Page 57 of A Sinful Trap

When she sat on one end of the couch, he took the chair beside it. She was close enough to touch, but the distance between them felt wider than any canyon and he was impatient to erase it. She was more at ease with Davide now, and he knew exactly why.

You made her cry.

He’d felt like a bastard when he’d seen her swollen eyes and tear-streaked cheeks yesterday. As a wolf, he sensed emotions and random thoughts from Davide and the others all the time, but this connection with Bailey was something new to him. He hadn’t realized how deep the link was or how much he’d revealed until it was too late to protect her.

She’d experienced all of it at once, his memories and doubts, and she was trying to do exactly what he’d told Davide she would—prepare herself to let them go. He’d believed it was their only choice then, but he knew better now. He may not deserve the chance to prove it to her, but he wouldn’t give stop trying without a fight.

Bailey didn’t know any of this yet, though she could if she opened the link. He wanted her to understand how conflicted he’d been when he believed he had to let her go.

With all that she’d sensed from him, how could she have missed his feelings for her? Had he lied to himself too well? Been so focused on keeping Davide safely by his side that he’d been unwilling to acknowledge his wolf’s joy at finding a mate? His own joy every time he thought of her?

Bailey made him laugh. She was like sunlight, drawing out desires he’d kept hidden away most of his life. Everything about her fit them both so perfectly, he couldn’t help but believe that Davide and Stax were right, that it was more than biology. More than a chemical trigger meant for reproduction.

A sudden flash of her holding a child with Davide’s curls, or a little girl with his gray eyes, nearly laid him low.

Rein it in, Locke. She hasn’t accepted you yet.

“How are the guests?” he asked abruptly. “I wanted to call myself but…”

“I asked for space and you respected that,” she finished with a no-nonsense look. “The guests are fine. In fact, they had a great time and think I should make the experience part of the guest package.” Her hand came up to touch her forehead. “I’m the only one who hit my head again, but it wasn’t bad, and Davide was right about the noise. There are definitely ghosts up there. I met them.” She gestured to her shoes. “Do you mind?”

When Cam shook his head, she slipped them off and curled her feet beneath her. Getting comfortable, he hoped. She must have come straight here from the shower because her hair was still wet, the bangs that usually fell over one eye slicked away from her freshly scrubbed face. It made her look young and innocent, vulnerable with that new wound from the attic. Her clinging, faded t-shirt, shorts and pink knee-high socks with white stripes on top didn’t do anything to take away from that arousing image.

The wolf in him reacted to it, and he crossed his legs as casually as he could to conceal his erection. The buffer couldn’t solve every problem. Which was why it took longer than it should have for her words to register. “You met the ghosts?”

Davide moved to sit beside her on the couch, his gaze lingering on her lips. “Does that explain the trunk you had me carry in?”

“It does.” She focused on Cam. “You asked about the sisters the other day. Did you know it would be them?”

“I wondered. There was an old picture of them in the purchase file.”

“I’ve never seen it.” He was about to offer to make her a copy when she asked, “Did you know that one of them was your grandfather’s mate? She’s the one who wanted you to have the trunk.”

Cam stared at her, momentarily at a loss for words. He’d been thinking about the connections and parallels before she’d arrived, but she’d actually spoken to his grandfather’s mate?

“The Enchanted Inn was the right name for it,” he murmured, shaking his head at the confusion in her expression.

“I thought they were children,” Davide said, perplexed. “They sounded like children.”

“I think they’re at the age they were when they were happiest? I’m not sure how it works,” she offered helplessly. “But if either of you wanted them to leave, that’s not happening anytime soon. They’d like to stay for a while, and they want me to memorialize them at the inn. I can’t believe I’m saying any of this out loud, but I’m now living with ghosts and this is how my week is going.”

Davide chuckled and leaned closer, not-so-subtly taking in her scent.

Bailey noticed. “I’m telling you about conversations with dead people and you’re… Are you smelling me again?”

“It’s not my fault.” He shrugged unapologetically. “You smell amazing.”

“You always say that.”

“It’s always true,” Cam said gruffly.

When her smile wavered, his heart clenched.

She doesn’t believe you.

“It’s a shifter thing, right?” She nodded as if answering her own question. “Do you want to know what the ghosts said about what happened to them?”

“No.” He refused to let her change the subject before he’d set her straight on a few things.

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