Free Guarding Grayson by Cathryn Cade Page B

somewhere her grandma would live than Gray. His place in Coeur d’Alene was beautiful, all wood and leather and granite countertops … she’d wanted to decorate it since she first spent her night there.
    Mostly, she wanted to be with Gray. She shifted restlessly. Where was he, anyway?
    She rose, grimacing with discomfort at how full she was. Wow, she felt as if she’d eaten a huge meal. And her mouth tasted like chocolate. She hadn’t binged out on chocolate ice cream, had she? That had been a comfort mechanism in her teens, but she’d finally trained herself out of it.
    She rubbed her tummy—ugh. Good thing these shorts were stretchy.
    She looked down at herself, taking in her attire. Cute—she loved the sandals. Then she lifted her head to flip her hair back and froze. She slowly lifted both hands to her head … and then dashed for the mirror over the old-fashioned sideboard by the dining table.
    She let out a high keen of anguish. Someone had cut off her hair!
    Gray appeared behind her, holding a pistol in one hand and a baseball bat in the other. “What? What is it? Did something happen?”
    Brynne gestured to the mirror, tears filling her eyes. “Yes, something happened! S-someone snuck up on me and cut off my hair , that’s what happened. It took me three years to grow it out to that length, and do you know how many keratin treatments I paid for to keep it shiny and healthy?”
    She pushed her fingers into the short, tousled waves and pulled, as if she could cause it to assume its former length.
    Gray straightened, hands dropping to his sides. “Brynne. You’re, uh, awake, right? You’re not E’ea right now.”
    “I’m awake.” She sniffled, still pushing her hair this way and that. She turned to him, blinking away the tears. He hated it when she cried—well, all guys did. And she hadn’t even gotten to the subject of how she’d apparently gained weight while she was dead! How did that even happen?
    He was already stepping back, in a hurry to get away. “Okay, well good. So, make yourself at home—anything you need, food, drinks, television, anything. I need to finish some work, and then we’ll … talk. Okay?”
    She nodded. “Okay. Um … bye.” This last was said to an empty doorway. She sighed. She’d been gone, dead really, and he had to work before they could talk? She had vague memories of him laughing and talking with her guardian light. Why wouldn’t he talk to her when she was herself?
    Her eyes filled with tears again, and she hurried into the kitchen, sat down at the kitchen table and wept as silently as she could into a paper towel.
    She wished she was back home in Coeur d’Alene. She missed her tiny apartment on 4th St, she missed her best friends Sasha and Gilly, and she missed her mom. She even missed her job as a law clerk, spending hours and hours chasing information on computers for her attorney bosses.
    And she missed her beautiful little Camry. Now it was at the bottom of the lake, where it would stay. And somehow that was the last straw. She bawled like a baby—although a quiet one.
    After a while, she felt a little better. She got up and padded down the hall, past Gray’s studio where he stood painting—not that he would notice if she stomped past, when he was working he concentrated like crazy.
    She washed her face at the bathroom sink. The bathroom was sweet in an old-fashioned way, with mauve tub, toilet and sink, and lacy curtains at the window. When she opened the medicine cabinet, it still smelled of lady’s face powder and perfume, the kind her great-aunt Tilly used to wear.
    Gray’s black leather shave kit sat on the back of the toilet, his toothbrush, toothpaste and shaving gear strewn across the small counter around the sink.
    She wished she had her cosmetics, and some hair product. She wrinkled her nose at her reflection, flushed with swollen eyes and a pink nose, and as for her hair—she couldn’t stand to look at it.
    Brynne rubbed her fingers up