Embrace the Wind by Caris Roane Page A

scooted, holding the towel in place, until she was lying on a pillow near the headboard. The scene was so homey that once more his throat felt like he was being strangled.
    He moved to the bottom of the bed and pulled up the covers. “You have to be worn to the bone.”
    “Mmm. Guess I am.” He tucked the quilt around her and she grabbed his arm. “You don’t want to talk?”
    He met her gaze and swallowed hard. “No.”
    “Did I do something wrong?”
    He shook his head briskly. “No, Sweet Goddess, no. You were perfect. You were amazing. It’s … other shit.”
    She nodded. “Okay.”
    He watched her eyelids droop, loving that she hadn’t pressured him to spill his guts. “Sleep now.”
    “I will.”
    He jerked his thumb in the direction of the bathroom. “I’m going to shower up.”
    She nodded, but already her eyes were closed as she adjusted the pillow beneath her head and punched it a couple of times.
    He returned to the bathroom and flipped on all three showerheads. But as soon as he stepped beneath the stream, his head bent and water flowing down his long hair, tears started and wouldn’t stop.
    For reasons he couldn’t explain, his thoughts had turned to Emily. His wife. Dead five years because he couldn’t protect her.
    Repressed grief burned through him and for the first time since he’d come home to find her gone, he let it burn.
     

CHAPTER FOUR
    Olivia didn’t wake up until late that afternoon. She checked her internal clock and realized she’d slept eleven hours.
    A wonderful aroma of meat cooking on an outdoor grill greeted her. Her stomach rumbled.
    Was Zane her kind of man, or what?
    She blinked against the fading light. But what was a vampire doing outdoors barbecuing at dusk? Maybe there was something she didn’t know about him after all. Huh.
    She turned on her back and saw that a tall stack of her clothes sat on small dresser outside the bathroom. It meant several things. First, that Zane had arranged to bring her clothes here, to what she knew to be a fairly remote mountain location. He’d also given someone permission to break into her house and rummage through her closet. But he’d been damn thoughtful in the process.
    She stretched as she rolled out of bed, feeling deliciously sore in well-used places. She hadn’t had this much sex, all in the space of twenty-four hours, in a very long time.
    As soon as she was showered and dressed, she walked out onto the deck and saw that the tree house complex included at least five small dwellings, each with ramps leading to the next. The pitched roofs showed in patches through the almost bare deciduous trees and the occasional pine. Dark brown shingles covered the sides of each dwelling, broken up by a fair amount of windows.
    Situated at the highest point, the bedroom porch had a view that went on for miles. Because the porch faced east and the sun was almost down, the vista of several mountain ridges was cloaked in a deep purple haze.
    As she looked down, she could see the complex had been built on the side of a ravine. By the number of narrow trails along both sides of the stream below, all kinds of wildlife must congregate in the area.
    She sniffed the air, her shifter senses separating the many different smells. Zane appeared from the large house to the left, the biggest of all the treehouses. He bore two platters on one arm and two mugs hooked in his free hand.
    The coffee smelled like heaven.
    She met him halfway down the ramp and took the plates from him.
    “Thank you. I had the worst image of these fine steaks and eggs splattered over the walkway.”
    She lifted one of the plates to her nose and drank in the aroma. “And you charred them perfectly.” She smiled at him over her shoulder.
    He grinned. “Somehow, I knew that’s what you’d want, and the eggs are barely cooked.”
    “The shifter in me is starting to love you a lot, you know.” Maybe she shouldn’t have said those exact words, but what the hell, it was