by Abigail Owen
“It’s Greyson,” a deep male voice murmured in her ear. The warmth lighting up on her wrist had already told her that.
Immediately the energy, which she had pulled from her own body, dissipated back into her system, leaving her both drained and charged simultaneously. In the same instant, she became horribly aware of the hard length of Grey’s body, pressed up against her back.
“You won’t scream?” he asked.
She shook her head, and slowly he removed his hand from her mouth and turned her to face him, though he didn’t step back. She raised her gaze to find him watching her closely, a finger held to his lips.
“You scared the hell out of me,” she hissed quietly.
Amusement crinkled his eyes, visible in the glow of her flashlight, which fell with the beam illuminating their feet. He leaned forward, lips at her ear. “Sorry. I didn’t want you to stop the girls.”
Rowan gave an involuntary shudder as his breath tickled over her skin. At the same time, she took a mental step back, unable to physically do so, prevented by the boulder at her back. Attraction to Grey equaled bad fucking idea. She refused to acknowledge the growing awareness between them. Instead, she focused her mind elsewhere, on why they were both in the dark woods in the first place. Why would Grey want his daughters to sneak out?
“Why?” she voiced the obvious question.
“It’ll take too long to explain right now. Let’s make sure they get back safely. I’ll tell you more then.”
Rowan nodded and, with a wave of his hand, Grey indicated she should continue to follow the girls. Not too far from where he’d stopped her, they found the triplets in a clearing. The three stood in a column of pure moonlight cast through the trees by the full moon, making their blond hair appear almost silver. Arranged in a circle, hands clasped, eyes closed, they swayed together in a rhythm only they understood.
“What are they do—?”
Grey held his finger up to his lips, then turned back to the scene.
Rowan’s mouth dropped in a silent gasp as the three figures started to glow—softly at first, then brighter until the white light became blinding and she could hardly stand to look at them. Meanwhile, silence reigned all around. Even the sounds of the night had ceased—the animals, the breeze through the needles on the pine trees—everything still and quiet, as though the world had hit pause to watch.
Then Chloe’s voice sounded from the center of the light. “Rowan McAuliffe shall be connected to the Masters line. The thread has been sewn.”
The scar on Rowan’s wrist sprang to blistering life at the pronouncement. What. The. Hell?
A glance showed Grey equally stunned. She wasn’t sure how she could tell, as his expression remained neutral as ever, but his mouth appeared tighter, his eyes wary. What had just happened?
Before she could ask the questions which wanted to tumble off her lips, he took her by the elbow and pulled her back to the boulder where he’d stopped her earlier, tugging her around the side. Moments later, as though in a trance, Chloe, Lachlyn, and Atleigh trooped past, heading in the direction of the house.
Slowly, she and Grey followed. As they walked, Rowan’s mind swirling with questions, she happened to spy a pygmy owl perched in the branches of a tree, watching her. But he didn’t say anything as they walked by, so she wrote his appearance off as coincidence. Animals didn’t always talk to her.
Once inside the house, they found the three back in their beds, soundly asleep. With a jerk of his head, Grey indicated Rowan should follow him. He led her to his office, a room she hadn’t revisited since the day he had caught her there.
After only two weeks she now had trouble picturing Grey in here much. His demeanor, his physicality, was too big, too vital to be trapped behind a desk. During the day she’d often find him prowling restlessly through the house. Part of her cheered, knowing his search for her continued to move slowly. But a perverse part of her twanged with guilt at being the cause for his being stuck here.
“Please, take a seat,” he waved to one of the two leather chairs facing the desk and took the other.
She did so, suddenly wishing she’d put on more than a jacket over her comfy peach-colored pajama bottoms and matching top. Now she couldn’t take it off. She’d be sweltering in minutes in the heated household. “What just happened?”
Grey ran his hands through his hair, making the dark strands stand on end and suddenly appearing ragged around the edges, not the fully-in-control warlock she’d usually encountered. “Honestly, I don’t know. They’ve been doing that since they could walk.”
“Sneaking out to…what?”
He shook his head. “They don’t sneak. It’s more like sleepwalking. We don’t know what they do. I’ve had them tested, placed spells, and so on. I’ve brought in the council to help. All that’s been determined is they are reincarnated souls of some sort. But we don’t know who, or if they have a purpose.”
As a parent, the girls’ situation had to be worrisome. In two short weeks, she’d fallen in love with the blond munchkins. Even her stomach clenched in concern. “Do they remember anything when it happens?”
“No.”
“Can you stop them from going outside?”
“Yes, but they struggle against the bonds. Chloe has a permanent scar on her leg because of it. I decided the safer option was to follow them, ensuring their protection.”
“I’m surprised the cold didn’t wake them up.” They’d been in pajama pants and tops with slippers on. The slippers had to be soaked by now from the snow.
Then her mind caught up to the situation, which triggered a thought, followed by blooming irritation. She sat forward, pinning him with a direct look. “And you didn’t think to mention this to their new nanny?”
If he recognized her anger, he gave no indication. “We’ve shared this information only with a select few. I have a spell cast on their room, so I know when they leave and can follow.”
