Chapter Eleven Gideon #2
I won’t see her again until dinner.
And for the sake of my sanity, and keeping my dick to myself, that’s the way it has to be. Even if being away from her makes my skin itch.
But not two minutes after I hear her door close upstairs, I hear a bloodcurdling scream, and I immediately sprint upstairs, taking them three at a time.
Her door is locked, but one hard shove with my shoulder has the doorjamb splintering and giving way to my body weight, and I find Lena standing at the doorway of the bathroom, breathing hard, her hands covering her mouth.
“What’s wrong?”
She shakes her head, still staring straight ahead.
“Damn it, Lena, why did you scream?”
She points, and in the bathroom, in the center of the floor, is one giant fucking wolf spider.
Lena pulls in a shaky breath, and then she turns into me, buries her face in my chest, and clings to me.
“Why is there a spider the size of my goddamn head in this house?”
“It’s cold out, so the bugs that haven’t died yet try to come in. I’ve never seen a wolf spider inside before, though.”
“Gideon.”
“Okay, I’m on it. You can go.”
“What if there are more?”
“There aren’t. Go, Rebel. I’ll get it out of here.”
She’s clinging to me, so I hug her tight, keeping my eye on the asshole so it doesn’t hide somewhere, and rub my hand down her spine.
Thank God she hadn’t gotten naked yet.
“If you want me to take care of this before it gets away, you have to let me go.”
She blinks up at me, swallows hard, and then runs away from me, out the door, and toward the stairs.
I turn back to the spider.
“Fuck. How am I supposed to get rid of you?”
I’m not squishing it. Even with these boots on, it’ll crunch, and that’s fucking disgusting.
I could shoot it, but then I’d have a hole in my bathroom floor.
Finally, I trap it in a towel and take it outside, about a hundred yards from the house, before I flick it away.
“Burn that towel!”
I spin and see Lena standing on the back deck, watching me.
“I can just wash it.”
“No! Absolutely not. It needs to be burned. The whole house might need to be burned. It’s okay, I have some money. I can help pay for a new one.”
“A new house?”
She nods solemnly as I approach, and she skitters out of the way, afraid that the spider might still be on the terry cloth in my hand.
“I can appreciate that that was a gigantic spider, and your scream and my subsequent heart attack were warranted, but I’m not burning my house down for you, Rebel.”
But I would incinerate the entire fucking world for you.
“I’m terrified to use that bathroom now. I have PTSD.”
“Do you need me to do a sweep to make sure it’s safe?”
“Well, it is part of your job description.” Her lips twitch, and her shoulders relax just a little when I drape the towel over the railing of the deck, leaving it outside. “You’ll also have to check my bed, between the sheets, every night. Oh my God, that was horrible.”
“None of the spiders here can kill you.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“In the summer, you’d have to watch out for rattlesnakes, and the occasional bear, but that’s really all that we have that’s life threatening.”
“You’re not helping, Gideon.”
“I’m giving you knowledge. Knowledge is power.” I smirk and reach out to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear, breaking my rule on touching.
Her hair is like silk.
“Come on. I’ll make sure he wasn’t the daddy of a family, and the rest of the clan isn’t in the shower.”
“Oh my God, Gideon.”
I laugh and lead her up the stairs.
Lena stands in the hallway as I clear her room of any other terrifying creatures, and when I return, we both eyeball the doorway.
“Do you want another room?” I ask her.
“You really demolished this door.”
“You screamed.” I shrug, as if it’s a no-brainer. “I had to get to you.”
And it’s a sound I never want to hear again.
“I don’t need another room. I don’t need to hide anything from you.”
She squares her shoulders and lifts her chin.
She’s so much stronger than she gives herself credit for.
“I’ll fix this right away, but it might be a couple of days because I’ll need to go to Missoula for supplies.”
“Oh, I’ll go—”
“No.”
She deflates. “Gideon, I love this ranch, but I could really use a change of scenery.”
“No.”
“I’ll wear a disguise. No one knows I’m here. And I’ll have you with me. I won’t do anything stupid, I won’t leave your side. I won’t even go to the bathroom without you. Please.”
I should say no.
I should not give a shit that those gorgeous lavender eyes are begging me, and that I would give her literally anything she asked for.
This is a bad fucking idea.
“You’ll do exactly what I say.”
Her face splits into the biggest grin, and she nods frantically.
“I promise. I won’t do anything stupid. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
This is a bad fucking idea, James. Say no. No fucking way.
“Fine.”
“Thank you.”
“For the record, I don’t like this.”
Some of her excitement fades. “If it’s really dangerous, I won’t go. I’ll stay here and sketch, or whatever. I don’t want to put you in harm’s way. Never again.”
Blowing out a breath, I shake my head.
“I’m just going to a hardware store. It’ll be okay. But I’m trusting you, Lena.”
“You can trust me.”