To Boaz’s amazement, I managed to polish off one of the caramel-filled churros on the way back to Willie. The rest I tucked safely in their glassine paper bag, which I cradled against my chest, and zipped them up in my jacket. The fit was tighter than usual, and I had to forgo breathing to prevent smooshing them flat, but it would be worth it if I wanted a late-day snack.
The trip home took no time at all, and Cletus stuck close to me the whole way. We parked Willie at the mouth of the garage, and I strained my ears for the mewing sounds of antsy kittens but heard nothing. Either they hadn’t realized they had company yet, or their mother had returned for them.
“I’ll handle the fuzzballs.” Boaz took my jacket and helmet, and he draped them over the seat. “Come on, Squirt.” His fingertips brushed the small of my back. “Let me walk you to your door and pretend I have manners.”
Woolly glowed in welcome, the electric buzz of her excitement giving me warm fuzzies.
“I had a good time tonight.” He attempted to resuscitate his flattened hair. “I’d ask you out again tomorrow, but I’m leaving around noon.”
You’ll be back in a week. The words sounded too desperate to speak, even in my own head. I turned on my heel, having already paid him his goodnight kiss plus interest, and palmed the doorknob. Better to cut my losses now than remain trapped in this awkward lull where plans for a second date ought to fit.
“I had fun too,” I tossed over my shoulder. “Night, Boaz.”
Strong arms slid around my waist and linked over my left hipbone. He gathered me against him, my back flush with his front, and exhaled like he couldn’t breathe without that contact. He leaned down until his lips brushed my ear. “Would you like to go out again when I come home?”
“I don’t know.” I suppressed a giddy thrill. “I’ll have to check my schedule.”
He bit my throat, a stinging reprimand. “Your social calendar is filling up that fast?”
“Amelie did make me promise to go out with her once a week. And Marit—the woman who was injured aboard the Cora Ann—invited me out for drinks. She was bummed when you called. She wants a single friend to club with, and now she thinks I’m unavailable.”
His breath skated across my carotid. “Are you?”
“Am I what?” Pure cane sugar flowed through my voice.
“Unavailable,” he growled.
“Do you want me to be?” I craned my neck around to see him better. “If I’m unavailable, where does that leave you?”
Blowing out a sigh, he rested his forehead on my shoulder. “You’re my punishment for every wrong thing I’ve ever done.”
“You say the sweetest things. Why Hallmark hasn’t scooped you up yet, I’ll never know.”
“Grier.” Head down, eyes hidden, he let himself be vulnerable. “You didn’t ask me.”
Expecting another cheeky response, I stood frozen, a riot of conflicting emotions pummeling my heart.
Ask Boaz to be faithful to me.
Ask Boaz to be faithful to me.
Ask Boaz to be faithful…
“I’m scared.” And here I’d thought not much frightened me these days, that the worst had already happened. But as long as you loved someone, you had more to lose. “Want to paint a yellow stripe down my spine later?”
“Depends.” He appeared to consider this. “Will you be naked? And can I supply my own brush?”
Grateful for the reprieve, I rolled my eyes. “Perv.”
For once, he was slow to claim his title, and the silence that followed worried me.
“The truth is I’m scared too.” His somber turn gave my heart freezer burn. “Dame Woolworth, and that is your title now, will make decisions going forward the old Grier could never imagine.” When I started to argue, he shushed me. “You will make choices to preserve your line, your home, your legacy, Squirt, and you might not have a choice in the matter.”
“That’s not me.” I spun in his arms to see him better. “That’s not who I am.”
But he had struck a chord, not with the mention of my line, of which I was the last, and not with the mention of my legacy, of which I wanted no part, but the mention of home. There wasn’t much I wouldn’t sacrifice to keep Woolly safe. Perhaps even myself.
“You do tend to spit on tradition.” He closed his hand over mine where it had come to rest on his chest. “It’s one of the things I admire about you.”
The mention of his admiration set off another round of flutters I worked to suppress. “I wouldn’t say spit so much as—”
“Oh, no.” He chuckled. “You hock big, juicy loogies in the faces of all those High Society dames, just like Maud.”
The comparison warmed me with an odd sort of pride. Maud had been her own woman, and that’s what I wanted to be, though I had no doubt the Grande Dame would attempt to thwart my independence at every turn, seeing as how I owed it to her in the first place.
