing seven kinds of wrong and he hadn't brushed his teeth and this was possibly the worst way to let a six-year-old find out that he had feelings for Liv.