Chapter 5 #2
When she lifted her face to the mirror, she saw exactly what she expected.
Her hair was slightly wild after too many hours of being whipped around in the breeze.
Her cheeks were flushed—partially from the sun and partially from her current nervousness—and the dark circles under her eyes rivaled Grayson’s.
“You can do this,” she whispered to her image, wishing she believed those words.
After five minutes of simply staring at herself, she decided it was time to stop stalling.
She stripped off her clothing, pulled her hair up in a ponytail, and stepped into the shower.
She quickly scrubbed off the stickiness of a day’s worth of sweat and spilled wine.
She would take another shower in the morning and wash her hair then.
She was simply too tired to do that tonight.
Turning off the water, she dried herself, then pulled out the only thing she’d packed to sleep in. There was no way she could sleep in the clean jeans she’d brought for tomorrow.
Well, she could, but she was trying not to look like a complete basket case in front of Grayson.
Finishing up quickly, she stiffened her spine and opened the door.
Grayson glanced over from the television, smirking when she walked back into the bedroom. “Is that a nightgown?”
She scowled. “Of course not. Only ninety-year-old grannies wear nightgowns. This is a sleep shirt,” she said, her lips twitching. Mainly because what she was wearing definitely skirted the line between an oversized T-shirt and a nightgown.
“Oh, of course,” he said, waving his hand. “I stand corrected. I should have seen the difference immediately.”
She giggled, then gave him back the word he’d lobbed at her a couple times today. “Smart-ass.”
Grayson tugged her ponytail playfully as he rose, grabbed his bag, and walked into the bathroom.
While the TV was still on, the volume was low enough that Wren could listen to Grayson’s progression, basically hear him doing everything she’d just done.
Showering, brushing his teeth, flushing the toilet.
Sounds that were common enough, but incredibly intimate in this setting.
While she waited for him, she shifted a couple of the pillows, building a barrier down the middle of the king-sized bed. It was completely juvenile, but she decided to make a joke of it, Lark-style.
The problem was, Wren didn’t find a damn thing funny about the pillow wall. Instead, it was offering her a modicum of comfort.
When Grayson emerged, she was relieved to see he’d donned a clean T-shirt with his lounge pants.
God help her if he’d come out shirtless.
He started to turn the bathroom light off, but there was only so far Wren could push herself tonight, and sleeping in a dark bedroom, in bed with a man, was a hard limit for her.
“Can you leave the light on?” she asked. “And the door cracked.”
“Afraid of the dark?” His question was clearly a tease, so she responded as if he hadn’t just hit the nail on the head.
“Want to be able to find my way there in the middle of the night if I need to.”
Grayson seemed to accept that answer, doing as she requested, then he snorted when he saw the pillows positioned between his side of the bed and hers.
“Just in case you start getting any ideas,” she teased, with every ounce of Lark-like bravado she could muster.
“You don’t have to worry about that,” he tossed back. “I don’t bite.”
Those words didn’t ease her mind like she might have expected. Instead, they sent her thoughts down an avenue they never, ever traveled.
“Good to know,” she retorted, as he approached his side of the bed, sinking down on the mattress.
He threw her a sexy smirk over his shoulder. “Unless you beg me to.”
Wren’s breath hitched.
The teasing line landed like a spark against dry tinder, catching her entirely off guard. Heat rushed to her cheeks so fast, it almost hurt.
Lark would have volleyed something outrageous back without missing a beat, but Wren wasn’t that quick. Actually, for the moment, she was struggling to remember how words worked.
Thankfully, Grayson didn’t seem to notice her momentary lapse. Or if he did, he chalked it up to her exhaustion rather than a total internal collapse.
He rose again, grabbing the TV remote from the desk. “On or off?”
“Off,” she said.
He switched the television off and climbed on top of the covers, laying on his back. “Jesus. I think my feet are about to officially file for a divorce.”
Those words coaxed a real laugh out of her. “You should probably let them go. Toxic relationships never work.”
Grayson chuckled, folding one arm beneath his head, turning slightly toward her. Her pillow wall started at their shoulders, so there was nothing obstructing his view of her face. “You offering couples counseling?”
“Is that your way of asking for a foot rub?”
