Yearnings: A Paranormal Romance Box Set (96 page)

“
What in the world was I thinking, crossing an ocean to marry Henry Pontouse?” She snorted. The image of Henry as her husband was laughable now. Only days ago, she’d been heartbroken. Funny how that one kiss upturned her whole world. Or maybe that kiss had righted it. Maybe she’d been upside down all along.

Not that she could let that kiss, or all she’d allowed tonight, happen again. Not until Tristan was found. Letting more pass between them felt like some kind of violation against Bea. She deserved Leigh’s full attention. And when it came to Grant Connel, she had anything but attention.

Her face washed with heat, remembering how bold she’d gotten. She’d touched his erection. She’d stroked it so much that her thighs had ached to feel it penetrate between them. Leigh wiped a hand over her brow.

“
I wonder how Grant’s little poodle is doing. Funny. He’s not exactly the type of man I’d envision with such a dainty little dog. Duchy. Sweet little thing must be dying to see him. I’ve never seen an animal so in love.”

What did Duchy think of the wolf Grant became? Maybe that’s why she loved him so much. Leigh laughed out loud in the silence. Jacob’s shadow form filled in the slightest bit. Very faintly, one word came through.

Home
.

“
Home?” Longing filled her up. Home. Her momma. “Is Momma safe?” She got no answer. She held onto the feeling in the word. Not alarm, not urgent. Just pure longing. Like Jacob needed to be back in Northern California more than anything in the whole wide world.

“
We’ll be there soon, Jacob. I promise. Maybe try to rest and take a break from whatever has you so drained. I won’t be able to find Tristan Grayson without you, Jacob.”

His gray pallor grew hazy, and then faded away entirely. Wherever he had gone, and it wasn’t here—she could feel it—she prayed the place or person fortified him. Please let him heed her words and come back to her so they could find Tristan together.

