“It is,” he agreed. “In a clinical, pristine, not anywhere someone would want to spend time kind of way.”
Her body got stiff again. “Callum.”
“But you’re bedroom,” he broke in. “That’s a place you want to stay awhile.”
She felt her pulse quicken on the thought that Callum thought her bedroom was somewhere he wanted to stay awhile.
However, he probably wanted to do it in someone else’s company.
She decided to let him in just a little bit in order to get this over with.
“Gregor can be…” she tried to find the word, “daunting and he has a lot of opinions that he doesn’t mind sharing.”
“What’s that got to do with your house?”
“He didn’t like me buying that house so, to shut him up, I decorated it in a way he’d like,” she answered. “But my bedroom is mine. It’s my private space, a space where I can be who I’m meant to be.”
His arm curled tighter around her belly and she felt his face in her hair.
“You can be who you’re meant to be everywhere, honey. Just do it. Who gives a f**k about Gregor’s opinion?”
“I do. He raised me. I owe him,” she replied.
Callum’s face came out of her hair and he said firmly, “You don’t owe that man dick.”
“I know you don’t like him,” she whispered, finding it bizarre in the extreme he knew so much about her and that their lives had been intermingled for so long and in different ways, none of which she knew about. “Your Mom told me your Dad didn’t get along with him. But, for all this time, he was all I had. And he wasn’t great at it, but I knew he tried hard and he took care of me. You might not like him, Callum, but he means something to me, he took care of me and he did the best he could.”
There was silence then she felt his face burrow back into her hair and he thankfully let it go.
“Your bedroom reminds me of this cabin when I first bought it,” he told her.
“I’m not surprised.” She was still whispering. “I always thought of this place as home. I guess, with my bedroom, I was trying to recreate a little bit of home.”
He pulled her ever deeper into his body but lifted his head to nuzzle her with his temple.
When he stopped, he muttered in her ear, “You’re home now.” Then he kissed her neck softly which made a happy shiver run from her neck, down her spine.
She was far from home, she knew.
She’d never be home again, she knew that too.
But, as ever, this was as good as it was going to get.
On that thought, she relaxed into him. He read her mood, stopped talking and, shortly after, with the Christmas lights twinkling, she fell asleep in Callum’s arms.
Chapter Eight
Wolf
Sonia heard a strange noise like claws clicking on wood floors and her eyes opened.
She was in the cabin, the green, red and white Christmas lights twinkling from the mantel in front of her casting a cheerful glow to the dark room.
Her puppy was wandering across the room. He stopped and shook his massive body as if shaking off wet or cold. Then he started to lean back on his powerfully muscled haunches as if preparing to sit.
Or leap.
But he didn’t when she whispered, “Puppy.”