Heart and Seek by Luna Joya

Author:Luna Joya
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781648980510
Publisher: City Owl Press

Chapter

Seventeen

“I hate this place.” Diego adjusted the straps of the baby carrier, checking the latches and hiking it up like a sniper’s rucksack filled with precious jewels. He stepped onto the loose gravel of the Sunken City’s highest trailhead. Fenn perched on a shoulder, rotating his enormous satellite ears and unleashing enthusiastic barks to rival an overstimulated Pomeranian.

Rose squirmed and kicked her feet. Her removed braces jangled where he’d tied them to the carrier with a quick release knot. One tug and they could clink the kid back into those godawful things that obviously did worse things than irritate her skin.

“You sure we’re doing the right thing?” Ruby’s voice carried away in the wind. She had gone back and forth on the decision to bring Rose with them.

The Senators had encouraged it, saying that if the toddler could get a read on the pocket, the team could whisk her away to safety. Of course, the Senators hadn’t known the kid’s training braces were off when they’d insisted the world would be one step closer to being rid of a zombie-making cauldron. If locking it away in a vault was enough. It hadn’t been the first time the Senate lost the artifact.

“No,” he admitted. He wasn’t at all sure she or Rose should be here. Mother and daughter had held hands while he drove. A game, the kid had thought. A worried mom’s hope that she could keep her little Legacy from jumping was more like it. “I’ll take you both home if you want. I can come back later. Alone.”

“I don’t like the idea of you being out here by yourself.” It wasn’t a wild declaration of love, but he would take it. “Not after the shooter, after what happened to you and John. Maybe I could’ve stopped it.”

“No guilt grabbing allowed. Besides, we brought backup this time.”

She nodded. “We’ll get in and out. With her strapped to one of us at all times, we should be fine.”

“I won’t let go,” he promised and cinched the carrier’s belt tighter. The smell of salt water, Rose’s sunscreen, and a nearby food truck hit him in the face. With seagulls squawking overhead and the surf crashing below, he could almost pretend it was a family trip to the beach. Almost.

“The Senate appreciates you doing this.”

“I’m not doing it for them.” He stared at the sparkling sunlight reflecting from the stones and waves onto the golden strands of hair that had fallen across her face. Her ponytail had slipped loose while she fumbled with the gear in the back of the SUV. She packed enough for a survival expedition in there.

“I know.” Her gaze lingered on him a heartbeat too long for a casual glance. Her nearness pulled him in, and he clenched his hands on the straps to keep from reaching for her.

“You ready, munchkin?” The kid tugged his hair in response, seeming to believe his head was a steering wheel and his body subject to her complete domination. Such a Donovan woman.

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