Page 23 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
Yet, Briar didn’t glance toward my window, didn’t sense my gaze upon him. Creases bracketed his mouth, his shoulders carrying some invisible weight as he walked into my house. He didn’t come to find me. When he called the next day to ask for another date, he never mentioned being there the night before. He didn’t say why he’d come.
Six
Briargrinnedabovehisooey gooey sundae, the setting sun highlighting his hair scarlet. We sat hip-to-hip on a knotty log outside the local ice cream shop. “How’s your gelato?”
“Good,” I answered, downing another lemon lavender spoonful.
“I’m surprised you’re not tired of lavender already,” he remarked. “With how much you’ve planted these past mornings.”
I shrugged. “Well, that’s why I planted so much—because I like it.”
Winking, Briar ate another fudgy spoonful.
We’d spent almost every waking moment together for the past week. Some nights, our dates went so late that I barely had time to catch up onThe Workplaceand grab a snack before Aunt Aylie banished me to my bedroom, another midnight meeting commencing.
Like Ace, being out of the loop drove me nuts. What were the men saying? Why did they quarrel? I wanted to ask Daddy, but I knew he would’ve already told me if he wanted me to know. I’d get more answers from a brick wall than I would Uncle Neel, so my only probable source of information was Briar.
He hadn’t admitted anything about the meetings, even to suggest they existed. Yet, he was there every midnight without fail. Even when I didn’t see him walking in with the other men, I’d spy his silver Ford Fusion parked outside my house. I wanted to demand he tell me everything but hadn’t found the guts.
After Briar finished his ice cream, he set his Styrofoam bowl down on the macadam by his feet and leaned in close, wrapping an arm around me. His embrace was a brazier in the cooling breeze, though I couldn’t relax.
Watching me eat, Briar asked, “What are you thinking?”
I cleared my throat, considering him. “About the last book I read,” I lied.
“What about it?”
Licking my spoon, I digested a devious thought and acted on it before I second-guessed myself. “For most of the book, the heroine and her lover are fighting because she finds out he’s keeping secrets from her. To protect her, he thinks. But her ignorance only endangers her, risks her life.”
When I stopped babbling, Briar was chewing on his lip, his gaze razor-sharp.
I worried he thought I was passively rebuking him. Although, I totally was.
“My friend says he’s not to blame since he’s only trying to protect her, but I say that’s no excuse. His heroine is a big girl. She can handle the truth, even if it’s not something she wants to hear.”
I watched his gears shift from wariness to charm. “Maybe the truth was just being held for safekeeping—to be revealed at the proper time.”
Well played, I thought, picturing us on a relationship chess board.
“Did she forgive him?”
Wow, I’d already lost the upper hand.
“The heroine,” Briar clarified. “Did she forgive her lover?”
Oh, you’re good. “Wouldn’t be a very worthwhile romance if she didn’t.”
His grin broadened, his eyes singing,checkmate.
“Youfeeluntouched?”Zahragiggled the next morning during our phone call.
I’d been trying to call Briar to firm up that afternoon’s plans, but my glitchy cell had called Zahra instead. So, we chatted while I laid half-dressed in bed, petting Kell, who stretched, purring, beside me.
“How do you make out with someone and still feel untouched?” she asked.
“I don’t know, but that’s how I feel.”
Briar hadn’t admitted anything about the meetings, but when he’d brought me home after ice cream the night before, he hadn’t gone home. He’d come up to my bedroom with me to hang out. For five minutes. Then we’d curled up on my bed and started kissing. Just before midnight, he’d pulled away, said he had to go. Two hours after he’d left, though, his car still sat outside my house.
