Chapter Eight

A soft sound had Rowan opening her eyes to find her bedroom pitch black. A sound she might’ve slept through if a sudden chill hadn’t skated through her, snapping all her senses awake. A quick glance at the clock on the bedside table told her the time was three in the morning. Blearily, she blinked at the glowing green numbers, even as she pricked her ears for the sound that had woken her in the first place.

It couldn’t be Grey. They’d bumped into each other in the kitchen only a few hours ago. A new habit that she had to admit was becoming…addictive.

During the day, they held their distance. Employer and employee. And that was it. He worked in his office. She kept herself occupied during the day and otherwise spent most of her time with the girls. But then at night… At night, they shared a cup of tea and the fact that they both couldn’t sleep. Chatted about innocuous things. Okay, maybe for an hour or two. Sometimes. But that didn’t mean anything. After all that they simply went to bed.

Nefertiti, Grandma Essie’s cat who’d taken to sleeping with Rowan, lifted her head and twitched her tail, also seeming to listen. They didn’t have to wait long. The padded thuds of feet, followed by the faint but distinguishable creak of a floorboard had her up and out of bed, instantly wide awake.

The temptation to use a spell to turn off all powers around her, in case someone was coming for her, itched at her palms, but she resisted. If it came to a fight, she’d pull out that power then, rather than reveal herself now. Waiting was still a risk, as a powerful mage could likely block her before she could get any kind of defensive spell going. However, the niggling doubt this might not be about her meant she had no choice. Her spell to shut down powers sapped her strength more than any other. She’d used it on more than one person only that time with the girls and it had worked only because they were young and inexperienced.

No. She might need her strength to get away.

As quietly as she could without magical help, Rowan snuck up the stairs. Just as she turned to search the kitchen, she caught the beam of a flashlight in the woods out back.

Fantastic.

Just to be sure, a quick check of the girls’ rooms confirmed her suspicion. Her charges had snuck out in the middle of the night. But why?

After a trip back down to the basement for boots and a thick jacket—the Colorado mountains at night, even with the mercurial weather in late fall, were freezing, especially with the fresh layer of early snow that had fallen yesterday. Upstairs, she moved to the shelves by the fireplace, shivering as she passed through a cold draft, probably from when the girls had opened the door. Grabbing the flashlight off the shelf, she headed outside.

Using the same spell she’d cast on her first day to track their path, she followed sparkling footsteps up the side of the mountain into the thick wood. About to round a large granite boulder, a large, masculine hand clamped around her mouth. Her assailant grabbed her from behind, his arm wrapping around her stomach. Terror slammed through her system. Heart pounding and adrenaline spiking, she dropped her flashlight and, driven by pure instinct to protect herself, formed sizzling orbs of energy in her hands with a single thought.

At the same time a memory slipped in and claimed her mind, one still fuzzy with the haze she’d been in while under Kaios’s control. She’d tried to escape, but someone had found her and dragged her back. Who?

The woman. The one who had hurled horrible words at her. Teasing her about her dead parents and the way Tanya had died and how Rowan would, too, when Kaios was done with her. The spider sensation crawling down the back of her neck turned almost painful.

“It’s Greyson,” a deep male voice murmured in her ear. “You’re okay.”

Relief smacked her in the chest so hard, she gasped. She wasn’t a prisoner anymore. Kaios was dead. That woman, whoever she was, was dead or captured. I’m…safe…

Warmth lit up on her wrist, albeit a little late to keep her from manifesting the damn weapons in her hands.

Immediately the energy, which she had pulled from her own body, dissipated back into her system, leaving her both drained and charged simultaneously. In the same instant, she became horribly aware of the hard length of Grey’s body pressed up against her back.

“You won’t scream?” he asked.

She shook her head, and slowly he removed his hand from her mouth and turned her to face him, though he didn’t step back. She raised her gaze to find him watching her closely, a finger held to his lips.

“You scared the seven hells out of me,” she hissed quietly.

“That many?” Amusement crinkled his eyes, visible in the glow of her flashlight, which had fallen with the beam illuminating their feet.

She scowled, not finding him funny in the least.

