Page 42 of Kidnapped Rejected Mate
“Okay,” Aurela whispers back. “What’s that?”
“We’ll make this place good together.”
The way she smiles at me tells me she’s more than accepted that deal, but she doesn’t say anything because we’re now close enough to hear Lachlan groaning loudly.
“It’s not fair,” he complains, turning and looking at me. There’s still a ripple of distrust there in his eyes, but nothing like the plain hatred when he first came to the cabin, when we were in Xeran’s office. “How does he win every time?”
“He’s probably cheating,” I joke, which earns me a tap from Gramps’s cane.
“Let’s go,” he grumbles, stifling a yawn. “Since there’s nobody decent to play against down here.”
We say our goodbyes to Lach and Val, a weird tension hanging in the air as we do. An understanding that this is the new normal—me and Lach’s sister, together. Coming and going at the same time.
As we climb into the car, I study Gramps, try to discern how much this day has taken out of him. He seems younger, healthier, in a way that defies his illness. Maybe it’s all the excitement, or maybe he’s just finally found something to get out of bed for, other than the bridge.
I realize I might not have been the only lonely one in our household.
When we get home, Aurela holds the door, and I help Gramps inside. He tells her good night and thanks her for the day, then gestures with his hand for me to follow him into his bedroom.
While Gramps is typically a very neat and tidy man—even folding his newspaper precisely every morning—his room is stuffed full of things, a lot of them once belonging to my grandmother. It smells like the old house in here, and a little like rosewater, reminding me of my childhood. He moves slowly, his cane tapping along steadily, and when he reaches his dresser, he reaches into a wooden box, pulling out something small, black, velvety.
“Come here,” he says, pushing the thing into my hand. When I pull it back and look at it in the low light, I realize it’s a ring box.
“Gramps—”
“Uh-huh,” he says, shaking his head and raising one of his hands before settling it back on his cane for balance. He’s tired—I can see it in the sway of his body, the toll that today has taken on him. “That was your grandmother’s. She told me to give it to you when I felt you were in love. I’m only following orders.”
My throat grows thick.
“But I do have my own bit to add,” he says, letting out a loud sigh as he lowers himself onto the bed, looking up at me as he lays his cane down on the floor beside it. “You give it to that girl sooner rather than later. I’d like to attend your wedding as something more than thoughts and memories.”
“Gramps,” I object, but he’s already waving me out, grunting loudly as he positions himself in bed.
“Get out of here,” he says gruffly, but he can’t hide the smile on his face. “Aurela is a lovely girl, and you definitely should not keep her waiting.”
Chapter 22 - Aurela
“Are you ready for this?” Lachlan asks, his voice low as we walk up to the front of the house together.
It feels strange, coming home as a visitor rather than an inmate.
“No clue,” I mutter, which makes him laugh.
Val and Lach drove here separately from us, but we timed it so we would all arrive at the same time. Strength in numbers, and all that.
Soren has been acting a bit fidgety since we woke up this morning and got a call from Lach, saying he’d talked to our parents and explained what he could, and that we should come for dinner tonight.
“Better to pull off the band-aid all at once, you know?” he’d said to me over the phone as Levi babbled happily in the background. “Plus, Mom is still worried about you. It’s taken a lot of convincing to keep her from tracking you down.”
“Do they know it’s Soren?” I asked, figuring that if they did, tracking me down would not have been that difficult at all.
“No,” Lach said after a long moment. Then, clearing his throat, he added, “Figured I’d let them figure it out when you guys came tonight.”
And now here we are. I’m in one of Maeve’s amazing blouses—pink, white, and yellow-checkered, like something you might wear to Easter—and a pair of white pants. Soren looks handsome in a pink collared shirt he picked to match me, his copper-colored curls flopping over his forehead.
Catching me looking, he says nervously, “I should have gotten a haircut.”
“It’s fine,” I whisper, ignoring the urge to reach out and touch his hair as Lachlan knocks on the door, careful not to wake the sleeping child in Valerie’s arms.
