She couldn’t help it. She smiled at him. Really smiled. “Yeah, I know that from experience. My brother Greg has the shrug down to an art form.”

He swallowed hard, his chest rising as he drew a breath of his own. He was staring at her mouth again. Then he blinked, jerking his chin up.

“Michael says he knows your brother. From school. That you’re Greg’s sister was the one thing that convinced him it was okay to come in.”

“I’ll use that, then. I’ve got contacts in CPS.” She lifted a brow. “As do you.”

Scarlett had told her long ago that some of Diesel and Marcus’s best tips for Ledger investigations had come from social workers who’d been frustrated at being unable to remove children from abusive parents who knew how to work the system in their favor. Or rich parents who knew how to buy their way out.

His only reaction to her statement was a slow blink. “Yours are more appropriate for today’s problem, though.”

“True. I’ll call Maddie Shafer. She’s quick and sensitive to kids with special needs like Michael. I take it you don’t want to take the boys back to their home.”

“No. Joshua is mine to keep safe.”

Her heart squeezed so hard that it hurt. This big, scary-looking man was as protective as the day was long. She should know. He’d once saved her life.

She had the scar to remind her of the day she’d been dragged away by a killer who’d plunged a knife into her gut and left her for dead. She’d been caring for Decker Davenport, an FBI agent who worked with her brother Deacon, after Decker was shot by a local gang to stop him from sharing what he’d learned while undercover. Dani’s attacker had been a supplier of drugs to the gang and had feared Decker’s information could bring him down as well. Knowing that Dani was Decker’s private physician, he’d tried to use her to obtain Decker’s location. It had been Diesel who’d been watching over her, who’d stopped her abduction, and who’d gotten her to the hospital after her attacker’s knife sliced her open. She still remembered the feel of his big hands as he’d carried her into the closest ER.

He hadn’t known that he was risking his own life that day. But he’d found out in a hurry. They’d taken the clothes he’d been wearing and tossed them into a biohazard bag because they’d been covered in her blood. Her HIV-positive blood.

She’d expected the knowledge to drive him away, but it hadn’t. Not in all this time.