Page 11 of Bound to the Griffin
The bed took up nearly all the space, forcing me to shuffle around the edge. That was well worth the price. I didn’t need much from this room except for it to hold my bed, which it did perfectly. Gwen bounced gently as I laid her down, protesting that she could sleep on the couch. Her hands fluttered out of the cocoon of blankets she was still partially wrapped in and waved at me in what were possibly gestures meant to halt me in my tracks. They didn’t, and then her hands disappeared as I pulled my thick, down-filled duvet over her.
“Sleep. We’ll fix this tomorrow.” She blinked at me, long lashes curling against her cheeks. Her mouth opened, then shut, while heat rose along her cheekbones, pink and sweet. Thinking better of what she wanted to say, she sighed and then nodded, nestling against my pillow. I didn’t expect her quick surrender to sleep, but she succumbed to dreams before I’d even made it out of the room.
Slipping back into my sweltering living room, I closed the door silently and pressed my back to it. There was a huge stack of packages waiting for me, at least two of those were boxes of tea, but the rest were tools and supplies for the B&B. I’d drop them off tomorrow, when I brought Gwen home, and then I’d damn well get on that roof and start fixing it. I couldn’t think of a better signal to the rest of town that I was staking my claim. Griffins liked their nests high up, after all. And the griffin in me loved that my mate was a nest builder herself.
My phone chimed softly just as I cut the tape on the first box with a sharp claw. The caller ID said it was Drew, so I answered, worried something had transpired at the B&B. “Did the burglar come back?” I asked in lieu of a greeting. He was caught by surprise, and for a moment, there was silence.
“No, all is quiet. I just wanted to warn you that Grandma Liz swung by, and she’s on the warpath. Do you know why?” Drew sounded so concerned that I had to caution myself to be patient. Liz was always on some warpath or other. Last week, she’d been riding Ted for not showing up to enough pack meets; this week, it had been me, and now it was no doubt the burglar that had dared to infiltrate her territory.
“Don’t worry about it, Drew. I’ll take care of it.” He hung up, obviously relieved and eager to resume his guard job. As a gargoyle, he was uniquely suited to the task and would take it very seriously. I stared into space as I contemplated the burglar yet again, and I still could draw only a single conclusion: They were after something they hoped Halver had left behind. But what? And how much danger would Gwen be in when she returned to the place? I knew I could not convince her to stay at my home, even if it was just around the corner.
I lay down on the couch later that evening, my thoughts still in turmoil. I didn’t think I would sleep a wink, but I had to give it a shot anyway. The quiet and the lack of distractions made my thoughts turn to my mate, now asleep in my bed. My chest rumbled with a satisfied purr at the thought, and instincts urged me to get up and slide under the blankets with her. Not yet, but soon. So I remained on the couch, eyes staring at the ceiling, thoughts of my mate and all the obstacles she faced running on a loop through my brain.
Chapter 9
Gwendolyn
I woke up wrapped in heat. The kind that seeped into my bones and made me never want to move again. For the first time in days, I hadn’t been shivering under a pile of mismatched quilts, listening to the winter wind moan through the B&B’s drafty windows. Instead, I was cocooned in… him.
Not literally, but his scent clung to the pillow, clean pine and something sharper underneath, like cold metal catching the sun. It was in the flannel against my cheek, in the very air. Jackson. My brain whispered it, like it had been waiting all night to say his name. This had been a night lacking any of the strange, insidious dreams of before. I was certain that was thanks to his presence.
I might’ve buried my nose in the pillow for another minute (or three), because it was so much better than facing reality: broken china, overturned furniture, floorboards ripped up by some very thorough burglar. Eventually, though, I peeled myself out of bed. There was no telltale dip on the other side of the bed, the blankets cocooned on my side. He’d done as he said he would and slept on his couch. I didn’t think that had been comfortable, given how big a guy he was and how decidedly average his couch was. It was very gentlemanly, though, and I almost wished he hadn’t been quite that much of a gentleman. I would have settled for a goodnight kiss.
The cabin was quiet when I opened the bedroom door and stuck my head out. I wandered into the living room, careful not to limp too much on my wrapped ankle, and found the bathroom. A quick wash left me feeling human again, though my reflectiontold me my hair was doing an uncooperative wavy thing and my head bandage made me look like a discount fortune teller.
My jeans from yesterday were dry by the fire, though the right pant leg was still shredded beyond modesty. So I kept the oversized gray sweats he’d loaned me. The flannel, too. It hung past my hips, soft and warm, and if it still smelled faintly of him… well, no one needed to know that was part of the decision.
I cracked the front door and peered out. The packages stacked by his door yesterday were gone, leaving only the wide, snow-swept clearing and the towering evergreens. The cold bit my cheeks as I tested my weight on my ankle. Not so much as a twinge, maybe I could make it back to the B&B if I took it slow.
