Chapter 8

Declan:

Declan woke right after Aster left the room. He listened to her padding down the hallway to the shower, heard the rattle of the old pipes as she opened the taps, and then soft singing while she readied to take her shower. He enjoyed the moment; could even see himself wake up just like this every night.

For a few minutes, he allowed himself to think about it. The what if of the future, unencumbered by Rowan, Katelynn, his brothers…just him and Aster, living their own little life somewhere far away. It wasn’t at all an unpleasant fantasy. But then he remembered that he barely knew anything about her, and there was still a good woman out there whose heart he'd have to break – and he still didn’t know what his father had planned.

Sighing, he got up from the floor. His body still ached, and while it wasn’t as bad as before, he knew that if he didn’t get some nourishment, he’d be in tremendous pain and half dead by the time he had