Runaway (Fox Ridge Shifters Book 1) by Marianne Hull

Author:Marianne Hull [Hull, Marianne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: paranormal romance, shifters
Publisher: Marianne Hull
Published: 2020-05-15T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Luke made love tenderly to her that night, and afterward they lay talking for an hour. As he drifted off to sleep, her doubts returned. Restless, she rolled away from him. She needed to tell him the truth of what he was getting into, but every time she tried, the words stuck in her throat. She rolled over again, tense and uncomfortable.

Luke stirred and sat up. “Come. I want to show you something. Let’s get dressed.”

She pushed up onto her elbows. “Dressed? It’s the middle of the night.”

“That’s the only time to see what I want to show you.”

“Okay,” she said with a sigh. “It’s not like I can sleep, anyway.”

Dressing in the jeans from her bag, she went downstairs to where he waited by the door, holding her coat.

“We’re going outside?” she asked as she shrugged into it.

“Yes.”

He smiled. A small one, not his usual big grin with the creases in his cheeks and the twinkle in his eyes. She guessed he wasn’t as sure of how this would work out as he acted. For his sake, she held out her hand, and the grin appeared when he took it.

Outside, he kept her hand and led her through the darkened yard. They slogged through mud around the back of the house and out to the chicken coop.

“I’ll trip on something,” she said in a harsh whisper, trying not to wake the whole house.

“There’s a path here. I know it well.” The pasture gate squealed loudly in the night. “Damn, I need to oil that thing.”

She giggled, and it was like being a kid again. Sneaking out at night. Having an adventure.

“Where are you taking me, Captain Luke?”

“A little farther.” Humor filled his voice.

They went out on a narrow path to the middle of the pasture. Winter-dead grass brushed at the hems of her jeans, and the cold wet earth gave off the faintest scents of sleeping green things. The muddy ground muffled their footsteps.

“Here,” he said when they stood in the center. In the darkness, the pasture felt vast, the tree line impossibly far away. She fought vertigo for a second, and leaned in to him. He stood behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist.

“Close your eyes,” he whispered in her ear, lips brushing warm against her chilled skin.

“They already are.”

“Then don’t open them yet. Turn your face up—to the sky.”

She did, letting the back of her head fall upon his shoulder.

“Now. Open them.”

“Oh.” Out here, far from city lights, twinkling stars filled the sky from horizon to horizon, slashed through with the Milky Way’s bright river. Although she’d lived in rural places before, she’d never taken the time to pause and see them. “It’s beautiful.”

“This is what I see when I look up, Liebling. Not blue sky, but endless stars. Worlds and worlds of things that could happen. Good and bad. This is what I have to offer you, Crissy. The stars.”

“You are a dreamer.”

“Maybe I’m a dreamer. I’ve always thought of myself as a simple man.

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