Bound Guardian Angel (28 page)

She opened her eyes and stared at Mya’s
long, elegant fingers wrapped around hers. If only she could
feel.

But then, she could, couldn’t she? With
Trace.

“I can feel him,” she said quietly.

“Who?”

She sighed and lifted her gaze to Mya’s.
“Trace. When he touches me, I feel it.”

Mya pulled in a gentle gasp. “That’s good,
isn’t it?”

She frowned. “How is that good?”

Confusion tore at Mya’s expression.
“Because . . . you can feel him.” She spoke slowly,
as if she thought it should be obvious that this was good news, not
a death sentence. “You can’t feel anybody, so yeah, this sounds
like a good thing to me.”

“Didn’t you hear me? Don’t you get it? He
doesn’t want me. He hates me. If I give in to this, he’s just going
to hurt me.” She shook her head, eyes closed. “I barely survived
Gideon. If I allow Trace in, it will kill me when he rejects me.
And he
will
reject me. It’s inevitable.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do. I’m the reason he got arrested.
I’m the one who got him thrown into Bain’s dungeon. Which means
he’s not my number one fan, and I’m not his.”

“But if he’s as attracted to you as you seem
to be to him, all that shit’s water under the bridge.”

The day Trace let what she’d done to him
become water under the bridge would be the day no water remained
anywhere on the planet.

“I doubt that’s the case.”

Mya let go of her hand. “Maybe you’re just
too chicken to find out.”

To hell with that. “I’m anything but a
chicken, Mya. You know that.”

Mya shrugged. “If the shoe fits.” She pushed
off the bed, grabbed the laundry basket, and headed toward the
hallway.

“Just drop it, Mya.”

“Fine.” Mya stopped in the doorway and
looked over her shoulder. “But you like him. You can’t deny that.”
Mya turned on her heel, stepped into the hall, and shut the door
behind her.

Cordray glared at the door for at least a
minute.

Mya was a dear friend, but that didn’t mean
she knew everything, or that she had the right to get in Cordray’s
face about things that didn’t concern her.

Still, she was right. She did like
Trace.

And didn’t admitting that sit like angry
lizards on her gut?

Cordray reluctantly stood and walked toward
the window, where she slipped her fingers between two faux wooden
slats and split them so she could peek outside. Trace picked Null
up and placed him in the wheelbarrow. Aiden was already in it. Then
Trace got behind the handles, lifted them, and pushed them farther
down the fence to where another rail needed to be replaced.

He was good with Null and Aiden. Better than
she thought he would be.

But he was awakening parts of her she
thought had died a long time ago.

She felt as if she had never moved on. That
she was still the young, innocent, and terribly naïve
pre-transitional girl she’d been with Gideon. For all her
bravado—for all her toughness and blustery rough talk—she was just
another insecure kid. One who’d been required to divide her
father’s time with another family, who had been abandoned by love,
and had lost every aspect of life that made it worth living.

Cordray smiled as Trace hoisted Null out of
the wheelbarrow and spun him around. She heard Null’s peals of
laughter as he spread his arms and legs in midair. Aiden bounded
toward them, her arms outstretched. Trace set Null down before
picking up Aiden and spinning her, too.

Yes, Trace was fucking up everything. He was
opening her heart again. He was making her smile, giving her a
false sense of hope that there was more to life than this
self-imposed loneliness she had surrounded herself with. He was
allowing her to think she could have it all.

But that was a pipe dream. What she’d had
with Gideon hadn’t been real. If it had been, he wouldn’t have
mated someone else. And now, here came Trace, like a knight in
shining armor, to drag her from the tower prison as if she were
Rapunzel or Cinderella or whatever sissy-faced fairy-tale maiden
had allowed herself to be treated like shit and captured by evil
forces.

Cordray wasn’t a damsel in distress. And
Trace wasn’t Prince Valiant. And life wasn’t a fairy tale. In real
life, the prince saved the princess and then left her after falling
in love with someone else. That’s how it was, and that was why she
couldn’t let Trace rescue her now.

But he was damn good with the children.

Too damn good.

Spinning, laughing, and tossing their little
bodies in the air and catching them as they screeched for “More!”
and “Higher!”

