Valor (A Greystone Novel)

by Taylor Longford

  Chapter Eighteen

  I woke up in Valor's arms. He could have carried me over to the bed at some point in the night and I wouldn't have known. I was dead to the world. Instead, he'd held me through the night. I thought it was pretty romantic.

  "Helped keep me awake during my watch," he explained before he collapsed in my bed.

  And as I watched him stretched out on my quilt, I came to the realization that in-Valor's-arms was where I wanted to be…as in always.

  Sadly, the guys had to go back in their crates early in the morning while the sun was still shining into the garage. Greg had told me he wanted my mother to check the statues when she got home so they had to be in the boxes and ready to be checked. My mom was arriving in Denver on a noon flight and would be home before two.

  None of them were keen to change into their old clothing and return to their stone forms but Valor was especially reluctant. I could tell he was worried about harpies and hated leaving me without protection.

  "My mother will be here," I pointed out. "As well as Hooligan. And as soon as she leaves on Thursday morning, I'll come downstairs, open the garage and let you out."

  He was the last one to go into his crate, helping me to close up the rest of the boxes first. Before he stepped into his wooden packing container, he knelt in front of Hooli and held his furry face between his hands. "Take care of MacKenzie, Hooligan."

  Hooligan gave a soft bark like he understood. It should have helped Valor's mood but he still seemed tense as he stepped into his crate and helped me attach the bottom panel. I'd hoped he might kiss me goodbye but he eyed the open garage doors with a resigned look. I could tell he didn't want to kiss me in case a harpy was out there, watching. "Don't let anything happen to you, Kenz. You're too important to me."

  I hated to see him so worried. "Everything will be fine," I reassured him.

  "Take care of yourself," he commanded as he crossed his arms over his chest and assumed his original scowling pose.

  I tacked the top panel into place and sighed as I returned the hammer to the tool chest. Then before I went back in the house, I started my car and parked it in the driveway so my mother could pull her Subaru into the garage.

  Inside the house, I whipped through the rooms and checked to make sure there was no sign of gargoyle invasion. The guys had straightened their rooms and stashed their bows under their beds. Their old clothes were buried in the bottoms of drawers and my dad's tools were back in the garage. I rounded up their notebooks and readers and stacked them at the back of my bedroom closet.

  I was ready for my mom when she pulled up the driveway a few hours later, and met her in the garage. "You bring me anything?" I teased.

  She knew I was kidding. She'd decided when my brother and I were young that she wouldn't start bringing gifts home when she traveled because she traveled so often and she didn't want the house filled with a bunch of knickknacks that would gather dust. My mother isn't big on housecleaning.

  "Just a hug," she answered as she pulled me into a big squeeze. "What have you been doing? I want to hear all the news and gossip from school."

  In the kitchen, she fixed a pot of tea for us while I sank down on a barstool and brought her up to date. My mom believes in keeping up with what's going on. And since my grades are seldom an issue, she keeps track of who's going out with who.

  "What about Whitney?" she asked. "Is she still seeing Michael?"

  I shook my head. "She only went out with him once."

  "Mim?" she asked hopefully as she handed me a cup of steaming tea.

  I almost shook my head again then changed my mind. "I think she's met someone who likes her. His name is Dare Greystone."

  "Sounds cute," she said. "What about you?"

  "Me?" I asked, almost choking on my tea. "What about me?"

  "You look different," she said after taking a sip from her cup.

  "What do you mean?"

  She tilted her head and pursed her lips shrewdly. "You look happy. In fact, you almost look like you're glowing. You haven't…found a boyfriend, have you?"

  My mom is such a ridiculous romantic you wouldn't believe it. She's always reminding me how Romeo and Juliet were only fifteen years old. I like to point out that Romeo thought he was in love with Rosaline approximately two minutes before he met Juliet.

  "Actually, I have met someone," I admitted, and sat a little straighter on the barstool.

  All excited, she sat down on the stool beside me. "Is it someone from school?"

  "Nooo," I answered.

  "Someone from Platte Valley?" she asked, meaning the high school closest to Pine Grove.

  "No," I responded. "He doesn't go to school."

  She frowned slightly but the twinkle in her eye was still there. "How old is this guy?"

  "About eighteen," I told her.

  "About eighteen?" she exclaimed. "Don't you know?"

  "He's eighteen," I improvised quickly.

  "An older guy, huh? But he doesn't go to school." True to character, she skipped the dropout issue and went right to, "Is he going to college?"

  "No," I answered and realized my mystery boyfriend must not sound like much of a prize, even to my mother.

  "Does he have a job?"

  "Kind of. He's done a lot of hunting and he thinks he can make a living selling handmade bows."

  Mom considered that for a few seconds before saying, "Well, that's not so bad."

  Like I said, my mom is a hopeless romantic.

  "What does he look like?" she asked enthusiastically.

  I leaned toward her and hoped the gargoyles couldn't hear me from their crates in the garage. "He's pretty cute," I admitted, thinking that was the understatement of the year.

  "As cute as this Dare Greystone who likes Mim?"

  "They're brothers," I told her in a conspiratorial whisper. "His name's Valor."

  "Dare and Valor," she murmured thoughtfully as she slipped from the barstool and stepped behind the kitchen counter. "Unusual names."

  I snuffed out my snicker of amusement. If she thought those two names were unusual, I certainly wasn't going to tell her about Havoc…or Defiance. "They're actually Trevor's friends," I said, thinking my lies to Mim should probably match my lies to my mother, in case they ran into each other.

