I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood to keep from agreeing with her.
Boaz did have serious commitment issues, and I wasn’t convinced their engagement would be enough to hold him in check forever without a deeper investment on both their parts. But I wasn’t about to suggest she put stock in him when he had been such a miser with his heart up to this point.
As much as it pained me, I had come to terms with the fact Boaz was a grown man, and his romantic problems were for him to solve. All I had ever done was make things worse when I meddled, for him and the poor girl involved. This time, that girl was my sister, and I didn’t want to see her hurt.
And yes, that made their relationship sound…icky.
But, and it was a big but, they weren’t blood related, despite the fact I was stuck in the middle with distant claims to siblingship on them both.
Frakking hell, life was complicated.
Addie chattered about her dad, her life, my brother, for a good half hour. I made appropriate noises in the right places, and we ended the call with the promise to Netflix a show together soon. Not until the call ended did I realize how much better I felt without breathing a word of my problems to her.
Just having someone with normal issues reach out to vent made mine somehow less.
A vibration had me checking my phone on reflex, which torpedoed my plausible deniability, but thankfully it was just Addie bullying me as if we were actual siblings instead of a technicality.
>> Say it.
>> Come on. Don’t be shy.
Um.
>> I will call you back.
I am enough.
>> You typed that. Out loud this time.
A grin sneaked up on me, and I laughed softly.
You don’t know that.
>> I’m your big sister. That gives me mystical powers to peer into the great unknown.
Fear she was superimposing me over her Hadley lingered in the back of my mind, and I didn’t know how to fix it. I didn’t know where I began in her mind and her real sister ended.
>> Don’t try to deny it. I’m marrying your ox of a brother, remember? We’re sisters. Deal with it.
“I am enough,” I whispered to make her happy.
There. Done. Weirdo.
>> Love you, sis.
More tears overflowed my eyes and spilled down my cheeks. “Love you too.”
While it was still on my mind, I linked her to the recipe and the video, and I hoped it made her smile.
“Trouble sleeping?” Midas leaned against the doorframe. “I heard you moving around out here.”
Gwyllgi ears being what they were, I was willing to bet he had heard more than that.
“I couldn’t sleep.” I held up my phone. “Then I saw all this.”
“Your sister called,” he said, reading the top caller ID entry. “She’s worried about you?”
“Linus must be,” I huffed. “He’s left me messages, but I haven’t answered him yet.”
“He set your sister on you?” Midas laughed softly. “That’s brutal, exactly what I would expect from him.”
“He’s not so bad.” A year ago, I might have fallen over dead imagining myself defending him, but I was a different person then. “He’s done a lot for me.”
“He’s a good guy.” Midas shoved off the doorframe. “Want to go for a walk?”
The warm night beckoned louder than the darkened cabin, even if I only wore a towel. Out here, it’s not like I had to worry about running into anyone. “Why not?”
Plucking my phone out of my hand, he set it on the windowsill before we set out.
“I’m not one of those girlfriends who’s always on her phone, am I?”
“You’re only on your phone when you have to be.” He draped an arm around my shoulders and tucked me against his side. “All things considered, I’m worse than you are with all the mediating squabbles.”
“Just making sure you don’t feel neglected.”
The path he chose wound beneath pines whose plush needles choked the moonlight overhead.
“And if I do?” He cut me a look. “Feel neglected.”
“I would probably offer to pamper you.” I edged in front of him in case I needed a head start. “Trim your nails, rub your belly, Q-tip your ears. That kind of thing.”
“I get the feeling you don’t take me seriously.”
Hand over my heart, I whirled on him. “I take you as seriously as a shampoo commercial.”
“I’ll count to five.” Crimson splashed onto his feet. “Use your time wisely.”
“What do you mean five?” I backed up a step, pulse thundering. “Midas?”
Magic pulled him under, and he reemerged with his tail swishing.
“Oh crap.”
Spinning on my heel, I shot down the path as fast as my feet would carry me.
“I’m barefoot,” I screamed at him. “And in a towel. In the woods. With the ticks and bugs.”
A throaty baying rose behind me, and the hairs lifted down my nape.
“Frak, frak, frak.”
A campsite sat to my right, but no one was there, and who would intervene between Midas and me?
No one, that’s who.
Ahead, across a field, a glass house glittered under the moon, but it was far from a sanctuary. It was the alpha’s house, the fancy one where guests to pack lands were welcomed to keep them out of the den. The true den. Not the façade shown to outsiders.
“I am not running to your momma to get away from you,” I panted. “Forget it.”
Sure, I had put off family dinner, but this was not the way to force an introduction.
Whooping laughter filled the woods to my right, and a young man bounded into view. “Go left.”
The bright joy in his eyes convinced me to trust him. “Thanks.”
“Make him work for it.” He clapped until my ears rang. “I’ll hold him off if I can.”
A flash of
