“I wasn’t honoring the damn vows. At least not the spirit of them. Not the way she needed.” His head lowered, she couldn’t be sure, but she thought he’d closed his eyes. “Our marriage was killing her. She was dying of loneliness lying right next to me. If I had understood better…”
He shook his head, raising his gaze. “I was just pissed as hell that our marriage was failing. I loved her. I know she loved me, but there was something missing, something she needed. When she tried to find it with another man I…” He shrugged. “I lost it. We had a blowout fight. Damn it, I hated what I’d driven her to, hated I couldn’t be what she needed. So when she ran…I let her go.”
“That was twenty-one years ago, Gray. Maybe you’re remembering it wrong.”
He turned his chin to his shoulder, looking back at her. “I remember like it was yesterday. I remember because I feel the bond with you I could never forge with her. Your family took my wife from me, but gave me my life mate. So, tell me, should I thank them, or curse them…or both?”
She swallowed hard not knowing if she wanted to smile or cry. She wanted to go to him but the muscles in her arms and legs still trembled from everything they’d endured.
He came to her on one knee. “Don’t try to get up. Your body needs to rest. It’s still sort of in a state of flux.”
She’d protest except she could feel he was right. “Whatever you do, Gray, you should start by letting yourself off the hook. It was an accident.”
He snorted, a short sardonic laugh. “That’s just one explanation, according to your grandmother. An accident, yeah, but predestined too.”
“You mean like fate?”
“Like a goddamn fairy tale.”
Chapter Thirteen
Maizie knew Annette was there before she opened her eyes. Her Opium perfume filled the room. It was hard for Maizie to breathe without coating her nose or the back of her throat with the scent.
She pushed up to one elbow, trying to clean the waxy perfume taste off the roof of her mouth with her tongue and blinked the sleep from her eyes. “Morning.”
Annette froze, a pair of jeans half folded in her hands. Her gaze flicked to Maizie from the foot of Gray’s bed. A genuine smile stretched her small face. “Good morning. Actually, it’s afternoon.”
Crap. Not again. Maizie noticed the empty pillow beside her. “How’d I get here?”
“Mr. Lupo carried you here last night. After you, uh, passed out.” Her little cheeks flushed. Chin down she glanced at Maizie from beneath long lashes then quickly returned her gaze to the clothes. She folded them onto the storage bench.
Maizie thought about that for a minute, pushing up to sit, sheet clutched to her naked chest. She remembered being with Gray at the quarry, his confessions, his admission of their strange, intimate connection.
He’d knelt beside her when she couldn’t get up and then…nothing. “He carried me the whole way? Wow.”
Annette’s thin brows rose above the big frames of her glasses, her nod quick and happy. “Mr. Lupo said you passed right out. I don’t think he minded. In fact I’d lay odds he quite enjoyed holding you so close. Certainly looked that way this morning.”
The small woman laughed, her toothy smile bright. She clasped her hands at her chest and for a second Maizie expected her to rub them together with an eager glee.
“This morning? So he was here earlier with me?” Maizie tried not to read too much into the fact she needed someone else to confirm her bed partners.
“Of course. He had a hard time letting you go, but he had a, ah, business meeting.”
A warm tingle filled Maizie’s belly. He’d held her all night. She remembered the warm feel of him now, the safety of his arms, the strength, the tenderness. Gawd, she liked the way he seemed to treasure her. She liked the way she treasured him. Things were good.
Maizie shoved the snarl of bed-hair back from her face and fought the goofy grin threatening to control her mouth. They were destined for each other, like a real-life fairy tale.
Annette chattered on. “He made sure I knew to get you fresh clothes and something to eat and whatever else you might need. The jeans, T-shirt and undergarments here are for you. I guessed your size, but I’m pretty good at it. There’s a peanut butter sandwich and glass of milk when you’re ready.” She gestured to the nightstand. “Mr. Lupo thought you’d like it, but if you’d rather-”
“No.” Maizie glanced at the silver tray and plate cover, smiling. “It’s, uhm, perfect. It’s absolutely perfect.”
Annette chuckled again, her shoulders high. “It is, isn’t it? He’s so romantic.”
Okay, now her giddiness over Maizie’s love life was starting to get weird. “Wow, you’re really close to your boss, huh?”
“Oh, yes. He’s just so, well, he’s just so wonderful.”
“Yeah. Exactly how close are the two of you?”
“He means the world to me.” She shrugged, wrinkling the clean line of her high-buttoned blouse for a moment. “I love him.”
“Really? I see.” So why was she so happy to find Maizie in his bed? Twisted.
Not that it really mattered. Annette was cute and tiny, early thirties, sweet with her mousy brown hair pulled to a bun, big glasses and tight-buttoned librarian look. She had pretty brown eyes and a decent B-cup figure, shapely legs in comfortable low-heeled shoes, and if she was really competition for Gray’s affection, she’d be the one naked in his bed. Still…
“So, uhm…” Maizie tried to think of a discreet way to word her question-and failed. “You two ever have sex?”
She was exhausted, her body felt like it’d been drawn and quartered, and her powerful bond with Gray had turned her brain to mush. She didn’t have the brain cells to spare beating around the bush, and going by the way the rest of the family behaved, it seemed a legitimate question.
Annette’s brow scrunched. “No. Of course not. I could never…blah…” A hard shudder shook her from head to toe. She looked as though she was going to be sick.
“Geez, don’t hold back. Tell me how you really feel.” Maizie’s offense at the woman’s repulsion was too messed-up to think about.
Annette’s gaze flicked to Maizie. “No. It’s not that. I love him. I do. Just not in that way.”
“Okay, I’m lost.”
Annette laughed. “Sorry. You see, I’ve known Gray, Mr. Lupo, nearly my whole life. It’d be like sleeping with my father.”
Maizie’s cheeks warmed. That certainly explained Annette’s shudder. Gray didn’t look old enough to be her father, unless you factored in the werewolf thing. Did he really age that slowly? “How’d you meet?”
Her hands laced together in front of her, very proper. Annette came around the end of the bed and leaned her hip against the edge of the mattress. “He rescued me.”
Of course he did.
“My father, my biological father, was an abusive man,” Annette said. “And things only got worse after my mother died of cancer. I was six when Gray found me. He’d just been walking past my house and heard my father attacking me-”
“Attacking?”
“The abuse was…sexual.”
“God, I’m sorry.” Maizie suddenly wanted to hug her.
Annette shrugged. “It was a long time ago and Gray got me out of there that same day. He just stormed into the house, walked right into the bedroom and threw my father off me, across the room. Told him he was taking me someplace safe and if he ever tried to contact either of us he’d kill him. I think he would’ve killed him right there if it weren’t for me watching.”
“That’s horrible, Annette. I’m glad Gray was there for you.”
She nodded, her fingers absently toying with a thread on the comforter. “We never heard from him again. He didn’t even file a police report. Just sort of…disappeared.”