  Her head disappeared below the counter as she rummaged through the cupboards. "Your cousin Trevor…from England?"

  "Yes. That's how I met them. Trevor gave them my contact information and they…looked me up when they got here."

  "How does spaghetti sound?" she asked as she pulled a can of tomato sauce from below the counter.

  "Sounds good to me."

  "So they're British," she mused. She took a can opener from the drawer next to the fridge. "How long have they been here?"

  "Not too long," I answered then realized there probably wasn't much bow hunting in England. This lying business was complicated. "But long enough to have done some bow hunting."

  Mom started some spaghetti sauce for dinner and we left it on the stove while we went out to the garage to open the crates. Evidently, Greg wanted her to report back to him as soon as possible. Together, we opened one side of each tall, wooden box.

  "Wow," she said, clearly awed as she gazed at Havoc in the last crate.

  "What kind of stone do you think they're made of?" I asked her, remembering my initial curiosity about the flint-like material.

  "It looks like chalcedony, but…"

  "But what?"

  "It's unusual to see a chunk this big, let alone several chunks this big."

  I hadn't realized that.

  "The detail is incredible. They're so lifelike and each of them has so much personality."

  "Do you think so?" I asked.

  She nodded as she looked at Havoc. "This one is the character of the group, the one most likely to get into trouble." She stepped over to the box that held Defiance. "This is the bad boy."

  "Bad boy?" I questioned as I tilted my head and considered Def
iance. Now that I thought about it, he was kind of aloof and even…aristocratic.

  "This is the strong one. The decision maker," she declared, correctly picking out Victor. "He has a quiet look of command in his eyes."

  Knowing Victor could see me, I grinned at him.

  "This one has no wings so that makes him the fallen angel," she announced when she reached Dare's crate. "He understands suffering and that makes him sensitive toward others."

  "What about the last one?" I asked swiftly, not wanting her to dwell on Dare's suffering.

  She walked over to Valor's crate and shook her head. "This one looks like he's carrying a world of worry on his shoulders."

  I felt a stab of guilt. I couldn't help but feel responsible for the dark look of concern in Valor's eyes.

  "These sculptures are really beautiful," my mom said. "I wish…"

  "What?" I asked.

  "I wish we could take them inside and just…enjoy them."

  I nodded. That would be a good idea since we could place the gargoyles in front of the windows and then they'd be able to wake up right away if anything happened…well, as long as it happened in the daytime. On the other hand, they might be safer in the garage. I didn't want a harpy breaking through our windows at night and grabbing one of the guys. "Greg would probably prefer they were in the garage," I said. "Locked up where nobody can see them."

  "Nobody will see them in the house," she argued and looked at me like she couldn't understand what I was thinking. She had a point. The house is a long way from the road. But she was thinking about our neighbors. I was worried about harpies.

  "Which one's your favorite?" I asked.

  "This one," she answered, and stepped over to Dare's crate. "I think he's the most beautiful."

  "Really?" I'd expected her to pick Victor but I guess the golden gargoyle looked better in living color than he did in gray stone.

  "It's close," she admitted. "They're all fabulous. But it's between this one and the one who looks like his brother." She pointed to the statue of Valor.

  I had to smile. My mother's pretty observant.

  We went back inside and I gave the spaghetti sauce a stir while Mom called Greg. When she asked if we could bring one of the statues into the house, he insisted we leave them crated up in their boxes. He explained the crates were marked so that he'd know which sculpture was in which crate.

  I asked her to find out if he'd shipped out anything else since yesterday but he said he was going to do that on Monday.

  While mom was home for the next four days, we did some after-school shopping and saw a couple of movies at one of the theatres on the west side of Denver. It was great to have my mother home but I missed the guys. I couldn't believe I hadn't taken them to a theatre yet. And when we ate out at our favorite restaurant, I wondered how they'd like Chinese food.

  Most of all, I missed Valor's presence in my room at night. Hooli seemed to miss him too. He laid his big head on my French provincial chair and sighed while a mournful sound whined in his chest. "Never mind," I told Hooligan. "He'll be back soon."

  I got up early on Thursday to see my mother off. Winter was definitely coming. I could see my breath as I stood at the edge of the garage and waved goodbye. But as soon as the red Subaru disappeared around the bend in the driveway, I raced for the tool chest and grabbed the hammer.

  I was wearing a bright, electric blue top I'd picked up on a recent shopping trip with my mother. Blue looked good on me and I wore it often, but I'd chosen this particular top because the intense color matched Valor's eyes. The neckline was a bit low but Mom didn't think I was "giving everything away", as she put it. In fact, she insisted on paying for it.

  I opened Valor's box first and actually got a big, long hug as he swept me off my feet and swung me around a few times. It was definitely a Hallmark moment even though I didn't get the kiss I was hoping for. At the end of all the swinging, he stood me up and held me away from his body as his gaze dropped to my new top then back to my face.

  "You look amazing," he murmured. "And…and…"

  "Jolly awesome?" I helped him out.

  "Jolly awesome," he confirmed with a breathless laugh as he glanced down at my top again. "That color totally suits you."

  "I totally does," I agreed, meaning the color of his eyes and not my new top. "Let's open the rest of the crates. I have some places I want to take you guys."

  So we got to work and it felt like a class reunion when we were all back together again. And that night we celebrated with Chinese food as well as a movie.