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He belted out a laugh that shook the whole bed. “You are a monster.”
“Takes one to know one,” she quipped.
“I don’t want you saying that anymore.”
“Saying what?”
“That you should let the Jenningses claim you. It makes me so angry, Eliza. I can’t do that. I can’t control the wolf when you go to putting that stuff in my head. I would never be steady again if you went to them. I couldn’t watch you in town with Wyatt. I couldn’t watch him hurt you, and he would hurt you. You’re safer with me.”
“Garret Shaw, you have kept me emotionally unstable for weeks, and I probably have a hundred nearly-invisible cactus needles still in my skin just because I wanted to spend some time with you. I’m not safe with any of you.”
“Yeah, but I would never hurt you on purpose. And if you were a werewolf, you would hear the truth in my voice when I just said that.” Garret pushed up on one strong arm and turned toward her slowly, settling the covers back over her hips where he’d accidentally dragged them off with his movement. He settled onto his pillow and stared at her with those bright-blue wolf eyes that glowed in the dark. “I liked touching you today.”
Eliza’s heart rate kicked up again. She hoped he couldn’t hear it, but from the smirk on his face, he likely could. “When?” she asked innocently.
“When we were sitting at the table and I rucked your skirts up. Do you know how many times I’ve thought about how your skin felt under my hand? What Wyatt said about me not wanting to bed you, and not being attracted to you? It’s not true.”
“If I was one of those whores in the saloon, would you be able to bed me?”
“Yes,” he answered honestly. “If I wasn’t married, yes.”
“Why them but not me?” she asked, utterly baffled by the confounding man.
“Because they mean nothing, and you mean something.”
Eliza needed to think on that. Okay. Okay. So he could take a woman’s body if he didn’t care about her, but if he did care, he didn’t want her in that way? Was that what he meant?
Garret was quiet for a long time while her thoughts spun round and round. Had he gone to sleep? Perhaps so. His breathing sounded steady. Measured. His eyes were closed, robbing her of the glowing blue.
Her eyelids closed, and her limbs relaxed. She sighed and settled into that feeling of safety. Even if the Jenningses were right outside, none of them could hurt her with Garret so close.
“You aren’t plain,” he said low.
She thought she had dreamed him talking, so she asked, “What?”
“I’ve been remembering more lately. I knew when we were little you would grow up to be beautiful, and you didn’t disappoint.”
“I…I…Oh, Garret, I do believe that is the very nicest thing you have ever said to me. I think it is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me, for that matter.”
Garret chuckled. “I know I’m not where you want me to be, and I know you probably can’t tell, but I look at you differently than I did when you first showed up in Rockdale again. I like you. You’re just going to have to be patient with me, woman.”
She sighed. She had told him her needs, and he was telling her his own. It was fair.
He wasn’t ready to take her to bed, but he was ready to touch her at random and lay in a bed beside her, and that was something.
“Patient, I can do.”
Chapter Thirty
Eliza woke the next morning with a ready smile on her lips.
True, they hadn’t done more than sleep beside each other, but drawing warmth from Garret’s sleeping frame all night and falling under the protection of his arm over her hips had been more intimate than any other moment in her life. She was a new woman.
Garret had woken early this morning, told her, “Good mornin’,” and told her to rest more. He needed to get to work. He’d even brought her a piece of cornbread and set it on the nightstand next to the bed, and then he’d knelt beside it. He’d searched her face, for what, she hadn’t known, but he didn’t look angry or tense so she’d allowed it, even though she probably looked like a rabid opossum with wild hair.
He'd left for the day and she’d indeed fallen asleep for an hour more. She was in the middle of eating her slightly-stale cornbread breakfast when a knock echoed off the door.
“Who is it?” she asked.
