“Sorry about that.” I sat up and swung my legs over the edge of the mattress. “Woolly cultivates her grudges the way Maud used to nurture her plants.”
“I broke her trust.” He rushed over and tossed his glasses on the bed before helping me stand. “It will take time for her to forgive me. I understand that.” He hooked his right arm around my waist to hold me steady then draped my left one across his shoulders. “Though, at times, I’ll admit it is inconvenient.”
“She’ll forgive you eventually,” I assured him. “She loves Oscar, and she knows you’re the reason he’s here with us. That alone earned you tons of bonus points.”
Though I didn’t have the heart to tell Linus that Oscar was still shy of him, which meant grateful or not, Woolly wasn’t going to let him in anytime soon.
We shuffled our way across the yard, and she allowed him on the porch without so much as a reprimanding flicker. Amelie flung open the door and her arms at the same time, and I felt like a dirt sandwich accepting her hug when I had been avoiding her for hours.
“I’m going to murder Taz,” she growled, and I stiffened in her hold. “Geez, Grier, I don’t mean it in the literal sense.” She drew back and examined me. “Though my brother might once he gets a load of this.”
I thought back to my phone, which hadn’t rung a single time tonight. “Have you talked to him?”
“Yes.” She released me to rub her ears. “I’m shocked you didn’t hear his bellows from across the yard.”
“I haven’t heard much of anything from Boaz.” The words slipped out before I could call them back.
Ugh.
I didn’t want this to be me, the jealous-girlfriend type who craved each meager scrap of attention. But I also had no idea how the whole relationship thing worked. Did I have the right to demand more? Or was I supposed to let him dole out what he thought was enough? And was the reverse true? Not that I’d had much chance to ice him out thanks to smacking up against the brick wall of his inattention.
Amelie mashed her lips into a hard line, her gaze skittering like a spider up the far wall behind me.
That…was not reassuring.
“I’ll come for you at dusk,” Linus said from the porch. “Call if you need anything.”
“Go home. Rest.” I took his hand and squeezed it. “You’ve done enough for me for one day.”
Pink saturated his cheeks as he tightened his long fingers around mine. “It’s my pleasure.”
At least Amelie had the good manners to wait until the door shut behind Linus to mock him. “It’s my pleasure.” Her arm slid around my waist. “Who talks like that?”
“He does.” A prickle of irritation made me wish I could manage the steps up to my room alone. “What’s your problem?”
“Why didn’t he bring you straight back here?” she demanded. “Woolly and I were worried sick.”
The old house groaned, a sure sign she didn’t want to be used as leverage in our latest spat.
“He can’t enter Woolly, remember? The carriage house was closer, so he took me there.”
“Convenient,” she grumbled.
“Heinz popped in for a house call—” I kept going, talking over her mini rant, “—and he told me to take it easy. Since I was off tonight, Linus propped me up and put me to work on a lesson.” I slid her a stern look. “It was nothing nefarious.”
“I don’t trust him.”
“You don’t have to, Ame.” I patted her back. “He’s not your problem.”
Amelie tensed at my tone but kept going. “Boaz is pissed.”
“When is Boaz ever not pissed when it comes to Linus?” All that navel-gazing earlier had given me fresh perspective. “He’s not my boyfriend. We went on one date. That means he doesn’t have the right to an opinion. Especially one he can’t be bothered to call and voice himself.”
Jealousy might be a new concept for him, but his past antics had turned me green often enough to know it did nothing for my complexion. And, okay, yes, I was still in a snit over the fact he had made no effort to communicate with me since the night he dropped his sister off at my house. Yet another keepsake of his for me to store until he wanted it back.
The Elite deploy where they’re sent, I got that, but wherever he was stationed had plenty of cell service as far as I could tell. How else could he touch base with his sister every other day? And I know it was him, their banter so familiar I would recognize the back-and-forth anywhere.
Now, I’m not saying I was eavesdropping on her phone calls. I’m just saying her voice carries, especially when I press my ear against her bedroom door.
“He may not be your boyfriend, but he’s your something. I think that earns him the right to be concerned when you get hurt or when you spend the night in another man’s bed.”
My head snapped toward her. “How do you know I was in his room and not the guestroom?”
“I saw you through the window.”
“No, you didn’t.” I had plenty of time to soak up my surroundings while pretending to be studious. “The curtains were shut. Heinz closed them before he left so the rear porch light didn’t bother me.”
The angle was all wrong too. From the porch, maybe. But she wasn’t supposed to be out there.
“Okay, you got me.” We reached the landing, and she shepherded me toward my room. “I called Taz and asked for details.”
Groaning, I toddled into my room and eased down onto the mattress. “I don’t remember seeing her.”
“Who do you think carried you?” She snorted. “Linus?”
“Yes.” Actually, that’s exactly what I’d thought. Taz, having been the one to KO me, must have beat him to the punch. “You’re saying she put me in his bed then lit up the phone tree to broadcast the details.”
“We have the right—”
“I get it.” I sagged back against my pillows. “You’re my best friend, and Boaz is my something, but that doesn’t entitle either of you to every detail of my life.”
She flung her arms out to the sides. “You know every detail of my life.”
“Uh, no. I don’t. Or I didn’t. Not until it was too late.” I bit the inside of my cheek, but the buildup of annoyance had bubbled over my lips. “Ame, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
“I’m grateful for what you did for me,” she said, voice flat. “But no one asked you to save me.”
“You’re right.” The snide comment erased all that came before it, and that was my breaking point. “In fact, your mother ordered me not to.”
Tears glistened in her eyes as she spun on her heel and hit the stairs.
I was too exhausted to go after her and too afraid of what I might say when I caught her.
Instead I curled up against my pillows and closed my eyes.
A scream tore from my throat, raw and aching, and fresh pain lanced along my jaw before I clamped my mouth shut. As awareness settled over me, I grasped that I wasn’t huddled on the hard floor in a corner as I expected, but balanced across warm thighs and cradled against a wide chest.
“Hush, Squirt.” Boaz caressed the length of my spine. “It was just a dream.”
“Just the dream.” I ran my newly healed tongue along the edge of my teeth before asking, “How are you here?”
“Magic.”
“Mmm-hmm.” All the anger I had been carting around for the past two weeks smashed to pieces at his feet. He was here. That was all that mattered. “You can’t drop your life and come running every time I stub a toe.”
“Watch me.” His lips brushed my forehead. “For as long as I can, I will.”
Fear of how long that might be had me snuggling closer. “You’re sweet.”
“I can be.” His chuckle deepened. “With proper motivation.”
“What were you doing before Amelie and Taz blew up your phone?”
“It’s classified.” His gaze dipped before meeting mine again. “It’s also boring as hell.”
“Poor baby.” I reached up and patted his prickly cheek. “How long can you stay?”
“Twenty-four hours.” He turned his face and pressed a kiss into my palm. “That’s the best I could do.”