Her ire cooled a tad, and Rowan sat back in her chair. “I see.” How to absorb this new complication? Had Delilah known? If so, she’d be having words with the woman shortly. “So, you don’t know what they meant? About my being connected to the Masters line?”
She had yet to check the lines on her wrist. The sharp burning sensation had reduced, but continued to tingle. However, that could be her proximity to Grey, or the false sense of intimacy generated by the small space and the fact that they sat here together in the middle of the night in their pajamas.
He shook his head. “No clue.”
There didn’t seem to be more to say, so Rowan stood. “I’d better get back to bed.”
Again, if her abruptness surprised him, Grey didn’t show it. He walked with her through the dark and quiet house to the door in the kitchen hiding her stairs. There she turned to face him. “How often do they go out?”
“It only used to happen once a month or so, but in the last year, the frequency has increased. Now they do this at least once a week.”
He got up with them every week like this? Holy Toledo. He had taken on the role as sole nighttime bodyguard, on top of everything else. If he wasn’t the man hunting her down, she’d consider him to be the best man she knew.
Maybe she could help. “Can you expand your alarm to let me know as well?”
He searched her eyes. This close, she could feel his heat, even through their clothes, and the tingling on her wrist and other places increased in direct response to his proximity as well as the woodsy scent of his body.
“Why would you want that?” he asked.
“As their nanny, it’s my job to watch out for them.” Mostly true. Just not the whole story. “Like tonight, I’ll probably hear them and follow anyway.”
“All right.” But he didn’t leave her. Instead he continued to stare at her, like a riddle he had to solve.
For two weeks, ever since that moment in his office when they’d almost kissed, they’d been dancing around each other, avoiding being alone together for long. Rowan spe
nt a lot of time during the day in her downstairs suite or in Estes Park, the town nearby. Still, she’d caught his gaze on her a few times. He’d caught her as well, if she were honest.
With effort she resisted the urge to put a hand to her hair. “What?”
He didn’t answer for a long moment, giving a small shake of his head, as if telling himself to stop. “What is it about you?”
She had to defuse this situation. Now. “I talk back.”
Surprised amusement tugged at his lips. “What?”
“I suspect I’m the only woman who’s ever argued with you. Am I right?” She couldn’t help herself. She argued with him about how they dealt with the girls. Or about the use of magic in the house. Or about trips to the grocery store. Or dinner. Hell. Just last night she’d argued with him about mustard versus mayonnaise-based potato salads. The man’d had the temerity to judge her mustard-based concoction at dinner, and she’d declared that if he wanted mayonnaise in his potato salad, he could damn well cook it himself.
Now, rather than backing away, he moved closer. “And?”
She shrugged. “Most people naturally want to be accepted.”
“And you don’t accept me?” He was laughing at her now. A chuckle had snuck into his voice.
“I don’t agree with everything you say and do. There’s a difference. So…now that you know I accept you, appreciate you even, you can go back to bed knowing I’m just like every other woman.” She waved toward the hallway.
But he didn’t leave. Instead, he reached out and wrapped a red curl around his finger. “Any other woman of my acquaintance would be begging me to kiss her right now.”
She snorted. “Arrogant. How do you know that?”
He smiled. “And not one of those women makes me want to pull her up against my body every time she speaks.” His voice dropped lower, rasping over her nerves in a deliciously naughty way.
“I’m your nanny.” Her resistance was crumbling in a pathetic heap around her feet, but she had to try to stop this before it got out of hand. “That’s all.”
Pain pierced her heart and spread out from there. Why did knowing all she could ever be to Greyson Masters was a temporary nanny hurt this much? It made no damn sense.
He continued to stare down into her eyes, and desperation had her grasping for a solution. Even a shock tactic to stop this insanity. With a ragged breath, she fisted his shirt, and tugged him closer. “Fine. Just kiss me and get it out of your system, Grey.”
Before he could say or do anything, she went up on tiptoe and placed her lips over his. Big mistake. Huge.
The kiss caught fire faster than a spark to gasoline. Grey groaned low in his throat, and aching need took over her body and her mind while he pulled her in close, searing her with the heat of his body. Desire throbbed through every part of her, as she lost herself in what he was doing with his lips, his tongue, his hands.
She couldn’t have ended it, even if she’d wanted to. The way he made her feel, she didn’t want to end it. Gods above, she’d discovered what heaven felt like. The sexy stubble on his jaw rasped against her skin, and she reveled in the sensation. Grey was all man, and she wanted more.
With another groan, he pulled away, then stepped away, and the cool air that hit her in his absence was like being doused in an ice bath.
He didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then he ran his hand through his hair, spiking it up, making her fingers itch to smooth it down for him. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
Pride and a fierce self-protective instinct kicked in hard. She tipped her chin up and gave him her best nothing big has happened here smile. “You didn’t. I did. Now we got that out of the way, we can move on.”
His thick brows pulled low over his eyes, but the kitchen lay in darkness, illuminated only by moonlight and the light on the stairway behind her, so she couldn’t catch his expression. “I guess you’re right,” he said slowly.