He leaned forward, lips at her ear. “Sorry. I didn’t want you to stop the girls.”

Rowan gave an involuntary shudder as his warm breath tickled over her skin. At the same time, she took a mental step back, unable to physically do so, prevented by the boulder at her back. Attraction to Grey equaled bad fucking idea. Instead, she focused her mind elsewhere, on why they were both in the dark woods in the first place.

“Why?” she voiced the obvious question.

“It’ll take too long to explain right now. Let’s make sure they get back safely. I’ll tell you more then.”

Rowan nodded and, with a wave of his hand, Grey indicated she should continue to follow the girls. Not too far from where he’d stopped her, they found the triplets in a clearing standing in a perfect circle of aspen trees. The three stood in a column of pure light cast by the full moon, making their blonde hair appear almost silver. Arranged in a circle, hands clasped, eyes closed, they swayed together in a rhythm only they understood.

“What are they do—?”

Grey held his finger up to his lips, then turned back to the scene.

Rowan’s mouth dropped in a silent gasp as the three figures started to glow—softly at first, then brighter until the white light became blinding, painful to the point that she could hardly stand to look at them. Meanwhile, silence reigned all around. Even the sounds of the night had ceased—the animals, the breeze through the needles on the pine trees—everything still and quiet, as though the world had hit pause to watch.

Then Chloe’s voice sounded from the center of the light. “Rowan McAuliffe. She is here to help us.”

Tension seized through her, clenching every muscle hard. Was she about to be unmasked? Then the scar on Rowan’s wrist sprang to blistering life at the pronouncement. What. The. Mother Goddess?

A glance showed Grey equally stunned. She wasn’t sure how she could tell, as his expression remained neutral as ever, but his mouth appeared tighter, his dark eyes wary. What had just happened?

Before she could ask the questions that wanted to tumble off her lips, he took her by the hand and pulled her back to the boulder where he’d stopped her earlier, tugging her around the side. Moments later, as though in a trance, Chloe, Lachlyn, and Atleigh floated past, heading in the direction of the house.

Slowly, she and Grey followed. As they walked, Rowan’s mind swirling with questions, she happened to spy a pygmy owl perched in the branches of a tree, watching her. But he didn’t say anything as they walked by, so she wrote off his appearance as coincidence. Animals didn’t always talk to her.

Once inside the house, they found the three back in their beds, sound asleep. With a jerk of his head, Grey indicated Rowan should follow him. He led her to his office, a room she hadn’t revisited since the day he had caught her there.

After only two weeks, she now had trouble picturing Grey in here much, despite the fact that this was where he spent most of his time lately. His demeanor, his physicality, was too big, too vital to be trapped behind a desk. During the day she’d sometimes find him prowling restlessly through the house only to disappear again after he bumped into her. Part of her cheered, knowing his search for her continued to move slowly. But a perverse part of her twanged with guilt at being the cause for his being stuck.

“Please, take a seat,” he waved to one of the two leather chairs facing the desk and took the other.

She did so after taking off her jacket. He’d seen her in her comfy peach-colored pajamas often enough at this point. “What just happened?”

Grey ran his hands through his hair, making the dark strands stand on end and suddenly appearing ragged around the edges, not the fully-in-control warlock he usually presented to the world. This was the more human version of him that she encountered each night. Unfortunately. Because she liked this Grey, and right now she needed answers.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” he said. “They’ve been doing that since they could walk.”

“Sneaking out to…what?”

He shook his head. “They don’t sneak. It’s more like sleepwalking or a kind of trance. We don’t know what they do. I’ve had them tested, placed spells, and so on. I’ve brought in the Syndicate to help. All that’s been determined is my daughters have a magical connection to some power other than witchcraft. But we don’t know who, or what, or if there’s a purpose.”

Rowan’s stomach twisted inside her. In two short weeks, the blonde munchkins had burrowed into her heart like Nefti when the cat burrowed under the covers to sleep at her feet. She couldn’t imagine the worry Grey was dealing with. “Do they remember anything when it happens?”

“No.”

“Can you stop them from going outside?”

“Yes, but they struggle against the bonds. Chloe has a permanent scar on her leg because of it. I decided the safer option was to follow them, ensuring their protection.”

