Hiders by Meg Collett

Author:Meg Collett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance, military, anxiety, beaches, contemporary fiction, gothic romance, new adult
Publisher: Meg Collett

11

Arie walked the length of the house downstairs, checking doors and finding the window the trespassers had entered through. Violet wondered what he thought as he nailed the boards back into place. Did he think her mad for merely having boards across the window?

His footsteps thumping across the floor reassured her enough that the buckshot of fear currently splintering her insides quieted. Many years had passed since she’d experienced the same potency of terror from earlier tonight. Not since she’d watched her mother drive off beneath angry dark clouds.

Ten minutes later, Arie slipped into her room. His eyes did a quick check of the corners and shadows before resting on her. He paused when he discovered she was awake and watching him with her cheek resting against her forearm. The look on his face read as uncertain; he hadn’t expected to find her just waiting.

She remained quiet, letting him marinate in his thoughts on the matter.

Choosing silence as well, he crossed to the furnace and added a few logs.

“You don’t have to stay,” she said. He’d fiddled with the lever long enough for her to realize she was making him nervous. She’d missed some social cue in all of this.

He flipped the lever to a new spot and stood. “I can sleep downstairs. I just didn’t know if you wanted—” He sucked in a long pull of air and started over. “I just didn’t know if you wanted to be alone. I get it, so I thought—well, it was just a thought.”

She sat up straighter in the bed. “You don’t enjoy being alone.”

Arie’s dark eyes shuttered behind some emotion he quickly tucked away. “I don’t prefer it.”

“You’re a handsome guy. You could quite easily choose to never be alone.”

If it weren’t for the darkness pushing against the scant lighting her lamp and the furnace provided, she could have confirmed she’d embarrassed him. Instead, she could only infer it from the shift of his feet and the way he pulled at his shirt collar as if it were suddenly too tight.

She’d said the wrong thing.

“Sorry,” she said into the silence between them.

He rubbed the back of his neck, but he was grinning. “Are you going to offer me a seat or not?”

She swept her legs up underneath her and smoothed down a section of the quilt. Her bed was the only seat in the room, and as she patted it, she said, “By all means.” Her voice didn’t waver with nerves, because it was Arie, and he was here with her when she had no one else. He’d been her desperate call, and he’d been the footsteps thumping downstairs, checking every dark corner for her. He was her someone. And she finally knew what it was to have that comfort, and it didn’t scare her.

The bed dipped beneath his weight. She caught his quiet sigh as he eased the pressure off his leg, keeping it stretched out along the bed. He wiggled farther back. She scooted over even more to make room for his sizable body, and he rested back on his elbows.

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