Page 21 of Keeping Astrid

Sorry, Growler.

She sent the silent message out to the universe and prayed he heard it.

Lifting her arms, she flexed her fingers around the knife’s handle. She did have the element of surprise. If she could hurt the intruder in some way, that had to work in her favor.

Before she could even bring the weapon down, her arm was grabbed and twisted—hard. The knife clattered to the ground and she let out an almighty scream, hoping that Growler heard her and would come running to her rescue. Or one of her neighbors suffered insomnia and heard her and would call for help.

“Dammit, Astrid! Stop! It’s me, Growler!”

It took half a second for the words to register. To notice that her hands were free. That she wasn’t held by someone wanting to murder her.

“Growler?” she whispered.

“Yeah, Comet, it’s me.”

The nickname bounced off her as the fear coalesced into anger, and she hit his arm, her hand bouncing off the hard muscle. “Why the hell are you creeping around the backyard? Sneaking into the house. Grabbing me as if I’m a criminal.”

By the end, she was screeching, and her breath was coming out in ragged gasps.

“You were about to stab me. I was taking preventative measures.” Growler’s calm tone grated on her nerves more than it should.

“I thought there was someone in the backyard and then thought they were breaking into the house.” Her heart rate was beginning to slow and shock from everything she’d been through the last fifteen minutes hit her. Shivers wracked her body, and she wrapped her arms around her stomach in an attempt to warm herself.

“And you thought, what? You could take them on yourselves? What if they had a gun? What if there were two of them? Did you think about that at all?” His angry tirade was a complete 360 to his previous calmness.

“Yes, I did, and I knew the risks. Risks I was willing to take. And I’d do it again if I had to.” She returned with quiet dignity.

When she’d been standing at the door waiting, she’d known it was a bad idea, but she did it, anyway. If that made her foolish in his eyes, then so be it.

Delayed reaction to the situation had well and truly set in. Her teeth were chattering, and her knees had begun to tremble.

“Fuck!”

She heard the quiet curse, and a second later her head was smashed against a hard chest and she was locked in a tight embrace, one that heated her better than what she was attempting to do to herself.

“I’ve got you, Comet. Sorry, I got angry and sorry I scared you. I was doing a perimeter check.”

He spoke so softly, she wasn’t sure she really made out what he said, but it was enough to calm her.

They stood like that for what felt like an hour but was probably only a minute or two. But during that time, being held by Growler soothed her frayed edges.

“What’s with you calling me Comet?” she asked when she felt sure her voice wouldn’t tremble. She needed a change of subject.

“Astrid. Asteroid. Comet,” he responded, as if she would understand his reasoning—she didn’t.

“That makes no sense to me.”

He chuckled, his chest rumbling beneath her ear. Of their own accord, at some stage, her arms had curled around his waist and she was clinging to him as tightly as he was holding her. “Some nicknames aren’t meant to make sense.”

“Yours does,” Astrid complained. It was so obvious why he was called Growler because of his voice.

Wait!

When she’d asked him about it, he’d avoided the subject altogether. Now was the perfect time to discuss it. Not only would she find out how he got that name, but it would help to take her mind off the fact that she’d almost stabbed him and had had a freak out because of thinking a stranger was hovering in her garden.

“How does my nickname make sense?”

Astrid dropped her arms from around him and wished she hadn’t when he copied her. “I told you a few hours ago your voice turns growly,” she said simply.

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