The Heart Of Devin MacKade. Nora Roberts

think so. How about a kiss?”

      She puckered up obligingly before he set her down. “Thanks for the coffee, Cass.”

      “I’ll walk you out. You two go on upstairs and get your after-school snack,” she told her children. “I’ll be right along.” She waited until they were nearly at the front door before she spoke again. “Thank you for talking to Connor like that. He’s still so sensitive about liking school.”

      “He’s a bright kid. It won’t take much longer for him to start appreciating himself.”

      “You helped. He admires you.”

      “It didn’t take any effort to tell him I like to read.” Devin paused at the door. “He means a lot to me. All of you do.” When she opened her mouth to speak, he took a chance and brushed a finger over her cheek. “All of you do,” he repeated, and walked out, leaving her staring after him.

      Chapter 2

      Some nights, late at night, when her children were sleeping and the guests were settled down, Cassie would roam the house. She was careful not to go on the second floor, where guests were bedded down in the lovely rooms and suites Rafe and Regan had built.

      They paid for privacy, and Cassie was careful to give it.

      But she was free to walk through her own apartment on the third floor, to admire the rooms, the view from the windows, even the feel of the polished hardwood under her bare feet.

      It was a freedom, and a security, that she knew she would never take for granted. Any more than she would take for granted the curtains framing the windows, made of fabric that she had chosen and paid for herself. Or the kitchen table, the sofa, each lamp.

      Not all new, she mused, but new to her. Everything that had been in the house she shared with Joe had been sold. It had been her way of sweeping away the past. Nothing here was from her before. It had been vital to her to start this life with nothing she hadn’t brought into it on her own.

      If she was restless, she could go down on the main level, move from parlor to sitting room, into the beautiful solarium, with its lovely plants and glistening glass. She could stand in the hallways, sit on the steps. Simply enjoy the quiet and solitude.

      The only room she avoided was the library. It was the only room that never welcomed her, despite its deep leather chairs and walls of books.

      She knew instinctively that it had been Charles Barlow’s realm. Abigail’s husband. The master of the house. A man who had shot, in cold blood, a wounded Confederate soldier hardly old enough to shave.

      Sometimes she felt the horror and sadness of that when she walked up and down the staircase where it had happened. Now and again she even heard the shot, the explosion of it, and the screams of the servants who had witnessed the senseless and brutal murder.

      But she understood senseless brutality, knew it existed.

      Just as she knew Abigail still existed, in this house. It wasn’t just the sound of weeping, the scent of roses that would come suddenly and from nowhere. It was just the feel of the air, that connection that she’d been too embarrassed to mention to Devin.

      That was how she knew Abigail had loved a man who wasn’t her husband. That she had longed for him, wept for him, as well as for the murdered boy. That she had dreamed of him, and despaired of ever knowing the joy of real love.

      Cassie understood, and sympathized. That was why she felt so welcomed in this house that held so much of the past. Why she was never afraid.

      No, she was grateful for every hour she spent here as caretaker to beautiful things. It had been nearly a year since she had accepted Regan’s and Rafe’s offer and moved her family in. She was still dazzled that they would trust her with the job, and she worked hard to earn that trust.

      The work was all pleasure, she thought now, as she wandered into the parlor. To tend and polish lovely antiques, to cook breakfast in that wonderful kitchen and serve it to guests on pretty dishes. To have flowers all around the house, inside and out.

      It was like a dream, like one of the fairy tales Savannah MacKade illustrated.

      She was so rarely afraid anymore, hardly even disturbed by the nightmares that had plagued her for so long she’d come to expect them. It was unusual for her to wake shivering in the middle of the night, out of a dream—listening, terrified, for Joe’s steps, for his voice.

      She was safe here, and, for the first time in her life, free.

      Bundled into her robe, she curled on the window seat in the parlor. She wouldn’t stay long. Her children slept deeply and were content here, but there was always a chance they might wake and need her. But she wanted just a few moments alone to hug her good fortune close to her heart.

      She had a home where her children could laugh and play and feel safe. It was wonderful to see how quickly Emma was throwing off her shyness and becoming a bright, chattering little girl. Childhood had been harder on Connor, she knew. It shamed her to realize that he had seen and heard so much more of the misery than she had guessed. But he was coming out of his shell.

      It relieved her to see how comfortable they were with Devin, with all the MacKades, really. There had been a time when Emma hesitated to so much as speak to a man, and Connor, sweet, sensitive Connor, had forever been braced for a verbal blow.

      No more.

      Just that day, both of them had talked to Devin as if it were as natural as breathing. She wished she was as resilient. It was the badge, she decided. She was finding it easier and easier to be comfortable with Jared or Rafe or Shane. She didn’t jolt when one of them touched her or flashed that MacKade grin.

      It was different with Devin. But then, she’d had to go to him, had to confess that she’d allowed herself to be beaten and abused for years, had been forced to show him the marks on her body. Nothing, not even Joe’s vicious fists, had ever humiliated her more than that.

      She knew he was sorry for her, and felt obligated to look out for her and the children. He took his responsibilities as sheriff seriously. No one, including herself, would have believed twelve or fifteen years before, when he and his brothers were simply those bad MacKade boys, that they would turn out the way they had.

      Devin had made himself into an admirable man. Still rough, she supposed. She knew he could break up a bar fight with little more than a snarl, and that he used his fists when that didn’t work.

      Still, she’d never known anyone gentler or more compassionate. He’d been very good to her and her children, and she owed him.

      Laying her cheek against the window, she closed her eyes. She was going to train herself not to be so jumpy around him. She could do it. She had been working very hard over the past year or so to teach herself composure and calm, to pretend she wasn’t shy when she greeted the guests. It worked so well that she often didn’t even feel shy anymore.

      There were even times, and they were coming more and more often, when she actually felt competent.

      So she would work now to teach herself not to be so jittery around Devin. She would stop thinking about his badge and remember that he was one of her oldest friends—one she’d even had a little crush on, once upon a time. She would stop thinking of how big his hands were, or what would happen if he got angry and used them against her.

      Instead she would remember how gently they ruffled her daughter’s hair, or how firmly they covered her son’s when he helped him with his batting stance.

      Or how nice it had been, how unexpectedly nice, to feel the way his finger brushed her cheek.

      She curled more comfortably on the padded seat….

      He was here, right here beside her, smiling in that way that brought his dimple out and made odd things happen to her insides. He touched her, and she didn’t jolt this time. There, she thought, it was working already.

      He was touching her, drawing her against him.