Chapter 40

Ian

Dee came back into the room, her eyes suspiciously wet, phone clutched in her hand. She sat next to me on the couch in their living room and deflated.

"What's wrong?"

She waved her hand. "Nothing. Pregnancy hormones."

I didn't believe her, but I kept silent.

My knee bouncing, I stared at the front door, willing Rick to walk through. The three of us had decided it was best for Rick to attend Jon Melbourne's funeral. In my effort to keep my distance, to let her stand on her own, I'd had to hear through the grapevine that Summer's student had passed away. And about her mother moving back to Wylie.

It had taken everything in me not to race to her side and verify with my own two eyes she was all right. Strangely, the need wasn't out of a sense to protect her, to unload her burden for her, but because I just wanted to be there for her. Next to her. For support, not as a knight. A hard habit to kick, but I'd done it. I guessed that meant the week we'd been apart had done more than kill m