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“It’s an exciting adventure. I could write books about this, except you would read them prematurely and probably shite on all of my musings, so…”
“I’ll try a little harder not to read your journal.”
“Try a little harder,” she repeated, her head cocked.
He sighed a growl. “Well, hide it better.” He gestured to the bookshelf. “I’ve been reading the same literature for years. I’m bored.”
She pursed her lips against a smile, because he truly had been a monster about it and didn’t need any encouragement. “I don’t forgive you.”
“Good. I ain’t asking for your forgiveness and I ain’t apologizin’.”
“But you’ll offer to take my horse into the barn for me, and make a fire for my fragile little human body, and you’ll offer to cook me food.”
“I didn’t offer to cook you food.”
She arched her eyebrow and waited.
Garret cracked his knuckles and hesitated for a four-count before he muttered, “You want food, or what?”
She grinned. “I would love some. I’m famished.”
“You’re the most annoying woman I’ve ever met,” he griped as he stood and offered her a hand up.
“That’s probably a good sign. I’ve never witnessed a happy marriage, so we’re probably doing this right.”
He snorted, but quickly composed his face from the surprised-looking smile to his usual frown. “Thank you for sweeping up.” He gestured to the broom she’d left leaned against the wall when she was up on her feet.
Eliza dusted off the seat of her dress. “Thank you for tracking mud all across our newly-cleaned floors.”
He cast his frown toward the perfect mud-prints he’d formed across the length of the cabin from the door to where he’d knelt beside her. “I thought you were hurt.”
“I’m invincible,” she quipped as she sashayed toward the dining table, determined to sit there like a bump on a log and not do a damn thing to help while he cooked her whatever dinner he imagined up.
He watched her, so she made a show of leaning back in her chair and propping her feet up on the table. If ever she decided to send Aunt Elizabeth a letter, it would be a sketch of her with her feet on the dinner table and her hands linked behind her rain-soaked, messy hair, just as she was in this moment.
“You just gonna sit there?” he asked, amusement dancing in his eyes.
“I’m waiting for your apology.”
He shook his head and turned toward the hatch for the root cellar, but she’d seen it in the split-second before he’d turned away from her.
He’d smiled.
Garret Shaw—man with a heavy destiny, wolf with a chip on his shoulder—had smiled.
Even if he didn’t say the words, “I’m sorry,” that smile was enough for her.
Chapter Fourteen
Garret felt this flutter of nerves he didn’t recall ever feeling before.
Eliza was different than the highfalutin woman he’d assumed she was. She was deeper.
Dangerous woman. Dangerous human.
He knew how to cook well, he’d had many years of bachelorhood without a woman in his kitchen gracing him with shitty-lookin’ pies. He glanced at her pie-effort for the fifth time since he’d started stirring this pot of pork and beans in the cast iron pot over the hearth fire.
She’d tried. It did remind him of that pie she’d brought him all those years ago, the day she’d carved her name into the cupboard. He’d forgotten. Some days he couldn’t remember anything from his life before the wolf. The animal was so big and took up so much of his head, there wasn’t room for reminiscing. But tonight, the wolf was quiet. He was taking in Eliza’s presence, her easy banter, her quick wit. Her scent. How perfectly her dress clung to her womanly curves. He was just watching, and quiet enough that Garret could recall the before.
