Free His to Protect: A Fireside Novel by Stacey Lynn

somewhere else. Some of them involved the use of my hands.
    I hadn’t been able to stop myself from thinking those thoughts all night long.
    Watching her working, smiling at customers, and eventually, giving my head cook, Javier, a bunch of crap for teasing her about one of her messed-up orders, made me admire the hell out of Trina.
    She had worked her butt off. Now, at just after two in the morning, except for Javier going through his closing duties in the kitchen, we were the last people here.
    “You get used to it,” I muttered, before moving to the next table as we got ready to close.
    She helped place another chair on the tabletop so when Maggie opened in the morning, it would be easier for her to vacuum and get the floors cleaned.
    “I haven’t worked this hard for years.” She grunted as she lifted a chair. I ditched my own table to help her when I saw the exhaustion in her limbs.
    “What’d you do before?”
    I let the question casually slip out and continued to flip chairs onto tables, waiting for her to answer. I acted like it didn’t matter if she answered me, although for some reason it did—I actually
wanted
to get to know her.
    “Public relations and marketing,” she finally said.
    I froze, chair halfway to the table, and looked at her.
    She did that bottom-lip-chewing thing and turned away.
    “Did you like it?”
    “I guess. I mean, yeah, I enjoyed my job, I just never really wanted to work for a living.”
    The thought made me scowl, which I tried to hide. Mara had always said the same thing. She wanted to be a stay-at-home wife. The hard labor of the restaurant was too much for her.
    The life we’d talked about starting was too much for her.
    I closed those thoughts down. There was no point in comparing the two women. Already Trina had shown herself to be a harder worker than Mara ever was.
    “Why did you quit?”
    “My husband thought my time was better spent at home,” she finally mumbled after another strained silence.
    This time when I looked at her, she didn’t seem worried or fearful, just sad.
    An ache pinched my chest and I forgot about the next chair I was reaching for.
    I walked toward her slowly, giving her time to know I was coming closer. When I reached her, I placed my hand on her shoulder.
    Warmth spread from my palm on her skin all the way up my arm to my chest, forcing me to take a breath.
    She tightened her shoulders, but didn’t pull away.
    “I might not know specifics, Trina, but I think you walking away, you making this choice for yourself to be safe, is quite possibly one of the strongest fucking things I’ve ever seen a woman do. You should be proud of yourself.”
    She chuckled softly and shook her head. “Thanks, Declan.”
    I squeezed her shoulder once and dropped my hand before I did something stupid. Like run my fingertips down the inside of her arm, touching her soft skin until I could feel her pulse racing at her wrist.
    Or leaning in and brushing my lips against her cheek, where the bruise was just barely visible through her makeup.
    “We should head home,” I said, hearing the gruffness in my voice.
    It couldn’t be hidden. I had just gotten turned on by touching her through the fabric of her shirt. My body reacted like I was a teenager who couldn’t keep his pants zipped.
    Whatever was happening with me needed to be shut down.
    Immediately.
    “Yeah,” she said, shaking her head as if she were clearing a haze. “Boomer probably needs to eat.”
    “I bought him food this morning,” I told her as we headed out of the dining area and back to the kitchen. The lights were off over the grill, which told me Javier was long gone now.
    “You did?”
    The surprise in her voice made me turn to look at her. “Dog needed to eat, Trina. What’d you think I fed him?”
    She shrugged. “I don’t know. Eggs?”
    My lip curled as I bit back a laugh. “Not sure I want to be cleaning up egg vomit.”
    “You’re probably right.” She walked up to me, and this