Faked (Ward Family #2)(38)

Chapter Fourteen





Claire





When I woke the next morning, I was hot.

And for the second morning in a row, completely disoriented. No blood-red curtains, no sprawling bed. Instead, muted gray light, a wood plank ceiling slanting up over my head, and when I tried to move and felt something warm on my chest, I blinked down.

Green eyes set in a patchwork face stared down at me from where she was lying and looking quite comfortable on top of me.

"Good morning, Agnes," I whispered.

She opened her mouth for a plaintive meow, which made me smile.

Her brown and orange spotted tail twitched behind her, and her ears angled over her pretty face.

"I knew he was exaggerating." Carefully, I lifted my hand and ran it from the top of her head down her back. Agnes shifted into my touch.

"You up, princess?" A voice called from the family room.

"Mm-hmm. A friend joined me in bed sometime last night."

"No shit?" I heard his feet cross the hardwood floor and take careful, quiet steps up to the loft. Bauer's head appeared, dark hair ruffled from sleep, and his jaw even heavier with growth, and he grinned sleepily. "Well, I'll be damned."

Slowly, so, so slowly, Agnes turned her head in Bauer's direction, flattened her ears and hissed.

My laughter was so loud that the cat took off from the bed like a brown and orange cannonball, disappearing behind the dresser tucked into the corner.

He came up a few more steps until his bare chest was visible.

"Of course, you slept without a shirt," I mumbled, turning on my side and tucking the comforter against my chest.

"Are you kidding? I was roasting by the middle of the night. I told you that fire would keep us warm." His eyes traced my face. "Sleep okay?"

I nodded. "I woke up hot too."

Bauer wagged a finger at me. "See, you leave yourself wide open for comments, princess. I'd like it to be noted when I don't take the bait."

At my groan, he laughed, head disappearing back downstairs.

"I'll make coffee," he called out.

From my vantage point upstairs, my view of the outside didn't suffer at all. Scotty's cabin was small, yes, but there was something incredible about rolling over to see the wild expanse of tall, spindly trees, whipping, white wind, and the large, fluffy flakes that relentlessly fell.

What a strange, strange turn of events my life had taken in the course of one week.

It made me think about school as most things did. One of the most fascinating parts of what I was learning was about the consequences of one's actions and how they could affect the people around you.

Children bore the consequences of how the adults in their life spoke to them, treated them, taught them, loved them. Or didn't love them. For each action, there was a reaction. Sometimes it was big, and sometimes it was small.

I agreed to do something for my sister. In the grand scheme of my life, it was a small decision, fueled by feelings that had lingered for a span of time that could only be considered big.

The consequences of that small action were huge.

And I was still puzzling out in my head what they meant, and how my heart couldn't quite decipher what to do with them.

The sounds of Bauer in the small kitchen, looking for grounds and trying to figure out the "stupid, ancient piece of shit machine" had me smiling, which was a starting place for what I knew in my head.

I knew that our evening had been quiet but still fun. We ate sodium and fat-laden chicken pot pies in front of the fireplace while he searched for something for us to watch in the small drawer of DVDs that Scotty owned. We settled on Tombstone, and Bauer knew every single word. Occasionally, I caught a glimpse of him in the firelight, mouthing the lines.

He'd stayed on the chair, and I'd taken up residence under a blanket on the couch.

I knew as I laid in the relative privacy of the loft that I'd felt a twinge of disappointment when he sent me upstairs to bed without anything more than a "sleep tight, princess."

"What exactly do you want, Claire?" I whispered.

Bauer's head popped up again, and I jumped, afraid he'd heard me. "How do pancakes sound? I found a box of mix in the pantry."

I sat up slowly, back aching slightly from the dip in Scott's mattress that I wasn't used to. "I can make some, sure."

"Terribly sexist of you to assume that I meant you'd cook, not me." With a wink, he disappeared.

When I stood, careful not to bang my head on the slope of the ceiling, I caught a glimpse of myself in the dusty mirror hanging over the dresser. My cheeks were flushed and my hair tangled from sleep.

Honestly, I looked like I'd just gotten laid. Well.

Laying a hand on my chest, I took a deep breath, held it in my lungs, and exhaled. Sometimes, you could move forward without worrying too much about the consequences. You could leap without knowing what laid beneath your feet.

Maybe this time with Bauer, unexpected and unplanned, was a chance for me to practice that.

Crumpled on the floor by the bed was a bright red blanket, and I picked it up, wrapping it around my shoulders before I made my way downstairs.

Bauer was expertly pouring pancake batter onto a sizzling griddle that looked like it was older than both of us combined.