Aric wordlessly nodded, wrapping his hand around mine as we slipped through the house. Sami’s door was open a crack, and she appeared to be fast asleep when I risked a glance in her room. Trouble, his head resting on her thigh as he watched the door, thumped his tail, but didn’t make a move to greet us. I didn’t mind the dog’s disinterest. I wanted him loyal to Sami above all else. If something should happen, if ever there was an occasion where both Aric and I fell, Trouble would be Sami’s last line of defense.
“She’s okay,” Aric whispered, kissing my cheek. “Let her sleep.”
I let Aric drag me from the room and toward the living room. Helen, her eyes shut, relaxed in a chair with some knitting project forgotten on her lap. I considered waking her, but she must’ve sensed our presence because she opened her eyes and offered us a wan smile.
“Is everything all right?”
Aric shrugged. “The car is being chopped right now. In a few hours it will be done. The yard is clear … the house is clean … I think it’s as good as it’s going to get.”
“Well, that’s good.” Helen shifted in her chair, stretching. “Do you think the police will ask questions?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Aric answered. He sounded weary, as if the day was finally catching up to him. “If they do, you should pretend you have no idea what they’re talking about. That you’ve never heard of these people other than Sami occasionally mentioning Becca. We’ll handle the rest.”
“That’s fine. But what will you say?”
“That Corinne and Becca stopped by for a play date,” I automatically answered. “I had tea with Corinne and talked about the town and area. Becca and Sami hung around outside. They stayed for an hour and then left.”
Helen didn’t look convinced. “Do you think they’ll believe that?”
“They won’t have a choice,” I replied, stifling a yawn. “We have no motive, and they won’t be able to prove otherwise. There’s no evidence so … .”
“It will be okay.” Aric moved his hand up and down my back, rubbing soothing circles. “We engaged the security system, so we should be okay for the night. You should go to bed, Mom. Although … where’s Dad? I thought you said he was coming tonight.”
“He was delayed,” Helen explained. “It was some late vote on the senate floor, nothing to do with you. There’s no need to worry.”
“Do I look worried?” Aric arched an eyebrow. “We’ve been through this before. I’m not worried.”
I had my doubts, but I didn’t voice them. He was definitely worried. I was, too. Should the cops arrive at the house and question us, we’d pass muster. We’d done it before. Sami was another story. She was overwrought. If she said the wrong thing … well, we might find ourselves in a fight of another kind.
“You look exhausted,” Helen said after a beat, her eyes traveling to me. “You both look exhausted.”
“We’ll be fine after a good night’s sleep.” Aric gripped my hip and turned me toward the hallway that led to our bedroom. “We’re going to bed. We’ll have a lot to discuss over breakfast when Dad gets here.”
“I’m going to bed, too.” Helen left her knitting project on the chair and shuffled toward us, giving me a sympathetic pat on the arm as she passed. “Sleep well. Your father will be here early. I’ll handle breakfast.”
“Thank you.” The words were quiet but heartfelt as I locked gazes with Helen. “You always come running whenever we have trouble, which is often. I just … thank you.”
“Oh, dear, don’t worry about that,” Helen clucked. “We’re family. That means we’re bonded forever.”
“Yes, well, thank you anyway.”
Aric immediately stripped off his shirt the moment we crossed the threshold to our bedroom. I quietly shut the door before sinking into the chair in the corner of the room. I leaned my head back and sighed, closing my eyes as I let the day’s events wash over me.
I could sleep here, I mused. Helen was right about the exhaustion. My body wasn’t tired – I didn’t do much in the way of physical exertion, after all – but my head felt heavy.
“Here.” I jolted when I felt Aric kneel in front of me, widening my eyes when I realized he was already down to his boxer shorts. He tugged off my shoes and placed them next to the chair before reaching for the button of my shorts. I wordlessly lifted my hips and let him strip them from me. I leaned forward when he went for my shirt, groaning when I felt his fingers dig into my shoulders once my skin was bare.