Grayson’s eyebrows wiggled suggestively. “Never crossed my mind, but now that you mention it…”
Wren shook her head, his witty banter going a long way to slowing down the pace of her wildly racing heart. Suddenly, channeling Lark came more naturally. “Forget it. Never happening.”
“Never’s a long time.”
“You always this chatty when you’re tired?” she asked.
Grayson rolled to his side, fully facing her. “I contain multitudes,” he joked.
“Like?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know. Ask me something.”
She wasn’t about to refuse that offer, even though her smartest play right now was to roll over and attempt to go to sleep. “Tell me something I don’t know about your family.”
And so he did. She knew a couple of Grayson’s younger cousins, Nora and Remi, personally from school, but most of the Storm kids were older than her, so she was fascinated by his stories of growing up basically feral amongst the grapevines.
Then he asked about her family, and again, it was an easy conversation to have—so long as she mainly told stories about her parents and younger siblings. She was too freaking tired to risk saying much about herself—as Lark—or her true self in third person.
As her stories about her family’s adventures traveling to countless National Parks wound down, his gaze lingered on her face.
“What?” she asked, when his gaze remained.
“Nothing.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You’re staring at me.”
“You just seem…” He paused, as if searching for the right word. “Different today.”
Every muscle in her body locked. She managed a light shrug. “Different good or different serial killer?”
“Definitely not serial killer. You’re quieter than usual.”
Panic fluttered.
“Is that a complaint?”
“God, no,” he said, in a tone that proved her sister hadn’t exaggerated about how much she annoyed Grayson.
Wren searched for an explanation, just in case Grayson’s suspicions continued to grow.
“You’ll have to excuse me for not tap dancing through the wine festival after being awake since dawn.
Some of us aren’t fueled entirely by caffeine and stubbornness.
Plus,” Wren added, proud when the perfect Lark-ish justification came to her, “if you must know, I might have been a little hungover this morning. Or, well, maybe a lot,” she said dramatically, the way she’d heard Lark say those same words on more occasions than she cared to count.
She was proud of her efforts when Grayson rolled his eyes, buying her excuse. “Of course, you were,” he grumbled.
Crisis averted.
“Night, little bird,” he said, his eyes sliding closed.
“Night,” she whispered back.
Silence settled between them.
Outside, muffled sounds drifted through the hotel walls—distant laughter, a car door slamming, soft footsteps in the hallway. The air conditioner rattled every few minutes. Beside her, Grayson shifted, the mattress dipping beneath his weight.
Wren hugged the edge of the bed, staring at the ceiling.
Sleep should have come instantly. She was tired enough that her body ached with it. But…she remained annoyingly alert, every nerve ending aware of the man lying less than two feet away.
The man who’d had his arms wrapped around her earlier.
The man who’d protected her like it was the most natural thing in the world.
The man who called her little bird.
He was also the man she was actively lying to. Guilt twisted in her stomach, and she was suddenly regretting scarfing down that burger.
This entire situation had spiraled so far beyond what she’d anticipated. When Lark had begged her to cover for her, the plan sounded simple enough. Pretend to be Lark, pour wine, smile.
What she hadn’t accounted for was Grayson.
The two of them had both lived in Gracemont their entire lives, but their paths rarely ever crossed.
It wasn’t like they ran in the same social circles.
Probably because she didn’t run in any social circle.
She was six years younger than him, so they were never in school together, and right after graduation, Wren went off to college, pretty much only returning for the Christmas holidays.
There were lots of annual events in Gracemont, including the Harvest Festival, the Christmas party, and the Valentine’s Day dance, but Wren’s attendance at those was more miss than hit.
So until today, Grayson had basically been a stranger whose face, name, and family she knew, but precious little else.
She hadn’t expected him to be kind and patient, and quietly funny in a dry, understated way that kept sneaking up on her. She definitely hadn’t expected to feel safe around him.
That part surprised her most of all. Because safety wasn’t something Wren experienced easily or often, and certainly not with a man she didn’t know well.
Yet somehow, over the course of one long, exhausting day, Grayson had slipped past the defenses she’d spent years building.
It made no sense.
She scooted even closer to the edge of the bed, rolling on her side and facing away from him. She squeezed her eyes shut.
Go to sleep.
Sleep.
Seriously.
SLEEP!
The mattress behind her shifted.
“You’re going to fall off the bed, little bird.”
She glanced over her shoulder. He made a good point. She was practically hanging over the edge.