Page 27 of Grim’s Angel

He has made grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup.

“This is your secret mountain cuisine?”

“I can burn something more complicated if you’re disappointed.”

“No. This is perfect.”

The word escapes before I can protect it with humor.

Something in his expression softens. He pulls out my chair and waits until I sit before taking the one across from me.

We eat while rain strikes the windows and the fire crackles behind us. I ask how the shelter started, and Grim tells me it began with three rooms above a closed mechanic’s shop. The club bought the property after a woman arrived at their gates with two children, a fractured wrist, and nowhere safe to sleep.

The shelter grew from three rooms to six, then into an entire building because too many women needed it.

I tell him I chose nursing after watching my grandmother struggle through a hospital stay where everyone spoke around her instead of to her. She had been frightened, but the doctors treated fear as an inconvenience rather than another symptom.

“You make frightened people feel less powerless,” Grim says.

“I try.”

“You did it for me at the station.”

“You were having a flashback. I could tell.”

His spoon stills.

“I won’t ask what happened,” I say. “I only want to know what helps if it happens again.”

For a long moment, he studies me.

“Use the name I know. Tell me where I am.” He puts the spoon down. “Don’t touch me unless I see you first.”

“Grim?”

His gaze lifts to mine.

“That works.”

The air between us shifts.

Thunder cracks above the cabin.

Grim’s hand closes around the edge of the table. His shoulders lock, and his pupils widen until the silver nearly disappears beneath black.

This time, I recognize what is happening before fear can interfere.

I keep my hands on the table where he can see them.

“Grim, you’re in your cabin. It’s raining in Roseburn Falls, and I’m sitting across from you in criminally comfortable blue pajamas.”

His focus returns in pieces.

“Blue,” he says hoarsely.

“What?”

“The pajamas are blue.”