He would make a wonderful father.

A heartwarming mate.

She let the blinds flap shut then climbed
into bed, pulling the blankets halfway up her body as she settled
her head on her pillow.

She did like Trace. She liked him a lot.

And she wanted to feel the pleasure he could
give her.

Maybe she could feel it now.

Slipping her hand under the covers and
inside the waist of her pants, she closed her eyes and tried to
imagine Trace touching her. Tried to feel . . .
something. Anything.

But her long-dormant sex drive refused to
budge. Without Trace doing the honors, she was a frigid, dried-up
desert. No physical sensation whatsoever. Just . . .
nothing. Not even numbness. Her libido was like a massive void. No
spark.

She stopped trying.

Just let her fingers go lax against her
mound.

Then she broke down in pathetic sobs.

She was that heartbroken, unfeeling, lonely
girl she’d been that night in the woods.

The night Gideon shattered her heart and
stole her sense of touch forever.

Chapter 15

Trace tossed the last broken rail into the
wheelbarrow and stuffed the hammer through the loop in the tool
belt he’d found in the barn. Null and Aiden were busying themselves
poking sticks in a shallow mound of muddy dirt.

His stomach rumbled, and he pulled out his
phone to check the time. It was almost eleven thirty. What time did
they eat lunch around here?

“Twace! Twace! Look what I found!” Null
darted toward him, holding a flat, brownish rock in his tiny
hand.

“What’s that, little man?” He knelt and held
his hand out, palm up.

Null placed his small treasure in his palm
and beamed as if he’d found a lump of gold. “It’s an
awwowhead.”

“So it is.” Trace rolled the arrowhead
between his fingers, admiring it, reminded of his time with the
Choctaw. “Do you know what kind of stone the Indians used to make
arrowheads like this?” He held it out so Null could take it
back.

“No.” The little boy squinted up at him.

Trace tapped the tip of his index finger on
the arrowhead. “They used flint, or even a type of rock called
obsidian, or another called chert, which contains fossils. Do you
know what fossils are?”

“Like dinosaur bones?” Aiden said, joining
them.

“Something like that, but the kinds of
fossils in chert are smaller. Like seashells and bird bones.”

Null eyed his arrowhead as if searching for
evidence of fossils. “Is this chewt?” He lifted his gaze
questioningly to Trace’s again. It was adorable how his tiny mouth
couldn’t handle the letter R, but someday he would grow out of
that.

“I don’t think so. I think this is
flint.”

Null examined the arrowhead again then
looked up, beaming. “Wanna see my wock cowwection?” It seemed R
wasn’t the only letter he had trouble with.

Before Trace could answer, Null grabbed his
thumb and tugged him toward the main house as Aiden brought up the
rear, never letting her brother get too far away from her.

The smell of corn chowder and garlic bread
assaulted his nose as he followed Null inside. Mya was in the
kitchen tending to the stove.

She turned, and her gaze swiftly inspected
them as if she were in the habit of making sure no one tracked dirt
inside. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

Null hardly slowed as he galloped through
the kitchen. “Twace wants to see my wock cowwection.”

He shrugged helplessly as Aiden took his
free hand and pulled him along.

Who could resist these two?

Mya grinned at him, shaking her head.
“You’ve gone and done it now.”

“Done what?”

“Made two new best friends.” Her eyes
sparkled as she suppressed a smile.

“Yeah, looks that way.” He nodded toward the
soup pot. “Smells good.” He’d have to see if he could get the
recipe.

Null stopped and faced him, tugging harder
on his hand. “Come on, Twace!”

Mya held her finger over her mouth.
“Sssshhh. You need to be quiet. Cordray’s sleeping.”

The beast actually slept?

Null hung his head. “Sowwy.”

Mya went back to stirring the soup.
“Remember, quiet feet on the stairs. And only whispers.” She
stepped back and checked inside the oven. “And don’t be too long.
Lunch will be ready in a few minutes. So get washed up and hurry
back.”

Lunch. Thank God. Trace’s stomach had been
rumbling for the past hour.

Null yanked his hand again, pulled him
through the dining room, the living room, and upstairs to a room
outfitted with two small beds.

