Free Safe at Last (Slow Burn #3) by Maya Banks

had completely humiliated Gracie. Had made her feel like a piece of filth. Hell, he’d even called her white trash. Had said that even the trailer park was too good for the likes of her. Given that Gracie was homeless for the most part, it had been a low blow. A trailer would have been welcome to Gracie. Anything that put a roof over her head.
    After Gracie’s uncle had died, Zack had been relieved, until he realized that Gracie had no place to live. Still, he recognized she was much better off homeless than under the power of an abusive relative.
    Zack had found her a tiny motel on the Dover side of the lake. She landed a position as a room cleaner, which didn’t provide much of anything in the way of a paycheck. But what it did provide was a place for her to live—a tiny bedroom on the first floor next to the office—and it provided her one meal a day, her choice of breakfast or dinner from the homestyle cooking restaurant attached to the motel. Zack gave her money for the other two meals of the day, and he often ate breakfast and dinner with her so that he ensured she didn’t go without.
    Every morning she rose before dawn to begin her day. She left in time to get to school and then she resumed her job afterward.
    Zack came home at every opportunity. His father was disgusted by the fact he was so hung up on a girl that he was blowing what should have been the best years of his life. There were no frat parties or endless girlfriends, no living large with his star quarterback fame. No, he attended his classes and made all his practices, but he always looked forward to the end of football season, when he could come home to Gracie.
    He’d never stayed at school over the weekend once football season was over. As soon as his last class on Friday had ended, he’d immediately get into his truck, having already packed the night before, and head straight home.
    Though he’d never offered her the disrespect of taking advantage of her sexually—he, like her, had wanted to wait—Zack had spent most nights with Gracie, him taking the floor while she slept in the bed, and they’d talk for hours.
    He’d hated that she’d be so tired the next day, struggling to get up early and get her duties done by check-in time, and so he’d often help her. The two had become a formidable team, coming up with an efficient method of cleaning the rooms spotless in twenty minutes. That made Zack happy because it meant she was his for the rest of the day.
    Most high school football players’ favorite night of the week was Friday. Friday meant football and the rush of adrenaline after pulling off an impossible play. Friday was Zack’s favorite day as well, but not because of football. To him, football was a means to an end. A way for him to provide for Gracie and the children they’d one day have.
    It was his favorite day because he knew that at the end of it, Gracie would be in his arms, her head pillowed against his shoulder.
    Until the time he returned home to find her gone. For good.
    He didn’t understand it. Maybe he’d never understand it. But he sure as hell wasn’t going to walk away without some sort of an explanation. If she didn’t need him—didn’t want him—then by God she’d look him in the eye and tell him so.
    “Zack?”
    Eliza’s concerned voice filtered through his thoughts and he glanced over to see that evidently she’d been talking—or rather trying to talk—to him for the past several seconds, and he was unresponsive.
    “Sorry,” he muttered. “Just thinking.”
    “That much is evident,” she said softly. “Want to tell me about it?”
    Zack closed his eyes and sighed. “You’re going to think I’m a head case. I mean, when I stand back for a minute and truly look at the situation, if it were anyone else, I’d think they were a complete idiot. I mean who the hell stays hung up on a girl—woman—for twelve years ? Jesus. It’s pathetic.”
    He winced, realizing just how much he’d admitted. He