“You like that in a girlfriend?” I was only half serious. “Are you also a fan of grasshoppers and llamas?”
“Spitting doesn’t bother me.” His lips curled when he said it, and my cheeks exploded in a blast of mortification at what he implied. He lapped up my embarrassment for several beats before squeezing my hand where it rested over his heart. He looked on me like I was sand gliding through his fingers. “I’m all in, Grier.” Gravel churned in his voice. “For as long as it lasts.”
With neither of us ever having been in a serious relationship, I hadn’t expected a romance with Boaz to be anything less than pistols at dawn, aimed at the heart, but his fatalistic outlook blew me away. The heiress I once was, the one well aware I might be called upon to marry for position or wealth or power, appreciated him giving me this time with him no strings attached. But the girl who had walked out of Atramentous with no title, no money, no future, wanted to give her word that she would be his for as long as he wanted her.
After all, the odds were good he would tire of me long before I was ready to give up on him. History was nothing if not repetitive. “Are you available?”
“For you?” His lips brushed the shell of my ear. “I’m wide open.”
There was zero chance I could resist asking with that lead-in. “For everyone else?”
“There is no one else.”
Eyes crushed shut against reality, I pressed my face into his chest and sank into him, willing myself to believe this was real.
I’m not dreaming, not dreaming, not dreaming. It was still so hard to be sure. Please, never wake me.
“I’ll be off the grid for the next twenty-four hours.” He tugged on my ear with his teeth. “Call me after?”
“Maybe.” The sting ignited a path leading straight to my core. “Maybe not.”
“Don’t sass me, Squirt.” His smile pressed into my skin. “I’m trying to be good here.”
I let my right arm dangle at my side, and my fingertips traced the seam of his jeans. “Define good.”
“Good means walking away while I still can, not throwing you over my shoulder and climbing up to your bedroom. Good means knowing my limits and refusing to let a little brat like you push me past them. Good means doing my job. Not holing up with you for as many days as we can go without needing groceries.”
“Who needs groceries?” Not I. Not him either. “That’s why takeout was invented.”
“Please,” he groaned against my throat. “Let me do this right for once in my life.”
“Okay.” I brought my arm up again, held him as tight as I could for as long as he let me, but his body was fighting his noble intentions. The hard length of him pressed against my soft stomach, and I eased back, more to allow him his honor than to preserve mine. “Be safe out there, Elite.” I hooked my finger through his belt loop and gave him a hard tug. “Come home in one piece or else.”
“I always come home, if not all in one piece.” Turning his attention on Woolly, he smoothed his palm down the wooden siding beneath the glowing porch light. “Take care of our girl until I get back, okay?”
The bulb flared in bright agreement. She was, as ever, his humble and eager servant.
Boaz ambled over to the garage, and I forced myself to stop watching. I hated it would be a week before I saw him again. Already tonight felt spun from dreams instead of memories.
I lingered on the porch, the churros cooling in my arms, and reconsidered my plan to share the bounty with Amelie. Following Boaz home, even if I technically beat him there, smacked of clingy girlfriend vibes, and it’s not like Amelie would want me to gush about the moves her brother put on me. Remembering the sketchbook waiting on the coffee table, I decided to share the treats with a different sort of friend. Sugar in exchange for questions about Cletus.
I passed through the living room, scooped up the sketchbook and tucked it under my arm. Remembering the avowal, I picked that up too. I paused to rub Keet’s earholes while he hung upside down with a single wing extended. “You’re such a little weirdo.”
He blinked one red eye at me then returned to his bat impersonation. Leaving him to practice his echo location, or whatever undead parakeets imagined while pretending to be something they were not, I exited the house through the back and entered the garden.
Cold fingers closed over my shoulder as my toes brushed grass.
“Hey, Cletus.” I waited for him to unclamp me, but he held tight. “What’s wrong now?”
Maybe the wraith really was broken.
“Let her go,” a dark voice purred from the shadows. “I won’t harm her. Promise.”
Dread, cold and sharp, turned to icy perspiration down my spine. “Who are you?”
Cletus, who was not the trusting sort, released me then coalesced before me, an undulating shield of malevolence.
“Grier Woolworth.” The man savored my name the way I had that first bite of caramel-filled dough.