Don’t cry.

Too late, wasn’t it?

I felt myself put my face back into Rip’s neck and heard myself make a desperate noise into his skin.

Damn it. Damn it.

“Go when you wanna go, Luna,” he whispered, his hand stroking up my spine and staying between my shoulder blades even as I let out a shuddered breath. “Everything’s all right, baby girl.”

I nodded.

“You’re gonna be good.”

I was going to be good. He was right. So I nodded again.

His hand slid higher up to palm my neck, and his voice was soft as he said, “You should’ve called me.”

No, there was no reason to. He knew that, he was just being nice. Just like he was being right then, by holding me.

But I was going to take it because who knew when the next time I would get held again would be.

Unfortunately, I knew it wouldn’t be Rip doing it.

* * *

I had been standing outside in my yard, staring at the front door for the last ten minutes, trying to talk myself into going back in.

I’d been freaked out enough last night but had managed it, mostly because there hadn’t been any other option and the cops had been with me. But now there wasn’t anybody to do it with me.

You can do it, Luna. You can do anything.

And I could. I just didn’t want to.

The thing was, I didn’t want to call Lenny or Grandpa Gus or Mr. Cooper, or anyone else to go in. I wasn’t their responsibility. I could do this. I could.

I was in the middle of pumping myself up to climb the stairs onto the porch when I spotted the black Ford pickup pulling into my driveway and parking behind my car. I didn’t need to look through the windshield to see who was behind the wheel. I knew it like I knew my own freaking name.

It was Rip.

Who must have left work five minutes after me.

I knew that massive body. I knew the man slamming the door closed to the truck before stomping around, his gaze sweeping across the front of the house. Back and forth, behind him and in front of him. Looking.

His gaze landed on me just standing there, holding my hands to my chest. I could see his eyes narrow. See the great big breath he puffed out of his mouth. I could tell his shoulders dropped, his hands going loose at the same time.

“You didn’t tell me you were leaving.”

Something inside of my freaking soul stuttered. My throat seemed to choke on every letter in the alphabet, and all I could do was press my lips together and, after a second—after that thing inside of me stuttered then stuttered some more—I nodded.

But I managed to get the words out. “I didn’t want to bother you.”

And Rip… Rip blinked. His nostrils flared. His chest went in and out, and he said with all the calmness I had never witnessed out of him before, “How many times I gotta tell you that you’re not a bother?”

I held my breath.

He made sure to look me right in the eye. “You need me, you call me. Any time. Any day. It’s that easy.”

Why did that make me uncomfortable?

“You don’t gotta do everything alone.”

“I’ve never wanted to, Rip.”

And something on that striking, handsome face seemed to splinter. Ripley’s chin dipped down once, and then one of those long, massive thighs went forward. One size twelve or thirteen foot set down on my grass, and then Rip was stalking toward me. His hands at his sides, his nostrils wide, and that gaze locked on me.

And before I knew it, before I could process where he was going, he was there.

Standing directly in front of me, so tall I had to tip my head back to look up at that face that was easily eight inches taller than me.

I didn’t realize I was tearing up until I felt the tears pooling in the corner of my right eye and then felt something brush them off just as quickly.

It wasn’t my hand that did it though. It wasn’t my fingers that swept beneath that eye and then swept beneath the other eye.

It was Ripley’s fingers that did so.

Before I could get another word out, and before I could blink at that, that huge hand slipped into mine like it was nothing and he tugged me toward the side of the house.

I opened my mouth to tell him I appreciated him coming out here, but that he didn’t have to stay. But even though I opened my mouth, nothing came out of it. I wasn’t dumb or stubborn enough to tell him to let go of my hand. I needed it. I wanted it. So even if it was for these crappy circumstances, I’d take what I could get.

I could more than likely remember everything that happened afterward if I bothered trying hard enough to. But when something feels more like a terrible dream than reality, most of the time, some things go into your memories forever and other things, you just decide to live through.

Sometimes you have enough shitty things in your life you’re forced to remember without adding more. I was picking and choosing at this point. It was all I could do.

Going through my house, room by room, with trash bags was one of the single most painful things I had ever done before. Worse than packing up my things when I was seventeen, shoving what I could into a duffel bag and two plastic grocery bags, and leaving my parents’ house without a single clue what I would do or where I would go.

But what I could and would remember was how Rip stood with me, his hand holding mine the entire time we threw things away.

It was all some weird memory I wasn’t going to pick up and go through any time soon, or ever if I didn’t have to.

My whole body tightened as I took in the television I had saved three months to buy that now had a massive crack through the center of it. That was only the beginning. Broken dishes, four flipped dining room chairs, my mattress, and drawers that had been ripped out and gone through.

I didn’t let myself cry as I realized hardly anything had been stolen with the exception of about one hundred dollars in cash I’d hidden in my drawer and two hundred under the bathroom sink. My laptop was missing and so was my tablet. There was just so much… destruction. What was the point?

My chest ached, and it felt like I couldn’t breathe for a long time.

It was enough to remember the night before when I’d kicked my clothes aside on the floor, trying my best not to imagine some stranger going through them, putting their hands all over things I had bought with a whole lot of love.

And so much of it had been destroyed.

My safe place had been ruined, and I didn’t know what to do.

* * *

Hours and hours later, after filling up ten contractor-sized bags, after cleaning the hell out of everything while Rip went to the home improvement store to buy the things he needed to fix my door, after ordering Vietnamese food while he fixed the door because I had to feed him for doing all these things for me… when I was exhausted and wanted to go to bed, a hand went for my wrist and Rip gripped it.

“Come on,” he said in that voice that wanted to lull me to sleep.

“If you’re still hungry, I can order some pizza.”

“I’m not hungry.” He tugged again. “You can’t stay here tonight.”

I didn’t want to stay there tonight. Or the next night. But I didn’t want to leave it either.

“You’re coming with me.”

I was?

I was what?

“Come on. I’m not in my twenties anymore. I’m usually in bed by now.”

What? I glanced at my watch and saw the time. It was almost midnight. Holy crap. How had this taken so long?

How was I even awake?

Rip tugged at my wrist again. “You’re not staying here. Don’t give me that face.”

Me making a face? Was he serious?

I didn’t want to stay, but I didn’t want to leave either. He’d already done enough. He had already done so much more than a boss should do for his employee, which only reminded me that I hadn’t told anyone what happened yet. Not even Mr. C. And man, that made me feel guilty. What had Rip told him as the reason why I left?

His thumb swept over the back of my hand, and his voice was genuinely really tired. “Come on. I’ll get you a hotel room if you don’t wanna stay with me.”

All I could do was stand there and blink.

He blinked back. “Now, Luna. I’m too tired to give you shit.”