Page 69 of Indulge Me Tonight

Despite it all, she put a shaky welcoming smile in place. She watched as Grae curved around the horseshoe drive and parked his olive-green truck at a slant.

“No police escort?” She attempted teasing, feeling her apprehension lift when he smiled.

“Don’t celebrate too fast.” Grae rounded the hulking vehicle he’d driven up from Oregon. “There may be some knocking on your door tonight.”

“Tonight? You plan to stay that long?”

A sturdy shoulder rose on a lazy shrug before he went to the truck’s flatbed and retrieved two duffel bags. “I plan to stay as long as you’ll let me.”

Tielle’s hold on the mug tightened. She worked up another shaky smile. “You packed pretty light for a lengthy stay.” She nodded toward the twin duffels.

His sly, adorable grin returned. “It’s never good to assume. I figure I’ll go back when I’m out of underwear.” He shook one of the bulging bags for emphasis.

“Then by all means.” She tucked a coarse lock behind her ear and turned. Opening one of the front double doors, she waved for him to precede her.

Grae met her on the porch and nodded. “After you,” he insisted.

* * *

“I was sure you’d gone to kill him.”

“You would’ve been right.” Grae nodded.

He’d insisted on putting his bags away, knowing that once he’d taken a seat that wasn’t behind the wheel of his truck, he wouldn’t move for at least two hours.

“Then a good dose of common sense kicked in and I walked to the bar on the corner. Planned to get drunk instead.”

“That’s good…I guess.” She leaned to top off their coffees.

He grunted. “It was on the way to being good—and then Leo found me.”

“Grae…” She set down the coffeepot. “You can’t hate him for keeping your parents’ confidence. They’ve passed on, but those loyalties don’t just disappear. Even if I didn’t have a love for helping people, I think I’d try to carry on the retreat for my family anyway.”

His attractive features clenched. “Not the same.”

“It is.” She added cream to her coffee. “It could be. My grandparents—my parents, for that matter—would never tell me I wasn’t theirs.”

Grae took his coffee bitter and black. He tossed down some of the fragrant brew and he approved of the the piping hotness burning its way down his gullet.

“Are you trying to tell me I’m lucky to have a brother—” he grimaced “—half brother who hates me?”

“I don’t know.” Idly Tielle went about sweetening her coffee. “I guess that’d depend on whether this is something you’re glad to know or wish you didn’t.”

“Remember what you asked me in Portland?” she said after several moments of silence. “If Faro told me?”

Grae set down his mug with a clatter. “I’m sorry, Tel, for the question and the insult.”

“It was a fair question.”

“It wasn’t.”

“We were close, Faro and me.”

Grae settled back to the chair he occupied near the library fireplace. “You were close to him because you’re a decent person who can see goodness in the worst people.”

Tielle sipped her coffee and delighted at the taste before her contentment faded. “That’s not saying much for my judgment, is it?”

Grae toasted her with his mug. “Don’t beat yourself up about it. You’ve got the best judgment of anyone I know.”

Tielle studied the contents of her cup. “What about you? You always thought Faro was a snake, but you were willing to think better of him. I could see it when I asked you to give him a chance. Any regrets?”

“I tried so hard because you wanted me to.” Grae chuckled, bracing his elbows to his knees.

“Oh.” Again she studied the depths of the mug cradled in her lap. Faintly, the origins of laughter tickled the back of her throat. The sensation took shape on her tongue, tumbling past her lips in an enthusiastic and relieved display.

Grae took great pleasure in watching the woman he loved laughing with such rapture. In seconds, he was joining her.

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