In His Keeping (Slow Burn #2) Read Online Free PDF

doubt you, Gav. Please don’t think I do or that I don’t have faith in you. But I suppose I’ll always live with the fear of having her taken from me. Maybe in time it will diminish. Maybe one day I’ll truly relax, but the mother in me realizes that I’ll always worry for my baby girl no matter how old she is.”
    Gavin was utterly sincere in his response. “Me and you both, honey.”
    This time it came as no surprise when Ari’s lovie floated from the floor where it had been dropped and hovered directly over Ari. Gavin plucked it from the air and turned Ari so she could take her stuffed animal.
    “I guess she’s ready for a nap already,” Ginger said ruefully. “I don’t suppose there’s any point in keeping her lovies from her any longer.”
    Gavin’s expression and tone were wry as he imagined the years ahead. “I think, my darling, that you and I are in for quite an adventure in raising our daughter.”

FOUR
    TWENTY-TWO YEARS LATER . . .
    ARIAL Rochester sighed as she walked through the gate of the private academy where she taught English, a hint of sadness that always accompanied the end of the school year tugging at her.
    But she shrugged off the momentary melancholy because soon she would be with her parents, and she’d spend the summer with them wherever her father chose to surprise her mother with this year.
    She smiled as her thoughts drifted to her parents. So in love even after so many years of marriage. Her father was fiercely protective of her mother and in turn her mother and father were fiercely protective of her .
    With good reason.
    Never tell. Never let anyone know. Never use your powers.
    It was a mantra her father had instilled in her since she was old enough to remember. She had grown up very sheltered, protected and extremely isolated. With good reason.
    Her parents had done as much as they could to give her some sense of normalcy, but it wasn’t possible because Ari wasn’t normal. She was a freak of nature. Something from a cheesy sci-fi movie. People like her didn’t exist. Except . . . she did . And there was no logical explanation as to why.
    Her father was the epitome of logical. He had a brilliant, analytical mind, and even he seemed baffled over Ari’s abilities. His greatest fear had been . . . discovery. That somehow Ari would be found out and taken away from her parents or exposed to danger from people seeking to harness her powers and use them for God only knew what. And so they’d hired tutors to homeschool her. She went nowhere without a security team.
    But now, as an adult, graduated with honors from a small, private college, she’d stepped outside of the protective bubble created by her father so many years earlier.
    He didn’t like it. Neither did her mother. But they understood, thank God. All her father had asked was for her to never give anyone reason to believe she was any different from any other young woman in the world.
    It was a promise she had no problem giving because normalcy was exactly what she wanted— craved . She didn’t want to be “that freak.” Her parents had raised her in constant fear of discovery, at least until she was old enough to understand not to ever use her powers and expose herself to the rest of the world. Only then had they relaxed somewhat and no longer lived in constant terror of Ari mistakenly revealing all that she could do.
    Her parents had made great sacrifices for her. Their entire lives had revolved around her protection. It was a fact Ari regretted with all her heart. That, because of her, none of them had been able to lead normal lives.
    She dug into her purse for her keys as she walked briskly down the sidewalk of the busy street the school was on. The large brick building was surrounded by a wrought-iron fence with a gate that closed promptly after school started and opened just minutes before school let out. The teachers’ parking lot was a half a block down from the gate and she was the last teacher to