He sounded as though he believed her as much as she believed herself. In other words, not at all. But she ignored that, as well as the fire branding her wrist. She wasn’t even going to peek at those lines to see if they’d changed. It didn’t matter. Whatever those lines meant, and whatever this thing was between her and Grey, it had zero future. Not with who she was and who he was.
Sometimes the only way to stop a freight train was to blow up the bridge in front of it. “I could never have an affair with the father of my charges. I care about the girls too much.”
Grey jerked back as if she’d slapped him. And verbally she just had, because she’d implied that if he continued to pursue her, he didn’t care about his kids. An undeniably smart man, he caught her message.
“Of course.” The frost in his tone told her everything she needed to know. He’d leave her alone now. “Goodnight, Rowan.”
“Goodnight, Mr. Masters.”
And there went that pain in her heart again as she watched him walk away.
Damn.
CHAPTER 7
“Dad?”
Greyson turned his head to Lachlyn as they all crunched through the snow to the spot from which they teleported. Something in his daughter’s voice caught his attention more than normal. “Yes?”
“Some kids at school were talking—”
“Lachlyn,” Chloe hissed. “Don’t.”
Uh-oh.
“I want to know,” Lachlyn snapped at Chloe. She turned back to him. “They said our mother was killed by a warlock. Is it true?”
Aw, hell. He had known this conversation would come along someday, but he was hoping for a little more time. Greyson stopped walking. “On the way to school is not a good time to talk about this.”
“But—”
He held up a hand, halting Atleigh’s protest. “I’ll tell you, but tonight when I have time to answer any questions you might have. Okay?”
“So it’s true?” The warble in Chloe’s voice twisted his gut.
He pulled all three into his arms and kissed the tops of their heads. “Don’t worry about it until we talk tonight. Okay?”
He was afraid they’d push it, but all three looked at each other and nodded.
The rest of the morning went like usual as he dropped them off at school and returned home. He had eight hours to figure out how much and what to tell his daughters about how their mother had died.
Letting himself into the house, he walked through to the kitchen without really thinking about his direction. There he found Rowan hovering over a pot at the stove. Dressed in jeans and a black sweater, she had the apron he wore when he grilled out wrapped around her slim frame, swamped by the material. Barefooted, she danced and hummed along to the radio, which was tuned to a fifties station.
As he came in, she glanced over her shoulder and smiled. She went to turn back to her task but paused as she seemed to read something in his expression which concerned her. Raised eyebrows asked a question he wasn’t ready to answer.
“What are you cooking?” he asked instead.
“Sauce for lasagna. My mother’s recipe.”
“You’re not afraid of burning it again?” He still chuckled over the memory of her reaction to his and the girls’ tests that first day.
She chuckled. “I’m onto your tricks now, Mister.” She winked, then turned back to the stovetop, her back to him. “Something bothering you?”
Greyson startled. How had she guessed? Usually people found him hard to read. Leaning a hip against the island counter, he crossed his arms. “What makes you ask?”
She didn’t turn around. “You usually go straight into your office when you get home.”
“So?”
She lifted a slim shoulder. “My mother always said I had an intuition for when people needed help. So?...”
Greyson pulled out one of the stools and plopped down into it. “The girls asked about how their mother died this morning.”
Rowan stopped stirring. “I thought your wife died in childbirth?”
“That’s only part of t
he story, and, apparently, some parents have been talking, because kids at school tipped off the girls.”
Rowan was quiet for a long moment, but with her back to him, he couldn’t see her reaction. Finally, she put the spoon down, turned off the burner, and turned to face him. “Kids can be cruel sometimes,” she murmured.
“So can adults.” He wouldn’t mind hunting down the adults who’d helped spread this information. However, the truth had come out broadly among his kind last year.
“What did you tell them?”
Greyson ran a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. “That I’d tell them about it tonight. But I have no idea what to say.”
To his surprise, Rowan circled the counter and pulled out the stool beside him. Her hair brushed his cheek as she sat, and he caught her wildflower scent. Then she leveled those incredible grey eyes on him. “Tell me first.”
Greyson blinked, distracted by her proximity, and had to retrace their conversation. “What will that achieve?”
She gave him a patient smile. “Consider it a dress rehearsal. And I can tell you if something would be too much for a twelve-year-old girl to handle.”
“Right. Okay.” He tapped a finger on the counter, thinking of where to start.
She laid her hand over his, calming his nervous movements with her warmth. He froze, then glanced at her.
“The best place to start is usually at the beginning.” She gave his hand a gentle squeeze, then sat back.
He tried not to miss the contact, the connection. Instead, he focused on telling her the story.
“My wife and I were both low-level Enforcers with the Council. In fact, that’s how we met. We worked a particularly difficult abuse of magic case together, and our supervisor decided we should be partners. We worked together for a year before I got the bright idea of kissing her over dinner one late night.”
Greyson smiled at the memory. He hadn’t thought of that moment in ages. “I haven’t thought of that maybe since Maddie’s death.”