Theirs to Keep Read Free

mine, and he can be trusted. Let us at least take you there so you can have those hands tended to and let him take a look at your other injuries. I swear to you that we won’t do anything you don’t want us to.”
    She stared back at him, her blue eyes huge in her thin face. She was scared out of her mind, but she was also desperate and at the very end of her rope. He could sense her need for shelter. Just something as simple as a place to lay her head for an hour or two. It only made him that much more determined to make sure he didn’t leave without her.
    “Y-y-you p-promise?”
    Cade took over then, his expression one of utter gravity. “We only want to help you. You’re hurt. You need medical attention. Let us help you.”
    She closed her eyes, and for a moment, Merrick thought she’d passed out. But then she opened them again, wide and troubled.
    “Okay,” she whispered. “My hands hurt.”
    Cade reached for one, being careful not to move too suddenly. He grimaced as he inspected the deep cuts. “I suppose they do.” He gingerly pulled a sliver of glass from one of her fingers and flung the shard away.
    She started to shift, but grimaced. It seemed her every movement caused her pain. Impatient and unwilling to watch her suffer, Merrick simply reached in, curled his arms underneath her and plucked her from the cabinet.
    Her entire body went rigid, but he didn’t give her an opportunity to protest. He started for the back door where he and Cade had come in.
    “I’ll call Hank’s manager and have him come in and do cleanup so Hank won’t have a mess in the morning,” Cade said as he followed behind. “I’ll make sure we have someone out to replace the broken glass.”
    Merrick carried his slight bundle to the Hummer and eased her into the back seat. He climbed in beside her and tossed the keys to Cade. He wasn’t taking any chances she would get any crazy notions and bail out of a moving vehicle before they got to Dallas’s clinic.

     
    She wilted into the heated seat and sagged precariously to the side. The man sitting beside her caught her and eased her into his side so she could lean on him.
    The two men scared the daylights out of her, and yet, at the same time, there was something about them that made her stupid. It was evident she’d lost all sense because she was blindly putting her trust into these two men. Two huge men who could easily snap her like a twig if they had a mind to.
    And here she was alone in a vehicle with them. They could take her anywhere at all. No one would know differently. She didn’t even know who she was, so how would anyone else know?
    Despair filled her heart, aching and heavy. His grip tightened around her as they sped down the damp streets. The rain had stopped, but the cold was settling in for the long haul.
    She began to shiver, not because she was too cold, but because she no longer had any control over her composure. She tried to stop shaking, but it seemed the harder she tried to make it stop, the harder she shook.
    The man beside her cursed and then pulled her onto his lap. He wrapped a huge leather jacket around her body and put both his arms around her in an effort to keep her warm.
    The jacket smelled heavenly. Warm. Spicy. So very masculine. It reminded her of something. She frowned. The fleeting remembrance was gone before she could place it. But it felt so very familiar to her. Comforting. It was a good memory that had been triggered, and those were so few and far between that she wanted to weep for losing it.
    For just a moment, she forgot her paralyzing fear. Forgot that this man could harm her, that she shouldn’t trust anyone. She felt…safe. Here in his arms, pressed to his massive chest.
    She could feel the steady, reassuring beat of his heart. She absorbed his calm like an addict needing a fix.
    None of it made sense. She was sitting on the lap of a guy who looked like he could be a drug dealer or, at the very least, a gang member.
    He was a