“There’s no insurance.” Her belly hollowed out and her lungs felt like she’d fallen into the deep end of the pool. No air. Immense pressure. “The policy lapsed.”
She didn’t say she thought she paid it and he didn’t ask her what happened. Didn’t make her feel like a failure for missing a payment. Didn’t blame her for dropping the ball. He just pulled her in tight and wrapped his powerful arms around her.
“I got you,” he whispered, smoothing her hair. “I’ve got you, sweet Ellie.”
From that point forward, James was amazing. He parked her at the truck and dealt with the police. Answered all their questions then sat quietly beside her while they asked her the same questions they’d asked earlier.
A crowd gathered, whispering and pointing. Most were polite and left Ellie alone or offered some form of consolation if they caught her attention. James shielded her from that, too. Answering any questions and standing between Ellie and the onlookers.
He made several phone calls, his voice rat-a-tat-tatting directions at the people on the other end. After several hours sitting and watching and feeling useless, he caught her attention.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“I can’t go. What if they need me?” She gestured toward the police meandering around the café, looking more dumbfounded than competent. Breaking and entering with a heavy dose of vandalism just didn’t happen in Bliss.
“They have your number. If they need you, they’ll call.”
It took some convincing, but James finally got Ellie to leave after persuading one of the officers to tell her it was okay. She didn’t ask him where he was taking her. She just sat numbly in his truck, watching the ocean rolling up to the shore like it did every other day. It was unnerving, seeing something so mundane and normal on the day her life had been totally upended.
She had nothing.
An apartment without power.
A relationship without a future.
No family to turn to.
As if that wasn’t enough, the one thing she dedicated her life to had been reduced to a pile of crumbled glass and shredded papers, with violent red paint spewing hateful words dripping down the walls.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
James
In times of crisis, there was only one thing to do. Turn to family. While Ellie sat dumbfounded and broken outside her ruined café, James had rallied the troops, calling his parents, brothers, and sister to circle the wagons. Alone, they were weak, but together, they were unbreakable.
His dad had always likened family to a shield wall. They would pull together and create an impenetrable defense, moving forward in the face of adversity and using their strength to protect the person standing beside them. The whole family was waiting for them at his parents’ house; his mom surely busy in the kitchen, making something warm and easy on the stomach.
Ellie barely said a word as he drove, her face slack and her eyes glazed over as she gazed out the window. He resisted the urge to ask if she was okay because he knew the answer. She would tell him yes and mean no.
She didn’t know what it meant to have a Moore in her corner, yet.
He wondered if she had any idea what it was like to have anyone in her corner.
Ever.
His heart broke for the girl who’d learned to fend for herself. For the girl who’d built so many walls around herself. For the girl sitting next to him, thinking she’d lost it all.
He was determined to show her that she hadn’t lost a thing.
“Where are we?” she asked as he pulled to a stop in front of his parents’ house.
“Welcome to the quaint, though somewhat imposing home of Frank and Diane Moore.” James smiled and reached across the truck to squeeze her knee. “When disaster strikes, Moores come together.”
Ellie stared at the large, cottage-style mansion with its wraparound porch and sweeping views of the beach. “I don’t belong here,” she murmured.
James scowled. “Of course you do. Now, get out of the truck and prepare yourself.”
“For what?”
“For the glory that is the Moore family in action.”
He slid out of the truck and closed the door, waiting at the front for her to join him so he could take her by the hand. He kept waiting for her to turn and smile and tell him she would be just fine, but she kept not doing it. In all the weeks they’d been together, he’d never seen Ellie stumble under the weight of emotion.
Period.
When things got hard, she took a beat, swallowed hard, then pulled herself up by the bootstraps while that mask came down and hid what she was really thinking. Then she just dealt with it. Whatever it was.
Nothing like that was happening. Ellie looked shell shocked. She also looked like she planned to stay that way.
He pushed through the front door into the foyer and was inundated with the scents of fried chicken, coffee, and some kind of baked something-or-other that smelled decidedly chocolate. His brothers rushed them the moment the door closed, asking questions about the damage at the store. Asking whether Ellie was okay. Ian’s fiancée Julz and their sister, Lilah, hung back, worry crinkling their foreheads, while Frank handed Ellie a tumbler filled with scotch.
She shrank into James, tucking herself under his arm, and peered at the family surrounding her with wide eyes.
“Back, you beasts.” James shooed at his brothers. “Give the woman a chance to breathe.”
Ellie giggled nervously and James led her into the living room to have a seat. She sipped at the scotch and smiled, looking even more unnerved than she had at the crime scene. James inwardly fumed at the mess of glass and paint and crumbled baked goods. Someone had actually punched the muffins in the display. If it wasn’t so awful, it would be funny, thinking about someone upset enough to punch a pastry. But that café was Ellie’s entire life. Nothing about it was funny.
Who would do that to her?
Why would they do it to
