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Savannah tried to step over the rocks and head toward the house and the safety of her room, but distracted and skittish, she tilted off balance

“Watch it,” Matt murmured, his hand a brand at her waist She sucked in a quick breath and twisted away, sturound

Her waist still burned, the flesh scorched and tingling

He was close, too close She could see the black and brown in his eyes, flecks of gold

“I’hter sleeps My grand to do”

“I understand,” he said, as if he really did and wouldn’t that be so

“My family—” She started but didn’t kno to put it all into words—their past, her fears She sht of happiness, of hope, was simply too much to hold

The sunlight hit his face, turned his hair to sable and his eyes to polished glass

She was sucker punched by his beauty and his strength

“Don’t hurt us,” she finally whispered “Don’t hurt us more than we’ve been hurt”

AFTER DINNER, Savannah sat on the front porch drinking iced tea and waited for Juliette, who had called to say she was coerprints

She was also trying to avoid Matt A little too late, she knew, after this afternoon She should never have given in to her curiosity and gone down to talk to him

Her waist still felt his touch, like a shadow or a burn

It was so strange having a en and silk, the deep tiht years

It made her miss her brothers She should contact them, tell them to come horowing and growing over the years, was too ue and Carter being too busy to spend sorow into soet over at a Christmas dinner

They’d be strangers to each other and she couldn’t bear that

Matt walked past, his arms filled with scrap metal and wood from the back courtyard that he dumped by the side of the road

Sohi stiff and foolish like a sixteen-year-old girl with a crush