He frowned.
She would sleep better without the high heels, but would she mind that he removed them?
With a soft growl of frustration, he wrapped one hand around her ankle as he used the other to leverage a shoe off. He placed it carefully beneath the bed and then freed the other.
She made a sound which might have been ‘thanks’, then rolled onto her side. Will placed the blanket over her then stepped quickly away from the bed.
With a grim frown he bolt-locked the door as he kicked his boots off. The sofa didn’t look too inviting, but it was sure as hell better than the floor or bed. Unfortunately, for a man who was almost six and a half feet tall, lying down on it meant folding his legs up almost to his chest.
He tried it and then made a soft noise of disgust before standing up again.
He was wired.
It was seeing Harry again.
And being on the run.
All the instincts that he’d honed in warzone after warzone were buzzing beneath his skin.
He tossed the blanket and pillow onto the floor after all. He’d slept in worse places, and at least he wouldn’t risk permanent nerve damage to his legs this way.
The sounds of this kind of nature were long since forgotten to him.
He could distinguish the separate calls of no less than ten desert knight birds that owned the sands of the middle east; he could hear drones from miles away and he could discern when a tank had a problem with its fuel line. But these noises stumped him.
In the distance, there was running water, and he vaguely remembered hearing that there was a waterfall near the lake. The trees brushed against one another in the canopy above the house. It was just leaves and twigs but to Will it almost sounded like whispers in the night.
There were coyotes too, making their distinctive pitch, pitch, pitch howl sounds up at the round, full moon.
Will squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to think of how tired Harry had looked. How dull the house had seemed. How empty. He tried not to think about the photos they’d passed of Maddie in the hall. Maddie as a child. Maddie as a girl. And Maddie as a young woman, beautiful and free-spirited.
But it was impossible to push them from his thoughts. As he slept fitfully, he dreamed of them. Of her. Of the first time he’d seen her, when the sunlight had acted like a halo around her whole body. She’d been wearing the white dress – more like a slip, actually – and some chunky black leather boots. Harry had smiled affectionately and said, “Grunge, huh.”
“Doesn’t she realise Kurt Cobain is dead?”
“Don’t matter to her,” Harry had chipped back. “This girl moves with the wind, just like her mama did.”
A crash to his left startled him, some time early if the light was anything to go by. He was instantly awake. He sat bolt upright and looked around, his heart pounding as he took in all of his surroundings. The fireplace beside him was still dusting in an obvious sign of guilt. It had been responsible for the noise. But why? He moved closer to investigate and smiled when he saw the snow covered nest that had fallen to the ground. Ashes, twigs, rubbish and ice were everywhere.
He cast a glance over his shoulder then, towards the bed.
Lilah was still asleep, though she was stirring, her arms stretching above her head in a tell-tale gesture of awakening.
Will’s heart pounded in his chest, from the surprise of the chimney evacuation, he assured himself.
His watch marked it to be a little after six, and a quick glance through the grimy window showed snow had indeed begun to fall heavily overnight. The temperature in the cabin must have dropped by several degrees.
They’d need the fire, and they’d need it fast.
He stood carefully and walked across the floorboards. Everything looked a little dustier in the day than he’d realised at night, and for the first time he questioned the wisdom of bringing Her Royal Highness Jalilah Mazroui to a place such as this. Could he have taken her across the border and organized a hotel under a pseudonym?
Not in this day and age.
He slipped his boots on; they were ice-cold from their position by the door. There were heavy coats hanging on a hook. He shook one to check for spiders then slipped it on.
Lilah watched him surreptitiously from beneath shuttered eyes. Slowly, as daylight had broken into her sleep, shards of memory had come back to her. The exhilarating and terrifying escape from the tower, the drive to Jersey and the nice man with the small house. The conversation they’d had right before she’d fallen asleep.
But none of this was familiar. Had she slept the whole way? And where were they? It looked like a relic from a wild-west film.