“That feels good,” I murmured.
“Relax, baby.” Aric climbed onto the chair behind me, nudging me forward with his hips so I could settle between his legs. Once comfortable, his fingers dug into my stressed flesh and I lost myself in the rhythm of his hands for a long time. “It’s okay,” he whispered, brushing his lips against my cheek. “It’s okay.”
I floated after that and I must’ve fallen asleep at some point because I barely stirred when he lifted me from the chair and carried me to the bed. I felt him climb in next to me, wrapping his body behind mine to offer me warmth before deep sleep claimed me.
Tomorrow was another day, another potential enemy on the horizon. We both needed rest, and there was nothing left to do tonight. With that, I let it go … and slipped into a happy dream with Aric. We didn’t share happy dream memories often these days – it was something we did regularly when I found out I was pregnant with Sami and we wanted to enjoy an adventure – but we did it tonight.
I was glad for it.
I WOKE FEELING better than I had the previous night. I took a few minutes to study Aric’s strong profile as he slept. He was a ridiculously handsome man, kind and big-hearted. Not for the first time, I wondered what I did to deserve him.
As if sensing my mushy thoughts, Aric opened his eyes and offered me a slow smile. “Good morning.”
“Morning.” I traced my finger over his jaw. “Did you sleep well?”
“I slept hard,” Aric answered. “I liked the memory you picked, by the way. That last summer at the resort was a lot of fun.”
Hmm. That’s weird. “I thought you picked the memory,” I admitted. “I was convinced you did because you spent that entire summer shirtless.”
Aric chuckled, the sound warm and throaty. “Maybe we instinctively picked it together.”
“I think you’re suggesting we’re codependent.”
“Oh, my wife, that ship sailed a long time ago.” Aric moved his arm so I could rest my chin on his chest. “How do you feel?”
“Don’t worry about me,” I chided. “I’m okay. I’m sorry I had that mini-meltdown yesterday. It wasn’t planned. I won’t do it again.”
“You can do it as often as you need to do it,” Aric countered. “I have meltdowns, too.”
“You? When?”
“Why do you think I chop so much wood?” Aric challenged. “I need an outlet for when I’m feeling frustrated, and I choose to do it with exercise. You generally do it with chocolate and snarky comments. We all adapt to our strengths.”
I giggled, genuinely amused. “Chocolate does sound good. I wonder what your mother is fixing for breakfast.”
“I hope it’s pancakes.”
“I hope it’s eggs, hash browns and bacon.”
“That sounds good, too.”
We lapsed into comfortable silence, our hearts beating in tandem as I ran my fingertips over his bare chest.
“Do you know what’s funny?” I asked after a few minutes.
“Melissa McCarthy?”
“Besides her.”
“What?”
“When I first met you, I was always uncomfortable because the mere sight of you made my palms sweat and my heart race,” I volunteered. “I felt as if my tongue was too big for my mouth and wondered if I would ever stop saying stupid things simply because you were close.”
Aric’s chest rumbled. “I think you’re saying I made you nervous.”
“You did. You challenged me, and I was wildly attracted to yo
u.”
Aric kissed my forehead. “I felt the same way. I swear I felt as if my skin was humming whenever you were around.”
“I still feel as if my skin hums when you’re around,” I offered. “The difference is, instead of feeling nervous, I feel comfortable and safe. You did that for me.”
“Oh, someone is feeling schmaltzy this morning.” Aric moved my arm so he could roll on top of me, smothering me with the warmth of his large body and kissing my nose. “For the record, you make me feel comfortable and safe, too. That’s because you’re my home. It’s not the house … or the land … or even this bed. It’s you.”
I arched an eyebrow. “And you say I’m schmaltzy.”
“You are schmaltzy.” Aric pressed a soft kiss to my mouth. “We feel comfortable and safe together because this … this right here … is home. That’s never going to change.”