She should stay away from Grant. They were a knotted mess of temptation in the same room alone. The notion of staying away from Grant hurt deep down in her bones, but she knew it was the right thing to do. She couldn’t let Beatrice down. After she found Tristan, then she could untangle these feelings for Grant. Then she could decide whether or not she was willing to risk her heart on a man ever again.

~~~

Chapter Fifteen

“
Jacob, I promise you,” Leigh said. “Grant will be released.”

Ever since returning to her three nights ago, the only thing Jacob focused on was Grant and that wolf. He swooshed up and down the train station platform, paused, worried, no matter how many times Leigh asked him to settle down for his own sake. He didn’t speak. Either he couldn’t, or he was flat-out ignoring her. “Bea and Nick will be here soon. I promise.”

Soon meant they would have good news. She hoped so, for Beatrice’s sake. There were no murder charges, but Nick confirmed that there had been talk. They’d found patches of blood-covered fur and had immediately questioned Grant.

They’d questioned him on the ship, and again once they arrived in New York. Afterward, he was jailed. Their only hope was that no charges could be brought against him based on such circumstantial evidence. Apparently, Grant Connel had a bit of a record. Nick had filled her in. This was far from his first arrest stemming from shifting into a wolf.

The hotel stay had been far from recuperative but Leigh was glad to be on firm ground again. Last night, she had the dream again. She needed to tell Grant about the dream. The ending of the dream had changed. As Tristan was abducted, kicking and screaming away, Grant’s limp body had changed before she woke up.

Leigh shook off the memory of the dream. She needed to ask Grant about it before she shared it with Beatrice. She needed to know what parts were real and what were just a dream. The hard bench hurt her rump, but she was tired of standing. The more Leigh learned about Grant’s wolf half, the more she wished it didn’t exist.

Duchy wagged her white little stump and pawed Leigh’s knee for some petting. Leigh stroked her soft head and ran her fingers through the curls on her back. The poor thing had to be kenneled again. She wished there was a way to keep her with them. Duchy would be overjoyed to see Grant. She tugged the length of the leash as if she knew, any second now, she’d see him.

Leigh, on the other hand, wasn’t sure how to feel. She tried hard not to think of what she’d done with him, and what she’d allowed him to do. The images popped in and out of her consciousness regardless, though, sending new waves of embarrassment through her. Hot embarrassment, and a whole other kind of heat. Heat that he’d created.

She didn’t know which felt worse.

People bustled around her. They were oblivious to the translucent form they walked right through, who was also completely unaware of Leigh’s turmoil. Jacob only wanted the wolf. Her jealousy spiked again. The envy had become her quiet companion over the last few days. She could not lose Jacob. Not to anyone, and especially not to a wolf. Even if that wolf was Grant, it was no good for either Jacob or Grant. Leigh was glad now that he’d been moved to the city jail and awaited bond. It gave her time to think, to reevaluate exactly what had passed between them, and how things had gotten so impossibly turned around.

And by things, she really meant priorities. Her priorities. Thankfully, she’d righted herself. She would get to San Francisco, remedy whatever had happened to push Jacob away from her, find Tristan, and return home. Leigh even had a plan for when she got home. She would ask Beatrice for an advance, wire it to her mother, and with the remaining funds once she found Tristan, she and her mother would open a little store of some sort.

A dress shop, maybe. Except she couldn’t sew. Or a bakery. Her mother’s apple pie with its cinnamon flake crust. They would have an income, and Leigh would have a normal life. A life much like the one she’d left three months ago. Was that right? Only three months ago? She added the weeks in her head. Closer to four, really. Why that fact made her feel better, she didn’t know. But it did. Seeing Jacob stop his pacing helped, too. He looked up at her and grinned.

“
What is it?” she asked. What could she do to keep Jacob? Then she saw. Bea and Nick had arrived. She stood up.

With twenty minutes to spare before departure, they joined her. Jacob swam to her side, his color stronger and his nervous energy dissipating. “How did it go?” she asked.

“
Better than expected,” Nick said, picking up Leigh’s satchel. “We secured a private car.”

“
Where is Grant? What happened?”

“
He’ll join us in San Francisco.”

Leigh slowed her pace. “Join us? They haven’t released him?” As she asked, Jacob swam in front of her, startling her. What was he up to? She shook her head at him, thinking,
not yet.

“
They released him.” Bea bent and patted Duchy’s head. “He decided it’s safer for everyone if he travels separately.”

She hadn’t anticipated that. Jacob seemed to have heard, too. He vanished. “Separately?” But what about all his unanswered questions? What about the dream she had yet to tell him about?

Beatrice nodded. “Which means, you, darling, must come with me. Up, girl.” Duchy hopped into her arms.

“
You have to kennel her again? Couldn’t she stay with us in the car?”

“
No kennel.” Beatrice paused. “Grant will keep her in his car.”