“I’m surprised the cold didn’t wake them up.” They’d been in pajama pants and tops with slippers on. The slippers had to be soaked by now from the snow.

Then her mind caught up to the situation, which triggered a thought, followed by a swell of anger, like a rogue wave, pushing at everything in its wake. She sat forward, pinning him with a direct look. “And you didn’t think to mention this to the woman watching over them?”

The sharp bite to her voice should’ve been unmistakable, but if he recognized her anger, he gave no indication. “We’ve shared this information with only a select few. I have a spell cast on their room, so I know when they leave and can follow.”

The wave fizzled out, and Rowan sat back in her chair. “I see.”

But he still hadn’t trusted her. Why she thought she had any right to his trust, she had no idea. Because she damn well didn’t, just the same as she could never trust him.

What she should be focused on was how to absorb this new complication? Had Delilah known? “So, you don’t know what they meant about me?”

She had yet to check the lines on her wrist. The sharp burning sensation had eased but continued to tingle. However, that could be her proximity to Grey, or the way he’d held her hand, or the false sense of intimacy generated by the small space and the fact that they huddled here together in the middle of the night in their pajamas.

He didn’t move, but the light in his eyes changed…shifted. As though he were studying her more closely, but not entirely in a clinical sense. Thanks to her red hair, men often watched her with interest, but this was different. The look struck her like a piano key striking the chord, sending her vibrating.

“I don’t have a single clue,” he finally said.

Only she didn’t believe him. The lack of trust was showing again. He just didn’t want to voice what he was thinking. Rowan opened her mouth only to close it again. There didn’t seem to be more to say, so she stood. “I’d better get back to bed.”

Again, if her abruptness surprised him, Grey didn’t express it. He walked with her through the dark and quiet house to the door in the kitchen leading to her stairs. There she turned to face him. Except he was too close, like in the woods, the heat of his body surrounded her. She stepped back, bumping the doorframe, pretending not to see the sudden dance of amusement in his gaze that managed to spark her own irritation. “How often do they go out?”

“Sometimes once a week. They can go as long as a month between.”

That often? She frowned. “Since I’ve been here?”

“This was the second time.”

Guilt slowly dripped through her veins. She’d missed them leaving once already. What kind of caregiver did that make her?

And Grey? He got up with them every week like this? Newts eyes and bats wings. He had taken on the role as sole nighttime bodyguard, on top of everything else. If he wasn’t hunting her down, and constantly keeping secrets from her, she might have let herself appreciate him for the good man he seemed to be.

Maybe she could help. She might have no choice but to submarine his investigation into her, but the part of her starting to connect to him and his family couldn’t just look the other way. “Can you expand your alarm to let me know as well?”

He searched her eyes. The woodsy scent of his body, and something more, a manly musk that made her want to bury her face in his neck and inhale, sent the tingling on her wrist to a lick of fire, spreading and sliding over her skin.

“Why would you want that?” he asked slowly.

She did her damndest to ignore the burn. “To help you.” That was way too personal. She cleared her throat and tried again. “As their nanny, it’s my job to watch out for them.” Mostly true, just not the whole story. “If you don’t, I’ll just sleep less, worrying and listening, and follow anyway.”

Hell, she’d set her own alarm.

“All right.” But he didn’t leave her, all traces of earlier amusement gone as his eyes turned penetrating.

“What?” she whispered.

But even she knew the answer to that. Any time they were near each other, like their nightly chats, inexplicable, inadvisable tension sat between them like a wall. One that, up till now, neither of them had tried to scale. Only now that wall swelled between them, pressing against her and around her from every direction.

He didn’t answer for a long moment, giving a small shake of his head, as if telling himself to stop. “What is it about you?”

Panic fluttered against her chest like a trapped bird. She had to defuse this situation. Now. “I talk back.”

Surprised amusement tugged at his lips. “What?”

“I suspect I’m the only woman who’s ever argued with you. Am I right?” She couldn’t help herself. She argued with him about how they dealt with the girls. Or about the use of magic in the house. Or about trips to the grocery store. Or dinner. Hell. Just last night she’d argued with him about mustard versus mayonnaise-based potato salads. The man had had the temerity to judge her mustard-based concoction at dinner, and she’d declared that if he wanted mayonnaise in his potato salad, he could damn well cook it himself.

