Marrying Her: The Keeping Her Christmas Wedding (The Keeping Her Series Book 5) by Kelly Lucille Read Free Book Online

for
Roxy.  You didn’t happen to see Demon in your adventures did you?  I need to
talk to him about something.”
    “I saw him heading out
for a run.”
    “Can we go, too?” Roxanne
asked, her eyes lighting up at the mention of Demon on a run.  It made Clytie
grimace.  She was still emotionally scarred from coming upon the huge timber
wolf with the seven-year-old clinging to his back, laughing, while he hauled
her around the yard, entirely too fast.
    “We’ll catch him when he
comes back,” Clytie said, turning and heading for the bathroom. In the warmer
months, she would have just hosed Roxy down in the yard and brought her in
through the mudroom to change and dress.  But it was October in the Pacific
Northwest, too cold for playing in the water outside, even if as a wolf-shifter
Roxy seemed immune to the cold herself.  Clytie knew enough to know that
Roxanne would not be the only one drenched before they were done.  So they
headed to the bathroom by Roxy’s room.  She could have asked Crow to find Demon
for her; the boy always seemed more comfortable with a job to perform, but if
Demon was running, she would leave him to it.  He always came to find her after
her workday was over anyway.  She called one last thing to the boy as they left
him behind in the studio.  “There is still some lasagna from last night if you
get hungry before dinner.”  From what she had seen, the lanky shifter was
always hungry.  Even in the standards left by the rest of the giant male shape-shifters
in the house, the boy could put it away, and still look like he could lick the
plate if he didn’t think anyone was watching.  It made her crazy thinking of
him hungry and abandoned by his real parents. So, she maybe tried to get him to
eat more than was strictly necessary.  So what?  When he started getting meat
on his bones she would back off.  Probably.
    Clytie had already left
the room with Roxy trailing her when Crow finally released the breath he was
holding.  He gingerly touched his cheek where she had kissed him, and then
realizing what he was doing, he dropped his hand and turned away from the open
door.  His eyes fell on the art pieces she was currently working on and then
looked beyond them to some of the finished pieces with the wax curing.  He knew
that was what they were doing because Clytie had taken an afternoon last week
when he came to deliver a message to answer his unasked questions about her
work.  He liked her work.  It was at times cheerful and saturated with color,
like the woman herself, but at other times, it was darker, mysterious even, but
never boring.  He could look at the shimmering colors and play of light for
hours.  She told him he was welcome in there any time without one word of rules
like ‘except when I’m working’ or ‘don’t touch this or that.’  She made the
invitation open and surprised him again.  Then she had taken him downstairs and
fed him BLTs and potato salad, while Roxy and Cassandra joined them, jabbering
on and teasing each other in a funny, girly good-natured way that he had never
seen before coming to this place.  And they kept trying to feed him. 
Especially Clytie, like she knew he was always hungry and actually cared.  How
was he supposed to handle that?
    He had tried to keep his
distance, but all the women, and girls come to that, he thought thinking of
Roxy, seemed determined to make him feel like he belonged there, and not just
like he was working a job for Lionsgate and would eventually move on.  The guys
were less in your face, but they were doing it, too.  Talking to him, teasing
him like he was one of them.  They all treated him like pack.  Like he was
worthy of what they were giving him.  It didn’t make any sense.

CHAPTER FIVE
     
    Running as wolf tended to
simplify matters for Demon.  In this case, it clarified them.  Clytie had
refused to marry him.  Unacceptable.  He didn’t like it, and while Clytie had
not acted like there was