Before Leigh could come up with anything past a gasp, Beatrice and Duchy left. He’d gotten a separate car, was clearly at the station, and hadn’t even come to get his own dog? Grant was avoiding her? Good. She wanted him to avoid her. She wanted him to stay away so that she could focus on Bea and getting Jacob to help her again.

Oh, but Jacob had vanished. Probably to join Grant. She turned to Nick. “Did he ask you to hedge, or was all that vague ‘separate travel’ nonsense for your own entertainment?”

“
I doubt his decision has anything to do with you, Leigh,” Nick said, making her realize just how much she revealed in her reaction.

“
Of course not. Why would it?”

“
He’s trying to protect you both.” Nick shrugged, but his eyes belied the gravity of his words.

Leigh wanted to stamp her feet and tell Grant exactly what she thought of him. He had no right to confuse her so much. And damn it all to hell, she was going to get her ghost back. She didn’t know how, but she would find a way. Period. “Yes, well, lucky us,” she said, clearly amusing Nick.

She ignored his chuckle. Protect them, her foot. Unless Grant thought he’d change and end up harming her or Beatrice. No. If he thought that, he’d never let Duchy ride in his car, which she began to wish she knew the location of, so she could bang on its door and demand an explanation.

But she didn’t know, and didn’t have the guts to ask. So she complied and followed Nick to the private car near the caboose. The accommodations were plush, to say the least. Green velvet armchairs. Damask covered bench-like sofas, and the drapes were made of the same material. Thankfully, the rhythm of the train soothed rather than sickened her, and she found herself staring out the window for the first few hours. Thinking.

Thinking about her mother, about home. She needed a plan. Every letter Henry sent had let Leigh invest in a life that wasn’t going to happen. She and her mother would have to get creative once again to keep income flowing in. Her mother still cleaned houses, and her client number had dropped by half. Without the occasional secret reading thrown in, plus money that Leigh spent to get to Henry, her mother barely had enough for bread and water, let alone a house payment.

That old, ramshackle place. They should give the thing up. Let the bank have it. The idea sickened her, though. All her father’s years of hard work wasted. He’d left them, yes, but he would come back. She had to believe that whatever kept him away, be it fear, shame, or circumstance, he would come back. Her mother had faith in it. So could she. When he did return, he would have a home to return to.

Funny how her fantasy life with Henry never included her family home.

“
You look a million miles away,” Bea said, coming to sit next to her. “I’m sorry to interrupt your woolgathering, but if I do the same, who knows what rabbit hole my mind will tumble down?”

Leigh frowned a little. “It’s alright. I was just missing home.”

“
Oh? May I ask what home is like for you, Leigh?”

Unsure of what she meant, Leigh shrugged. “Simple, safe. The place you most want to be when you’re scared, I suppose.” She shifted and faced Bea. “How about you? Are you glad to be going home?”

Beatrice regarded her a moment. “I don’t really know. I haven’t been home, that is to say, at my residence, in over a year. I haven’t seen my husband in longer. I can’t say I know what to expect when I return.”

“
Where is your husband?” It was none of her business, and she half expected Bea to get offended. But they’d run out of things to small talk about the first day Leigh had felt better back on the ship.

“
Samuel is home now. I hope he is well.”

“
Is there reason to think he wouldn’t be?”

She shrugged noncommittally. “Losing a child is harder on the mother, I think.”

Leigh thought that statement strange and couldn’t resist hedging for more. “For some reason I had the impression Tristan’s father took the kidnapping quite hard.” What had Beatrice said before? That it had broken him?

“
No, I mean, yes, he did. Samuel was devastated. I only meant that...Well, he isn’t here, is he? He isn’t sitting on a train willing it to move faster. He isn’t vacillating between hope and terror. He isn’t doing everything he can to not fall apart.”

Leigh didn’t want Beatrice to cry. She couldn’t take seeing her cry again, seeing her crumble under despair. But she was at a loss for words. Changing the subject would be callous. Defending a man she had yet to meet and had heard little of didn’t feel right, either. Beatrice stared out the window at the passing landscape where Jacob manifested, whooshing into the room so fast that Leigh jumped.

Bea’s attention snapped back to present. “What is it?”

“
Nothing. A bump. You didn’t feel it?”

“
No,” Bea said and eyed the room suspiciously. “No bump at all.”

“
That’s strange,” Leigh said, gulping when Jacob decided to sit right next to Bea. “I must have imagined it.”

Bea’s focus came back to Leigh. She searched her face. “Yes, well, I know all about imagination getting the best of me.”

Jacob scooted closer, leaning in, listening. What in the world? Why was he suddenly so interested in Beatrice? Leigh glared at him, asking with her mind where he’d been. Jacob ignored her, his eyes taking in Beatrice.

“
I wonder what Nick is up to,” Beatrice said.

“
Is he hiding out with Grant?”

“
Grant isn’t hiding out,” Beatrice said. “He’s keeping his distance. He has ever since...ever since Tristan disappeared.”

Jacob’s gaze met hers. Slowly, he nodded, his eyes widened.
Ask her more
. He wanted Leigh to ask Beatrice more. Oh,
now
he needed her. Well, slim chance. He scared her by leaving, by coming back depleted, and now he needed her? Leigh wanted to smack him one. Her curiosity won over her stubbornness. “Because he becomes a wolf?”