“I’m not saying that you didn’t, but where does your family fit into your life?”
“They fit,” she insisted.
It wasn’t long before the exhaustion of the day caught up with him and he drifted off to sleep. But Sienna lay there thinking about his question. Where did her family fit into her life?
* * *
The wail of sirens in the distance caused Sienna to come abruptly awake. A.J. was a warm wall of muscle, pressed against her from shoulder to thigh. Waking up in the middle of the night and having another human being to keep the loneliness at bay felt so damn good.
She’d thanked him for saving her life. She sat on the edge of the bed and watched him sleep, a man who affected her like no other. A one-night stand who had turned into something…more. She had been truthful when she’d told him that she wasn’t ready to let him go. But would it be foolish on her part to continue to see him and have to handle the heartache later on? His and her own. She hadn’t missed the rush of emotion in his eyes. It warmed her deep inside to know that she mattered to him.
A silly dare with two friends to blow off steam had complicated her life to the nth degree. She wondered how her friends were faring with their intended targets. Wondered how they were sleeping at night.
She didn’t think of A.J. as a target anymore. She couldn’t think of him as anything except what he was—a compassionate man who loved his brother, his parents, and his country.
With the cover of darkness, she could admit to herself that wanting him to love her wasn’t foolish or reckless. Wanting him to make a commitment to her like Michelle was making to her fiancé, Geoff, wasn’t foolish, either. It seemed right and possible.
Except commitment was something alien to her, and maybe that was why she craved it and feared it. If commitment could be given, it could be taken away. Yet it seemed like such a strong, permanent word. A word she’d love to add to her vocabulary if she had the courage to reach out for it.
Wanting someone to love her made her think of lying awake at night, as a kid, in some other family’s home because they’d never been her own. That had hurt so very much, and each subsequent removal had made her close off her heart to any more pain. Before the Thompsons, she never got attached to anything. Not her room or her bed or even the family pets. They were just temporary.
And that was why permanence meant so much to her. She’d lived with temporary, the unsettling feeling of not knowing what she could depend on, and it was something she refused to ever feel again.
CHAPTER8
The sound of the apartment door opening woke Sienna. She got out of bed and threw on a bathrobe and grabbed her spare Glock from the drawer in her nightstand. Glancing at the clock, she saw that it was nine in the morning.
Already awake and out of bed, A.J. pulled up his jeans. They both moved silently to the hall where Sienna gave a quick peek around the corner.
“In the kitchen,” she whispered.
A.J. nodded. Sienna moved away from the doorjamb and walked on silent feet to the entrance to the kitchen. She whipped around the corner and said, “Freeze.”
Her mother swung away from the refrigerator door, throwing up her hands. The carton of eggs she’d been about to put into the fridge fell to the floor.
“Sienna, you scared the daylights out of me.”
Sienna lowered the gun. “Lynne, I told you it wasn’t necessary to shop for me.” The humor was not lost on Sienna.
“Dear me.” Her mother put her hand flat against her chest. She shot A.J. a curious look and then looked back at Sienna.
“Lynne, this is Lieutenant A.J. Camacho. A.J., this is my foster mother.”
“Nice to meet you. I’ll just go put a shirt on.” He left the kitchen.
Sienna engaged the safety and set her gun on the counter. She moved forward to help her mother sit down in a kitchen chair.
“That’s quite a formidable young man, Sienna.”
“You have no idea,” Sienna said as she sat next to her mother. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
“No. I should have called, but I thought you’d be at work.” Her mother saw the bandage on Sienna’s arm. “What happened? Are you all right?”
“Got in a tussle with a burly guy. He lost.”
She reached out and pulled Sienna into an embrace. “Well, I’m sure glad he did and that you’re fine. And the handsome lieutenant?”
“We’re working together on a case.”