22
Liv checkedher phone’s clock again.
Where had Zeke gone?
It shouldn’t have taken him this long to run the remaining distance to the parking lot. She’d answered an e-mail and a text and still no hot, sweaty Blackwell.
Did she misunderstand him? Was she supposed to head to the Friary instead? Another more concerning thought surfaced. Did he sprain his ankle? Was he in pain? Forced to limp the final distance?
She started for the road at the exact moment he emerged from the tunnel of trees. A hardness that hadn’t been there minutes ago was carved into his features.
“Are you okay?”
Zeke stopped before her. “Arms up.”
“Pardon?”
His finger teeter tottered in the air. “Arms up.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Not in the slightest.”
Biting the inside of her cheek, she lifted her arms and stared straight ahead. The moment his large hands touched her, Liv’s heart kicked into high gear. Although his effort was no less professional and efficient than Lynette Blackwell’s pat down, his hands seemed to leave an imprint, like contrails in the sky.
He knelt before her, and she ached to run her fingers through his hair. She knew from experience how soft and thick it would be. How it smelled. How it felt brushing against her inner thigh.
When his hands paused on her calves, she looked down and found his head bent, the wide expanse of his shoulders frozen.
She lowered her arms, balling her hands to keep from touching the sun-warmed skin that was so, so close. When the already moist air thickened and breathing grew harder, Liv took a small step back and his hand fell away.
He rose, unfolded, really, like the Terminator after his Earth landing. When Zeke’s eyes met hers, they weren’t flat and mechanical like the Cyberdyne Systems 101. They were molten and wanting.
A keen ache pierced her middle, and she opened her mouth to say. . . something, just as he blinked, and the hardness returned.
“Let’s grab your son and suitcases,” he said. “I’ll show you to your rooms first.”
She released a long breath and turned back to her vehicle. Being in close proximity to Zeke Blackwell was going to test her professional conduct—and personal willpower—way freaking beyond their limits.
“He’s too big to carry. I’ll wake him.”
“No need.” Zeke used her shirt to wipe the sweat from his chest again before opening the passenger door. Judging by his careful movements, Brodie still hadn’t stirred.
Somehow, he hooked an arm through the shoulder strap of her son’s backpack and lifted Brodie out of the seat without bashing either of their heads.
For an eye-tingling moment, Brodie’s arms wrapped around Zeke’s neck, like they had Tyler’s countless times, before they slowly slid down and dangled at his sides.
Conflicting emotions barreled through her. It should be Tyler’s arm braced beneath her son’s bum and his hand supporting his narrow back as he closed the vehicle door. But seeing Brodie’s head balanced on Zeke’s shoulder, an untroubled expression on his sweet face, touched her heart in a way she had never thought to experience again.
Zeke glanced at her and came to a full stop.
She swallowed back the tears and rushed to grab her tote and the suitcase she shared with her son.
Without a word, he started down a flagstone path that led away from the offices and wound through a copse of trees. Birdsong chorused around them and a gentle breeze buffed her cheeks. Soon the trees thinned and deposited them before a well-manicured estate that would give the Biltmore a good case of envy.
Not until Zeke turned back to her, a question in his eyes, did she realize that she’d stopped to gawk. “It’s amazing.”
He looked at the building as if viewing it through her eyes. “This is the Friary. A group of Franciscan monks lived here for a time before the property was converted into a church camp for youths.”