I’d just decided to try when Jackson appeared around the corner of the cabin so suddenly, my heart skipped. One second, nothing; the next, six feet of blond lawman in a pressed uniform, golden eyes locking on me. For half a second, I thought I’d heard wings—a rush of feathers in the wind—but the evergreens were swaying, so maybe that was it.
“You’re up,” he said, already steering me back inside with a firm hand at my elbow. Heat pressed against my back even through the clothing; it curled against my body as though Jackson could block all of the winter wind. He was so confident, so unabashed about what he thought or felt.
“I was just…” I started to protest, but I faltered at the look in his eyes. My mind flashed back to the darkened kitchen and the way he’d held me while the doctor treated me. The way his arms felt around me, all protective and take-charge. He’d definitely been in charge then, ordering people about, including me. Iwas already halfway back inside, wanting to obey him almost instinctively.
“You need rest.” His voice left very little room for argument, but I’ve never been great at taking orders. That same impulse that had caused me to do the exact opposite of pretty much whatever my mother wanted of me rose now. I dug in my heels and twisted against his hand, not expecting him to keep it on me when I changed trajectory. He did, though, it slid around my side and now splayed against my belly: an intimate and possibly inappropriate touch that sent heat shooting through my abdomen.
Raising my chin, I looked him square in his golden eyes and braced myself for a fight. “I need to get back to the B&B,” I countered. “There’s work to do. Boards to replace, furniture to…” He gave me one of those patient-but-not-really-patient looks. In daylight, the man was infuriatingly handsome. That uniform fit him like it was sewn for him alone, and my brain promptly decided to short-circuit back to the awkward chatter from our first meeting. I started rambling about leaky faucets, wallpaper samples, and whether anyone sold decent pastry in Hillcrest Hollow.
He smirked—the kind of smirk that said he knew exactly what I was doing—and said, “Breakfast first. Then the B&B.” Heat scalded my cheeks, but I shut up and let him finish guiding me the final steps back into his cabin. Iwashungry. A little breakfast couldn’t hurt, I supposed.
Fifteen minutes later, we were walking the snowy back road toward my place. My ankle was holding up really well, so I was beginning to believe I’d imagined the awful amount of blood.The doctor did say it was only a minor scratch. My head didn’t hurt either, but I kept scratching at the bandage there. Jackson warned me twice to stop—an amused smile the first time, but a warm hand the second, pulling my fingers away and tucking them into my coat pocket. “It doesn’t hurt,” I muttered in defense.
“You shouldn’t pick at your bandages anyway,” he said without looking at me, but his voice carried that subtle thread of command again, and a hint of something...something I couldn’t place. Since it was sound advice and my fingers had gotten cold, I obeyed and kept them in my pocket. The B&B would be cold too, so I should conserve my warmth.
We reached my back gate, and I froze. It swung open smoothly; no groaning, no rusted hinge shriek. The back door was perfectly straight in its frame, closing flush for the first time since I’d moved in. “Uh…” I blinked, but I was still seeing the same thing. “This wasn’t like this yesterday.” I had been bracing myself for a fight with that door for days now. It wasn’t the kind of task I’d done before, and it had seemed daunting.
Before Jackson could answer, the door opened and out stepped a guy the size of a linebacker. I mean, pretty much everyone I’d met in town was tall, Jackson was no small man himself. This guy, though? He was wide as a barn door and imposing. Then I saw his face: an easy grin, gentle eyes, and a kind of excitement bubbling inside him that just had to spill over.
He gave us a quick nod before jogging past us toward town. It was only when he leaped the gate with a practiced move that I registered the same green-tan uniform on him that Jackson wore. So that was his deputy. I dug around in my foggymemories of last night and vaguely recalled a guy showing up with blankets, ordered by Jackson to guard my house. Was that him? Had his name been...Drew? I wasn’t sure, and then it was too late to ask, we’d reached the straight, non-squeaking back door, and all my thoughts were abruptly consumed by fear for what I’d see inside.
We stopped just beyond the threshold, mostly because I froze. My feet simply refused to carry me further as I took in the transformation. Jackson said nothing, but patiently closed the door behind us against the crisp morning air. The air was warm, the kind of warm you get from a real fire, one that had been stoked high to catch all the cold corners of the house.
The kitchen didn’t look any different from before, but someone had gone around and closed all the cupboards again. The warmth made all the difference, turning this into the cozy place I’d envisioned once when I’d impulsively bought this place sight unseen.
Flames danced in the living room hearth, fed by a huge stack of logs someone had piled to one side. The gaping holes in the floor? Gone. The boards looked better than they had before the break-in, though they still needed to be sanded and treated to bring out their potential. None of them creaked as we stepped onto them, and there were no shards, no scattered remains of my tea collection either. I rubbed at my eyes. “Did… did you do this?”
“No,” Jackson said simply. He stood by the door, hat in his hands, his sharp eyes on my face. I felt studied, under a microscope, but it didn’t feel entirely bad when it was him. That expression also said: I never left your side. Then a smile softenedhis expression, as if he relented and decided to let me in on a secret. “Kai volunteered.”
