Chapter 19
Turning left, I headed down the hall, stopping in front of the sunroom door. The light in the hallway reflected off the glass, too soft to penetrate the dark of the room.
Through the door, I heard a noise. A squeak, followed by a low, deep sound. A moan? I shoved the door open so fast it rattled, eyes scanning the moonlight room, shadows in every corner. I followed the sound, tracking a soft cry to an oversized wicker armchair. Quinn was curled up in a tight ball, wisps of dark hair peeking out at the top of her sleeping bag. Aside from Quinn, the room was empty.
Now that my eyes were adjusting, I saw the crutches on the floor beside her, next to the daypack she’d carried back from the cabin. She had a bedroom upstairs. A suite, bigger than Sterling and Braxton’s rooms and smaller than Parker”s, with a decent-sized bedroom and a small sitting room. I”d only seen it once, but I remembered. Unlike some of the other rooms, Quinn’s was a time capsule of her in high school, as if she’d walked out of the room as a teenager and never returned.
I pulled down the top of the sleeping bag a few inches to see her face, eyes squeezed shut, a deep line between her eyebrows, her lips stiff and tight. Another whimper escaped her, the sound stabbing through me. I hated the idea of Quinn being afraid of anything.
Ignoring the voice reminding me to stay away from her, I cupped her cheek in my hand, stroking my thumb over her soft skin. I needed to wake her, but I didn’t want to scare her. Her eyes popped open, locking on mine in the near dark.
“Quinn,” I said, “Wake up, baby. You’re having a bad dream.”
She stared up at me, silent, until I wondered if she was still asleep, still caught in the nightmare.
“Quinn?”
“I can’t—” The words rushed out on a breath, barely audible. “I can’t sleep here. I can’t. I can’t, Hawk.”
“Okay. Okay,” I found myself saying. “Okay,” I said again, maybe trying to convince myself as much as her. Because I knew at that moment I’d do anything to spare her this.
I didn”t know why. I didn”t understand what it was about sleeping in this house.
I would find out. I vowed that to myself. I would fucking find out what had happened to her here that had caused so much trauma she couldn’t sleep under this roof.
For now, I’d do any fucking thing necessary to never hear her whimper like that again.
“Okay,” I said, running over the options. I came up with one answer. It was insanity, but I thought it might be the only solution. “Where”s your pack? The one with your hammock?”
“In my room. By the door.” Her eyes lit with hope.
“I’ll go to your room and get it. You get this sleeping bag packed up so we can bring it with us.”
Quinn sat up, swinging her legs to the floor. I left her there, heading down the hall and up the stairs to her room, opening the door to see her pack just inside, propped against the wall. I loosened the straps and put it on, returning to the sunroom to find Quinn on her feet, leaning on the crutches, her daypack on her back, the sleeping bag in its stuff sack clipped to the bottom.
“Give me the pack,” I said, holding out my hand. Quinn didn”t argue, shrugging her shoulders out of the straps and silently handing it to me. I slung it over my shoulder. “Hold both your crutches in your right arm,” I ordered.
At that, she gave me a skeptical look but still didn”t argue, transferring her weight to her left foot as she set the two crutches under her right arm.
“Hold on.” I scooped her up from the left so the crutches were out of the way. “It”s too dark out there for crutches on the steps.”
Her head relaxed against my shoulder, the smell of her shampoo drifting up to tease me.
“We”re going to the gatehouse,” I said.
Quinn let out a breath, the tension in her muscles easing.
It was a short walk through the courtyard and down the drive to the gatehouse. Not far from the Manor, the gatehouse spanned the drive, matching two-story stone buildings joined by an arching stone porte cochere over the road. Once, there’d been gates there. These days, the main gates were down at the road.
On one side of the drive, the gatehouse was designed as a compact home, with an open living and kitchen space on the first level, and two small bedrooms and a shared bath on the second level. A narrow door at the top of the stairs connected to a long room built above the porte cochere, leading to the identical building on the other side of the drive. For now, the other side was closed up and used for storage, though Parker had been toying with the idea of turning it into more spacious living quarters for my team. For now, she was still focused on renovating the part I was living in.
I unlocked the door, shoving it with my foot, and flipped on the light. Quinn blinked at the sudden shift, squinting into the room. I set her on her feet, waiting for her to balance on her left foot and get the crutches organized before I stepped back.
She looked around at the space, and I wondered what she saw. I didn’t think it was that bad. Basic, but basic was fine with me. Quinn’s sister Parker had declared it a disaster and promised to renovate it into a rustic but luxurious dream. I wasn’t sure what that meant or if I wanted it, but it didn’t matter.
In the end, this was Griffen”s gatehouse, not mine. I was only a tenant, and not one who wanted to complain about free room and board. To me, the gatehouse was just fine. It was clean, which was a vast improvement over its state when I first moved in. No more mice, no more cobwebs, dust, or leaking plumbing. It even had reliable electricity and hot water, which was more than I could say for the guest wing in the Manor. The gatehouse was a fuck-ton better than a lot of places I’d lived. Sure, the furniture was sparse, and none of it matched, and I only had one plate, one set of utensils, and one glass. It wasn’t like I needed more than that. It was just me.
Usually I slept upstairs, but I was thinking I’d bunk on the shabby but wide, long, and incredibly comfortable couch Parker had brought over from the attics of the big house. I slept on that couch more often than not, falling asleep while watching a movie or reading.
“Bathroom’s over there,” I said, jerking my head toward the cramped half bath beside the small kitchen. Quinn nodded, making her way across the room, her eyes straying to me as I unpacked her bag, pulling out her hammock, under-quilt, and a small bag with an extra set of hanging straps. I connected one end of the straps to a sturdy hook in a beam overhead, securing the other strap around the handrail of the iron banister.
Hung that way, the hammock blocked the path to the kitchen, but we could work around it. It was a good thing I didn”t have much furniture. Just the couch, a TV, and a folding table and chairs. Most importantly, the hammock was level and low enough for her to get in. I hoped it was close enough to her safe place that she could get some sleep. I set up the under-quilt and unrolled her sleeping bag inside the hammock, laying her pillow on top as she came out of the bathroom.
“You need help getting in?” I asked.
Quinn shook her head, eyes shimmering with tears as she stared at her hammock, set up just as it usually was in her clearing in the woods. She crossed the room in the hitching stride caused by the crutches, turning at the side of the hammock to transfer them to her right hand.
I moved to take them, laying them on the floor beneath the hammock. Her hands free, Quinn hopped up, sliding into the hammock and her sleeping bag at the same time.
“Can you sleep?” I asked as she pulled the sleeping bag up around her.
Rolling her head against her familiar pillow, Quinn’s eyes came to mine, the deep blue of them swimming in tears. One, then another, rolled down the sides of her face.
“Quinn, don”t do that,” I said, wiping her tears with the pad of my thumb. “It”s okay.”
“I can’t,” she rasped out, squeezing her eyes shut, more tears spilling down her cheeks. “I think I have it under control, that it’s over, and then I go in there, and I just— I just can’t.”
“It’s okay. I’ll be right here.”
“Thanks, Hawk,” she said, her voice small.
I nodded, wanting to say everything that I couldn’t. Wanting to swear that anything this woman wanted from me, she could have.
Except that was a lie. The thing I thought we both might want the most was the one thing we couldn’t have. She deserved better, and I didn’t deserve her. Not even close.
I wiped the last tear from her cheek. “Go to sleep,” I said, following my own orders and turning out the lights before stretching out on the couch and pulling up the blanket I’d left there.
I closed my eyes, listening in the dark for Quinn’s breathing to even out. When it did, I finally relaxed, following her into sleep.