CHAPTER SIXTEEN
HARRISON
“Will any of them be able to hear us from up here?” Lainie turned to him, beseeching, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. Harrison touched her briefly on the shoulder, and then concentrated:
*Arlo? Pol? Did you hear her just then?*
*Not a peep,* came Pol’s reply. *And don’t worry, we’re making sure no one sneaks up the tunnel after you.*
“No. Shifters have better hearing than most people, but there’s enough noise from the waves and everything else to blot us out up here,” he reassured her. At her questioning look, he added, “I just checked with Pol and Arlo.”
Some of the tension drained from Lainie’s shoulders. “All right,” she said to herself. “That’s something, at least.”
Harrison held his tongue as she stalked around the ruins of her grandparents’ house. She’s not going to fall off the side of the cliff, he told himself as his muscles jumped, ready to swoop in and grab her. And look around. Someone, Pol or Arlo probably, has already been up here and started tidying up the site. They won’t have left anything dangerous around.
He waited as Lainie glared at the wreck of the house. Most of the structure had collapsed in the storm; Harrison’s professional side was horrified that the old place had been so woefully below the building code. But most of him was too busy worrying what Lainie was making of it all.
At last she made an impatient noise, and stared up at the sky. For a moment, neither of them spoke. The abandoned lighthouse stretched up beside them, washed white by the rain, and broken planks and bricks crunched under their feet.
Harrison watched Lainie carefully. He didn’t like the way she’d shut down back on the beach, her face and body shuttering like she’d closed a door on her emotions. It reminded him too much of how she’d been at the restaurant the first time he’d seen her. Defensive and uncertain, and with no one to defend her.
Lainie kicked a broken slat into a pile of rubble, looking back at Harrison out of the corner of her eye.
“You don’t need to say it,” she said, her voice tight. “I know I was being a bitch back there.”
“What? Lainie, no. You didn’t say anything out of line, not a thing.” Harrison laughed, but stopped the moment he saw Lainie’s shoulders tighten again. “Lainie, no one could blame you for what you said.”
“I hate it,” she said quietly. “I hate the way being around her makes me feel. Being here. I get so, so wound up, and scared, and then I lash out—I don’t want to be that person.” She turned to Harrison. “I don’t want to sneer and make threats to try and get the upper hand. I don’t want to be like her.”
Harrison picked his way through the rubble to her side. “You’re nothing like her,” he reassured her, rubbing her shoulders. She leaned against him, resting her head against his chest. “You were hurting, and scared, and she was attacking you.”
“I don’t want to sink to her level. I bet she’s s
cared, somewhere under that Teflon grin. This whole thing started because she thought any human who found out about Hideaway Cove would start twirling their moustache and destroy the place—and I just threatened to do that, Harrison! I’m the gold-digging monster who wants to sell off half the town to intruders!”
“No, you’re not.” Harrison tipped her chin up, smiling down into her eyes. “A real monstrous gold-digger wouldn’t be so upset about everything going her way.”
Lainie smiled back weakly. “I know,” she said, closing her eyes. “But it’s so tempting. And part of me does want to be that person. To show Mrs. Sweets and all the rest of them that I’m not some scared little girl they can bully.”
“What do you want? The real you, not the moustache-twirling gold-digger.” Despite the joke, Harrison felt as though he was walking on a knife-edge.
Lainie rubbed her face. She turned around and placed her hands on Harrison’s chest. “Truthfully? It would be so easy, now, to leave this place behind. If those jewels are real—well, I don’t know what they’re worth, but it must be close to what I need. I could pay off all my debts, leave Hideaway, and never think about this place again.”
She sighed. “I could…if it wasn’t for you.”
Harrison frowned. “Why not? It sounds like the perfect solution.” He gulped back the heavy feeling that settled in his heart. Leave Hideaway? Leave the only place that had felt like home to him since he lost his parents? “I could come with you.”
Lainie shook her head. “No. If this thing we have is going to go anywhere, it can’t start with me forcing you to choose between this town and me.”
“You wouldn’t be forcing me to do anything,” Harrison insisted. “I want to be with you, Lainie. More than anything else in the world.”
Lainie tapped him on the chest and smiled. “You know, you’re not any good at hiding your emotions. I don’t know if it’s this magical bond, or what, but it’s like I can tell exactly what you’re feeling.”
Harrison’s griffin stirred with wonder inside him. This was what it meant, to have a mate who loved you. They understood you completely, loved you and accepted you for who you were.
Lainie’s face grew serious. “Harrison, my parents broke up less than a year after my mother and I were kicked out of Hideaway Cove. This whole mate-bond thing is like something from a fairytale, but… Their marriage broke up because Dad had to choose between his parents, and us. Between his shifter community, and his human family. And in the end, he chose neither of them. He just…disappeared. I have no idea where he is, but I know wherever it is, it isn’t his home. I don’t want you to lose your home, too. I don’t want to start our relationship with that sort of sacrifice.”
“Our relationship?” Warmth filled Harrison, warmer and more comforting than the sun.