“Is this your room?” he said, feeling like
Gandalf in Bilbo Baggins’ hobbit hole. Everything was so tiny.

Aiden opened a toy box under the window and
pulled out a stuffed Pooh Bear as Null dropped to his knees and
dragged a small plastic storage bin from under his bed.

“No. My woom is in the school.” Null
gestured toward the backyard without looking up. “But Aidy and I
take naps and play in hewe sometimes.” He popped the blue lid off
the box and dropped it on the wooden floor.

“Sshh.” Trace placed his hand on the lid,
quieting it. “Remember, Coco’s sleeping.”

Null’s wide eyes peered toward the door.
“Sowwy.” Then his little hands dove into the box of rocks.

What an impressive collection. He had all
kinds and sizes.

“This is my favowite.” Null held up what
appeared to be an unremarkable, jagged rock, but when he turned it
over, sparkles of fool’s gold covered the other side.

Trace reached inside the box and pulled out
a small, shiny piece of what looked like rose quartz. “Where did
you find this one?”

“In the gawden.”

“You know,” Trace said, sifting through the
pile. “When I was a kid, I collected rocks, too.”

“You did?”

“Yep. I didn’t have as many as you do,
though. I kept them in a leather pouch my father made for me.”

He smiled at the memory. His parents hadn’t
been overtly compassionate, but they’d loved him. He knew that now,
and remembering the small things his father did for him made him
see things in a different light than he had at eight or ten or even
twelve years old.

He should visit him, but he just wasn’t
ready, especially now that he knew Brak was here. In time, though.
He would visit them both when he felt ready.

Facing them wouldn’t be easy. He’d fucked
things up. He was responsible for Mother’s death. He’d be lucky if
his father hadn’t disowned him.

His eyes lit on a rock in the corner of
Null’s box, half buried by the rest of his collection. He frowned.
The rock looked familiar.

Slowly reaching in, he rolled the other
rocks away and pulled out the one that looked similar to the one
from his own childhood collection. His favorite. The one that Mason
had tossed into the pond two centuries ago. The white quartz with
the black flecks.

It wasn’t the same rock, but it easily could
have come from the same place. That’s how similar Null’s was to his
own.

“Where did you find this?”

Null lifted onto his knees and glanced into
his palm. “Um, I think I found that one in the woods by the
stweam.”

Aiden hopped to his side and stared at the
rock. She nodded. “Uh-huh. It was by the stream. I remember.”

“Yeah.” Null nodded with his sister. “On the
bank.” He rubbed his fingers back and forth over the rock’s
surface.

“Were there more like this one?” Trace
brushed his thumb over a concentration of tiny black specks.

Maybe he would never get his own rock back,
but if he could at least replace it with one that was
similar . . .

“Want me to take you thewe? We can look.”
Null’s big blue eyes shone as he grinned up at him.

He closed his fist around the rock and
nodded. “I’d like that, but we’ll probably need Coco’s permission
first, huh? She runs a pretty tight ship.”

Aiden tilted her head and frowned. “What’s a
tight ship?”

He had to remember he was talking to
two-year-olds who weren’t yet familiar with such phrases. “Running
a tight ship just means she likes order. That she likes everyone to
be where they’re supposed to be and doing what they’re supposed to
be doing. And if you’re going to do something else, you need to let
her know.”

The frown lifted from Aiden’s face, and she
nodded. “Uh-huh. Coco likes a tight ship.”

He chuckled. “I thought so.” He placed the
rock back in Null’s box and bobbed his head toward the door. “So,
are you two as hungry as I am?” He rubbed his belly.

Both nodded.

“Okay, then let’s go get cleaned up for
lunch. I’m starved.”

Null and Aiden hopped up and darted for the
door.

“You can sit next to me,” Null said. “I’ll
save you a chaiow.”

“Sounds like a plan, little man.” He
high-fived Null, and then the two kids skittered into the hall. A
moment later, he heard their clumsy footsteps tumble down the
stairs.

He might as well get cleaned up himself.
Then after lunch, he’d get some sleep. He’d been up all night and
was starting to feel it, especially after the time in King Bain’s
dungeon had taken so much out of him.