“I know.” I tightened my arms around his waist. “I know we need to check on Helen and Sami, but … I don’t suppose you want to clean the house real quick, do you? I could use the contact.”
Aric’s grin was sly. “I have every intention of cleaning the house. It won’t be quick, though. You insult me, woman!”
I giggled, the sound filling the room as Aric snuggled closer. “I love you.”
“I love you more. Now … do you want me to start with the windows or the floors?”
“YOU TWO look much better.” Helen looked relieved, a spatula in her hand as she stood by the stove and greeted us in the kitchen an hour later.
My hair was still damp from the shower, but I felt like my old self again, which was a relief, because Sami clearly felt like her normal self, too. She sat at the kitchen island, her hair messy from sleep as she drank a glass of orange juice. I would need all of my strength to deal with her this morning.
“What have you been doing?” Sami went on the offensive right away.
Aric lifted an eyebrow as he moved toward the refrigerator. “We’ve been sleeping. What have you been doing?”
Sami shifted her eyes to the clock. “It’s almost nine. You guys never sleep that late on a weekday.”
“Yes, well, neither one of us has to work today,” Aric said, grabbing jugs of tomato and orange juice from the refrigerator shelf and moving them to the counter. “Since when do you watch our morning activities so closely?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Sami rolled her eyes in a manner I recognized from my childhood. With each passing day she looked more and more like Aric – the transformation happening now that she’d shifted for the first time seemed almost magical – but she sounded more and more like me. My mother always told me I’d be paid back for my mouth by a daughter of my own one day. I didn’t believe her then … but I did now.
“Well, we were sleeping,” Aric said, offering me a sly wink as he shoved a glass of tomato juice in my direction. “We had a long day yesterday.”
“You mean when you chopped off my new friend’s head with an ax?”
Aric had clearly prepared himself for Sami’s attitude. He didn’t rise to the obvious bait. “I mean that your mother and I were out late taking care of a few things. That reminds me, we need to have a discussion about what you’re going to say should the police drop by the house.”
The notion that cops might show up to question her was clearly a new one for Sami. She widened her eyes as she considered the scenario. “But … do you think that will happen?”
“I have no idea,” Aric replied, opting for honesty. “They were sphinxes. They’re not the first sphinxes we’ve run into, and they very well may not be the last. They were tied to a sphinx from a long time ago.
“My guess is that if anyone is looking for them, like a husband and father perhaps, he knew why they were coming here and what probably happened,” he continued. “He wouldn’t be smart to cause problems, because that would force us to go after him, But … you never know what people are thinking.”
“Did Becca have a father?” I asked Sami, legitimately curious.
“She never talked about her father,” Sami replied, playing with the ring of condensation her juice glass left on the counter. She looked conflicted. “She only talked about her mother.”
“Well, that might be good for us,” Aric noted. “If it was just the two of them we might not get visitors at all, because no one will report them missing.”
Sami balked. “But … how does that work? Are you saying no one will know they’re gone?”
The idea was too much for her to wrap her brain around, and I felt a momentary twinge of sympathy. “We don’t know,” I supplied. “Sphinxes are somewhat rare from what I remember. Becca’s father may have died years ago or he might be someplace else. What we can’t do is look suspicious.”
“So what do you want me to say if the cops show up?” Sami was resigned. “Do you want me to lie and say they were never here?”
“No, because that might backfire on us if Corinne told someone she was visiting,” I answered. “If the cops show up we’ll tell them that Corinne and Becca arrived and the visit was quick, about an hour. I had tea with Corinne and you played with Becca in the yard.”
Sami shot me a dirty look. “I’m twelve. I don’t play.”
“You’ll find, daughter, that you play well into adulthood,” Aric countered. “Your mother and I play games all of the time.”
“Sex games don’t count.” Sami said the words quickly, and I could tell she regretted them when she saw the way Aric’s eyes flashed. “I mean … um … .”
“You’re definitely done watching Outlander,” Aric muttered, making me smile.