Now, rather than backing away, he moved closer. “And?”

She shrugged. “Most people naturally want to be accepted.”

“And you don’t accept me?” He was laughing at her now. A chuckle had snuck into his voice, a suspicious quiver hovering about his lips.

Kissable lips. Damnable lips.

Given how rarely he smiled, a contrary part of her wanted to press harder, see if she could really make him laugh.

“I don’t agree with everything you say and do. There’s a difference. So…now that you know I accept you, appreciate you even, you can go back to bed knowing I’m just like every other woman.” She waved toward the hallway.

But he didn’t leave. Instead, he reached out and wrapped a red curl around his finger. “Any other woman of my acquaintance would be begging me to kiss her right now.”

She snorted to cover her rising panic, because dammit, she wanted to. “Arrogant. How do you know that?”

He smiled, completely unrepentant. “And not one of those women makes me want to pull her up against my body every time she speaks.” His voice dropped lower, rasping on her overly sensitized nerves.

“I’m your children’s nanny.” Her resistance was crumbling in a pathetic heap around her feet, a house built on sand, but she had to try to stop this before it got out of hand. “That’s it.”

The words echoed inside a strange hollowness that suddenly filled her. Why did knowing all she could ever be to Greyson Masters was a temporary nanny feel like this? Empty. Aching. It made no damn sense. Two weeks and she was smitten. With him and his family. And that was a tragedy worth crying over.

He continued to stare down into her eyes, and desperation had her grasping for a solution—even a shock tactic to stop this, even as she longed for it. With a ragged breath, she curled a hand on his shirt and tugged him closer. “Fine. Just kiss me and get it out of your system, Grey.”

Before he could say or do anything, she went up on tiptoe and placed her lips over his.

The kiss caught fire faster than a spark to dead wood. Grey groaned low in his throat, and aching need took over her body and her mind while he pulled her in close, searing her with the heat of his body. Desire throbbed through every part of her, heavy and thudding, leaving her beautifully tingly and on edge as she lost herself in what he was doing with his lips, his tongue, his hands.

She couldn’t have ended it even if she’d wanted to. Gods and goddesses, she’d just discovered what heaven felt like. Taking it away now would be like taking away a child’s birthday toy. The sexy stubble on his jaw rasped against her skin, and she reveled in the sensation wanting to press against him, rub her cheek to his. Grey was all man, and she wanted more.

With another groan, he pulled back, then stepped away, breathing hard, and the cool air that hit her in his absence was like being dunked in an ice bath.

He didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then he ran his hand through his hair, spiking it up even more than before, making her fingers itch to smooth it down for him. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

Pride and a fierce self-protective instinct kicked in. She tipped her chin up and gave him her best nothing big has happened here smile. Hopefully she managed to look amused and bored at the same time. “You didn’t. I did. Now that we got it out of the way, we can move on.”

His thick brows slammed low over his eyes, but the kitchen lay in darkness, illuminated only by moonlight and the light on the stairway behind her, so she couldn’t catch his expression. “I guess you’re right,” he said slowly.

He sounded as though he believed her as much as she believed herself. In other words, not at all. But she ignored that, as well as the fire branding her wrist even as the rest of her body cooled. She wasn’t even going to sneak a peek at those lines to see if they’d changed. It didn’t matter. Whatever those lines meant, and whatever this thing was between her and Grey, it had absolutely no future. Not with who she was and with who he was.

Sometimes the only way to stop a freight train was to blow up the bridge in front of it. “I could never have an affair with an employer. I care about the girls too much.”

Grey jerked back as if she’d slapped him. And verbally she just had, because she’d implied that if he continued to pursue her, he didn’t care about his kids. An undeniably smart man, he caught her message.

“Of course.” The frost in his tone told her everything she needed to know. He’d leave her alone now. “Good night, Rowan.”

“Good night, Mr. Masters.”

And there went that clenching spasm inside her again as she watched him walk away, each step echoing in the hollow that was her heart.

Damn.