Page 38 of Red Boar's Baby

“Um,” Diana said, looking around. “One bedroom?”

“Uh, crap. Yes.” Because his family still thought they were together.

There was a loft under the peaked ceiling. Costa looked up the ladder, but as far as he could tell the loft was crammed with stuff, without any beds in evidence.

Diana gave a soft laugh. “Well, here’s the crib.” She pulled it out from behind an armchair, where it had been pushed against the wall, and shook out the small mattress. “At least Em has a place to sleep.”

“You can take the bed. I’ll sleep in an armchair.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s been too long a day. We’re both adults, and we can?—”

Footsteps on the porch silenced the negotiations. Aunt Brill came in with the promised bundle of supplies.

“I have bedding for the crib, and some hand-me-down baby things she can wear. Do you have all the necessary supplies otherwise?”

“I think so,” Costa said. He looked into the bedroom. The bed was queen-sized; they could probably both sleep there as long as they were careful about it.Diana in his bed.“Thanks a lot.”

Brill kissed his cheek. “What’s family for? Get some rest. Breakfast will be in the main house at seven, but there are also some cooking supplies here, and I can send someone up with eggs.”

She left. Costa unloaded the handful of items from the cooler into the nearly empty fridge while Diana began making up the crib.

“I forgot,” Costa said, rucksack open and a T-shirt in his hands. “You don’t have anything to change into.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake.” Diana laid the baby down carefully in the crib. “I’ll sleep in my underwear. I’m exhausted, Quinn. Your virtue is safe with me.”

It wasn’t too late to take an armchair. Costa’s virtue, or perhaps his chivalry, fought a losing battle with the allure of the soft-looking bed. “I’ll just shake out the sheets, make sure no spiders or scorpions got in while the cabin was shut up.”

“Yay,” Diana said wearily.

He shook out and remade the bed. A moment later, Diana came into the bedroom, visibly drooping with exhaustion. She was still dressed, but when she reached a hand up under her T-shirt to unfasten her bra, Costa came alive and sprang off the bed.

“I’ll just—use the bathroom,” he half-babbled, and went to do that.

The cabin was fully plumbed, although the water in the toilet bowl was rust-stained and the shower also showed signs of the region’s hard water deposits. Costa washed his face at the sink and changed into his sleeping clothes, a T-shirt and loose shorts. Then he cautiously opened the door of the bathroom. The lights were off in the bedroom, and there was a single lamp on in the kitchen. He decided to let that one burn, in case they needed to get up in the night and also as a signal to anyone on the property who hadn’t heard about the late-night arrivals that the cabin was occupied. As a final safety precaution, he locked the old iron doorknob—not that it would stop anyone prepared to enter with a swift kick, but at least it would slow them down and make noise.

Diana was a lump under the covers in the bedroom. Costa went to the other side of the bed and sat on the edge. He could sleep on top of the quilt, he thought. It wasn’t that chilly right now, although it would cool down by morning.

“Quinn,” Diana mumbled into the pillow. “Get in bed.”

“I was just thinking I could?—”

“Bed. Now.” She stirred and propped herself up on her elbow. “Unless you find me that awful to share a bed with.”

“Not at all.” Entirely the opposite problem, in fact, but he wasn’t sure if it would improve the situation to say so.

“Great.” She flopped down on the pillow. “Go tobed.”

Costa climbed into his side of the bed. Long-unused springs creaked under him, and it quickly became evident that the mattress had a general tendency to bow in the middle and cause them to slide toward each other.

Would it really be so bad to wake up with Diana nestled in his arms? He could picture it all too clearly, especially after feeling her warm body pressed against him more than once already today.

“I can hear you thinking over there,” Diana said into her pillow. “Go to sleep.”

“Working on it.”

But he lay awake for a long time, running over the day’s events in his mind—and unable to shake his awareness of her lithe body next to him, her warmth penetrating the sheets, her small sounds as she moved in her sleep.

CHAPTER13

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