“Outlander?” Helen perked up as she flipped hash browns in the skillet. “I love that show. It’s just so … romantic.”
Aric made a disgusted face. “You like the sex scenes, too, huh? Apparently Zoe and my daughter can’t get enough of them.”
Sami was appropriately scandalized. “I don’t watch for the sex scenes. I watch for the history lessons.”
I couldn’t swallow my laughter. “You watch because you want your own guy in a skirt,” I countered. “Admit it.”
“No way!” Sami made an exaggerated face. “I’m interested in history. I … why don’t you believe that?”
“Because the only reason to watch that show is the sex,” I said. “I can barely focus on the story when I’m watching, quite frankly.”
“I didn’t even know it had a story,” Helen admitted, much to Aric’s chagrin.
“Thank you for scarring me for life, Mother,” Aric snapped, shaking his head. He opened his mouth to say something else, but the sound of a vehicle door slamming shut at the front of the house caused him to shift his attention in that direction.
“That must be James,” Helen said, brightening. “I was starting to wonder if he’d forgotten the way here.”
“Finally someone who won’t embarrass me,” Sami muttered, moving to hop off her stool. “Grandpa will understand my pain.”
That’s not how she felt a few weeks ago, when she overheard James admit that he always wanted a grandson and Sami wasn’t enough. James worked overtime to regain Sami’s trust in the intervening weeks, though, and she was back to being a spoiled grandpa’s girl.
“I think you should tell Grandpa how you watch that show for the history,” I suggested. “I’m dying to know what he thinks.”
“You’re so … gross.” Sami wrinkled her nose, her scowl turning to a smile as James let himself in the house and she bolted toward him. “Grandpa! Mom and Dad are being mean to me, and I’ve never been so happy to see anyone in my entire life.”
James readily accepted the hug. “That goes double for me, little one.” He turned his attention to the rest of us. “So, what did I miss?”
Five
James lovingly stroked the back of Sami’s head as she hugged him. He’d been out in the cold for far too long and clearly didn’t want to go back to living in the doghouse. That didn’t stop him from shifting his confused eyes to Aric and me.
“We’re fine,” Aric replied, sliding onto the stool next to me and wrapping his ankle around mine. He was in a touchy-feely mood but didn’t want to get the stink-eye from his father, mother or daughter. “Zoe got a few scratches on her face but healed them quickly. No one else was hurt.”
“Um, I think you’re forgetting about the girl who lost her head,” Sami snapped, releasing James. “I think that hurt.”
Aric pressed the tip of his tongue to his teeth as he debated how to answer. I could practically see the inner struggle as he debated how to handle the situation. Sami was partially in shock, although she didn’t know it. She responded by being snarky – something she gets from me – and attacking anyone who dared disagree with her. By the way, she gets that from me, too. I’m not proud.
“She was a sphinx, Sami,” Aric supplied. “She was moving to attack you from behind. What did you want me to do? Should I have let her rip your throat out?”
Sami shifted, uncomfortable with the question. “How do you know she was going to attack me? She might’ve been running to the house because she heard her mother and wanted to help for all you know.”
“She was attacking,” Aric argued. “Her eyes went black. She bared her teeth. She made a weird growling sound.”
“Maybe she realized her mother was in trouble,” Sami challenged, refusing to back down. Her stubborn streak she gets from both Aric and me. She got a double dose, and we have no one to blame but ourselves. “She might’ve sensed something bad was happening in the house.”
“She did sense something bad was going on in the house,” I interjected, keeping my tone calm. “She sensed that her mother was dying … because that’s what was happening.”
“See.” Sami crossed her arms over her chest. “She was trying to save her mother.”
“She was going after you,” Aric corrected. “I saw the entire thing. She wasn’t running toward the house to save her mother. She was trying to kill you because … well … that’s what they came for.”
Sami tilted her head to the side, considering. “No. Mom said that Becca knew her mother was dying. Becca liked me. I know it.”
Dying Covenant: The Complete Series Page 57
