Page 52 of Guarded by My Gargoyle

“You do.” She pushed the hat back and kissed the dirty top of his head. Then she looked over it at Garrick. He’d risen to his full height, and the look he was giving the two of them was warm enough to make her chest ache. “Thank you,” she mouthed at him. He inclined his head a little, but he didn’t say it was nothing because he knew better.

She bent down to Toby’s level, her hands on his narrow shoulders, and knew the decision she’d made earlier that afternoon was the right one.

“Toby. How would you like to have a sleepover tonight?”

His eyes widened. “A sleepover?”

“With Robin and Eric. And Birdie.” She’d texted Robin from the client’s driveway, and Robin had answered with three exclamation points and a photograph of the baby grinning from ear to ear. “Birdie’s little, littler than Dot’s baby sister, and Robin says⁠—”

“Dot’s baby sister can’t even walk, she just—” Toby demonstrated a wobbly step and then a dramatic collapse. “But Dot says babies are very interesting if you have the patience. I have the patience,” he said definitely. “Can I really sleep over? At their house? In the forest?”

“At their house in the forest. Eric’s going to come get you in a little while, bug.” She smoothed his hair. “I’ll give you a quick shower before you go, but you’ll need your bag. Go start putting your things by the door, all right? Toothbrush. The bear. Clean socks.”

“The bear,” Toby agreed, in the tone of a general listing his most vital troops. He rushed off towards the gate with the hard hat still jammed on his head, already narrating a list of necessities to himself under his breath.

She rose and found Garrick was watching her. The garden had gone very quiet around them, the light thick as honey through the roses.

“Sleepover,” he said, his voice carefully neutral. Gold surfaced in his eyes.

“He’s been asking about babies for a month.” She busied herself brushing dust off her thighs so she didn’t have to hold his gaze. “Robin thought it would be fun, and I thought it would be good for him.”

“It is good for him,” he agreed, evenly.

“So.” She made herself look up. Her heart was going like she’d run the length of the garden. “You watched my son all day and helped him build a distinguished bed. Let me cook you dinner.”

The gold filled his eyes, and his shoulders shifted as if his wings were straining to be free.

“I’ll cook,” he said quietly.

“You’ve been cooking for a five-year-old all day.”

“I want to cook for you.” The way he said it made the honey light seem to gather closer around them both. “Come up to the house after Eric’s got him.”

“After Eric’s got him,” she echoed, her voice soft and low. Neither of them tried to pretend it was about the food.

Eric came at dusk, looking genuinely pleased about having a second child in the house. He shouldered Toby’s small bag and the bear and let Toby explain, at length and without a single pause for air, the correct way to be interesting to a baby. “Sound advice,” Eric said gravely, buckling him in, and touched two fingers to his brow at her. “He’s in good hands. We’ll have him back after breakfast. Not early.” A teasing grin broke through. “Take your time.”

He drove off before she could throw something at the truck.

She stood in the empty drive with the taillights shrinking down the road and the dust settling, and her pulse thundering in her ears. Then she showered and stood in front of her closet for way too long before settling on a long rose floral skirt and a soft pink sweater. She told herself it was because it was polite to dress for dinner, and knew it wasn’t the reason, and wore it anyway.

The kitchen at Stonehaven had come alive under Garrick’s hands the way the garden had come alive under hers. Scrubbed wood and warm copper, and a range that could have fed the town. He moved through it without hitting his wings on anything, which she found absurdly endearing. When she arrived, he was chopping onions with a knife the size of a machete that looked like a paring knife in his hand.

“Sit,” he said, without turning. “There’s wine open.”

She sat at the end of the long scrubbed table where he’d set two glasses, and poured them both a glass. She watched the broad plane of his back and the fold of his wings at rest, and the way his muscles moved beneath his shirt as he bent over the stove. Onion and butter went into the pan and the smell of it filled the kitchen. The house felt warm and lived in, nothing like the enormous silent place she’d first imagined beyond the wall.

“You built him a bed,” she said.

“I helped him build it. He needed a project. I had stone.” He set the wooden spoon down and smiled at her. “He talks, once he decides you’re safe. A lot.” He looked back at the onions, his expression unreadable. “He told me about the garden in Charleston. The one they paved. He was sorry about it. For you.” The light caught the gold still burning low in his eyes. “He notices everything, your boy.”

“He gets it from watching people who don’t watch him back.” The words came out sharper and sadder than she meant, and she softened them by tipping her glass at him. “You watch him back.”

“Yes.”

“Every time.”

“Yes.”