Page 31 of Wounded Christmas Wolf
“Okay, fine. I’m not going to make you sleep on the porch. But I don’t think having you down here is a good idea. Like I said, Dad gets up early. He’ll be up by 5:30.”
“I get up early too.”
“Yes, fine, but if he comes in and finds you on the couch ...” She took him by his elbow. “Come on. You can sleep in one of my sisters’ rooms.”
Jace took off his boots and carried them. They both tiptoed upstairs.
“In here,” Holly whispered, pushing him into the sewing room without turning a light on. “There are boxes in the other one, but this bed is made up.”
“Your bedroom is closest to the stairs,” Jace whispered back stubbornly. “And your ex knows which one is yours. I don’t like that.”
Holly didn’t like that either, now that she thought about it. “Okay, fine, let’s trade. I’ll sleep in here, you sleep in mine. But if we do that, you have to be gone before Dad is up. Way before Dad is up.”
Jace was staring at her, his face illuminated on one side from the dim glow of the Christmas lights coming in through the loose, gauzy curtains. “You want me to sleep in your room?”
“You’re the one who insisted on being here. The sheets are clean, but you can sleep on top of the covers, or on the floor or whatever. We’ll both need to be up by five, so you can clear out and I can look like I’ve been there all along. Okay?”
“I—uh. Okay.” Jace had the slightly dazed look of a man who had been in charge while things were going to plan and was now caught off balance when suddenly they weren’t. “Keep the door of this room shut. There’s no reason for anyone to know you’re in here.”
“Keep your door shut too, or my dadwillknow you’re in there if he gets up in the night.”
“Do you. Um. Need anything from your room?”
“No. Wait. Let me get my phone. I usually use an old-fashioned alarm clock, it’s set for six right now, but you can turn it back to five or use your phone or whatever.” She realized she was babbling a little. He was going to be in her room. In her bed. “Let me just. Get my phone.”
Jace followed her into her room, still holding his boots. Cupcake jumped up to greet him, and Jace absently pattedthe little dog’s topknot with the hand not holding the boots. “Where do you want these?”
“Closet. No, wait. Just put them by the door. They’re not too snowy.” She retrieved her phone from the bedside table, picked up Cupcake, and stood looking at him for a minute. “Good night?” she said, and fled.
A few minutes later, she was nestling down in the slightly musty sheets. The room’s general smell was familiar from childhood sleepovers. She and her sisters had been in and out of each other’s rooms all the time, nestling up in a pile to giggle about television or boys after lights-out, or coming in to soothe a nightmare. It was hard to even pin down the smell to anything specific; it was a mix of perfume and beauty products, craft supplies and books.
Cupcake snuggled up beside her stomach. Holly lay with her eyes open, the room’s dimness resolving into the shapes of the sewing machine—she hoped she remembered that was there if she had to get up in the night—and the glint of light on old toys and models that Merry had left behind on the shelves.
On the other side of the wall, there were a few small rustling noises as Jace settled in for the night, followed by total silence. She couldn’t even hear him breathing. She knew he was there, he had to be there, because she had heard the door close and she hadn’t heard him leave.
Was he actually in her bed? Under the covers?
The idea of Rob touching anything in her bedroom had disgusted her. But Jace was completely different. She felt a wave of pleasant tingling sweep over her body at the idea that he might be lying there on the other side of the wall, tucked under her old pink and white comforter.
... Well, more likely on top of it, since he didn’t seem to have brought sleeping clothes with him. She hoped he was comfortable.
But it was just so quiet. Maybe he had left. Maybe he was downstairs. She sat up in bed and tapped gently on the wall, like her younger sisters used to do sometimes after a bad dream or just to get her attention.
“Jace?” she whispered.
Immediate rustling. “Yeah?” he whispered back, muffled by the wall. “You okay?”
“Just—just checking you don’t need anything.”
“No,” he whispered. “I’m fine.”
So was she, now. Even if she didn’t know how she was going to face her dad in the morning, knowing Jace had slept all night with only a thin wall separating them.
JACE
Jace openedhis eyes before the alarm went off, hazy with sleep, and met the beady stare of an entire wall of dolls looking at him.
He had bedded down on the floor, with his coat rolled up for a pillow. Sleep had come uneasily, as it often did, but without the nightmares that had been a hallmark of his nights for years now.
